This was a super easy and REALLY tasty slow cooker meal – get a quick veggie side ready and you’ve got a fast weeknight dinner. It was perfect for a horse show night when I’m home late – either one of us could have dinner whenever we roll in. I thought this was interesting because a) it was a way to use the huge amount of pesto we have from our garden, and b) I like the flavors of ranch, but I don’t like salad dressing. It was great! We’d make it again for a quick dinner anytime, and this would probably be really nice with a whole chicken cut up – just skin it and you’d get light and dark meat in a very flavorful dish. You could really do any chicken with this, and I bet a pork loin would do well with the same seasoning.
Easy
New England Steamed Clams
There is probably no more iconic summer dish for me than steamers; it’s what my family made for most summer holidays, and I could never get enough of them. And now as an adult, you can’t go wrong. It’s easy, it’s relatively healthy (you don’t need THAT much butter) and you it’s even better if you eat it outside. It is hard to find long neck, softshell clams in the DC neck of the woods, so we have to improvise. But it’s STILL good even with littlenecks. And if you happen upon a place to get long necks in DC? Please let me know! 😉 We’ll make do in the meantime. 😉
Mini Greek-Style Meat Loaves
I saw this recipe in an old Cooking Light, and thought it was worth a try…definitely glad we did. We’ll be making it again, and actually it would be worth doing in bulk – great for lunches. The recipe called for more beef than lamb, and I ended up doing equal parts (with very lean beef). Next time I actually think I would do all lamb. We made these in mini loaf tins with a cucumber-tomato salad from our garden. 🙂 The sauce actually made it!
Flank Steak Pinwheels
This was another of the freezer meals we put together about a month ago. Shawn is out of town and this is easy and in the freezer and it’s possible we have no food at ALL in the fridge. So it worked out. I want to say that the best part was the side of the first zucchini from our garden (also grilled), but the pinwheels were pretty good! They were a little messy on the grill, but for something you can pull out of the freezer and more or less throw on the grill I’m a fan!
Cucumber and Black Eyed Pea Salad
This was a nice base salad with which you could do a lot…we liked it a lot. I’ve had my eye on this for a while since I love black eyed peas, and am always looking for new ways to use them. I thought this could use lots more flavor and added more lemon, pepper and salt, Some herbs tossed in would be great too. This would be nice for a BBQ or picnic side. It was nice with grilled pork chops.
Black Bean and Tomato Quinoa
So this whole low carb thing. It works, the only thing that gets the stubborn 5-10lb off of me. But…I really miss rice. Quinoa does an okay job, though. It is it’s own flavor, so I find if you don’t try to think of it as “fake rice,” but rather its own very good thing, it does well. It’s never been my favorite over the years, but I semi need its niche now! It is one of the few grainy items that are not incredibly offensive to the low-carb folks. And I would argue what carbs it has are outweighed by it’s nutritional and functional benefits. I really enjoyed this, and as typical with quinoa, add what you like best!
Deviled Egg Salad
Deviled eggs and egg salad sandwiches are two of my favorites…makes sense to combine them! I did this in lettuce wraps instead of bread, and it was very filling. Great for a quick low carb meal, and it would be perfect for lunch. You can make this to size, and throw in whatever you like in your egg salad.
Beer Can Chicken
What can I say…this was easy and absolutely delicious. We combined a few rubs to make the final product, but you can’t get much more low maintenance for a nice summer meal! And bonus chicken stock tomorrow! You can fine the recipe here, at my friend Missy’s site.
Greek Panzanella
I got this one from my friend Missy years ago, and it’s still one of my favorites. If I didn’t try to stick to low carb, I’d make some variety of Panzanella all the time. This is another Ina recipe, never gets old. Went well with our BBQ last weekend.
Buffalo Bleu Cheese Burgers
Another in a series of burgers I did for fast freezer meals. We really liked this one! Would be great with some extra buffalo sauce and blue cheese on the top, and a side salad.
Om nom nom! 