July Meal: Strawberry Summer Salad

Clay and I are involved with a group called Journeymen. The men all lead community groups in LR and once a month, they, along with all the wives, come together to eat and engage in fellowship for the night. Whoever hosts makes the main dish and everyone else brings side dishes and dessert. It makes for easy clean up and keeps us in the budget. The meals are always great but the conversation is even better with this crew!

In August (I'm almost to the actual month for these meals!) we met at the home of Brett and Randy Likens. I brought my favorite summer salad my grandma always makes me. For the size group we had, I almost doubled the recipe, while keeping the dressing recipe the same (it makes a LOT of dressing!). I knew we would have leftovers but we didn't. Everyone loved it which means this will definitely make the rotation of meals! It really is the perfect summer salad.

Ingredients:
Dressing

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper

Mix together and let sit overnight if possible.

Salad

• 1 head Roman lettuce (1 bag)
• Pint of strawberries sliced
• 1 cup Montery Jack cheese

Pecans

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves and be careful not to burn! Keep watching it and keep stirring. Let cool.

Layer lettuce, strawberries, pecans, cheese so that you don't have to mix so much and break the strawberries.
Leave the dressing to the side in a container so everyone can put as much or as little as they want!

(Mix everything together before serving)

June Meal: Mango Salsa Tacos with Cilantro Rice

June, July and August meals were all made in August. I feel a lot better when I tell you guys the truth.

Not even a week after we got back from the honeymoon we had a few couples over and prepared a big meal for them! They brought a few items to help us out. Teamwork. :)


Ingredients:

• Mango Passion Fruit Salsa (found at Kroger, pictured)--this goes on top of the tacos and rice and makes everything taste extremely good! If you want to add a slice of avocado you can too!
• 2 Limes
• Cilantro
• Can of black beans
• Basmati White Rice (we did NOT buy this kind and it clumped up-lesson learned)
• Soft Taco shells (Thanks Jessica and Rusty!)
• Meat: we went with grilled chicken and steak. Clay picked these up at Whole Foods where they pre-seasoned it.

Black Beans: pour can into a pot on the stove. After heating for several minutes squeeze one half of a lime into the pot. This gives it a little extra zest!

Rice: This is where I have no experience and need help! I tried to make cilantro lime rice but it didn't turn out at all. My goal was for it to taste like Local Lime's rice. Lofty goal I had there! I added juice from 1 lime and finely chopped cilantro. Next time I know to buy basmati rice instead of regular rice so it wont stick together. Any other advice is much appreciated!

We love fruit! Especially our berries. :)

Guacamole, salsa, cheese dip and chips from Cactus Jacks was delish! (Thanks Laura and Scott!)

May Meal: A Healthy Summer Dinner

 

Mays meal was actually cooked in May! Small victories make my day.

 

During mine and Clay's engagement, we met once every few weeks with another couple who mentored us. Every time we met they took us out to eat and treated us so Clay and I decided to repay them by cooking one of the weeks we met! It was so good and once again, super easy.

 

If you're like me, you always WANT to eat healthy, but it seems more expensive and not as tasteful a the fatty foods. This meal was extremely healthy and a lot cheaper than eating out, which I'm guilty for doing more than I should.

 

 

Asparagus (or any vegetable):

• Place a sheet of foil on a baking sheet.
• Pinch the ends off of the asparagus and lay on the baking sheet.
• Pour olive oil and salt and pepper over and cook for about 15-20 minutes on 400 degrees. We never know how long it takes we just eye ball it.  love my foods a little burnt but Clay prefers his not so we just look at it until we are satisfied.



 

Caprese Salad:

• Slice Tomatoes
• Slice a [bigger than my previous post] ball of Mozzarella
• Add basil leaves to each tomato
• Top with olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette

 

Fruit:

• I tried blackberries for the first time this year and my world has been ROCKED. We love to mix berries in a bowl and serve them....blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries. It's colorful and tastes amazing!

 

Chicken:

• Clay has the best trick for marinating his chicken. He soaks it over night in Italian dressing and get this...COKE! Open up a 24oz bottle of coke and one whole bottle of dressing and soak it in a bowl and leave in the fridge overnight. This works best with fresh chicken but if you have frozen chicken I'm sure it will work after you let the chicken thaw out.
• The next day, pull your chicken out of the bowl it was soaking in and cook on the grill or skillet! I am a huge Cavenders fan and thought that was the only spice to add to chicken but Clay's method has me hooked.

Thank you to everyone who got us our new dishes, flatware (although this picture shows what Clay had before we unwrapped our flatware), napkins and placemats. We have gotten so much use out of them and sincerely appreciate your help stocking our first home together!