September 7, 2008
This recipe was super quick and surprisingly good. Find it here. I thought I’d miss the flavor from ground beef since this is made with ground turkey, but the few minutes of wine simmering and the flavor of the fresh veggies made it quite tasty. I gave my 5 year old just plain ground turkey, but my 8 year old ate her whole bowl full.
The recipe doesn’t call for it, but I used whole wheat pasta since I generally try to avoid the “white” stuff.
This recipe is a little dry when you serve it for leftovers. Adding a little chicken broth before microwaving it perks it up nicely.
September 1, 2008
Here’s another recipe from Real Simple’s 20 minute meals. Link to the recipe here.
I love this for July/August because the tomatos are so flavorful. If there’s anyway you can get your tomatos from the farmer’s market. The grocery store one’s can’t do it justice. I mixed yellow and red tomatoes when I made this. For whatever reason, the soup came out a bit bitter. I’m planning to try it again and see if I can figure out why. If you make it and have a similar experience, I’d love to hear about it.
Anyway, what a wonderfully simple dinner. I did serve it with the salami, proscuitto and bread sticks and it was light but filling. If I can figure out what was up with the gazpacho, this will become a favorite because its SO EASY.
September 1, 2008
This one was super easy and went over well with the kids. I used chicken tenderloins. The tarragon was a nice flavor touch that helps this dish escape the ordinary. The nice thing is that the chicken and tomatoes are cooked separately. So I served the kids just the chicken and then divided the tomato mixture among the adults. Less than 20 minutes.
August 31, 2008
I know I’ve been on a roll about the Real Simple recipes and I plan to post more about that ASAP. However, I had to take a quick breather to rave about Burnett Stuffed Chicken Breast. On the package it says “stuffed sith cream spianach, fet cheese, corn, sundried tomatoes covered in a chardonnay cream sauce. Fettuccini noodles included.” It’s excellent, is on the table in 10 minutes and my 8 year old thinks it’s really good. You get it at Sam’s Club in the freezer section. [if anyone else knows where else you can get it please comment]
This frozen dinner serves 4 adults — and I think 2 adults and 2 young children with a bit left over if you serve it with a salad or vegetable.
I’ve made it twice now and it’s a great secret weapon to have in the freezer. Important tip – you can freeze it, but you have to take it out of the freezer 24 hours before you want to eat it. It says you can defrost in the microwave but I can’t vouch for that.
Anyway. This is just like a dream dinner. But way less time consuming and way cheaper.
August 19, 2008
If you like a lot of flavor, definitely give this recipe a shot. You can link to it here. With mint and lip buzzing cayenne balanced by a hint of cinnimon, the sauce makes this meal. Tip: I would make twice as much sauce because you’re going to want to dip the lamb in it.
The gate time on this recipe is purely determined by how much lamb you’re trying to grill. The recipe calls for 2lbs of lamb leg steak. I couldn’t find that, so I picked up a 5lb butterflied leg at Sam’s club. Then I cut that in half so I was grilling about 2.5 lbs of meat. If you use anything but the steaks, follow the appropriate cooking directions — in my case about 11 min per side.
Anyway, the cook time gave me plenty of time to prep the salad portion of the meal and I had it on the table easily in 30 minutes.
The sauce is probably a little on the spicy side for most kids. But I cut both kids some pieces of the lamb just straight from the grill and they both really liked it.
I’d make this one again.
August 15, 2008
This one says total time 30 minutes but I had this on the table in 20. But I think that’s because Bill helped me chop. I used frozen shrimp and left out the jalapeno in hopes the kids would eat a shrimp or two. I put about a 1/2 teaspoon of that red chinese hot garlic sauce in the dressing for the grown ups.
Here’s the link to the recipe.
Excellent summer salad. Great veggie base. Light dressing. No extra heat in the kitchen. I’d definitely make it again. The only downside is that I’m not a huge fan of shrimp the next day so no left overs for lunch.
This recipe calls for boiling the shrimp, which is what I did because I was checking the time results. But I think you’d even get more depth of flavor if you grilled the shrimp. If anyone tries this let me know how it comes out
August 15, 2008
I think this one is destined to become a family favorite. Here’s the link to the recipe.
If your kids like pot stickers, you can’t go wrong with this one because if they won’t eat what’s in the salad part, at least they can eat the pot stickers. Luckily, Caitlin likes snap peas and carrots so the whole thing was a hit. No problem in getting it on the table in 20 minutes, but the whole thing revolves around the directions for your pot stickers.
The recipe recommends steaming your pot stickers, but I recommend following the directions on the package and then steaming your veggies separately. BTW- I can recommend both Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods frozen pot stickers. I’ve tried the ones in the big box from Sam’s club and they’re fine but they’re a little more greasy.
It was great hot for dinner and then I ate it cold the next day for lunch. Very good both ways.
Anyway, family friendly, on the table in 20 minutes, very little prep. And pretty much the calorie count is completely dependent on the calorie count of your pot stickers and how heavy handed you are with the peanuts.
Definitely a winner!
August 12, 2008
So I was going to make this about 20 minute meals and then I realized I pulled a bunch of recipes from the magazine -Real Simple, Aug 2008 – and that 3 of the 4 meals I planned for this week are from the section satisfying salads. However, they all take 30 minutes or less. So we’ll start there and head to 20 minute meals next week.
This was a Monday night meal. Link to warm spinach salad with grilled sausage here.
This recipe was very solid. I used mild Italian sausage because I was hoping the kids would at least eat the sausage and they did. Or at least they said they liked it. I also used a sweet onion. The salad is definitely what makes this meal. I’d make it again.
Tips: If you have other dinner things to do like set the table or whatever, do them first and then put this dinner together start to finish. I find that when you’re doing veggies on the grill you have to watch them pretty closely.
Time: 29 minutes
Calories: 375 (This info isn’t in the magazine, I used an online calorie calculator.)
August 8, 2008
Hi all -
I’m creating this blog for my friends and family where I review recipes for really fast meals. I’m going to start with the 20-minute meals that are in this month’s edition of Real Simple. I’ll try out the recipes over the next few weeks — probably 3 or 4 a week and let you know how they are and whether or not they actually took 20 minutes. As an aside, I rarely make anything that’s more than 400 calories a serving and if there’s nutritional information I’ll let you know.
For the moment at least, it looks like you can link to all the recpies online here http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/package/0,21861,1645134-1827710,00.htm but if you can’t get to that let me know and I’ll either repost or email you the info.
This week I’ll be making Shrimp with Summer Veggies, Moroccan Lamb salad with carrots & mint (if I can fine the boneless lamb steaks), warm spinach salad with Italian sausages and pot stickers (Caitlin’s favorite) with snap peas.
August 8, 2008
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