I’m back! Easy peasy turkey dinner
Posted on: January 28, 2010
- In: Life
- 6 Comments
Last night I cooked one of my favorite (and easiest!) meals. Turkey tenderloin with pasta. Why do I love it? Because the turkey comes pre-basted and oven ready. Oh yeah.
Honeysuckle has all sorts of flavored tenderloins, and truth be known, the ingredient list really is not bad.
Whole grain pasta. A cabinet keeper must. Once cooked, add olive oil and some garlic powder. Yummy!
Alright, I don’t know if corn on the cob actually goes with pasta, but I can’t resist when the grocery store puts corn on sale. I just had to buy it. Because, really, I love corn on the cob. And so does Julia, she had 3 ears! And one of the Abdos had none.
The easiest drop biscuits, courtesy of All Recipes (an absolute bookmark!)
Top it off with some cut up some fruit and walla you have dinner.
I’ll be the first to admit that after Hannah I’ve let a few things slip. Trying to keep up with healthy eating/living, working out, being a mama, a wife, a Christ follower, friend, and daughter – something was bound to get pushed aside. And for me, the first to slip has been food preparation.
Shameful, I know. Good food is at the core of my southern roots.
But I have a good excuse. My daughters turn into crazed monsters between 4:00pm and 5:00pm. Without fail, just like clock work, there is a meltdown, blowout, timeout, or breakdown (more from me than them) in that hour before daddy arrives. So, in response I did No Cook November to help ease the stress of dinner time. But I started slowly letting go of any variety that my family both enjoys and craves. Once we moved in with the Abdos, I started helping out with lunches and dinners. I’ve quickly come to find that with four teenaged boys in the house you need lots of variety and lots of food. They have really helped be regain my cooking groove. Expect more food posts to come!
6 Responses to "I’m back! Easy peasy turkey dinner"
January 28, 2010 at 1:16 pm
I think one of the best things I ever did was find cookbooks at the library. I picked out ones that were healthy foods and easy to cook. Then I just cycle through those meals. But, I can certainly pass along some of my favorite recipes and help you feel like a regular cook!
January 28, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Absolutely Kate! There is always hope. I know that Sarah and I were on 2 sides of the spectrum when it came to cooking when we first got married. Now we have switched sides. She is the cook and I “get” to do breakfast once in a while. I miss cooking honestly. But she gets so much satisfaction out of it and so does the family. I am so grateful whenever I come home to a prepared meal that I know she worked hard to plan. The one bit of advice I give all aspiring cooks is that cooking is not about cooking, it’s about eating. If you love to eat, then cooking is more fun than work. (you get to eat while you cook) Most people love to eat, but many still haven’t had enough experiences of a variety of foods that get them excited about cooking to eat. Eating to fill the stomach is one thing, but eating for pleasure is another. Come on, who doesn’t love a wonderfully created chocolate strawberry cheesecake of divine variety? Now don’t get me wrong, eating for pleasure to overcome depression or eating for pleasure to overcome boredom is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about freely enjoying what God has given us.
January 28, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Yea for more food posts, I need some variety too. I noticed this week we were having almost the same meals as last week : ( In my defense we moved over the weekend but I still could have planned better. Also, it left me running to the store every night and spending over on our grocery budget. So hooray for more food posts!!
January 28, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Jonathan makes a very good point. I know that many women get sick of having to cook every day, but I think it helps make it more fun when you really enjoy the food you are making. Finding new recipes and experimenting with new cooking techniques keeps things interesting for me so it doesn’t feel so mundane.
I think for people starting out I would focus on doing one main dish well and then for sides, keep it simple, like heating up bags of frozen veggies or using the prebagged salads. Because I usually only have about 30-60 minutes to cook, if I try to do to much, I end up getting stressed out with making the timing all work.
I also agree with Sarah that reading cookbooks is helpful. When you start reading recipes, you realize that alot of the bagged meals and convenience foods really don’t take much more effort to make from scratch, and they taste about 10 times better and are usually about 10 times healthier too! Also, I gotta say I LOVE allrecipes because it feels less risky to try a new recipe when there’s so many other people who can vouch for it tasting good.
January 28, 2010 at 7:04 pm
PS- I do the pasta side dish too, except I usually do olive oil and Italian seasoning. I really like the “pasta sprinkle” seasoning from Penzey’s, which is a specialty spice shop in Des Moines. So easy, but so good!
A Wife Loved Like The Church 
January 28, 2010 at 11:31 am
So do you and Leah think you guys could do an intervention with me and teach me how to cook? I always read your FB posts and blogs about all the wonderful things you guys prepare and I’m so jealous, but I have no idea where to start in the process of learning how to cook regularly.
I can cook, like a huge Thanksgiving meal or lazagna or easy stuff, what I can’t figure out is how to regularly cook healthy meals. I just run out of ideas and resort to frozen bag meals, pizza or salads. Poor Tim. Is there any hope for me?