I have a few Thanksgiving recipes that I haven’t ever gotten around to adding, and in the chance I lose them, I figured better to post them! As much as I love green beans, I cannot stand, “cream of xyz” soup in recipes. After mashing together a lot of different recipes, this one seems to do the trick, with a really nice, earthy flavor of mushrooms without the soup. With a caramelized onion topping tosses in breadcrumbs, is a nice take on an old favorite!
Continue readingSide Dishes
Vegetarian Stuffing
It occurred to us this past Thanksgiving that we have not saved many of our go-to recipes…and it would be a huge bummer if the original links ever went away! Plus we have tweaked many of these to our own tastes. This is an awesome stuffing we originally got from Epicurious, and turned it into both vegetarian and gluten free.
Continue readingCaprese Pasta Salad
This was a pretty pasta salad for our Kentucky Derby party this year. Colorful and it had a lot of flavor. And of course pasta salad is always great for a crowd.
Cilantro Lime Quinoa
This is a fun take on Chipotle’s cilantro-lime rice, and it was a tasty side with beer can chicken. If you tossed it with some peppers and some tomatoes, it might also be a good lunch salad, too.
Zucchini Chips
Much like our green beans, our squash is out of control this year too, and we were looking for ways to use it up. I found a few different suggestions out there for zucchini chips, and decided to give one a go – they are AWESOME. Seriously, if you have a ton of extra squash, this is an awesome use for it. I found this on a blog call Add a Pinch and I made no changes. You can definitely play around with it and make all kinds of flavors, though. I do think without a mandolin slicer, this would be a serious pain, but you could still do it.
Dilly Beans
We grew green beans for the first time this year, and holy smokes are they prolific! They are definitely one to plant again. But like any heavy producing veggie in the garden, when you end up with a glut of them, it can be hard to use them all up. I decided to try refrigerator dilly beans. I got the basics from Cooking Light’s recipe for spicy dill beans, but I toned the spice down. Last year I overdid it a bit and the pickles were all kind of too hot for us. They would make a cute summery food gift if you wanted to take the final step and actually can them.
Pepper Pasta Salad
I saw this in this month’s Cooking Light, and was really intrigued. I love pasta salad, and this one was different and interesting. I brought it to the Hunt’s puppy naming party, and it went over pretty well! I thought it was tasty, but that being said, it WAS a lot of work. I did use sweet paprika in place of the Aleppo pepper. Also, the original recipe called for Freso peppers, and I didn’t use them, so though the original recipe was, “Triple-Pepper Pasta Salad,” this was just two peppers for me. 😉 I would make it again for a special occasion, or big picnic etc, despite the work – I think it was worth it. 🙂
Peas with Prosciutto
Found somewhere in the depths of Pinterest, this was another very simple and pretty Easter size capitalizing on Spring veggies (okay, I had to use frozen peas =/ But still). The salty prosciutto went well with the ham, of course. Definitely a side I would make again for a crowd, quick and attractive.
Roasted Baby Spring Vegetables
This was a very pretty side dish for Easter. Roasted veggies are always great, and I really liked the touch of white vinegar. This is a Cooking Light recipe, and the only alteration I made was to use baby purple potatoes instead of fingerlings, and to lower the cooking temp to 400 to accommodate other dishes I had cooking (it was originally 500, which seems pretty high to me). We enjoyed this and the leftovers also make a nice lunch.
Garlic Herb Spaghetti Squash
This isn’t really a recipe, just a tossed together seasoning for spaghetti squash. I intended this to be a side to zucchini lasgana, so was thinking garlic-y flavors. I roasted the squash for about 40 minutes, let it cool, scraped it out, and then tossed it with 2 crushed garlic cloves and some basil and parsley. Topped it off with salt and pepper and it was pretty good (but very garlicky).
Om nom nom! 