Fall is in the air! This is one of my favorite times of year. The weather starts to cool off, football is back on, and our weekly menu changes back to some of my favorite recipes! Yes, Brenden and I are wack-a-doodles. We have a seasonal menu of about 7-10 meals that we rotate through. We shop on Sunday's for our weekly meals and we switch off cooking each night. And if I'm lucky we switch nights doing the dishes as well :)
While we LOVE to indulge every once in a while by going out to eat, about 90% of our meals are made at home. I thought I'd include 5 of our seasonal items here:
Roasted Sweet Potatoes - This past Spring, I thought it would be a great idea to give Paleo a chance. We did get some GREAT recipes that we still use at least once if not twice a week. This recipe is simple. You need as many sweet potatoes as you would like to eat. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel the potato and cut into 1 inch pieces. Spread them on a pan and cover with olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika and minced garlic. Place in the preheated oven for 30-45 minutes. They get softer the longer they are in the oven but are still pretty tasty if you are in a hurry and need to pull them out at 30 minutes. And that is it my friends! So simple and so yummy.
Turkey Meatballs - This recipe is also just up in my head... I wish I could give the credit to a blog, but I can't remember where I got the recipe from. Things you will need: 1 package of ground turkey (Jennie-O), 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs, 2 tsp of minced garlic, 1 large egg, and some various spices - Italian Seasoning, Oregano, Basil, Salt, and Pepper (just a pinch or so of each). Mix and roll into balls. Place in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. We use basic Hunt's Tomato sauce which requires some doctoring... Definitely use a bay leaf, oregano, basil, garlic powder, salt, pepper and crushed red peppers if you like some heat. Let that simmer while the meatballs are cooking then throw the meatballs in the sauce to marinate. It's obviously better the longer it sits in the sauce and the sauce is better the longer it simmers but sometimes you come on a crunch and you only have time for 10 minutes. Other days it can sit for 30+ minutes and they are fantastic!!
Taco Meat for Taco Salad - We LOVE Mexican food! We make this recipe at least once a week. For taco salad, you can get all the toppings you could want. Just use lettuce as your base instead of tortillas. Instead of using a packet of taco seasoning that is full of sodium, we started making our own. This recipe is to die for! All you need is your favorite ground meat (we use ground turkey). I follow this seasoning mixture recipe to a T. Then after my meat is browned, I drain it, return it back to the skillet, add 2/3 cup of water and the entire seasoning mixture to the pan. It makes one solid recipe!
Slow Cooker Chili with Black Beans and Corn - You cannot go wrong with slow cookers in the fall! Brenden and I searched and searched for a chili recipe we could both agree on. He liked the Carroll Shelby's Original Texas Chili Kit (yuck - only meat) and I liked my Dad's bean chili (Brenden hates kidney beans). We finally found this recipe and made the compromise for a more liquid, less meat and only black bean chili. It's a favorite in our house this time of year!
Ground Turkey Sweet Potato Skillet - Okay, it might be obvious. We eat A LOT of ground turkey and a lot of Sweet Potatoes! This recipe takes a while and is best done on a night that only one of us goes to the gym and the other comes straight home from work to start on it. We're talking maybe an hour from start to finish. It doesn't get made as often as we would both like to just for the simple fact it takes so long to prepare... and who has time for that?
BONUS: Skinny Baked Chicken Parmesan - And this one is so you know that I'm human and would never totally cut out pasta in my life! And to prove that we do eat more than just ground turkey and sweet potatoes (haha). This is a huge splurge for Brenden so when he suggests that we make this, I jump on the opportunity. And by all means, pick a whole wheat pasta - then it's not even that bad, right?
OBVIOUSLY we are in dire need of some flair. So if you have a recipe that you love and think we should try it, please send it my way! I'd love to expand our very small menu to more healthy, seasonal foods. And if you try one of these recipes out, let me know what you think. Somehow I managed to make a fall food list without anything pumpkin... Well, almost. Here is a new favorite for the dogs Kongs - Pumpkin and Banana (They think it's their own PSL)
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