I promise, "photos of our dinner" is not going to become a constant feature. BUT this week was rad and I have some great recipes and a pizza cooking tip to share. So gather around the table, friends.
Nothing from Sunday because we were at a friend's house where they grilled pizza. It was awesome and something we'll be trying for sure. (Stay tuned.)
MONDAY : grilled turkey burgers with sun-dried tomato aioli & wheat buns.
Turkey burgers are the easiest - buy a carton of lean turkey meat, divide it into six pieces. Form patties. Salt and pepper each side. Grill for about four minutes a side. Add cheese if you're into it. The end. We fancied them up with sun-dried tomato aioli because I said to Paul "babe, what other kinds of aioli can we make?" He looked into the fridge and spotted a jar of sun-dried tomatoes. So we googled and found this recipe.
Here is how we made it ours :
- 1/4 drained (not too much olive oil) sundried tomatoes
- 1/2 C greek yogurt
- 2 cloves of garlic
- pinch of cayanne pepper
- pinch of dried basil
- salt & pepper to taste
- a bit of honey
Mix it all up in a food processor. We started with the first four ingredients and then added the rest to taste. The honey was to counteract some of the sour greek yogurt flavor. I am a fan of mayonnaise, but we didn't have it in the house, so we went with greek yogurt instead.
TUESDAY : pork barbacoa tacos.
Hooray! We started a tradition with Taco Tuesday!
We really wanted to try making barbacoa in the slow cooker and the original plan was to use beef. But it rained on Sunday and the farmer's market was closed and we couldn't buy from our beef guy. So Paul picked up some pork and we followed this recipe with a few adjustments so it could work in our slow cooker.
WEDNESDAY : turkey sausage pizza.
Paul read an article about pizza in a Bon Appetite magazine while waiting to get his haircut on Sunday. Apparently the article was pretty fantastic and it had a few suggestions from a chef about cooking pizza in the oven. Since we got married, we have been building our pizzas on a pizza peel and then sliding them into the oven and onto a pre-heated pizza stone. The article recommended moving the top rack to the highest level and preheating your stone at 550*F. Then, just before you are ready to slide your pizza in, turn off the oven and on the broiler. The stone provides heat from the bottom to crisp the crust and the broiler "bakes" the toppings.
We tried it and it was amazing. Sold.
ps : this is how we make our crust.
THURSDAY : chicken nachos.
I get more questions about our nachos than any other meal which makes me smile. Basically it's the easiest dinner ever. We fill a casserole dish with chips then add BBQ chicken, onion, black olives, tomatoes or red bell pepper (only this week I forgot to pick up tomatoes) and cheese. For "sides" we use guacamole, sour cream and jalapenos. The whole thing gets baked at 400*F for about 10-12 minutes. The first time we made these, I was still in college and just visiting Paul in Maryland. Since we started living together (and when he's not deployed) we make nachos for dinner about once a week.
And that's this week in meals. Tonight, we are back to basics with brussel sprouts mixed with turkey sausage.
