Late Spring and Summer Recipes

As I sit enjoying the first day of fall (the temperature dropped 30 degrees overnight!!), I thought it was high time I shared some of the new recipes we tried over the late spring and summer. 

First up - another winner from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, scalloped macaroni and ham. We had leftover ham for this one and it was yummy. Panko breadcrumbs on the top made it extra crunchy. We will revisit this one for sure! 

For this one, you get the plate picture first, then the fun picture! It is the Chicken Enchilada Bake from Fix-It and Enjoy-It, and other reason we love this cookbook! I am not sure why we hadn't tried this one yet, because it was awesome! 

 And here's the growing boy about to devour his! 

The next recipe, Meatball Sub Casserole, is also from Fix-It and Enjoy-It and it actually wasn't a hit...probably the first one from this cookbook that we didn't really enjoy. It has a base layer of bread, then you layer on sauce, meatballs, and cheese - cream cheese and mozzarella. It was okay, but no one was clamoring for the leftovers. Too much cream cheese maybe, or the bread layer, not sure what it was, but we've had lots of other meat/sauce dishes we like a lot better.  

 The third recipe from Fix-It and Enjoy-It is Sausage Tortellini Soup. Jenna is not a fan of tortellini and she didn't disappoint. She took about two bites and then headed to the fridge to find some leftovers :)  The rest of us really liked it, so this will have to go into the file for "make when Jenna is at camp or a friend's house!"

 Ok, I didn't realize when i started to pull these recipes together that so many were from Fix-It and Enjoy-It, but this one is too! It is BBQ Marinated Chicken that Mike grilled for us. It was really, really good and the parts that charred on the grill (you can see the dark edges) were so savory. This will go into the summer grill rotation for sure! I enjoyed taking all the leftovers to eat for lunch!

 The next one is a recipe from All Recipes - Mike found it and made it himself because he loves Fettucini Carbonara, and this one didn't disappoint. We all enjoyed it - it will be returning soon! 

 Next up, my teenage baker was at it again! I wound up with a ton of blueberries and layed out 4 recipes for her to choose from. She picked Blueberry Boy Bait, shared with us by our friend Sara. It's also available on the internet and I recommend you make time to make it now! It's the best, and that lemon glaze on the top is just yum! 

 The hits continue with Sesame Shrimp with Ginger Broccoli, a Cooking Light recipes. Short aside - did you hear last week that Cooking Light is getting folded into another magazine next year? I am so sad! We've found so many good recipes in that magazine. Ok, back to our dinner. The shrimp was great, and I could have eaten twice as much as I did! The broccoli would be okay...but I think I'd be just as happy to have regular broccoli with some seasoning. 

 In the "easy weeknight meals" category, we tried Chicken and Black Bean Tostadas from Mr. Food. I'd had tostadas at restaurants, but had never bought them for home. They turned out great and we all enjoyed them.  The things on the top that look like marshmallows in the picture are actually green onions! 

 Getting close to the end now - these last two recipes were from this past week. We tried the Frittata from Better Homes and Gardens and Mike added ham, cheese, and sauteed onions. It was delicious and also another quick, easy dinner for a busy night (we've had lots of those lately). 

 Last up, another recipe from Better Homes and Gardens, One Pot Spaghetti. You brown the meat, add everything to it, and cook it all in the same bowl. I wasn't sure how it would work, but it turned out pretty well. The only thing I didn't like as much is that there really wasn't any sauce, as it all got absorbed into the pasta and other ingredients. I think we'd be just as good to make up some good sauce, then add it to pasta as normal, but this was a good one to try. 

Whew, that was a lot of recipes - more than I thought I had! As you can still, we're still testing and trying and still finding some new gems and some good go-tos. Hope you've seen something you'd like to try!