Weekend Cooking- Three New Winning Recipes

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I haven't been trying a lot of new recipes lately, which is pretty typical for me during the summer. It's too hot to cook, there's just the two of us for dinner, my husband has a lot of work dinners during the week: I've got a lot of excuses.

Recently though, I have tried three new recipes that warrant being added into the dinner rotation. Summer means lots more fresh fruits and vegetables, and I've been trying to incorporate more of that into our dinner routine.

When we had guests for dinner one night, I tried a new recipe- Italian Stuffed Zucchini Boats. It's a little time consuming and labor intensive for a summer dish, but it was worth the effort. You start by splitting zucchini lengthwise, hollowing out the zucchini and saving the scraped out insides.

While baking the zucchini for twenty minutes, you cook the scraped out inside of the zucchini, mixed with ground turkey, chopped mushrooms and onions in a skillet, add marinara sauce and simmer.

After twenty minutes, fill the zucchini boats with the turkey mixture, and bake for twenty more minutes, then top with mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese and panko bread crumbs and broil for a few minutes more. I found this recipe on Pinterest, from Valerie's Kitchen. 

It was very flavorful, and a great way to get someone to eat more vegetables. The whole crowd loved it, and I have made this several times this season. Pair it with a salad or fruit salad and it's a nice, light dinner.

Italian Stuffed Zucchini Boats from Valerie's Kitchen

I cook a lot of chicken, and this recipe from Jaques Pepin for Quick Roasted Chicken with Mustard and Garlic gave me a reason to visit Fleisher's Craft Butchery (which recently opened near us) to get a spatchcocked chicken, which is a whole chicken with the backbone removed and flattened.

It's a simple recipe, just mixing a few ingredients: garlic, Dijon mustard, tabasco, soy sauce, herbs de provence, and salt and spreading it on the chicken. You sear the chicken in a hot skillet for five minutes per side, then roast for 30 minutes in a 450 degree oven.

This was delicious, and really a simple, easy weeknight dinner, which Food & Wine magazine recommends pairing with mashed potatoes. We'll have this again.

Quick Roasted Chicken from Food & Wine

The last recipe I found while watching the Food Network on a JetBlue flight from Florida. (I always watch Food Network on the plane, never at home. I don't know why.) Trisha Yearwood was making a Skillet Apple Pie with Cinnamon Whipped Cream that I just knew my husband would love.

Skillet Apple Pie from Food Network

This one is a another super simple weeknight recipe. You mix melted butter and brown sugar in a cast iron skillet, top with a packaged pie crust (like Pillsbury), add two cans of apple pie filling and top with another pie crust, and sprinkle with a cinnamon sugar mix. Bake it in the oven, mix some whipping cream with a little sugar and cinnamon to top and you have an easy, tasty end to your meal. (You could also make your own apple pie filling if you have time, instead of using canned filling).

I was happy with all three of these recipes and will be making them again. Have you tried any recipes this summer? Let me know in comments.