Recipe Open Thread: Give Us Your Best Summer Recipes for Working Moms!
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When readers took the survey a while back, many of you noted that you wanted to see more recipes for working moms. Recipes aren’t really my forte (I cook a lot of the same, easy weeknight dinners on repeat) but we’ve started including recipes in our weekly news roundups. Today, let’s have a proper recipe open thread: Which are your best recipes right now, ladies? Which summer recipes work with your work schedule?
I always forget that I hate the oven in summertime, and every time the weather gets hot I’m left wracking my brain for new recipe ideas. We just made slow cooker Korean Tacos from this recipe on Hellobee (DELICIOUS! So happy we tried it!), and it’s definitely going into our summer rotation. The recipe calls for 8 hours on low, but you can easily add more time. (You can also start with frozen flank steak and/or try it with cauliflower rice — the dish pictured above has a mix of white rice and cauliflower rice, flank steak, cucumber slaw we made at the very last minute, and sriracha. YUM. Other summer recipes in heavy rotation now:
- Make your own pizza! The kids and Mr. G like Mama Mary’s premade crusts the best; I just tried Flatout Bread for a crust for me and it’s awesome. I haven’t yet managed to get my hands on any cauliflower pizza crust but I’m keeping my eyes peeled! Also: I put pepperoncinis on everything now because I’m a little obsessed. (Latest discovery: They’re great in omelets, too!)
- Salads with precooked, chilled quinoa: We got the idea from this recipe that started as a special treat for the holidays, but we now make it pretty much whenever we feel like it, thanks to the magic of jars of presliced kalamata olives and Hak’s lemon dressing. In any event, quinoa is a great way to add more texture and protein to salads.
Egg salad sandwiches made with packs of precooked, peeled hardboiled eggs –you can find these at every place from Trader Joe’s to Costco. The recipe we use is very similar to this one (except my recipe, from Weight Watchers, calls for 2 T. light mayo.) We add cayenne to taste, and I eat mine open-face.- Hummus pita sandwiches with pretty much just hummus for the kids, maybe a few carrot sticks thrown in for crunch.
- Crackers with cheese slices, Laughing Cow cheese, or (if it’s on hand), fancier cheeses like brie. (I know, super original.)
- We’re still perfecting our recipe for tequila lime chicken, but when I find a good one I’ll share.
Egg salad sandwiches made with packs of precooked, peeled hardboiled eggs –you can find these at every place from Trader Joe’s to Costco. The recipe we use is very similar to Readers, which are your favorite summer recipes — particularly those that work with your schedule as working moms? Have you tried any new recipes lately that you’re loving?
Psst: Check out our other posts on family meals and working parents!
Saffron and Sweet Peas has an amazing group of 7 chicken recipes which I freeze, buy frozen veggies that steam in the bag, and the microwaveable rice packets or use my InstantPot to make rice. Super easy and then only one dish to clean or you can do these in a slow cooker with a crockpot liner for no dishes. I usually buy a bag of chicken thighs from Costco and make enough to have two of these a week for a month since we only need a pound of chicken for our family of 3.
http://sweetpeasandsaffron.com/2017/02/7-chicken-marinade-recipes-freezer-friendly.html
In addition to all the stuff we do with instant pot shredded chicken i posted above, we make instant pot pulled pork as well. I season it following this recipe but cook it in the instant pot instead: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/slow-cooker-pulled-pork-sandwiches-recipe-2043419
We use it for pulled pork sandwiches, bbq quesadillas (with pulled pork and smoked gouda), and if there’s some left I’ll make bbq pulled pork mac and cheese.
We lucked out with a good eater so ymmv. Our 2 year old eats what we eat but usually deconstructed (ie tomatoes, cukes, chickpeas, and red onion from the salad but not lettuce that he still has trouble chewing, or pasta and sauce served separately, or meat, beans, vegetables and tortilla pieces separately instead of assembled into tacos. I make sure to serve at least 2 ingredients he likes and don’t make a fuss about what he leaves on his plate. He gets milk at every meal so I’m not worried about protein in the event he just eats the tortilla. (4 oz mixed with4 oz water for hydration for our reluctant water drinker who’d drink 100 oz of milk if we let him). Good protein sources he loves are eggs in any form, Kashi cereal, beans, meat/chicken/fish of any kind, nuts chopped up tiny, pesnut butter, yogurt. Could you add yogurt to food, like a sauce? We do a lot of middle eastern ish yogurt sauces (although he won’t touch h tahini anymore). Yogurt mixed with pb is also really good.
Variation on E’s question above re toddler eating – at what age did you start doing something resembling family dinner if you and spouse weren’t in that habit pre-kids? Was it an every night thing, or just a few nights a week?
My husband and I were both order-dinner-at-work types pre-baby, and never really ate proper meals together during the week. We both still mostly do our own thing for food in the evenings, and separately feed our 1.5 yo pasta or whatever he’s willing to eat when he gets home from daycare, but I feel like we’re past the point where we should be modeling a balanced, “real” meal all together. Kid’s weight is on target so not really worried about his intake so much as about exposing him to a variety of (semi-)healthy foods. Eating better ourselves wouldn’t be terrible either.
Trying to figure out how to ease into it – any suggestions appreciated!
A standalone comment now: the blog Dinner a Love story has a great recipe for shrimp and feta.
It’s fast, reasonably healthy, delicious, and doesn’t heat up the house. It’s basically a unicorn.
I hope this nests under E’s comment…
We have a 2.5 year old and we have been reliant on plain roasted chickens since she was under a year old.
She gets the protein and I don’t have to make a second meal for the adults, since we can use an Asian sauce or chimichurri or something else to make it more interesting.
I second the pasta con ceci!
Sure, it doesn’t scream summer, but it’s perfect for the night you come back fromvacationand don’t have anything in the fridge.
– Cook TJ gnocchi and chicken sausage in saucepan and serve with frozen veggies (my favorites are green beans and TJ grilled asparagus)
– Homemade hot pockets: Pillsbury crescent rolls filled with ham/turkey and cheese or BBQ pulled beef or pork (you can buy it already made in the refrigerated foods section)
– Marinate chicken with soy sauce, honey, ginger, and garlic and sauté; serve with jasmine rice and frozen stir fry veggies topped with sweet chili sauce
– Homemade pizzas (we buy personal pizza crusts near the pasta sauce); our favorites are meatball (sauce, frozen meatballs, and cheese) and BBQ chicken pizza (BBQ sauce, chicken, red onion, and cheese)
– Mexican turkey bowl – cook ground turkey with taco seasoning and stir in black beans; serve with rice, tomatoes, corn, avocado, onion and top with salsa/ranch dressing/sour cream
Really curious about what families with toddler are eating. Do you eat the same thing as your toddler or make two separate meals? We’re struggling with this now – trying to feed our 2yo the same thing we eat so he learns to appreciate vegetables, etc, but he’s falling behind on the growth curve. so now i want to pump him full of protein, but don’t want to be doomed to eat chicken nuggets for the next couple years. What do you guys do?
Not exactly a summer recipe, but we eat this once a week. It is SO GOOD and so easy https://food52.com/recipes/66790-victoria-granof-s-pasta-con-ceci
A super simple, super fast one: sushi sandwiches (aka pinwheel sandwiches). My kids are more interested in cooking now, so this is a favorite for them too.
Cut the crusts off a piece of bread
Use a mini rolling pin to flatten the bread
Spread toppings*
Roll up in a spiral
Cut into fourths
Serve
* The toppings are things like PBJ, ham and cheese, turkey and cream cheese, bacon and avocado, etc. The kids love to get creative with whatever they find in the fridge.
We do carnitas tacos a lot. I slow cook a pork tenderloin (pork shoulder tastes better, obviously, but trying to keep it healthy) with water, salt and pepper in the crockpot, maybe a beer if one is laying around. Shred it and I usually use 1/2 the meat for pulled pork (mix in BBQ sauce in the crock pot and let it simmer an extra 30 minutes on high, slap on buns, add coleslaw and good to go) and freeze half to use for tacos later (or the opposite). For the taco meat (and this does involve the oven briefly but it is so worth it), you put the shredded meat in a shallow pan, season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika to taste, and crisp in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes (tossing once or twice) until the meat is crispy. You could totally serve just rewarmed, seasoned shredded pork, but the oven is worth it to us. You could also probably use the broiler to shorten the time, but that’s how I set fires, so no broiler for me. For toppings, we saute peppers and onions on the stove, make guacamole (or you can buy it, but we are picky), and serve with cheese and sour cream and salsa, maybe some black beans if I have some handy. I’m slowly, slowly trying to train my husband on how to make proper guacamole. We’re getting closer except for last week when we (he) learned that unripe avocados are not mashable.
We also make a lot of use out of an indoor grill pan for hot dogs/cheeseburgers. I have a cast iron two burner grill/griddle combo, but if it’s just the three of us, the nonstick grill pan beats clean up any day. Sometime it’s just too hot to even grill outside.
I make a bunch of these on the grill and freeze any extra: http://www.marthastewart.com/1106712/red-bean-burgers-avocado-and-lime
Also this – my husband is allergic to nuts, so it was a brilliant discovery that we could make pesto with pepitas instead! http://cookieandkate.com/2016/zucchini-noodles-with-pesto-recipe/
Shaking Beef: http://www.skinnytaste.com/vietnamese-shaking-beef-bo-luc-lac/ We usually eat this over a salad of romaine and tomatoes. I combine the dipping sauce ingredients with the dressing ingredients and use that as the dressing.
Alton Brown’s skirt steak: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/skirt-steak-recipe-2014004 We just grill this on a very hot gas grill, we don’t mess with charcoal on weeknights.
The orzo salad recipe above reminds me I made a great Greek orzo salad last year, maybe this one?: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/mediterranean-orzo-salad/
And for nights when there’s no dinner plan and even picking up take out seems like too much, I keep a bag of scallops in the freezer, cook them in some olive oil with a squeeze of lemon or a handful of what ever herb is threatening to wilt to nothingness in the fridge, then throw the whole thing over some pasta. Defrosting the scallops takes 2 min under running cold water.
This is a new favorite in my house. I do the chicken in advance in my slow cooker or instapot, and have used different dried fruits (cherries, golden raisins, apricots). The resulting dish is great warm or cold.
https://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/chicken-couscous-with-dried-fruit.html