Dinner, A-Team Style

You tell 'em Hannibal

I had to do a little extra planning for this week's meals.  Flick was gone with work for a few days so I needed to make sure that I chose meals that were either make-ahead friendly or quick to pull together.  It's all about the planning.  Some days work out better than others, but it always feels good to know that there is a nice meal just around the corner as I am scooting around the house after work trying to get everything done.

Perhaps one of the best summertime meals to fill this role is Penne with Corn, Roasted Poblanos, Avocado, and Tomato.  This recipe requires a lot of prep (read: make-ahead meal), however, it results in a pretty hefty amount of food.  We usually serve it as an entree (sometimes we add some grilled chicken to give it a little more umph), but it would make a fine side dish as well!  When roasting the peppers, make sure you give them time to really blacken up.  It makes the peeling process go much faster:

When it all comes together it is not only a tasty dish, but a pretty one too!

I had to run an audible on my fish dish this week.  I did not have all the ingredients for the recipe I was intending to make (despite sitting down with it to make my grocery list...these things happen), so I did a little experimenting.  The original recipe is Bombay Shrimp Curry with Coconut Rice; we have made this before and both really enjoyed it.  My ingredient snafu came with the rice so I made plain white rice and used the coconut milk in the curry itself.  I found the sauce to be a little too rich for my liking - the coconut milk was much better served as the cooking medium for the rice.  We will go that route for future editions so the recipe I am providing is the original "un-edited" version.

Moving on to the meat segment of the blog - we really worked the "other" white meat this week; pork chops and country ribs both graced our table for dinner.  The pork chop recipe is a very straightforward dry rub that you coat the chops with prior to grilling.  

We served them with rice pilaf and some of our sweet green peas.  Yum!  I was excited about the rib recipe because we do not have ribs very often, and we also do not use our slow cooker as much as we probably should.  It is really great to come home to a meal that is virtually ready to be eaten, however, there is always a little up front work to be done.  For me this means that I just need to do the "cooking" in the morning, rather than when I come home at night.  Despite the morning prep requirements, it is nice to be greeted at the front door not only by a giant Bernese Mountain Dog, but also by the mouth watering smell of BBQ ribs simmering in the crock pot. We had our ribs with some cornbread, slaw, and baked beans.  Our neighbors were having ribs on the same night so we brought over half of the cornbread for them to enjoy with their dinner.  It is nice to be able to share good food with friends and neighbors!

Last, but certainly not least, is another vegetarian dish: Vegetarian Stuffed Mushrooms.  These are flavored with Balsamic Vinegar - portobellos, tomatoes, cheese and balsamic - you really cannot get much better than that!  The recipe calls for Fontina cheese, which we do not often have on hand and can be expensive, so we sub in fresh Parmesan as a nice alternative.  Flick was home for dinner this night so he ended up pulling it together - the prep time is very reasonable and makes for a nice mid-week meal.