This Week for Dinner: featured recipes Archives (2024)

I have been meaning to share this Ancho BBQ Sloppy Joe recipe forages.Then yesterday, Nate was clicking around Instagram and I could hear Adam Sandler and Chris Farley serenading us. It’s a sign. It’s time for Sloppy Joe.

This recipe for Ancho BBQ Sloppy Joe was one of the recipes that I adopted back from when we were ordering meal kits from Hello Fresh on a regular basis. My kids had never had Sloppy Joe sandwiches before – despite the fact that Manwich was my favorite meal in first grade, I somehow didn’t continue with cooking this food into adulthood. When this particular recipe turned up in our Hello Fresh box, I was unsure the kids would go for it. In the end the kids, Nate and I all loved this dinner and now the recipe is part of our rotation, even without getting the Hello Fresh kits.

Not only is this recipe delicious, it is easy to throw together without any fancy ingredients. And now for the Ancho BBQ Sloppy Joes…

My parents live near a Barons Market and they carry fantastic soups. Walk anywhere within a quarter mile of any Barons and people on the street will stop to tell you how good the Barons soups are, especially the clam chowder. (I am only exaggerating a little bit here.) One of our favorites is the white chicken chili and, since we don’t have immediate access to a Barons or unlimited funds, I decided I needed to figure out how to make it. I did some research on their soup as well as several recipes and settled on a winner from Taste of Home, with a few modifications.

I love this recipe. It is easy to throw together (hardly any chopping or dishes!) and it tastes awesome with toppings like sour cream, cilantro, lime and avocado. You could probably even throw some tortilla strips on there and be soup-er happy! (sorrynotsorry) Bonus, the soup is creamy and still gluten free. The mashed beans give it a cozy, chowder-like texture and the chicken cooks nice and tender.

This is one of our family’s favorite dinners now. Apologies for the sub-par photography…my “real” camera’s battery was dead and I had to get a picture of the last available bowl in daylight before anyone ate it. The only reason, in fact, that I haven’t posted the recipe before now is because I could never get a photo in daylight because it always gets eaten up!

This winter has been kind of insane. From our family in New England experiencing colder-than-the-North-Pole temperatures to rain deluges in California, I think we’re all just holding on for dear life (as well as ski poles). While extreme weather is no bueno, I do love winter and colder weather. Especially when it comes to cooking. And what is one of the coziest foods out there? Butternut squash. Truly one of my favorite vegetables, I’ll take it in any form and, if it’s on a menu, I’m ordering it.

Case in point: I once had a butternut squash dish at a restaurant in San Francisco that was simply prepared in brown butter. The squash was divine and one I will never forget. As I was thinking of ways to use squash other than soup, that dish came to mind and it seemed like the perfect springboard for gnocchi. Gnocchi just goes with the richness of brown butter and squash.

This brown butter gnocchi would make for a delicious side dish or a full vegetarian meal. The best part is you only need one skillet to cook the entire thing. It really is quick and easy to prepare – you’ll have dinner on the table in less than 30 minutes. Bonus: your house will smell like heaven!

And, in case you’re wondering, my kids enjoyed this gnocchi recipe as much as we did.

Quick question before I hand over the recipe: Does anyone have a good brand for gluten-free gnocchi that you like? Or a recipe that is good? Please share in the comments, I’m desperate to enjoy this once again with the rest of my family. Thank you!

This Week for Dinner is officially FIFTEEN YEARS OLD. Happy 15th birthday, Blog! To celebrate I have a gift for you all: Gram Maynard’s Homemade Hot Fudge Recipe. This recipe was a big part of the beginning of this journey…

When I started the blog 15 years ago, I only had one child, blogs weren’t a thing, and I had an old iMac Nate found at work to use in the kitchen (I truly had no idea why I would use a computer in the kitchen). My good camera was a film camera, so I used a point-and-shoot digital camera for the blog (please do not judge the early photography on the blog, it’s mortifying). The blog began with a list of dinners I made on a regular basis and a few weekly menus to share with my brother, who was still in college.

Then I noticed a curious thing – people were actually visiting the blog. I decided to design a logo, spruced up my free Blogger blog, and asked friends to share the link with other friends. I promised those who shared a copy of Gram Maynard’s homemade hot fudge recipe. They were asked to not publish the recipe anywhere. It was our little secret.

Fast forward to today. I have three children (the youngest of which is TEN), I’m a professional food writer and photographer, I am now an excellent recipe writer, I received all kinds of work over the years through the blog, I met all kinds of people and had crazyamazing experiences, I started a podcast, and I am still posting my weekly dinner menu. Most importantly, you are still here sharing your menus and cooking right alongside with me. I’ve experienced ups and downs personally and, through it all, my family still had to eat. I may not have always been cooking because, well, life. But every week the community on this blog kept the food game going. I have been oh so grateful.

So…thank you. And to show my thanks, I am finally publicly sharing Gram’s homemade hot fudge recipe! She was such a giver, it’s what she would have wanted anyway. To be honest, it’s good for you I waited 15 years because it’s writtenmuch better than it was back when I was secretly emailing it to friends.

Funny enough, I cannot find my DSLR camera charger, so today’s photographs are done with the modern version of a point-and-shoot, my iPhone. I will probably come back and reshoot this recipe once that damn battery is charged because, man, there’s nothing like areal camera.

While today is a celebration of 15 years as well as decadent chocolate, I am of course posting my weekly menu! You know the drill…share your menu in the comments below!

A note on this recipe: Gram had a few “ors” throughout the recipe, where you could kind of choose which ingredients you wanted to use. I have settled on my choice of ingredients and am sharing my version of the recipe. Also, the heating instructions in the recipe are important for texture, so take your time and follow the directions. This truly is my favorite hot fudge sauce ever. Nothing else ever compares. (Thank you, Gram. I miss you every day.)

MONDAY:

• Naan Pizza

TUESDAY:

• Indian Butter Chicken
• Roasted cauliflower
• Lentils

WEDNESDAY:

• Rigatoni with Italian Sausage in a Creamy Tomato Sauce

THURSDAY:

• Leftovers

FRIDAY:

• Rachel Sandwiches

SATURDAY:

• Takeout night

SUNDAY:

• Super Bowl Sunday! Menu TBD with our friends and family, but for sure we will have Mexican 7-Layer Dip, Buffalo Chicken and Sweet Chex Mix

Looking forward to seeing your dinner plans for the week! As always, thank you for sharing and for being here!

Limpa is a bread that my family has loved and enjoyed for generations. Swedish limpa bread is a rye bread but before you say “I don’t like pumpernickel” hear me out. (And if you do like pumpernickel, you’ll be especially delighted). While this limpa bread recipes are made with rye flour, limpa has a different, more subtle taste than most rye breads . The texture and flavor are a bit lighter and there is a nice sweetness to the bread. I love limpa with a nice thick layer of cold butter, but topping with havarti cheese is another family favorite. Limpa is also lovely as toast and even good for sandwiches with meats and cheeses! If you like baking, I definitely recommend giving this limpa bread recipe a go!

Our family was able to find limpa at bakeries for many years, but as time has passed and we have all moved to new places, it is increasingly difficult to find limpa. My sister-in-law did the heavy lifting and found a great limpa bread recipe that has finally taken away the family’s sadness around not find a bakery that makes good limpa! This limpa bread recipe is the winner! You can click here to access the original recipe that my Cora found. I have re-written it below with more details around preparation, including substitution information, and have added it here to the blog so I don’t lose it!

I made this limpa bread recipe last Christmas for the first time myself and it came out beautifully. It was also the first time that Owen (9 at the time) had ever eaten limpa. He took his first bite and declared that his tastebuds were in heaven. I will be making limpa again this week for our family’s Midsummer celebration, a Swedish tradition held during summer solstice. Enjoy!

And in case you are wondering, yes, I am still allergic to wheat. And yes, this week I am going to try making a GF version so I don’t have to be tortured watching everyone else eat wonderful, delicious, beautiful limpa. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Years ago I wrote a series for Disney’s website Babble: 3 Kids, a Mom & a Kitchen. Babble has since been closed down and the posts are no longer online, so I have decided to sharing my favorites here on my website! This is a recipe that one of my readers Kelly said had become a favorite in their family but she could not find it online anymore. This one’s for you, Kelly! And thanks for reminding me to start sharing these great kid-friendly recipes once again!

For this month’s cooking project, I decided to teach my kids how to make risotto. When I told them, they were pumped! And, as it turns out, theyhad never triedrisotto before, so it was really coolteaching them something totally new in the kitchen.

Risotto seems like an intimidating meal to make to a lot of people, but it’s actually quite simple. It just takes a little time and care to prepare,and, as I just discovered, is actually a great dish to make with kids!

Choosing the Recipe

I love risotto but hardly ever make it at home. I hoped that if my kids learned how to do it, we’d be more likely to include it in our menu in the future. It’s also a pretty basic recipe that I would love my kids to have in their kitchen “toolbox” when they leave home one day.

Rankings

This recipe was a big winner in the “cooking with kids” department! They had a lot of fun making it and thought the risotto was delicious. When I asked if the recipe was hard, Anna and Cate confidently declared that it was not at all.

Steps Where Kids Can Get Involved

This recipe takes about 40 minutes of hands-on cooking time. The three kids rotated in and out of the process, which worked really well. No one got bored and there was plenty for them to do whenever they wanted to participate.

• Grating the cheese: Owen, my 3-year-old, did some of the grating and when he got bored Anna, my 7-year-old, finished it up.
• Chopping add-ins: Cate is 10 years old, so she was able to help chop the prosciutto and cook the asparagus. It was good practice for her to work on her knife skills.
• Stirring Galore: There is so much stirring in this recipe, which is my kids’ favorite thing to do when cooking. Actually, there is so much stirring they got tired of it — something I never thought could happen! The girls also loved pouring the ladles of broth into the rice.
• The Tasting

Usually our recipe tastings don’t stress me out, but this one had me on my toes. After all, the final productwas dinner —if the kids didn’t like it, I didn’t know what we were going to eat that night! Thankfully all three kids enjoyed the risotto and Anna even declared it her second favorite food ever, second only to boxed long grain and wild rice mixes.

The Recipe

I usedThe Kitchn’s tutorialfor homemade risotto as a guide and made adjustments to the recipe where necessary. I talked to the kids about how risotto is a great blank canvas for all kinds of flavors and add-ins, especially depending on the season. For example, in the fall I sometimes make Butternut Squash Risotto. Since it’s spring, we all decided to go with asparagus, which is in abundance right now. Prosciutto and asparagus are pretty much made for each other, so we had to throw some prosciutto in, too!

Today I am awake before the rest of the family so I can make sugar cookie dough. The kids have a gingerbread house decorating station set up on the dining room table and it seems a shame to just clean it up since it could so easily be converted into a cookie decorating station. So, time to bake!

Every year when I go to find my favorite sugar cookie recipe on AllRecipes, it takes me a good five minutes of searching and ultimately panicking before I find the recipe. I am putting an end to the panic right now. This blog is my recipe box and it is time to add this recipe card. This is not my recipe and I literally follow it to a T every year. The recipe is perfect. So, I am giving all the credit to “J. Saunders” on AllRecipes. However, it is time I posted this recipe here on the blog to prevent future heart attacks!

Also, if you want a good chocolate sugar cookie recipe, click here. And, yes, I am making both this morning.

Happy Holidays!

As promised, I am sharing my carne asada salad recipe, although it’s more of a guide than an actual recipe. This salad is flexible. If you’re missing something, no worries. Really the only required attendees in carne asada salad are, well, carne asada, salad (you know, the greens) and my homemade cilantro crema. Beyond that, do what I describe below or get creative! The world (well, this salad) is your oyster (except there aren’t oysters in this salad, and, actually, as flexible as the salad is, I would skip the oysters).

This is a great go-to dinner option. The cilantro crema dressing is easy to make, the carne asada (which I get from the butcher at the store) grills up in mere minutes, and the salad is super easy to throw together. Also, all my kids like this meal so that automatically makes it my favorite. But, seriously, Nate and I do love it as well!

This cilantro crema dressing recipe is divine. I first made up this concoction for carne asada salad (a salad we threw together one night that has since become a family favorite dinner) and have made it many times. Using crema Mexicana as the base, this sauce is a wonderful salad dressing but it is also a great dip for chips and raw vegetables. (Kettle crinkle-cut potato chips in the same room as this dip is my new kryptonite).

We have also used this cilantro cream as toppings for other savory dishes, like baked potatoes and tacos. It would also be a great sauce to serve on top of a perfectly-cook steak. You get the idea, we’ve been using this stuff on everything.

If you’ve never had crema Mexicana, it’s used similarly to sour cream, but it is thinner in texture and doesn’t have a sour flavor. As a result, this cilantro crema dressing recipe makes for very fresh, light-tasting flavor, and the garlic and cilantro give it a nice brightness.

That’s about all I have to say about cilantro crema. Enjoy!

Two years ago I finally got my hands on fresh masa and learned how to make fresh masa corn tortillas. I thought at that point I had outdone myself when it came to homemade tacos. Then COVID-19 lockdown happened and I wasn’t hitting the tortilleria every week for fresh masa. Because I only had access to already-cooked corn tortillas, I thought to myself, “Self, what could make these store-bought corn tortillas taste better?” And then myself was like, “Self, fry them.” And that is how I figured out how to make crispy taco shells and, honestly, I think it might even be better than fresh masa corn tortillas…and I do NOT say that lightly.

(I must admit that Jack In the Box tacos also inspired me to make these crispy taco shells at home. I know,Jack the bobble head inspired me in the kitchen.I’m as surprised as you are.)

For real, please don’t ever buy crispy taco shells at the store ever again. Buy corn tortillas and fry them. They really truly are the most delicious crispy taco shells you will ever eat. And they are fast to make. And unlike most frying recipes, you don’t use that much oil so clean up is easy, too.

The photos above show the step-by-step process for how to make crispy taco shells, and the details are explained in the recipe below. Below is a photo of what they look like fresh out of the pan! Enjoy!