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Saturday, August 26, 2017

Weekend Cooking- Three New Winning Recipes

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads' Weekend Cooking.  If you have anything related to food, cookbook reviews, novel or non-fiction book reviews, recipes, movie reviews, etc., head over to Beth Fish Reads and add your post. Or, if you want to read food related posts, head over to read what some interesting people have to say about food.

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.

5 comments:

  1. Spatchcocked chicken is a winner on the grill too == because it's flattened it cooks more evenly than whole chicken. I use my knife and scissors and do the surgery in my own kitchen. A neighbor who is a real neurosurgeon watched me do it once -- I admitted that the chicken will never walk again.

    best... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

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  2. I love the idea for the zucchini boats and the pie sounds over the edge! I love watching shows on a flight!

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  3. I love spatchcocked chicken! I usually can get the Wegman's butcher to cut the backbone out for me, but we do it ourselves if we have to.

    That skillet apple pie recipe came just in time for apple season around here. Yum.

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  4. Great dishes! Have a great week. Cheers from Carole's Chatter

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  5. spatchcock chicken is a favourite in this house. Apple pie is a close 2nd. BUT my mum made the best apple pie and never taught me her secrets before getting ill so my preference is the memory instead of a disappointment. I know sounds silly I just don't eat it. Have a great week.

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