I didn't really meet the Dinner Challenge very well this week. I ended up making only four of the seven planned meals. But all is not lost since I plan to make the missed meals this upcoming week.
Here's a review of this week's dinners.
Monday: Day one was a bust. The crockpot barbecue chicken wasn't awful by any means, but it was a bit too spicy for everyone's taste. We won't be trying this recipe again.
Tuesday: I made up for the failed dinner on Monday with Zesty's Beef and Tomato Bake. Not only was the meal frugal and easy to make, it was delicious and made a ton of great leftovers. This recipe is absolutely going on my master menu plan.
Wednesday: We still had a lot of leftovers from Tuesday, so I didn't make dinner.
Thursday: This was a very…interesting meal — Zesty's Chicken "Fried" Rice. The rice I used just didn't cook; even after 3 hours cooking in liquid, the rice was still hard. But the meal wasn't a total loss. The chicken and mushrooms were delicious and we even fed the band with our half-baked meal. Although the recipe was a partial failure this first time, we're going to give it another try with better rice. The recipe, for now at least, will be going on my master menu plan.
Friday: I didn't cook dinner on Friday because Jeff took me out on a blind date. It was a "blind" date simply because he didn't tell me where we were going; he just referred to it as an M & M date. It ended up being a Mini-golf-and-Milkshake date, reminiscent of dates we had when we were first together. We had a very enjoyable time (even though Jeff beat me by two strokes!).
Saturday: I had planned to make Mama Zesty's Famous Meatloaf on Saturday, but we had a hankerin' for a grilled meal, so we ended up making grilled chicken using Amy's chicken marinade instead.
It turned out much better than my husband thought it would. When I told him the marinade was Italian dressing and barbecue sauce, he was extremely skeptical of how it would taste. But the result was excellent!
Now Jeff plans to experiment with some more barbecue/dressing combos. Has anyone ever tried ranch dressing and barbecue sauce?
Not a bad ending to my week of dinner challenges.
Now here's where you can take part in the dinner challenge. Link up with your delicious dinner recipes below or leave a comment. Amanda and I would love to be able to add some tried-and-true dinner recipes to our master menu plan at the end of June. If you didn't get a chance yet, you can also link up your breakfast recipes here and your lunch recipes here.
I use plain Wishbone Italian dressing to marinate chicken for grilling. It is yummy! My other favorite marinade is a mixture of oil, soy sauce (I use reduced salt version), ketchup, and garlic powder. We use that to marinate steak and pork chops for grilling.
That is so sweet for a blind date! 😀 Do y'all go on dates much?
.-= Sherry´s last blog ..A No Baking Afternoon =-.
We used Ranch dressing, a bit of Italian dressing, and cayenne pepper as a marinade recently and it turned out delicious!