Continuing with consolidating all of my non-process weeknight treats into one post, here are some of the goodies I’ve put together from the Food Network Magazine “Weeknight Cooking” section.

I was fortunate enough to be able to cook five nights this week, though only four were Food Network recipes, the remaining night being this great #MeatlessMonday dish from BudgetBytes.

I’ve also been doing something a little different with my recipes:

Normally I go through my stash of Food Network magazines and build my weekly menu from the “Weeknight Cooking” section of each, make a quick grocery list and start knocking out some serious foodage during the week. In an attempt to make some room, though, I just started saving all of my favorite recipes in Food Network’s In the Kitchen app for iOS. That being said, I won’t be able to indicate which issue these came from anymore.

That was a lot of explanation for something no one will care about. On with the food!

Tuesday Night: Beef Taco Salad with Chunky Tomato Dressing
Recipe Here

E and I used to really like having a “Taco Night” (usually Fridays) where we would take some ground turkey and cook it with one of those 59¢ taco seasoning packets, some refried or black beans and Spanish rice. I would make myself burritos and I would stack hers atop tortilla chips and lettuce then a packet of Wholly Guacamole guac. This taco salad isn’t much different from what we made her only no pre-made mix was used and the beef was cooked with black beans. The “Chunky Tomato Dressing” was a simple mixture of diced tomatoes, EVOO, lime juice and salt + pepper but was a great way to add more healthy flavor to taco night. Maybe we’ll turn Tuesdays into taco night because #tacoTuesday just sounds more hip!

http://instagram.com/p/gooDBRL2a_/

Wednesday Night: Chicken, Sausage and Peppers + White Rice
Recipe Here

There’s a fairly funny story that goes along with this recipe that I’m not going to share in this particular post but know it involves me buying the wrong kind of pepper at the grocery and later finding out it was the hottest pepper I’ve ever eaten in my life. The rest of this recipe was filled out with onions, mild Italian turkey sausage, chicken and cherry tomatoes in a buttery sauce that also included white wine and chicken broth. By itself this is a low calorie meal but I didn’t think I would get far on the serving so I added the white rice which I boiled in chicken broth to support it. With the exception of the unknown pepper your humble narrator mistakenly picked out, this was an incredible meal, one that Erin said she could “eat every night.”

http://instagram.com/p/grOGg1L2e0/

Thursday Night: Lazy. Drive-thru. 50 points from Slytherin. Boo.

Friday Night: Soy-Glazed Salmon with Cucumber-Avocado Salad
Recipe Here

I didn’t photograph this one because I burned the sauce, used ugly salmon and used the full recipe (4 servings) for the salad when I only wanted 2 servings. My plate upon completion was full of green salad pieces and half-assed looking salmon but both tasted wonderful. I’m definitely going to give this another shot sometime and try to make it a little sexier because it’s really a good recipe.

Saturday doesn’t count (usually)

Sunday night: Steak Pizzaiola
Recipe Here

Boy the pressure was on with this one. I showed Erin the Food Network version of this recipe about 30 minutes before I started cooking it and she excitedly asked “Is THIS what you’re making!?” Confident mine wasn’t going to look anything like the beauty image FN used for the recipe, I swallowed hard and headed to the kitchen. This is a fairly simple recipe using common ingredients – nothing fancy like the pepper I tried to use earlier in the week – and came out phenomenally. I served this up with cornbread and served us each and split the steaks down the middle, which I think was more than the recipe called for, but I intend to use the remainder of the simple sauce as part of breakfast sometime this week. I went shopping late so I didn’t have access to sirloin steak like the recipe called for so I bought and trimmed some NY Strips that worked really well but I think I’d rather try a thicker steak since my strips came out medium at best. Either way, it’s beautiful!

http://instagram.com/p/g1ea3ar2Uf/

This is post 17 of my very first time participating in NaBloPoMo, a “Blog a Day” project for the month of November.

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