Summer 2017 Recipes

As I've mentioned before, we have so many good recipes to choose from now, that we only have a couple new ones each month. We are still enjoying trying new things and also enjoy the variety of options from week to week. When we started this challenge a few years ago, we were in the habit of rotating about 7 or 8 meals and our kids were smack in the middle of chicken nugget, hot dog, and fish stick meals. We've come a long way and I think they will be much better eaters their whole lives for it. 

Here are the recipes we tried this summer: 

We'll start with a good meal for hot days - chicken salad tacos from Mr. Food. This was an easy meal to make on a busy night and it was pretty tasty. It would be great with a nice salad. I don't find the recipe on the Mr. Food website, but it was a pretty straight-forward chicken salad with taco seasoning put into tacos. Quick and tasty! 

Back in June, we purchased a new grill, so I set to find several recipes that would give Mike a chance to get used to it. The first was Carne Asada from the Fix-It and Enjoy It Cookbook. It was delicious. I could have this every week! 

 Next up is a meal that I made! It came from my friend Jill, who has joined one of the home cooking sites this year. It is a ricotta tart with a blistered tomato/onion salad. It was delicious! The kids didn't care for the tart so much, but Mike and I enjoyed them and I've made the salad for lunch about 5 times since I made it with dinner! 

 The next recipe was also a test of the new grill - this time for chicken. It is a marinated Honey Chicken from our Four Ingredient Cookbook. It was very good and the way the marinade sears on the chicken is really yummy. 

The next recipe is also a good weeknight meal. We were a little apprehensive to try Salmon Quesadillas, but they were pretty good in the end. It is a mix of salmon, spices, and cheese made like a normal quesadilla. In the end, we all liked it more than we thought we would! This one was also from a cookbook, the 2000 Taste of Home's Quick Cooking Annual Recipes.  

 For the next recipe, I tried one that was given to me by my Girl Scout leader when I graduated college! As I mentioned last time, I was always a little unsure of recipes with curry, but I have found that my adult palate enjoys it. This is Chicken and Broccoli Casserole, which has some curry in it but not a strong taste of it. It was really good over rice and the leftovers were even better - I love meals like that! 

Early in September, as the weather turned colder, I looked to a pasta dish. This one is from the March 2017 issue of Cooking Light and it was great. It is Chicken Piccata with crispy garlic. I liked the crispy garlic a lot and we had a good time telling the kids about the effect of garlic on your breath. In full disclosure, Mike did say that this recipe took longer than the advertised 30 minutes, but I'd say it is worth the time! 

 The last pictured meal is also from Cooking Light - Shrimp and Black Bean Tacos. These were really tasty - shrimp is paired with rice, beans, and pico de gallo, then topped with avocado. This is another one I could eat quite regularly! It was a big hit with the kids too - they love shrimp and pretty much anything that includes beans and rice. 

The last recipe doesn't have a picture - not sure if I wasn't home and missed it or was just super hungry and forgot - it is Curried Coconut Chicken from Fix-It and Enjoy It.  As you can tell, I don't have any memory of how it tasted, so we will have to try this one again! 

Thanks for following along - my daughter didn't do much baking over the summer - a few repeated recipes, but nothing new. I'll have to work on getting her back in the kitchen this fall! 

Hope you had some great meals over the summer, and if you have a must-try recipe for the fall, please let me know!