Friday, October 18, 2013

Waiting for the dinner bell to do the bell thing...

I am so sorry I have sucked so badly as a blogger this week!  I hope to be back to posting at least a few times a week next week.  I have lots of posts planned, just no time to get them ready to go!  Gah.  Anyway, a couple of times a month I will be sharing new recipes I have tried as part of our meal plan. Remember, I also repin the pins for all of the recipes I try through Pinterest on my board "I Made This" so make sure you are following!

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Smashed Potatoes - This poor meal is just never going to get made!  I realized after I planned it, that my husband and I already had plans to have a date night.  We ate at this amazing local Italian place and had a wonderful time, but sadly did not make the meal plan for October 5.  It was leftover from last month's meal plan.  Oh well.  There were a few questionable days on my original meal plan, so I might get to this later in the month.  Otherwise, maybe November will be the lucky month?  Sorry for the lack of recipe review.  I'm trying to get myself together.


Orzo Salad with Rotisserie Chicken - I could eat stuff like this all of the time.  However, my husband is almost always on the fence about it.  Fortunately for me, he LOVED this recipe.  As in, I had taken only a few bites of mine and he was heading for seconds.  This dish is awesome!  We added rotisserie chicken which was something the person I pinned it from suggested, but this could easily be a side dish sans meat or even as a stand alone vegetarian dish.  (Grilled chicken or shrimp might be delicious as well.)  The recipe even gives ideas for making it vegan by omitting the feta, and I could see that being delicious as well.  For something so simple, we were very pleased.  I also ate it for lunch the next day and was surprised by how well it held up!  YUMMY.  Will definitely have some repeat performances in the NMOTB house!

Chicken Crescent Roll Casserole - Initially, we were going to do a different recipe (one that we've already tried), but at the last minute I decided to try something new.  I forgot to take a picture, but trust me when I say it turned out looking a lot like the ones on the website.  I don't cook this sort of thing for my family very often, but sometimes you just need some comfort food and this is definitely it.  If you're not into the processed thing, this definitely isn't for you, otherwise, this is quite a delicious little meal.  It's a little on the labor intensive side as far as rolling the crescents and such, but everything came together nicely.  We served this with some broccoli.  Mashed potatoes would have been awesome on the side as well, but I didn't get that far.


Parmesan Garlic Quinoa - There are two or three pins on my blog that get more repins than anything else.  This recipe is one of them.  I finally decided to try it as a side dish for some tilapia we had this week.  To be honest...I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.  Part of it might be because I totally read something in the directions wrong and cooked the onions and quinoa separately.  Whoops.  If I made it again, I would not screw up the recipe and also would definitely cut the basil in half (totally overwhelmed every other flavor).  I also cut the red pepper flakes by a lot.  For our family (including my spice loving husband) even half a teaspoon is too much red pepper.  Then again, I'm not totally sure I would make this again.  It's not bad.  It's just not for me.  Has anyone else tried it?  Was it as amazing as the pins make it seem?


Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce - On the fly, I decided to add shrimp to this even though we usually do one meatless meal a week.  (I usually don't count fish as meat anyway, but I'm Catholic, so that's kind of our thing.)  For the shrimp, I marinated it in fresh lemon juice, garlic, kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper while I got the pasta started and then sauteed it in about a tablespoon of olive oil before adding it  once the pasta was finished.  It paired nicely with the pasta.  Which is good.  Because this pasta is OUT OF THIS WORLD.  I avoid using heavy cream in our recipes.  Especially during the week when we opt for lighter fare (usually).  However, how glad am I that I ignored that rule for this recipe?  It is SO simple and just DELICIOUS.  I can't believe so much flavor came from such a simple (and EASY) recipe.  The fresh basil on top?  Perfection.  I will absolutely be repeating this recipe (and truth be told, it doesn't need a protein of any kind - it's great on its own).  I'm eating the leftovers for lunch tomorrow, so I can't report on how they heat up, but it's pasta so you know it's going to be AWESOME.  This recipe made enough for the three of us to have big portions and still enough for leftovers for all of us for tomorrow.  You could probably cut it in half to feed less people. YUM-O.

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I'll be back next week on the blog hopefully sharing some original recipes of mine and maybe writing a post that has nothing to do with food (GASP.)  In the meantime, maybe you all could cook up some good questions for Advice For Other New Moms.  Even if it's a question you already know the answer to - I could use some inspiration up in here.   Have a good weekend my friends!


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