Dinner Week #7 Italian Meat Two Ways

I couldn't decide between these two favorites for the final Dinner Week post but they are in the same family so I'm giving you both. The first is Italian Meatloaf and it's awesome, especially if you have a jarred or homemade marinara sauce you really love - it is both in and on the meat. My favorite is Trader Joe's Traditional Marinara. The second is also my favorite meal to bring people who are sick or have just had a baby - it is easy, hearty, portable, and pretty much everyone likes it: Meatball Sub Sandwiches. Yum.

How have you liked Dinner Week? Have you found anything new you want to try? What are your favorite go-to dinners? If you have a blog, consider doing your own Dinner Week. We all like seeing other people's tried-and-trues. If you don't, post your favs in the comments here. I would love to try them!

Italian Meatloaf
1 1/2 pounds 92% lean ground beef
1 cup fat-free tomato-basil pasta sauce, divided
1/2 cup Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs
1/2 cup (2 ounces) pre-shredded fresh Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 large egg whites
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350°.
Combine beef, 1/2 cup pasta sauce, and remaining ingredients except cooking spray in a large bowl. Shape beef mixture into an 8 x 4-inch loaf on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Brush remaining 1/2 cup pasta sauce over top of meat loaf. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a thermometer registers 160°. Let stand 10 minutes. Cut loaf into 12 slices.

Serve with: creamy mashed potatoes and fresh fruit.

Meatball Subs
1 bag frozen Italian-style meatballs (enough for 3-4 per person - I use turkey meatballs if I can find them)
About 16 oz. marinara sauce
Soft sub sandwich rolls from the grocery store bakery - enough for at least 1 per person
Sliced provolone cheese

The meatballs are precooked so all you have to do is warm them up in the sauce. Pour meatballs and marinara sauce into a pot and warm over medium-low to medium heat until warmed through, according to package directions.

Lay 1 to 2 slices provolone cheese in each roll. Spoon meatballs and sauce into the rolls and serve.

*Our girls like these sandwiches deconstructed. They eat the rolls like bread, and we cut the meatballs into quarters and stick toothpicks in them. They dip them in the sauce and eat like hors d'ouvres. Wow, I think I spelled that right.

Serve with: green salad and lemonade

Dinner Week #6 Pasta con Ceci Soup

Once in awhile we roast a chicken for dinner. Whenever we do, you know we will be having this soup later in the week. I boil all the bones with a quartered onion and a few broken celery stalks, with enough water to cover them all, for a few hours to make some stock. Strain it all into a bowl through a strainer and I usually have 4 to 6 cups - I use it in this recipe, adding water or canned broth to make up any difference. Then at the end of the recipe I also add in any leftover chicken meat, chopped or shredded, to make it even more hearty.

However. The recipe is originally vegetarian. So you can easily use vegetable broth and no meat. And as you know, soup is always open for improvisation so add or remove whatever to suit your taste. But if you follow this recipe to the T, you will have a hearty, healthy and astoundingly delicious dinner. For the record, both girls love this.

Pasta con Ceci Soup
2 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, sliced
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
1 (14 oz.) can crushed tomatoes
4 cups (2 cans) vegetable or chicken broth
2 cups water
1 (15 oz.) can garbanzo beans with liquid
1 cup dry small pasta, like macaroni
1 tsp salt
1 T fresh or 1 tsp dried rosemary
1 T fresh or 1 tsp dried basil
4 cups fresh spinach leaves (I use baby)
Grated Romano or Parmesan cheese
Leftover cooked chicken, optional

1. In a saucepan, heat the oil. Add onion, celery, and carrot; saute 2 to 3 minutes until tender. Add garlic and red pepper. Cook 1 minute.

2. Add tomatoes, broth and water; cover and simmer 10 minutes.

3. Add beans, pasta and salt. Cook another 10 minutes until pasta is cooked.

4. Stir in herbs and spinach (and chicken if using). Serve with grated cheese on top.

Serve with: Parmesan Herb Bread and Orange Julius

Orange Julius
12 oz. frozen orange juice concentrate
2 cups water
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
12 to 16 ice cubes

Pour all ingredients, except ice, in a blender. Blend, adding ice cubes one at a time, until smooth. Makes 4 servings

Dinner Week #5 Red Lentil Rice Cakes with Simple Tomato Salsa

Let it not be said we eat red meat every night! After yesterday's amazing pot roast, today I give you one of our favorite vegetarian dishes. It came from Cooking Light a few years ago and we just love it. The flavors are unexpected and not easily attributed to any one style or ethnic origin. Just good, really good. Also makes super lunch leftovers.

Red Lentil Rice Cakes with Simple Tomato Salsa
Salsa:
3 cups finely chopped plum tomatoes (about 6)
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1 T balsamic vinegar
2 tsp capers
1/4 tsp salt

Cakes:
1 cup dried small red lentils
1 1/2 cups cooked basmati rice (from about 1/2 cup uncooked), cooled at least 10 minutes
2 T olive oil, divided
1/2 cup finely chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
1/2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
2 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
1 T chopped fresh basil
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 large egg whites, lightly beaten

1. To prepare cakes, bring 4 cups water and lentils to a boil in a medium saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer until tender. The original recipes says 15-20 minutes but it's much less. Start checking it around 7 minutes and remove from heat when tender. Drain and rinse with cold water; drain. Place lentils in a large bowl and add the cooked and cooled rice.

2. While lentils cook, prepare the salsa. Combine tomatoes, basil, vinegar, capers and salt; set aside at room temperature.

3. Heat 1 tsp oil in a large nonstick skillet over med-high heat. Add bell pepper, onion, fennel seeds and garlic to pan; saute 2 minutes or until tender. Cool 10 minutes. Add to rice-lentil mixture. Add mozzarella cheese and remaining ingredients, stirring until well combined. Let stand for 10 minutes.

4. Wipe skillet clean with paper towels. Heat 2 tsp olive oil in skillet over medium heat. Spoon half of rice mixture by 1/3-cupfuls into pan, spreading to form six 3-inch circles; cook 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Carefully turn cakes over using heatproof rubber spatula; cook 5 minutes on other side. Remove cakes from pan. Repeat procedure with remaining 1 T olive oil and remaining rice mixture. Makes 4 to 6 servings

Serve with: Simple Tomato Salsa and Yeasted Lemon Poppyseed Bread

Dinner Week #4 My Favorite Pot Roast

Just to let you know, this one is not a 30-minute meal. For planning purposes it takes about 3 hours total but that's not all hands-on time. Just thinking about this makes my tummy grumble and the saliva flow. Why am I not making it tonight? It is SO fabulous.

If you don't want to cook with wine just add extra beef broth. Doesn't bother me, though. It lends a complex but very subtle flavor to the dish that I love. When you season the meat in step 2, improvise beyond salt-and-pepper with whatever you like. I usually rub it with Penzeys' Beef Roast Seasoning.

Kari's Favorite Pot Roast
1 tsp olive oil
1 (3 lb.) boneless chuck roast, trimmed
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 cups coarsely chopped onion (about 2 to 3)
1 cup dry red wine
4 thyme sprigs
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (14 oz.) can fat-free, less-sodium beef broth
1 bay leaf
4 large carrots, peeled and cut diagonally into 1-inch pieces
2 lbs. Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven ove med-high heat. Sprinkle roast with salt and pepper and any other seasonings you like. Add roast to pan; cook 5 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Remove roast from pan. Add onion to pan; saute 8 minutes or until tender.

3. Return browned roast to pot. Add the red wine, thyme sprigs, chopped garlic, beef broth and bay leaf to pan; bring to a simmer. Cover pan and roast for 1 1/2 hours or until the roast is almost tender.

4. Add carrots and potatoes to pan. Cover and cook an additional 1 hour or until vegetables are tender. Remove thyme sprigs and bay leave from pan; discard. Shred meat with 2 forks. Serve roast with vegetable mixture and cooking liquid. Garnish with thyme leaves, if desires. Makes about 6 to 8 servings.

Serve with: green salad. You don't need much beyond this main dish. My favorite easy green salad is lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, Craisins, spiced pecans and feta cheese. We don't care much for tomatoes.

Dinner Week #3 Ramen Two Ways

Okay, I have two good recipes that use ramen noodles and the reason I am posting them together is that they are actually complimentary. One uses two packs of noodles and one seasoning packet; the other uses one pack of noodles and two seasoning packets. 'Cause, you know, ramen is expensive and you don't want to be wasting any.

Asian Beef Noodles
*Have everything prepped and ready to go before you start. This cooks in seriously like 5 minutes.
1 (8 oz.) rib-eye steak
1 tsp dark sesame oil, divided
1 cup green onions in 1-inch slices
2 cups packaged cabbage-and-carrot slaw
2 pkgs oriental ramen soup
1 1/2 cups water
1 T soy sauce

Cut steak diagonally across the grain into thin slices. Heat 1/2 tsp oil in a large nonstick skillet over med-high heat. Add steak and green onions; stir fry 1 minute. Remove and keep warm. It's okay if the steak is barely cooked - I promise it will get done later. Heat remaining 1/2 tsp oil ove med-high heat. Add slaw; stir-fry 30 seconds. Remove and keep warm.

Remove noodles from packages; reserve 1 seasoning packet for another use (like Chinese Chicken Salad below.) Add water and remaining seasoning packet to skillet; bring to boil. Break noodles in half; add to water mixture. Cook 2 minutes or until most of liquid is absorbed, stirring frequently. Stir in steak mixture, slaw and soy sauce; cook until thoroughly heated. Careful - the steak and noodles easily overcook! Makes 2-2 cup servings.

Serve with: mandarin oranges.

Chinese Chicken Salad
1 bag cabbage or cabbage-and-carrot cole slaw
1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
About 2 to 3 cups shredded chicken (I use most of a rotisserie chicken; you can also use canned)
3 to 4 tsp toasted sesame seeds
1 small bag slivered almonds, toasted
1 pkg oriental ramen noodles, crunched up
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 1/2 T sugar
3 T red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 pkgs oriental flavor ramen noodle seasoning packets

Make the dressing first, early in the day if possible. In a jar with a lid combine the last 6 ingredients (vegetable oil through seasoning packets.) Shake to combine and refrigerate. The longer it sits, the better it tastes. Adjust sugar, vinegar and salt to your taste if you like.

Mix slaw, onions, chicken, sesame seeds and almonds. Pour dressing over all and toss. Sprinkle with noodles and serve immediately. Makes at least 4 servings

For fun, serve in lettuce wraps or eat with chopsticks and good luck with that.
Serve fresh fruit on the side, like watermelon, pineapple or mango. If nothing good is in season, make a Jello salad- my fav is some red sugar-free Jello with frozen raspberries, mandarin oranges and bananas mixed in. Marshmallows on top, natch.

Dinner Week #2 Skinny Joes

We just call them Skinny because we use ground turkey instead of beef but you could use either. It's strange, Sloppy Joes is a very common kid-friendly dish but I had never made them nor thought of them until I came across the recipe in The Best 30-Minute Recipe. They just sounded good so I gave them a try.

Ed and I love them. But the kicker is, SO DOES GINGER. And it is a miracle and a delight to see her get excited about anything besides Jello. She even wants the leftovers for lunch the next day. Unprecedented! Hazel, our eat-anything-girl, for some reason does not care for these but once in awhile that's just tough. She can eat the bun.

Skinny Joes
2 T vegetable oil
1 onion, minced
1/2 tsp chili powder
Salt
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 lb. ground turkey or lean ground beef (if my turkey comes in a 20 oz. package I use the whole thing)
1 cup tomator puree (I use tomato sauce)
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup water
1 tsp brown sugar
Tabasco sauce
Hamburger buns (I like Arnold's whole wheat sandwich rolls)

1. Saute Aromatics: Heat oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Add onion, chili powder and 1/2 tsp salt and cook until onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic, and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

2. Cook Meat: Add turkey/beef and cook, breaking up meat with a wooden spoon, until almost cooked through, but still slightly pink, about 3 minutes.

3. Simmer Sauce: Stir in tomato puree, ketchup, water, brown sugar and 1/4 tsp Tabasco. Simmer until sauce is slightly thicker than ketchup, 8 to 10 minutes.

4. Season and Assemble: Season with salt and Tabasco to taste. Spoon meat mixture onto hamburger buns and serve. Makes about 4 servings but 5 or 6 if you use a little more meat.

Serve with: pickles, your favorite chips, and strawberry-kiwi-banana fruit salad

Dinner Week #1 Black Bean & Avocado Salad

A few weeks ago my friend did a recipe week on her blog. Each day she posted one or two recipes that are her go-to dinners. We all have our favorite recipes that are easy, and awesome, and that we know our families will eat (for the most part.) But until I read Lindsay's Recipe Week, I guess I assumed everyone had the same ones as me. Not so. Every single thing she posted was new to my rotation and offered a welcome reprieve from our same old dinner rut.

So as I sat the next Tuesday night, painfully trying to put together a menu and shopping list for the week, I realized that although I don't think twice about my standby's, they might be new to someone else. Someone like you. I immediately listed 15 off the top of my head, so proud of that, and then edited for variety to give you 7 days of maybe-different-than-you-always-make dinners. Fall always seems to bring tight scheduling, so it might be nice to have at least one week of meal planning done for you! A short word on that (meal planning). I've visited this before, but I know you don't want to go back in the archives. Here is how I kind of do it:

• I keep a file folder of all the scribbled weekly meal plans I've made over the last two years or so, so I often turn to that for ideas. The recipes you'll get this week feature often on those papers.


• I also usually try to do one slow cooker dish a week. I have a binder of crockpot recipes that I collect from everywhere - magazines, online, friends, cookbooks. Believe it or not, I have been trying new ones ever since Slow Cooker Week two years ago, and still don't have enough good ones for another Slow Cooker Week. But I keep at it. Once in awhile there is a gem. When I get seven, I'll let you know.


• One night is always leftovers. If there are no leftovers in the house, which is rare, it is hot dogs or pancakes or grilled cheese or whatever else can be thrown together.


• I subscribe to a few cooking magazines. When they come, I flip through and tear out recipes I like. Then I file them in a hanging file box. It's more fun to go through the file box than a cookbook because I already know I like every recipe.


• Spaghetti or pancakes every Monday night. On paper plates. Or else we would never have Family Home Evening.


• Finally, I have a new favorite cookbook - America's Test Kitchen's The Best 30-Minute Recipes. These guys make great magazines and great cookbooks and I have had a lot of success with this one, though I've only had it a few months. So I often pull one or two recipes from there. The ingredients are generally simple, they do not take long to make, and so far they've all turned out well.

I am starting the week with one of my newest favorite recipes that I CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF this summer. My friend Ashley brought it to an end-of-year thing for our Peewee group and I wanted to eat the whole bowl. Since then I have made it at least five times. Ed and I eat it with Scoops chips for dinner and that's it. And it's totally healthy. Unless you eat it with a whole bag of chips. Which we do because it's sooo good. The girls will eat a little but the flavors are a bit mature for their taste. All the more for us.

Ashley's Black Bean & Avocado Salad
1 (15 oz.) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15 oz.) can corn, drained
1 red pepper, minced
1/2 red onion, minced
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp ground cumin
Dash cayenne pepper
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/8 cup olive oil
2 avocados, cubed
Salt and black pepper to taste

Combine first 8 ingredients (black beans through cumin) in a large bowl. In a small lidded container shake lime juice and olive oil until blended; pour over salad. Add avocados, salt and pepper just before serving and toss gently with clean hands. Serve with tortilla chips and some awesome drink, like Coconut Lime Chiller.

Coconut Lime Chiller
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup lime sherbet
1/4 cup frozen limeade concentrate (not thawed or diluted)
Lime slices and/or mint, optional
Place milk, sherbet and concentrate in a blender; blend until smooth. Pour into frosted glasses; garnish with lime slices or mint. Makes two servings.