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Pasta carbonara

Pasta Carbonara

Date: 4/13/2012

Recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/09/cooking-with-ryan-pasta-carbonara/

Modifications: None

Time to table: 40 minutes

Servings: 6 adults

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Notes: Erin and I made this for a “stay at home” date night, where we put both kids to bed and then made ourselves dinner. It was a lot of fun to be able to just focus on cooking food and eating it without the usual distractions. We’ve made this dish before, and it was just as delicious and unhealthy as I remembered it :) It made a ridiculous amount and we ate it for several lunches in the next few days.

Pasta Carbonara

Pasta Carbonara

Herbed Risotto with Chicken and Carmelized Onions

Risotto with carmelized onions and chicken

Date: 4/9/2012

Recipe: http://annies-eats.com/2011/01/13/herbed-risotto-with-chicken-and-caramelized-onions/

Modifications: I cooked 3 chicken breasts, but it seemed like FAR too much chicken – I probably only used 1.5 and then we saved the rest for another meal. I also forgot the butter at the end and it still seemed plenty rich and delicious :)

Time to table: 45 minutes

Servings: 4 adults

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Like

Notes: Risotto is one of those meals that is always a hit. How could it not, with all that cheese and butter?? The carmelized onions really put this one over the top for me. It was delicious. Annie (of Annie’s Eats, not my child) says this method is easier, but for the time you save from stirring, I spent shredding chicken, which is one of my most hated tasks in the kitchen. This still seemed plenty involved – wouldn’t be what I would call a “quick dinner” but it was worth it! Luke enjoyed watching me cook – good thing :)

Luke watching mom cook

Now Annie's plate
Annie was well accessorized for this dinner

Panko crusted salmon

Panko Crusted Salmon

Date: 11/29/2011

Recipe: http://annies-eats.net/2011/04/13/panko-crusted-salmon/

Time to table: 35 minutes

Modifications: I just used a single 1lb salmon filet.

Servings: 2.5 adult servings

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Dislike

Notes: We made steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes for our sides and this turned out really good. I liked baking the salmon rather than broiling it, as it takes some guesswork out of cooking. I managed to time the potatoes and broccoli just right as well, so it was all hot when we sat down to eat.

Lentil Stew with Butternut Squash

Lentil Stew with Squash

Date: 11/8/2011

Recipe: http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipefinder/lentil-stew-butternut-squash-recipes

Time to table: 30 minutes prep, 6 hours cook time

Modifications: We used some sort of orange squash from our CSA, not sure what kind it was, but it was nearly identical to butternut squash inside. Looking over the recipe now I see that we forgot to add the parsley, whoops. Didn’t have any rosemary (and I wasn’t buying any for one recipe) so we used dried thyme and sage, like the song says.

Servings: 6 adult dinners

Ben: Like (surprisingly)

Erin: Like

Annie: Dislike, but had a few bites (turns out she likes it, but ONLY if she sees fresh grated parmesan on top before eating it)

Notes: I haven’t been a big fan of the lentil recipes we’ve tried in the past, so I wasn’t really looking forward to this, other than it used the squash we’ve had sitting around for a couple weeks. To my surprise and delight, this was actually pretty damn good!  We topped it with copious amounts of parmesan cheese and I used sriracha in mine, and it was great. Ours turned out very thick, which is how we like soups anyways, so that worked out well.

Edited to add (from Erin): We gave this soup to Annie for leftovers last night – she took one look at it and got PISSED – saying “nooo” and pushing it away, then saying “cheese? cheese?” pointing at the kitchen (where she’d seen the cheese out earlier). I informed her that there was, in fact, cheese IN the soup, but that wasn’t good enough. She took a little break to have a meltdown about this fact in her room, then she came out and asked for cheese again. In the interest of her eating SOMETHING, we grated fresh parmesan on her soup so she could see it and didn’t mix it in. She then proceeded to eat the entire bowl and ask for more. TODDLERS!!!

Lentil Stew with Squash

Pasta bolognese

Pasta bolognese

Date: July 14th, 2011

Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/spaghetti-bolognese-recipe/index.html

Modifications: I reversed the amounts of meat: 1 lb ground pork and 0.5 lb ground beef, just cause I like pork better. I also threw in some basil that we had and needed to use up. The directions say to simmer for 1.5 hours, but I liked the consistency after 45-50 minutes, so we went with that.

Time to table: 2 hours, over half the time is just simmering.

Servings: Probably had enough for 6 adults

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Love

Notes: This sauce was absolutely delicious. The butter and cream at the end just make it that much richer. At no point in the directions does it say to drain the fat from the bacon, beef, or pork, so this is an extremely savory dish. Annie seemed to like the food very much, but also seemed interested in playing so she didn’t take it down like other dishes she loves. We froze the leftovers because we already have plenty of other leftovers that need to get eaten and I didn’t want this to be wasted.

Pasta bolognese

Annie digging in

Pasta bolognese

Early stages with the bacon (and bacon grease!) and veggies for our base

Pasta bolognese

Finished sauce

Vegetable Lasagna

Veggie Lasagna

Date: July 1, 2011

Recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/04/vegetable-lasagna/

Modifications: The veggies I used were: one eggplant, one zucchini, one summer squash, and one red pepper. I realized halfway through that I only got 15oz of ricotta cheese, but it still seemed to be plenty. I used no boil noodles. I didn’t use the wine because there was none up at the cabin.

Time to table: Nearly an hour prep, and an hour to bake on the grill

Servings: probably 10 adults

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Love (yes!! I just love it when she willingly eats something with this many vegetables.

Notes: It was hotter than hot that day, but we had all the ingredients and this was our last night up at the cabin so I still wanted to make this lasagna. My dad offered to try grilling it on the charcoal grill using indirect heat instead of turning the oven on and heating up the already scorching upstairs of the cabin, so we gave it a whirl! I think we did around 40 minutes covered in foil and maybe 20 uncovered, and he rotated it a few times. It worked surprisingly well! (I’m tagging this with CSA, even though we only used our parsley in this because it’d be a great dish to use up a lot of late summer veggies)

Veggies for lasagna

Veggie Lasagna

Veggie Lasagna on the grill

 

Chicken Taco burgers

Chicken Taco Burgers

Date: June 3, 2011

Recipe: http://ellysaysopa.com/2011/03/15/chicken-taco-burgers/

Modifications:  This was for four adults and two toddlers, so we upped the chicken to two pounds. We topped the burgers with avocado and a sour cream/adobo seasoning mix.

Time to table: 20 minutes prep, 20 minutes grill prep & cooking

Servings: 7 patties

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: This was the inaugural meal on the new Weber grill! Served with a black bean/corn/red pepper salad.

Chicken Taco Burgers

Annie eating chicken taco burgers and black bean salad

Mia and Annie eating dinner

Meaty Lasagna

Lasagna

Date: May 29, 2011

Recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/the_best_lasagn/

Modifications:  We cut the beef down to 1 pound, still made plenty. I think this actually worked out well because this recipe is a tight fit in a 13×9 pan to begin with, so removing 0.5 pounds of meat made it fit a little better.

Time to table: 45 minutes prep, 30 minutes bake

Servings: 6 adults, 1 toddler. 2 adult meals leftover.

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Love

Notes: This recipe is seriously so good and makes so many portions, it would be a great freezer meal.
Annie eating lasagna

Spaghetti

Spaghetti Sauce

Date: May 23, 2011

Recipe: Modified from http://www.momsbudget.com/freezerrecipes/spaghettisauce.html

Modifications: I used 1.5 pounds of sausage and 0.5 pounds of ground beef because I like sausage better. We added chopped spinach to the portion we ate tonight. I added a few more cloves of garlic.

Time to table: 30 minutes prep, 2 hours to simmer

Servings: 2 adults, 1 toddler, plus 4 extra meals in freezer bags

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Love

Notes: Someday I will make this with around thirty cloves of garlic and revel in the best spaghetti sauce in the world. I also want to try making it with red wine in place of the water. We had this with whole wheat pasta twists tonight, with copious amounts of Parmesan cheese. We love this sauce around here.
Pasta with tomato spinach sauce
Annie's spaghetti sauce with spinach
Annie eating her spaghetti