Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

I feel like we have the same thing for dinner...

We rotate:

PorterHouse Steaks
Breaded Chicken Cutlets
London Broil (Marinated or unMarinated)
Fish Baked with tomatoes and Garlic
Broiled Salmon
Stir Fry either beef or chicken
Sauce with Meatballs
Baked Chicken

Vegetables are:

Steamed broccoli
Roasted Vegetables
Corn
Mashed or Baked potatoes

I can cook so sometimes I will make other things. But this is our general fare....

Inspire me...what are some of your "everday" dishes....

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

This week:
Monday - Baked French Toast (courtesy of this board!), Ambrosia, Turkey bacon.

Tonite - Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, Green beans. Beet Salad

Tomorrow: Fusilli with Chick peas and sausage, garlic bread, tossed salad

Thursday: Chicken Cutlets (dipped in dijon mustard, milk and egg - and coated in French's Fried Onions then baked), Asparagus with a lemon dill sauce, oven fries

Friday: Garlic Lime Shrimp Skewers, Lemon Rice Pilaf, Cucumber salad.

Saturday: BBQ Burgers/Dogs, Corn on the cob, Summer salad, Potato chips.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

Beans & Macaroni:
Sautee a head of garlic (sliced) in Olive Oil. Dump in 2 cans Cannelinni Beans. Season with Salt, Pepper, Parsley, Red Pepper Flakes.
Serve over Linguini. Serve with Salad and bread

Peas & Macaroni:
Sautee 1 onion (sliced) and 4 cloves garlic. Add 1 can Delmonte Tomato Sauce. Season with Salt, Pepper, Oregano, Basil & Parsley. Add 1/2 bad frozen peas. Serve over elbow macaroni

Pork Chops w/ Mushroom Gravy.
Sautee 1 onion & 1 container of mushrooms in olive oil. Add 2 cans of Cream of Mushroom Soup, 1/4 cup white wine --- season with salt & pepper. Served over Grilled Pork Chops.

Chicken Cordon Blu
Bread Chicken Cutlets
Wrap 1 slice virginia ham & 1 slice of swiss cheese (or mozzarella) - roll up. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350

Pepper Steak
Flour one package of stir fry beef pieces. Sautee beef until brown. Add 4 sliced bell pepper and 2 sliced onions and sautee until soft. Add 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1 can beef broth. add water if too thick. Simmer 20 minutes. Serve over rice


Chicken Portobello Sandwiches
Grill Chicken Breasts and whole portobello mushroom caps. When cooked, top with slice of mozzarella cheese and melt. Serve on a bun or italian bread

Message edited 6/16/2009 6:41:29 PM.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

part of your boredom may stem from constantly having a meat and seperate veggie / starch.

we have a fairly large repertoire... we seem to gravitate towards some meals and then move on to a different batch every few months. we also have a series of unusual ethnic foods we gravitate towards.... many dishes I made up....

some recent meals include:

vegetable and meat lasagna (has spinach, eggplant, mushrooms, onion, meatloaf meat sauteed with seasoning, fresh lasagne noodles, homemade sauce, and cheeses)

spicy chicken, veggie and bean enchiladas (chicken, pepper, onion, beans and pepper jack cheese with simple canned tomato sauce with smoked paprika, tons of cumin and corriander, garlic, and lots of cayenne) with spicy tomato rice and guacamole

chicken tenders in a lemon mushroom cream sauce with egg parpedelle

(iranian) lamb shanks with turmeric, cinnamon, allspice, garlic and onions with twice cooked rice with lentils, orange zest, dates, raisins and onion

baked chicken breast with buttered garlic bread crumbs and lemon and homemade creamed spinach and baked potatoes

spicy roasted tomato cream soup with cheese burgers

greek salad (not what you think... a true greek salad has no lettuce or vinegrette!: tomato wedges, thin sliced pepper, cucumber, and onion, feta, kalamata olives, olive oil and a healthy dose of dried oregano)

jamaican chicken curry with rice and peas

you get the idea... go ethnic... avoid the trap of seperate meat, starch, and veggie... use a lot of spice. we usually cook these complex meals in large batches, so we only cook every 2-3 days.

life is good when it's spicy

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

Tonight I made a variation of a Giada recipe. I made a salad with oranges, chick peas, hearts of palm, and grilled shrimp. I made a homemade lemon vinegarette.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

Posted by rojerono

Posted by wannabemom

(iranian) lamb shanks with turmeric, cinnamon, allspice, garlic and onions with twice cooked rice with lentils, orange zest, dates, raisins and onion

I NEEEEEEEED this recipe. Please.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

pasta with sausage and broccoli rabe

bratswurst/knackworst cooked in beer with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes

ravioli with fresh pasta sauce and shrimp

baked chicken with black beans and rice, avocado salad

beef tacos with soft tortillas

tortellini pasta salad with veggies and either chicken or shrimp

salmon teriyaki with bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, pineapples, tomatoes, and sometimes baby bok choi

homemade soups (french onion, chicken, corn & crab chowder, potato and salmon)

trying to think of more.


for side veggies, I do a lot of sauteed or roasted asparagus, sauteed green beans, roasted carrots, mushrooms, etc.

we also eat a lot of salad, which I try to mix up as well...with meat we eat it as a main and I serve with fresh french baguette...without meat I serve as a side.

grilled chicken cesar
cobb salad
chef salad (I do turkey, ham, and swiss slathered in dijon mustard, then I roll them up and slice them to place on top. love it)


further ETA: make your own spice rubs and keep them handy.

I make a bbq and a blackening spice rub and use them often. they kick up even the most mundane dinner.

Message edited 6/17/2009 12:47:04 PM.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

Last night I made Asain style shrimp and Thai Rice..

1/4 Cup of Italian Dressing
2 Tablespoons of Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons of Honey
1/4 teaspoon of ginger

Mix that up and saute shrimp in pan

I usually pair it with rice and put the extra sauce from the shrimp mixed in the rice..

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

Posted by BunnyWife

Posted by rojerono

Posted by wannabemom

(iranian) lamb shanks with turmeric, cinnamon, allspice, garlic and onions with twice cooked rice with lentils, orange zest, dates, raisins and onion

I NEEEEEEEED this recipe. Please.

Meeee toooo! We love Middle Eastern food

Message edited 6/17/2009 1:52:18 PM.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

I get into these ruts too. Something we tried and liked very much was take boneless center cut pork chops, dip in egg, and crushed corn flake crumbs, top with a generous amount of duck sauce and bake- also good on chicken cutlets, egg and bread chicken culets, stuff cutlets with a frozen veggie- arpagragus or broccoli and a slice of mozzarella and bake.
HTH
So far this week we had "homemade" chicken soup or as I also call cheaters chicken soup- take broth and add dill parsley, carrots, celery, parsnip, onion, and some chicken legs cook about 45 minutes on a slow boil, take out legs and debone, throw back in soup, add pastina or noodles, make matzoh balls- again use a mix. Cook till done.
Some things we make on a regular/rotating basis are
turkey meatballs and pasta, breakfast for dinner every few weeks, cassaroles, boneless turkey breast, turkey london broil, shrimp stir fry, takeout chinese food or heros or take out greek food, kielbasa, baked chicken parts.
ETA Salisbury steak- take burgers and cook in skillet, drain fat add brown gravy and cook till burgers are cooked all the way thru. Someone posted this on here awhile ago, and it was a great idea- thank you for whoever posted this, also crockpot sausage and peppers- someone else posted that on here too and it was so good. Thank you for whoever posted this too.

Message edited 6/18/2009 11:22:48 AM.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

Our additional "everyday" meals are...

taco salads (ckn or ground beef)
Chicken parm w/ spaghetti squash

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

Posted by wannabemom

Posted by BunnyWife

Posted by rojerono

Posted by wannabemom

(iranian) lamb shanks with turmeric, cinnamon, allspice, garlic and onions with twice cooked rice with lentils, orange zest, dates, raisins and onion

I NEEEEEEEED this recipe. Please.

Meeee toooo! We love Middle Eastern food

OK, well, the lamb shanks are super easy... but the rice, I won't lie, is rather difficult. Iranians have a particular technique to cooking basmati.... it required lessons from an old Iranian grandma for me to get it right. I'll try to describe it as best as I can:

Lamb:
get 2 fat lamb shanks (about 2 lbs each). Preheat oven to 400. Put meat on a foil-lined tray. Sprinkle turmeric, allspice, cinnamon (about 3/4 of a teaspoon of each spice) and some salt on each shank. Thinly slice a medium onion, and press 3 garlic cloves, and gently spread on top (trying to not disturb spices).
Tent with foil and bake until the meat literally falls off of the bone... times vary, but it's roughly 1.5-2 hours.

Now for the rice:

good rice (see below)
1 medium onion, sliced thin
1 can (roughly 12 oz) of lentils, rinsed
zest of 2 oranges
roughly a cup of raisins (I prefer french raisins becuase they're fatter :-P)
roughly 2 cups of pitted dates, cut into 1" pieces
1t allspice-ground
salt
about 1/4 t saffron-mashed in a small piece of saran wrap until it's powdered
lots of butter!

Got to an indian/middle eastern grocery store and buy 'aged basmati'. Basically, try to find the most expensive bag of rice. (should cost roughly $12) supermarket basmati is NOT the same thing.

I've been making iranian rice for well over a decade, so I've stopped measuring stuff... I'll try to describe the process. Basically, I scoop out roughly 4 cups of rice and put them in a pasta pot (8 liter). Before using 'real rice' (aka: packaged for asians, not americans ) you have to 'wash' the rice. this means adding roughly 1 liter of water, swirling the pot and rice with your hand, and discarding the water (w/o spilling the rice) about 10 times, or until the water is clear. This is what makes basmati 'fragrant'. Add about 2/3 pot of water and let sit for about an hour. Then add salt, heat up the pot until the water is boiling. Let the rice boil for about 2-5 min... just until the rice is almost 'al dente'. make sure you don't let it get too mushy. Drain in a collander.

In a frying pan, sautee onion in some butter. Add zest, dates and raisins. let cook until fragrant and raisins are softened (about 5 min).

Melt about 2T butter in the pasta pot. Take off of heat. Layer rice, lentils, date mixture, allspice and repeat so there's a 2nd layer of each. The pile of rice should not be compacted or pressed down. Then poke 4 holes with the back of a spoon and fill them with more butter. sprinkle the saffron in the middle and put a pat of butter on top of that. In the end, you're probably using the whole stick of butter.

Cover with a clean towel and then wedge the lid on. the rice should cook on LOW HEAT for roughly 25 min. Each stove is different. Be super careful, becuase the rice can burn and go nasty pretty fast. This is where experience unfortunately cannot be conveyed that well. If the rice is perfectly done, a gorgeous buttery golden rice crust will form at the bottom of the pot. If all he!! brakes loose, the crust will be nasty and burned, and the whole thing will smell . It's better to start on the lowest stove setting and take it off after 25 min... as you remake the dish, you can increase the heat slightly... ususally around 15% heat (#2 on a low 2-9 high scale) is perfect.

To serve, flake all of the meat off of the bone. Run cold water around the edges of the pot. Then remove the towel and lid. spred the saffron around the top of the rice... and grab a large tray. Invert the pot onto the tray. If all goes well, you'll have a golden dome of buttery crispy rice, with fruit and lentils mixed in. Arrange meat around edges and serve with an herby cucumber/tomato salad.

good luck to the adventurous cooks! This is definitely a challenging rice recipe If anyone tries it, please report back on how it went! Also, you probably can google persian rice and see pictures on how a proper rice looks. Ignore pics with flat bread or potato on the top of the rice... that's cheating

by the way, by far my favorite persian cookbook (this northern iranian recipe comes from this book):
new food for life

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

wow..these are all sooo yummy. my DH is the plainest pickiest eater EVER!! i swear, all i eat is pork, chicken and now that its warmer, steak on the grill.

he doesnt eat much pasta, no salads. he is so boring!!

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

This week I am making:

Kielbasa with kraut and pierogies (all packaged, nothing homemade - sorry grandma)

Chicken Tenders with dipping sauces (bbq, honey, sweet/sour), asparagas, roasted potatoes

London broil marinated in tereyaki sauce with broccoli and salad

and some type of fish.

Some of our other regulars are:
meatloaf, tacos, enchaladas, grilled or blackened pork cutlets, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken casserole, bbq pulled pork, roast beef, etc.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

Some things I made recently:

-chicken broccoli alfredo pasta
-baked macaroni & cheese w/ veggies
-breakfast for dinner----spinach cheese scrambled eggs, irish sausage & english muffins
-chicken cesar salad wraps (my husband toasted them on the grill.....yum!) w/ corn on the cob
-chicken quesidillas with homemade quac
-meat stuffed shells

Its soooo easy to get in a rut!

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

Message edited 6/21/2009 11:23:57 AM.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

BUFFALO CHICKEN BASEBALLS
Serves 4 –

2 cups cooked chicken
3 oz. light cream cheese
2 Tbls. Frank's Red Hot sauce
2 Tbls. Chopped onion -- I left out the onions
1 stalk celery, diced
2 Tbls. Light margarine – (Or you can used 2 tsps. olive oil instead)
salt and pepper to taste
1 container Light Crescent Rolls
Bread Crumbs – I didn’t use

Mix together until smooth the cream cheese, butter, onion, celery, hot sauce, salt and pepper. Add 2 cups cooked chicken and mix. Separate the crescent rolls into four rectangles, pressing the seams together. Put about ½ cup of the mixture in the center of each of the rectangles and fold the corners to the top to seal. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
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Spinach-Stuffed Chicken Breasts for Two

Ingredients
1/3 cup water
2 Tbsp. KRAFT SIGNATURE Roasted Red Pepper with Parmesan Dressing, divided
2 cups chopped fresh spinach leaves
2/3 cup dry STOVE TOP Stuffing Mix for Chicken
1 Tbsp. coarsely chopped roasted red peppers
2 small boneless skinless chicken breasts (1/2 lb./250 g), pounded to 1/4-inch thickness
1/4 cup KRAFT Mozzarella Shredded Cheese

Directions
PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Bring water and 1 Tbsp. of the dressing to boil in large skillet on medium-high heat. Stir in spinach, stuffing mix and peppers; cover. Remove from heat. Let stand 5 min. Set aside.

PLACE chicken, top-sides down, on large cutting board; spread evenly with stuffing mixture. Starting at one of the short ends, tightly roll up each chicken breast. Place, seam-sides down, in 8-inch square baking dish. Brush with remaining 1 Tbsp. dressing.

BAKE 35 min. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake an additional 5 min. or until cheese is melted and chicken is cooked through (170°F).
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Diet Coke Chicken

Ingredients
Skinless Boneless Chicken Breast
1/2 C. Ketchup
1 Can of Diet Coke
2 Shallots (optional)

Instructions
In crockpot place chicken pieces and cover with mixed together ketchup and diet coke. Simmer on low in crockpot for at least 4 hours. Can cook more on warm alternating to low for another 2 to 3 hours. If consistency is a little too runny, add a pinch of cornstarch to thicken. Shallots go in the last hour whole or halved to add a bit more flavor.

Take out and place over favorite brown rice and spoon some sauce or use as a side.
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Taco Rice Skillet Recipe

1 lb lean Ground Beef or Ground Turkey
1 cup Salsa
1 cup Instant brown rice
2 cups water
1 package taco seasoning
1 cup corn (Can be omitted)
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

Brown the ground beef in a large skillet (can add onions and peppers if you like) until no longer pink. Add remaining ingrediants. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. You can top with Cheddar Cheese, shredded lettuce or Sour Cream if you wish.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

Re: Im in a Dinner Rut...Give me your recipes.

I bought a pork tenderloin and bbq'd it last week. Served with green beans (w/breadcrumbs & pecorino cheese) and noodles & brown gravy. Delish. Changed it up a bit since we usually just have pork chops.