This recipe for blueberry chicken salad from Allrecipes.com was fast, easy and really good. The dressing is lemon yogurt (6oz) and mayonnaise (3 Tbs), which sounded odd, but is really good, especially with the sweetness of the blueberries. Throw in some diced cooked chicken breast (we grilled a bunch earlier in the week and used it in several recipes), red pepper, celery and the blueberries. This was one of the only times the kids eat up a salad, including the lettuce!
Pasta with Pea Pesto and Bacon
SmittenKitchen has this great recipe for Linguine with pea pesto. Partially because I love bacon (so do you really need an excuse to add it to a recipe?), and partially because we left out the pine nuts due to allergies, I added 8oz bacon cooked an crumble. We used a 10oz package of frozen peas and penne since that’s what we had on hand. The result was an amazingly tasty dish that the kids fought us for for the leftovers for lunch the next day! Definitely a keeper.
Adapted from SmittenKitchen
Linguine with Pea Pesto
- 10-ounce package frozen peas
- 1 small garlic clove, minced–it’s raw, so be careful about adding too much! I used a small one and could definitely taste it, I had been tempted to use more and was glad I didn’t
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 8oz bacon cooked and crumbled
- Package pasta of your choice
Cook the pasta as directed, reserving 2 cups of the water when you drain. Meanwhile, microwave the peas until warm. Place peas, garlic, Parmesan cheese and olive oil in a food processor and blend until smooth (Now I see that the original recipe called for setting aside some peas…we didn’t, could be good though). Cook the bacon and crumble. Mix the pasta, pea pesto and bacon. Add enough of the reserved pasta water for a nice consistency–we used about 1 cup.
Chicken, Oatmeal, Mushroom and Spinach Quiche
This recipe from the Food Doctor was a little hard to follow but turned out quite good. The recipe is spread out over a long post and a bit more complicated than we normally do, but it made a good weekend dish and really only took about an hour to make. We added some thawed and drained spinach to the oatmeal and mushroom layer. The balsamic tomatoes turned out well too.
Sweet Potato and Quinoa salad
This salad from Mark Bittman is really colorful and very good. The raw shallot was a bit overpowering, so maybe reduce or cook before hand. But other than that, quite good and packed with nutrients. We added some diced grilled chicken breast, but could easily have left it off for a vegetarian dish.
Meals for July 9-15
- Chicken oatmeal mushroom quiche with grilled basil balsamic tomatoes.
- Linguine with pea pesto, minus the pine nuts and adding bacon.
- Sweet potato and onion pizza, adding in some ricotta from the quiche recipe.
- Burgers with sweet potato fries
- Blueberry chicken salad.
- Wild rice salad with chicken, oranges and cranberries, inspired by this recipe.
BBQ Tofu and Vegetable Rollups
Eat Good 4 Life had an interesting recipe for these BBQ Tofu and Vegetable Rollups. The kids liked crumbling the tofu with their hands and mixing in the BBQ sauce. At least until they complained that it was too cold…
They ended up being like a cross between a spring roll and an enchilada.
Ribs
It’s hard to wrong with ribs, especially on the 4th of July weekend! Inspired by this recipe at Dinner A Love Story, we grilled us up some tasty ribs. We followed The Barbecue! Bible and cooked them on the grill though. And sorry, DALS, we may have broken the law, but we served the ribs with corn on the cob!
Blueberry pasta salad
It’s blueberry season here and we picked a lot. We’re always looking for new ways to use them and found this yummy blueberry pasta salad recipe. It’s a great summer dish. I grilled the chicken rather than poaching. We used the Ronzoni Garden Delight pasta for color and nutrition.
Ingredients
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast
- 1 box whole-wheat pasta
- 3 T olive oil
- 1 shallot, thinly sliced
- 1/3 cup chicken broth
- 1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
- 3 T lime juice
- 1 cup fresh blueberries
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 T grated lime zest
- Grill the chicken and dice (or use leftover chick or cook some other way).
- Cook the pasta, drain and return to pot.
- Heat the oil in a small pan over medium high heat, and add the shallot, cooking until starting to brown. Add the broth, feta and lime juice, cooking until he cheese begins to melt.
- Add the diced chicken, blueberries, thyme, lime zest and feta sauce to the pasta and stir to mix everything together.
Meals for July 2-8
- Pulled pork using Boston butt roast with salad.
- Ribs–probably something along these lines with corn on the cob.
- BBQ Tofu and Vegie Rollups
- Sweet potato and quinoa salad, adding diced grilled chicken breast.
- Chicken, onion and zucchini kebabs, along the lines of this.
- Sausage and peppers meatloaf, adding some diced peppers and maybe tomatoes.
Blueberry donuts
It’s blueberry season here in north Florida and we picked 16 lbs of them yesterday! We also just got a donut pan to make baked donuts–unfortunately, we haven’t been able to purchase donuts that aren’t made on shared equipment, so our nut allergic son hasn’t had donuts in a few years since the last place changed their practices. I fond this excellent recipe at Eat Good 4 Life–so they’re even (comparatively) healthy! They were an excellent treat!
Ingredients:
Slightly modified from this excellent recipe.
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup plus 2 T low fat milk
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 T oil
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 cups flour (I used white-whole wheat, you could use whole wheat or whatever)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 cups blueberries (fresh if you have them)
- 3 T melted butter
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 T cinnamon
Preheat oven to 325°F. Spray donut pan with cooking oil. In a large bowl, whisk eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, oil, nutmeg and cinnamon. Add flour, baking powder and baking soda. Whisk until combined. Carefully fold in blueberries. Fill each donut hole 2/3 full.
Bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool for about 5 minutes and remove from pan to a wire rack.
In a bowl combine sugar and cinnamon. In another bowl place melted butter.
Dip each donut in the butter followed by the cinnamon sugar.