Tuesday, November 22, 2011

What's For Dinner?



I've had a couple people on my Formspring ask what types of things we cook for dinner, especially now that we're here in Amsterdam and grocery stores are different, ingredients are harder to find, etc. I thought I'd do a quick post on some of our go-to recipes. When we cook at home (which is about 4-5 times a week now) we definitely try to keep things healthy and somewhat simple. It's tougher to find odd ingredients here simply because we're not sure where to go yet. So we stick to basic ingredients. Martha is our main source of recipes, but sometimes we just wing it, too. Here are some of my favorite dinners we've made in the last couple weeks:




Top to bottom, left to right:
{1} Soy-glazed salmon with sauteed asparagus and quinoa. We use this recipe for the salmon. For the asparagus, we just sautee them in a little olive oil with garlic and salt and pepper. Quinoa is one of my favorite grains. If you're not sure how to cook it, this is a helpful article. We use a mixture of water and chicken broth, which makes it a little tastier. 

{2} Shrimp and Zucchini Tostadas. We use this recipe and add avocado to it.

{3} Blue Cheese-Pear-Pecan Salad. I don't even like salad (really.) and I am obsessed with this one. The dressing is so good!

{4} Cayenne-Rubbed Chicken with Avocado Salsa. We used this recipe, just replaced the red onion with scallions. I just don't do raw onion like that! But I'm sure it would be good if you're into that sort of thing :)

{6} We also made this Pasta with Rosemary Shrimp Scampi recently and were surprised how much we loved it. There's not a lot to the recipe, but somehow it is still very satisfying. I'd never cooked with rosemary before and now I'm a believer and want to do it again! Only thing we did different was actually sautee the shrimp with the oil, red pepper flake, garlic and rosemary. I don't like my shrimp just sort of steamed like they suggest, but other than that we stuck to the recipe. We made a side of brussels sprouts to go with it and it was perfect. I was so hungry I forgot to snap a picture before digging in!

{5} And I have to put in an honorable mention for this suuuper easy lentil soup. It's dang good if you just add a little cayenne pepper to spice things up, and it's super fast and perfect for these colder months. It just looks really gross in pictures (mine anyway), so I thought I'd spare you. But it tastes really good!

Okay, so there you have it. Some of our go-to dinners. Do you have any recipes you're dying to share with me? I'm always looking for new ones :)