Menu of the Week #6

The menu of the week turned out to be delicious. This week we had Salmon with a Salad of Green Beans and Bok Choy, Chicken Tacos with Refried Beans and a Garden Salad, Pork Chops with Roasted Beets and Oranges, Pumpkin Pasta with Chicken Sausage, and Sheet Pan Pasta Bake with Chicken and Kale.

Pumpkin Pasta with Chicken Sausage

Pumpkin Pasta with Chicken Sausage

I am freaking out (dramatically) about how good and how easy this dinner was.

Ingredients:
12 oz pasta
2 T olive oil
Chicken Sausage, sliced (I found Applewood Smoked with Gouda)
1 C Pumpkin Puree
1 C Heavy Whipping Cream
Fresh Sage, chiffonade
1/2 t red pepper flakes
8 oz Fontina Cheese, shredded
Salt and pepper to taste

Menu of the Week #5

Harper says hi. This week I tried two new recipes, and both will make a return on our menu this year for sure. Cuban Shredded Beef with Rice and Beans, Salmon over Faux Risotto, Old Bay Shrimp Rolls, Chicken Picatta over Egg Noodles, and Pumpkin Pasta with Chicken Sausage.

Menu of the Week #3

My family enjoyed our menu of the week which features a meatless dish, as well as chicken, pork, beef, fish, I think we've covered all the proteins.

Shakshuka

Shakshuka? This is an absolutely delicious meal of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, peppers, and onions, with spices like cumin and paprika. On Sunday I had a hankering for this warming and comforting meal which originated in Northern Africa and appears on menus across the US as a brunch item. If you are looking for something that comes together quickly, under 30 minutes, you should try this. Shakshuka can be eaten for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, it truly is that amenable of a meal.

Sausage, Greens and Beans

My family loved this cold weather pasta dinner, and I thought it was pretty easy to pull together. I used hot Italian sausage, cannellini beans, rigatoni and hearty swiss chard leaves.

Tomato Basil Bisque

On a whim, I decided to make Tomato Basil Bisque and serve alongside a gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches. To ensure the kids liked them I cut the sandwiches into strips and called the whole thing, “grilled dippers.” Guess what? Harper was in love, asking for this meal the next two nights. Lucky for her, this Bisque recipe makes A LOT of soup although I could easily half the ingredients next time. Here we are a week later and I’m still enjoying the soup and I must declare it is the best Tomato Basil Bisque I have EVER tasted. Ever. No Lie.

Menu of the Week

Our menu of the week focused on fairly healthy dinners from Cooking Light. I tried a few new recipes and had to improvise on Wednesday when dinner took a nose dive. Keep reading to find out what dinners we enjoyed.

20 Minute Dinners are the Best

I am usually skeptical when a recipe says it takes less than 30 minutes to prepare and consist of more than bread, peanut butter, and jelly.  This recipe from Cooking Light promised to be a 20-minute dinner and I put it to the test. I did more than that though, I changed the recipe, made it better, and also made it in under 30 minutes, keep reading to find out how you too can recreate this meal on a weeknight.

Menu of the Week

The menu of the week was mostly "hit" and one big miss. Keep reading to see which night bombed!

What I Cook on Repeat

I'm often asked what I like to cook the most, and frankly I do not have an answer because I do not like repeating recipes that much. In fact it used to drive Jim crazy that I always wanted to try something new instead of recreating a successful dinner that he loved.

I think it was partly due to the fact I FELL so hard and so fast IN LOVE with cooking. Like anything obsessive, you can imagine my craving for knowledge was so great that I was ravenously consuming recipe books and food blogs for new cooking techniques and new ingredients to try.

Lots of Seafood this Week

I neglected to renew my domain name. Ooops! It's gone and I doubt I will play $60 to get it back from the company who is holding it hostage. For the time being you can find my recipe archive at www.homewithmandy.blogspot.com and I may be doing a re-branding later this year. We will see what happens.

Let's get back into the swing of regular blog posts shall we? This was our menu from last week and I mostly appreciated how quickly everything came together each night. There are times when I relish the long list of ingredients I chop and tend to. This was not that week.

Italian Mussels: Mussels are one of our favorite meals to cook and eat on a weekend. I do my grocery shopping on the weekend and this is an item you really don't want sitting in your fridge, it is best to cook it the day you buy them. Mussels are also a fabulous dinner party food because I serve them family style in a big shallow bowl. I have changed up the recipe over the years to keep things interesting, but my standby is posted here. I now add 2-3 sausage links to the pot while I'm softening the vegetables. The way I do it is to squeeze 1/2 inch size balls of meat out of the casings right into the pot. I like how rustic it makes the finished dish in the end.

Pressure Cooker Chicken, Lentil, and Bacon Stew With Carrots

I'm learning that my pressure cooker is an amazing device for making flavor-packed stews in very short order. In this version, lentils are flavored with big chunks of bacon, chicken stock, carrots, onions, bay leaves, and fall-off-the-bone tender chicken. It all cooks in under an hour from start to finish.

Menu of the Week

Our family enjoyed some new recipes this week. A few of these were requested to be "regulars" from now on. Keep reading to find out which we loved the most... Company Pot Roast from Ina Garten, Smoked Samon Tartines and Crab Cakes, Spaghetti Carbonara, Crawfish Pie, Mini Pizza's and Salisbury Meatballs over Egg Noodles.

Crawfish Pie

Have you ever heard of Crawfish Pie? Me neither until I saw one put together on Farmhouse Rules, a cooking show filmed on a farm in the Hudson Valley.

I was intrigued, enough to jot down the bones of the recipe and then go out and create my own version. We loved this take on a seafood dinner. Harper wouldn't touch it - mostly because it wasn't a PB&J sandwich.

Salisbury Steak Meatballs

When I was a child I remember hearing adults say how so-and-so is photogenic but so-and-so is not photogenic. I didn't understand what that meant until I started blogging and realized how some foods don't photograph well - no matter how scrumptious it may be, the picture looks like a regurgitated version of it's former self.

 

Trust me this is a before picture.

 

Salisbury steak is a dish made from a blend of ground beef and other ingredients, which is shaped to resemble a steak, and is usually served with gravy or brown sauce.

 

Menu of the Week

 

Another week of delicious meals brought to you by Home with Mandy! We began our week with one of Jim's most favorite sandwiches, the Marlboro Man Sandwich. I created a copy cat recipe from a local restaurant - probably cost me a quarter of the price to recreate. Lots of great ideas this week, enjoy!



Menu of the Week

Here is another full Menu of the Week from our home. The top three favorites this week were the Spicy Tilapia with Olive, Zucchini and Tomato Relish, Sloppy GI Joes and the Roasted Shrimp with Feta. Keep reading for links and photos.

Skirt Steak with Cilantro Chimichurri and Carrot-Citrus Hash

This recipe card from plated.com is bent, torn, stained ... all proof that this is an awesome dinner. I have made it probably once a month for the last six months and if you know me, you know I don't repeat recipes very often.

There is something about the sweet citrus carrots and the addictingly hot chimichurri sauce that seeps down over the steak. Jim and I clean our plates!

Cheesy Gnocchi Casserole

This is going to be a super quick post on a random dinner I threw together tonight after being inspired by THIS recipe on Food Network.

My recipe turned out nothing like Food Network intended. The Home with Mandy version is full of veggies, thick ham, soft gnocchi, all swimming in a creamy cheesy sauce. Yes, this is MUCH better!