Making an Ordinary Family Meal Extraordinary
Happy feast of the Baptism of Our Lord! I don’t about you, but I’m going through a bit of liturgical withdrawal right now. Advent and Christmas are both so rich with meaning and feast days that our family celebrations came together almost effortlessly.
Note that I said almost.
Now we are returning to Ordinary Time and I’m looking for new and improved ways to bless our family. One of them, of course, is by putting healthy and delicious meals on the table. This is one of my favorite ways to tell them I love them!
My husband knows this and is very supportive of my culinary endeavors. His philosophy is, “Hey, if someone’s going to go to the trouble of cooking for me, I’m not going to complain about it!” There have only been a couple of times that he has voiced a negative opinion—so few times, in fact, that I remember them!
(Like the time I made what I thought would be a delicious sauce for the chicken—a seasoned béchamel full of coarsely chopped walnuts. My husband took one look and remarked, “Who threw up on the chicken?”)
(I was laughing too hard to be angry.)
(And besides, he was right.)
Well, I’ll tell you. Having been asked to review No Name Premium Meats and Seafood, I got try several of their products. They were, every last one of them, absolutely delicious.
Thumb’s up at every meal, and I’m not kidding.
In the photo at the top, I’d made their marinated tilapia fillets and wild rice meatballs. I made both entrées on account of the size of my family and there was plenty to go around. I served a salad of simple greens tossed with almonds and a pomegranate vinaigrette and voilà—yummy goodness that was so, so easy.
That is one of the best things about No Name’s products—they are all pre-seasoned, pre-marinated and individually wrapped, which takes the guesswork out of preparing them. Because they are premium meat, they can be a bit pricey; however, they come on sale quite often and are—in my humble opinion—well worth it.
(Note: You may want to use the No Name Store Locator to see if these products are in distribution near you. They are also available online but at an additional cost.)
Okay! Now for the fun part! No Name has offered up a great giveaway package for one reader: coupons for a free package of steak and chicken as well as $5 off of any additional product—a $40 (approximately) value.
To enter, leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite fast-and-easy side dish. (Mine is salad, using prewashed greens, with a simple vinagrette.)
If you would like to enter a second time, stop by No Name’s page on Facebook, tell them I sent you, and “like” their page. Then come back here and leave another comment.
Oh, and one last thing: I’ll leave comments open until Wednesday at midnight. That should give you enough time to enter…unless you’re like me and get distracted, thinking, “Now what am I going to make for supper?” (Another reason to enter the giveaway!)
That’s it! Thank you! I hope you win! ☺
Perfect Fingerling Potatoes!
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/perfect-fingerling-potatoes-recipe/index.html
What a good giveaway! I make broiled tomatoes a lot:
Slice tomatoes in 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices. Lay on a rimmed baking sheet or pan. Sprinkle tops with salt, pepper, garlic salt, dried or fresh basil (you can change up the herbs to compliment your other dishes). Sprinkle a thin layer of cheese on top (e.g. shredded parmesan, crumbled goat cheese, or mozzarella). Drizzle with a little olive oil and pop into the oven to broil for just a couple of minutes until the cheese begins to brown. Flavorful, and takes ten minutes start to finish to prepare and bake.
Summertime – steamed green bean right from the garden are my favorite side.
I'm horrible with side dishes, but we do like to roast potatoes, garlic, onions and peppers with lots of butter and sprinkled with Italian seasoning and Parmesian cheese.
God Bless,
I'm not sure if this counts as a "side" but I try to keep a container of fresh vegetable ready to go in the refrigerator. It makes packing healthy lunches easier when I ave carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, etc. cut and on hand. In a pinch this comes out for dinner as well. Especially if we're having a quick and easy supper (ie: grilled cheese and tomato soup) this veggie container helps balance out the meal.
The other quickie I do from time to time is brown minute rice cooked in broth instead of water.
Happy Monday from WI.
I like cook up plain white rice, and then add fresh cilantro and top it with a little olive oil. It goes great with chicken or steak.
Ann
My favorite side depends on the season. Fresh fruit salads or vegi salads are the favorites at our house.
Stacey
Ooh, what a wonderful giveaway. Thanks for the opportunity!
My go-to side is green beans. We always have a pantry full of home-canned green beans, and they cook up really quickly. So much tastier than what you can find in the store, too!
Well, it used to be frozen green beans pan fried with a tad of olive oil, garlic and chicken broth. My little guy is now allergic to beans though so I guess our go to quick side dish is now salad – which is good too.
Salad in the summer and broccoli in the winter.
My new favorite side dish is just slicing up carrots & parsnips, toss them w/ olive oil, salt, & pepper, then roast in the oven until tender. Simple & delicious.
Always a salad..(actually, always a glass of wine)
I am supposed to leave ONLY one favorite quick meal.
One of my favorites when we are at the end of the budget… and in a hurry… and needing comfort food – (homemade) pancakes and bacon! (Or waffles and bacon!)
Otherwise, I have some favorite quick throw together soups we all love, some more than others. One of the family's favorites is potatoes soup that takes a bit more prep than some of our others but very much worth it! YUM!
In the winter I like to make baked sweet potatoes with a little cinnamon, honey, butter and walnuts or pecans. Yummy! If I don't want them to be quite so sweet I roast them with a drizzle of olive oil and some salt & pepper.
Couscous! It's my go-to side dish for when I'm in a rush or have just plain forgotten to make one because it's so much quicker than rice.
garlic smashed potatoes!
Easy-easy-easy :-)…
Mmm, sounds good. For a super simple side, I just steam baby carrots (or else throw the bag of raw baby carrots on the table). I'm that good of a cook.
yummy red pototoes with garlic garlic (from tastefully simple) and olive oil. Can't go wrong with that!
Cucumber salad! Fresh cucumbers, sliced, water and white vinegar and a bit of sugar, and if you prefer you can add sliced onions. Sour cream can also be added to make it a creamy salad, or you can omit the sour cream and just have the veggies. Yum!
-MJ
We have lots of veggies as sides, also potatoes pre-cooked in the micro and then tossed with some olive oil and broasted in the oven–very tasty and fast. Thanks for the give-a-way!
Kelly
My whole family's favorite is what we call "cheesy noodles"…really Pasta Roni of various flavors.
I like to roast winter vegetables along with a chicken.
My favorite quick side dish is Glazed Baby Carrots. It's so simple! Cook a 1 lb. bag of baby carrots. Drain. Toss with 1 Tbsp. butter, 1 Tbsp. brown sugar and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon. That's it! The whole family loves it, and it easily doubles.
~Bridget
This is probably off topic, but is it me or is your youngest son an exact replica of your oldest son?
My kids are picky in terms of ways to eat their veggies, so we just cut them all up and eat them raw. Fast and easy!
Who does not love free meat?
Okay, my side dish is a bag of broccoli cut cole slaw style with some cole slaw dressing and some craisins.
My favorite is rice, cooked in chicken stock. Simple and delicious!
liked the FB page too!
This post is making me hungry! 🙂 My favorite side dish is roasted potatoes-cut up the potatoes, toss with olive oil and any array of herbs/spices, roast for about 20 minutes or until tender….. delicious!
Okay, you asked! Creamed spinach from America's Test Kitchen (the red cookbook with the cast iron skillet on the front). It's to die for and not that hard to make!!
Baked potatoes (Ummmm…because they are microwaved.) I'm such a bad cook. 🙂
If we're talking quick and easy–baked potatoes in the microwave.
However, one slightly less quick thing my family does (that my new husband loves) is to cook green beans in bacon…cut up 6-8 pieces of bacon, brown them in a skillet, and then chuck in 2 pounds of frozen green beans. I don't scale it down for my husband and me because we love it so much we happily eat up the leftovers.
We love stir-fried garlic green beans. Loads of garlic and a dash of salt and pepper. Yum!