Dinner Menu Week Thirty-Eight

Don’t be intimidated by all the seemingly long-titled dinner menu items this week. A lot of times those are actually the simplest meals to put together. For instance, there’s just no shorter way to say something like “Grilled Turkey Tenderloins, Caprese, and Baked Potato”, but it’s certainly much easier to make than Shrimp and Grits.

THIS IS HOW WE DO IT:

Grilled Turkey Tenderloins, Caprese, Baked Potato

Sometimes we just need to mix up the protein we’re eating, and turkey tenderloins are a tasty cost effective way to do that. We have about a million open bottles of bbq sauce left over from all the summer grilling, so we’ll marinate the tenderloins in all of them then grill them on the queue. We still have tomatoes coming out of our ears for the caprese. Remember to throw the potatoes in a 350 degree oven about 45 minutes before grilling the turkey. They’ll take at least an hour to cook.

Baked Salmon, Artichokes, and Risotto w/Hollandaise

We use our toaster oven for easy jobs like this. No sense heating up the entire oven for a couple little salmon fillets. Make sure to give a drizzle of olive oil, and a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 425 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Start to check for doneness after 10 minutes, but total cooking time will vary depending on how thick they are.

Here’s how to cook the perfect artichoke. Then we use either the frozen risotto or packaged kind (yeah, yeah, sodium… I know), and the pre-made hollandaise from Trader Joe’s. It’s truly the next best thing to making it from scratch.

Cheese and Charcuterie w/Fresh Beer Bread

Sometimes there’s nothing more satisfying than munching on a variety of cheeses and cured meats. It seems like we always have an excess hanging out in our fridge. This week we’re trying a beer bread mix and figured this would be the perfect pairing.

Nicoise Salad

Use the recipe in this post as the basis. If you have any salmon left over from the other night you can use that instead of tuna.

One Pan Roasted Balsamic Chicken and Veggies

Here’s the recipe.

Carrot Ginger Soup w/Grilled Pork, Brie and Apple Sandwich

Here’s the recipe.

Nacho Night

I don’t know why I’ve been in a nacho mode lately, I can’t get enough! It’s also a great way to use up any leftover meat (of any sort) that you have in your fridge. Follow these nacho basics and you’ll be eating dinner within 5 minutes.

See, I told you it wouldn’t be too scary!