A Place for tasty food, simply prepared
I am always surprised by the number of people who only use pre-made pancake mix. I am all for keeping things simple and cutting steps but with pancake mix, you still have to do most of the steps as it’s really only the dry ingredients …
This is another crockpot recipe that you can set in the morning and have a great dinner waiting for you at night. It is also one of my go-to ‘meal-train’ recipes. It can freeze well and is great for left overs. Served over noodles (gluten …
With this title, you might be thinking… wait, isn’t this supposed to be a blog about simple dishes? Well, yes it is! This IS a simple recipe AND I think everyone needs to have a few ‘fancy’ dishes in their repertoire for special occasions. Rack of Lamb is the special dish I make a few times a year as a treat for my husband. It is a pretty expensive cut of meat but does go on sale sometimes. It is also still less expensive than eating out.
I like to serve the lamb with a chimichurri sauce (fancy word for blended fresh herbs – originally from Argentina). Chimichurri is great on steak, chicken, or shrimp too! I have made it traditionally which is with cilantro & parsley or with mint & parsley as mint is more traditionally served with lamb. Use a food processor to blend the herbs, olive oil, vinegar, and garlic. Prepare this at least a few hours in advance or the night before. It will be used to marinade the meat and as a sauce to serve with it.
Cover the lamb in mustard and then a thin coating of the chimichurri. Let it marinade in fridge for a few hours or over night. Remove lamb from fridge 30 minutes prior to cooking.
Bake lamb at 400 F for 25 minutes until lamb reaches and internal temperature of 140F for a medium rare. Let rest for 10 minutes before cutting. Serve with chimichurri on top.
I like to serve this with roasted potatoes and a side salad.
Rack of Lamb
Ready in 2hr 30 minutes; 30 minutes of active time
Serves 2 people
Everyone needs a chili recipe and this is my award winning chili recipe. My husband has named this “Two Bean Turkey Supreme” Chili. I use ground turkey as we use it in most cases as a replacement for ground beef for health and environmental reasons. …
I love Mediterranean food and when I first move to Cincinnati there was not a single place where I could fine Tzatziki. So I set out on an adventure to create my own. At the time, Greek Yogurt wasn’t even a thing so I had …
This is one of my husband’s favorite dishes. I wasn’t sure I could make a recipe post about it because it’s really just combining a couple of ingredients together but it is definitely delicious. And bonus! My picky eater kids actually sampled this when I made it this time! The only downside of this recipe is that it does create more dirty dishes than I usually like to make. My husband does do the dishes when I cook and his first vote for naming this blog was “deliciously dirty dishes” but we decided that name could be taken the wrong way…. So, my apologies to all out there having to clean up after this meal.
The star of this dish is the sausage. I buy sweet Italian ground pork sausage when available. Turkey sausage works fine. Prefer spicy sausage? Go for it! If you can only find sausage in links, just remove the casing and then proceed with the rest of the recipe. Cut the sausage into bite size pieces. If you want to make the dish look better, you can roll them into balls.
Prep the veggies – slice a pepper and onion. Thinly slice two cloves of garlic and put one with the veggies and the other in a small saucepan with the butter. Wash and dry the parsley, then cut it up using kitchen scissors.
There are three main pans used to make this recipe.
Fill the large pot with water and start to boil. Add the butter, garlic (slices from 1 clove), and half of the parsley to the small pot to simmer. Be careful to not brown the butter too much… a little brown -ok, burnt -not ok. You can add a splash of dry wine to this butter sauce or some lemon zest to change up the flavor profile and cut down the richness of the sauce.
In the large pan, heat olive oil. When hot, add in the sausage chunks. Brown the sausage on all sides -a few minutes per side should do. Add in the pepper, onion, and garlic (slices from the other clove). Cook until peppers & onions are softened and sausage is cooked through. Near the end, add in the spinach and let cook down.
When water has boiled, add pasta to pot and cook based on package instructions. A semi-hardy pasta is needed to hold up to the rest of the dish. We usually use Rotini or Penne and have found that Barilla Gluten Free pasta to be the best substitute for the real stuff. When pasta is done, drain and then add to the butter sauce. Finally, add everything to the pan with the sausage and mix it all up.
Sausage & Pepper Pasta
Ready in 30 minutes
Serves 2 people (with large appetites)
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am VERY passionate about chicken wings. What started in college as a weekly wing night with friends, continued into my young professional life, and even now my kids know that if wings are on the menu, it’s likely …
I don’t have a ton of recipes that I use my crockpot for but there are times when having a few go-to recipes that can be set in the morning and ready at night comes in really handy. As with many of my recipes, this …
I have tried to introduce meatless Mondays into our rotation of meals. But, I have to say, we are a meat eating family – generally chicken, turkey, and fish but meat nonetheless. So, we are still pretty new to vegetarian options. This recipe meets all the things we look for – tasty, filling, and relatively easy to make.
These use quinoa as part of the filler. I often end up making these when I have leftover quinoa or plan my week’s meals where I make a little extra quinoa to use in this dish. If you don’t have quinoa already cooked, start with that. Add 1/4 cup of quinoa to a pot with 1/2 cup of water and cook based on package directions (usually bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes). This will yield approximately 3/4 cooked quinoa.
Chop your veggies up. The smaller the better here. You won’t want big chunks of onion or pepper standing out in the burger. It’s about 1/2 a pepper, a quarter onion, and 1 garlic clove.
Next, drain & rinse a can of black beans (standard 15oz can). I would recommend against using flavored beans but if it’s what you have on hand, go for it! These burgers will take on the flavor of what you put in them so lots of flexibility to fit your tastes.
Add the beans to a large bowl and mash. I use a potato masher but you can use a fork too. Mash until there are is a good paste but you can still see some whole beans. Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and mix well.
Form the mixture into burger patties. Don’t make them too big as they will be tough to flip and stick together. I usually get about 8 patties out of the mixture. Once formed, put them in the fridge for a little while to firm up – ideally an hour. I will often make these up earlier in the day when I have some time and then it makes for a quick dinner time process to cook them up.
Heat oil in a large skillet. Once oil is hot, add patties (4 at a time) to the pan. Let cook for about 4 minutes a side or until they are nice and crispy on the outside. When done, place on a dish and dry up the extra oil on them with some paper towel. Cook the second batch and then you are ready to eat these up!
Play with the flavors in this recipe. I have tried them with lots of vairations. Try them with cumin, or chipotle powder, or paprika, or just garlic as the spice. I’ve added in a chipotle pepper from a can of chipotle in adobe sauce.
I like to make a creme sauce (mix some hot sauce with some plain Greek yogurt or sour cream) with these but they are also great with guacamole or ranch.
We usually eat these on hamburger buns (the gluten kind) and are careful about not cross contaminating whatever my son (celiac) is eating. But, these are good alone or in a lettuce wrap if you’re looking to make it a fully gluten free dish.
For side dishes, we often do french fries (yes, just the frozen bag kind) or a salad.
Note: I have not attempted to make these vegan but I think you could sub out the egg with vegan egg substitute.
Black Bean Burger
Ready in 1hour 30 minutes (30 minutes of active time); Serves 4-6 people
I love chicken breast but sometimes get a little tired of the same old ways we make it (typically grilled or in stir fry). Pairing it with the brightness of the lemon, really takes the flavor profile to the next level in this recipe. I …