Weekend Cooking- Two Weeknight Recipes

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It's always a chore to find recipes that I can make on weeknights when I work. This week I made a quick 20 minute lamb chop dinner and a slow cooker beef stroganoff. Two different methods that resulted in two terrific meals.

One of the perks of working at the Book Cellar is that I stock the $1 non-fiction shelf and when the cookbooks get moved there, I often find an interesting new one. (And I mean, how can you go wrong for a $1? You can't even buy a candy bar for a $1 anymore.)

I picked up Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast Weeknight Meals which promises 5 ingredient, 15 minute recipes, perfect for whipping up on a weeknight after work.  The first recipe I made was Lamb Chops with Minted Yogurt Sauce. It was so easy and delicious! I don't make lamb too often, so this was a real treat. I will be making this again very soon.

They paired the chops with a Couscous Salad and since I had a box of Near East Roasted Garlic and Olive Oil Couscous in the pantry, I just cooked the couscous according to the directions on the box and added 3/4 cup chopped plum tomatoes, 1/3 cup minced fresh mint,  2 Tbsp. lemon juice and 1 Tbsp. olive oil like the recipe called for. I don't use mint too often, but it really brightened up the couscous and didn't overpower it at all.

Lamb Chops with Minted Yogurt Sauce
1/2 cup plain fat-free yogurt
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh mint
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp. salt, divided
1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper, divided
8 (4-oz) lamb loin chops, trimmed
Cooking spray

Prepare grill. Combine yogurt and next three ingredients. Stir in 1/8 tsp. salt and 1/8 tsp. pepper. Chill.
Sprinkle lamb evenly with remaining 3/8 tsp. each salt and pepper. Place lamb on grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 3 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness. Serve with yogurt sauce and couscous.

Lamb Chops with Minted Yogurt Sauce- photo from book

On another day I had to work, I pulled out the slow cooker and made a new recipe I found on Pinterest- No-Canned Soup Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff. I don't like using canned soup in recipes, so this one appealed to me. I had most of the ingredients, I just needed to get the stew beef. The recipe came from Going Reno, and it can be found here.

My slow cooker has a saute feature, so I browned the stew beef, took that out of the cooker, then added thinly sliced onion and sliced mushrooms to brown for a few minutes. After adding a few tablespoons of red wine to deglaze the pot, you toss the beef back in with the onions and mushrooms and add a cup of beef broth. I set the timer and went to work.

Six hours later, I returned and mixed together sour cream, dijon mustard, paprika, bits of cream cheese and added that to the slow cooker for another 20 minutes. And while that finished up, I boiled the egg noodles. I did add some corn starch mixed with water to the beef sauce to thicken it up, and that worked just fine.

The stroganoff was fantastic, and the addition of dijon mustard and paprika gave the sauce a nice little kick. This is a perfect fall weather dinner and we had enough left over for the next night, which I may put over polenta or mashed potatoes to change it up.

What are your favorite weeknight recipes? Share them in comments.