Back To Dinners!

Now that we're in the middle of our first real-life as a married couple week, I've begun my goal of making dinner every night. It's actually not that bad so far. Everything I've made has turned out really well and has taken about 30 minutes. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up when school starts.

Monday: Creamy Chicken Noodles - From 101 Things to Do With Ramen Noodles

I forgot to take a picture, but hopefully I won't make that mistake again. It's an easy recipe and uses Ramen! Perfect for college students!

1 package of Chicken Ramen Noodles
1 can of Cream of Chicken Soup
1/4 cup diced onion - I didn't have an onion so I used some chopped green onion from our garden
1 small can of chicken - I didn't have a can of chicken so I just chopped up a frozen chicken breast and browned it

Just cook the noodles (and brown the chicken), combine everything (except the noodles) including the seasoning packet and mix for about 5 minutes to warm, then put it on top of the noodles. The recipe said to put just under 1/2 the seasoning packet in, but when I tasted my food it needed more salt so I just added some more of the packet.

Really easy and Andrew said it tasted great!

Tuesday: Chicken Tortilla Soup - From Allrecipes.com

 

A little bit of a blurry picture but still . . . at least I remembered! This honestly didn't take long. It was another combine all the ingredients and stir recipe and it was sooo good! One of my favorite foods is the Chicken Tortilla Soup at Zupas. Ok, so maybe this wasn't quite that good but it did turn out really well.

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into cubes

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin - Ok so I didn't have this in my pantry, but if you need it, come borrow it from me.

2 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth - I might add another can since it turned out a little chunkier than I'd like

1 cup frozen corn kernels - I didn't have frozen ones so I just bought a can and used that

1 cup chopped onion - Once again, substituted onion from my garden

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1 tablespoon lemon juice - Lime juice would probably work better but hey it turned out okay with lemon

1 cup chunky salsa

8 ounces corn tortilla chips

1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (optional)

 I added a can of black beans, cilantro, chopped tomato, and some slices of lime.

In a large pot over medium heat, cook and stir chicken in the oil for 5 minutes. (I just did it till the chicken looked cooked.) Add the garlic and cumin and mix well. Then add the broth, corn, onion, chili powder, lemon juice, (and beans), and salsa. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes. Break up some tortilla chips into individual bowls and pour soup over chips. Top with the Monterey Jack cheese (, cilantro, tomato, lime,) and a little sour cream.

Honestly so good! It made enough for four servings so Andrew and I had the leftovers for lunch today. I also put some sourdough bread, chips, and berries on the side. It was super good. We also had some peach ice-cream for desert since yesterday was Peach Ice-Cream Day. Got to celebrate them holidays right?

Today: Roast Roots - Originally learned from a Redwall Recipe book

First of all, I would recommend that you get the Redwall Recipe book. I saw it once when I was a kid and have missed it since. If you're an avid book reader, I'm sure you've read some of the Redwall series. If not, shame on you and go find them. It starts with Redwall I think. One of the best series I ever read. In it the author mentions all kinds of recipes. Then one day, he put together a recipe book of many of the same recipes he had written about. So cool! Basically, I recommend getting it because children will love it! 

Number 1: they'll get to make things they'll have read about (plus it may help get them reading). Number 2: the recipes are simple (most of them are designed for children to make). 

Number 3: I'm pretty sure they're all vegetarian (or have some seafood). So you'll be able to get your children eating vegetables. (Heck, if you're like me you still need an incentive to eat your veggies.) The reason they're vegetarian is because the characters in the book series are animals and you can't very well write about animals eating animals casually. 

This recipe was fun because I got to use things that I hadn't tried a lot of. In fact, I couldn't find a Rutabaga in any Walmart so my mom had to go find one for me. 

Salt

1 Small Rutabaga

4 medium parsnips

4 medium carrots

Vegetable oil

Pepper

Super simple directions. Peel and chop up all the vegetables. I'd recommend 2" by 2" cubes but honestly anything works. Keep them bigger than you expect. Boil some water and add a salt. (No specific amount, just be generous). Add the vegetables to the boiling water and cook it for about 3 minutes. Coat an oven pan with oil, transfer the vegetables from the water to the pan, coat them with oil, add salt and pepper to taste, and bake until the vegetables are golden brown. (375 for 30 minutes about. Or if you have an oven as small as mine - 15.) Serve warm.

You'll love the smells your kitchen gets as you prepare this. The vegetables just smell earthy. It can seem to turn things a yellow color (probably from the Rutabaga) but it washes right off. You'll be surprised how good vegetables alone can taste. 

Oh, by the way - that's a berry salad, stick of celery and cucumber, two olives, and two nutella filled strawberries. Kinda found the desert off Pinterest. Way fun. The idea is chocolate covered strawberries without the mess when you try to eat them. Instead of filling them with chocolate I filled them with Nutella. That way there's nothing hard to bite into. Loved it!

Advice in Planning Dinners

Okay, I know. I haven't even been making family dinners for a week . . . but I have some advice. It was actually picked up from someone way more experience than me. Plan at least a week ahead of time and plan generally for a month. What I did is I came up with lots of general categories:

ramen, thai, slow cooker, vegetarian, family recipes, relief society recipes, soup, italian, buffet, picnic, mexican, hawaiian, dad's pick, mom's day off, dinner with friends, Pinterest . . .  

You get the idea. Then I assigned a general category for every day of the month. On Sunday I sat down, went through my cookbooks and picked out specific meals for each day to fit the category. Then I went through my cupboards, looked to see what I needed, and made a shopping list. Monday I bought a week's worth of groceries. (You'll save money because you're just buying things you need. But DON"T go when you're hungry . . .) Then, I've just been flexible. If I don't have time in the morning to make the slow cooker recipe, I swap it with another day. I have all the stuff for the week's groceries so that's possible. 

After each meal, I ask Andrew if it's a keeper and I mark my notes in my recipe books. Eventually I'll use all the things in Pinterest and mark whether I want to keep those or not as well. Anyway, hope you have as much luck as I have with dinners. Heck, I haven't even burned something yet! (3 days in.) I did cut myself today though . . . . it's those knives!