Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts tagged as “casual dinner”

Kitchen time savers (Part 2)

Kitchen time savers (Part 2)Browse recipes, menu ideas and more From Anna's Kitchen (www.fromannaskitchen.com)

From big-batch cooking on the weekends, to "pantry raid" recipes for fast weeknight meals, it only takes a glance through some of my past posts to know that I'm not one to turn my nose up at a time-saving trick when it comes to making meals. Here, I'm sharing a series of a few time-savers that I've turned to often.

Search #timesavers for more helpful tricks and tips!

Devils on Horseback

Devils on HorsebackDevils on Horseback recipe From Anna's Kitchen (www.fromannaskitchen.com)

Also known as stuffed dates, these are a great addition to your tapas board or as a quick and simple appetizer with cocktails before a meal. They're salty, sweet, and incredibly addictive... impossible to eat just one! This recipe makes a dozen but it's foolproof: scale it to make as many as you'd like.

If blue cheese typically isn't your jam, a creamy gorgonzola is a good choice that is a little milder. If you love blue cheese as much as I do, St. Agur is fantastic, probably one of my favorite blue cheeses to both use in recipes as well as just eat by itself with some crackers, since it's so damn delicious. It's also made with vegetarian-based rennet.

Vegetarian Shepherds Pie

Vegetarian Shepherds PieBrowse recipes, menu ideas and more From Anna's Kitchen (www.fromannaskitchen.com)

Vegetarian shepherds pie was a staple dinner for me all of those years that I was following a stricter ovo-lacto vegetarian diet. Especially when I was in college, I could make this recipe on a weekend and have it several times as leftovers for dinner when I got home from school late during the week. It's easy to make, very satisfying and comforting to eat.

Menu Inspiration: Easy Weeknight Italian

Menu Inspiration: Easy Weeknight ItalianBrowse recipes, menu ideas and more From Anna's Kitchen (www.fromannaskitchen.com)

Growing up in New Jersey, Italian food was a big part of my life. It seems like no matter where you go in the state, you can throw a stone and hit a pizzeria. In fact, a quick search on Yelp for "pizza" in Newark, NJ, the largest city in the state with a population of 285,154 in 2017 (Wikipedia) brought up over 620 search results for me. By contrast, a search of Flemington, NJ (Wikipedia says it had a population of 4,621 in 2017), the town where I went to high school and location of the famous Lindbergh "Trial of the Century", still brought up 28 results. I even worked at a few of those pizza places... three, actually, while I was in high school.

Menu Inspiration: Romantic Dinner Date

Menu Inspiration: Romantic Dinner DateDinner night with your date menu inspo From Anna's Kitchen (www.fromannaskitchen.com)
It makes me cringe to know that we're already a full month and then-some into 2019. January is in the books, and in a few days we'll be coming up on Valentine's Day. (We'll be talking about spring next, then Memorial Day will be coming up on the heels of summer... yikes.) For the last several years, I've found it more fun to lovingly plan a menu of delicious, home-cooked foods that both of us enjoy rather than going out for Valentine's Day. Going out to eat on a holiday is rarely great, in my experience. Restaurants are often so crowded and everything, even at finer restaurants, feels rushed. It's hardly worth getting dressed up only to come and go in a matter of an hour, maybe two, and not really have time to savor everything. The planning of a special V-Day dinner menu only adds to the fun, and Dave and I have now made a little tradition out of it.