Welcome to the LWD blog feature – “A Dozen Dinner Ideas“. We can all use some dinner inspiration occasionally, right? I love seeing what others are serving their families so I thought I’d return the favor. Once a month I share a dozen meals we’ve had lately and I hope you’ll get an idea or two.
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A DOZEN DINNERS
Here are a dozen dinners we had in our home recently. I hope you find inspiration for your own dinners!
- salmon – This was frozen, pre-seasoned salmon. The brand was Morey’s and the variety was “Wild Salmon Steakhouse”. It comes two to a package. Chris and I like salmon but David doesn’t. I baked a chicken breast for him.
- rice
- mixed vegetables
- side salad
- Swedish meatballs – I used this recipe.
- egg noodles
- French style green beans
- Homemade Cranberry Sauce
- side salad
This was our Christmas Day dinner. It had been awhile since I made lasagna and David requested it.
- lasagna
- side salad
- garlic bread sticks
An easy dinner!
- baked pork chop
- Rice-a-Roni brand chicken flavored rice
- steamed peas
- canned peaches
This was our New Year’s Eve dinner. I had three vacuum sealed filets from Omaha Steaks in the freezer that really needed to be used. This was simple and yet so good!
- filet mignon
- baked potato
- wedge salad
This was our New Year’s Day dinner. I normally include cabbage and black eyed peas in our traditional New Year’s meal but I can’t see that they improved our luck the past few years so I skipped them. We’ll see how it goes in 2024. Ha!
- baked ham – This was a spiral ham from Aldi.
- Homemade Mashed Potatoes
- green bean casserole – I came up with this years ago. My daughter makes it the same way and has shared it on her blog. I don’t always put bacon in it and didn’t this time. I did top it with French Fried Onions and made the sauce from scratch.
- Homemade Cranberry Sauce
I’m the self-proclaimed Queen of Casseroles and this was another winner. I used leftover ham, cooked rice, frozen peas and a well-seasoned white sauce. I then topped with grated sharp cheddar and baked until hot and bubbly. It may not look pretty but it tasted great.
- ham, rice and pea casserole
- salad
- Homemade Cranberry Sauce
I’m trying to recall how I made the chicken for this meal. I think I browned the seasoned chicken breasts in a little butter and olive oil then simmered in chicken broth. When the chicken was cooked I thickened the sauce, adjusted seasonings and added a splash of heavy cream. I wouldn’t swear to it but I think that’s about it. I added a little dried parsley for color.
- chicken
- baked potato
- corn
- salad
This was a new-to-me recipe but we love curry so I knew we would enjoy it. I didn’t have any curry paste, though, so I substituted curry powder. I also cooked the rice separately as I knew we would have leftovers and I find rice sometimes gets mushy if it’s cooked in with the curry. The recipe only calls for 1/2 cup of frozen peas but I used the whole bag. It made it quite green but we like peas. And more veggies is always a good thing, right?
- Chickpea and potato curry topped with Greek yogurt and raisins
- sautéed spinach
- toasted naan bread
- chilled apricot halves
This was Chris’ requested birthday dinner. I hadn’t made these enchiladas in quite awhile and we all were reminded of how good they are! They make good lunch leftovers, too. The guys had tortilla chips and salsa, too. The plates you see in these posts are mine. I should probably try to plate them a little “prettier” but this is real life, folks. Also, I have usually added fresh ground black pepper as I plate mine at the stove before photographing at the table. I LOVE pepper!
- Sour Cream Green Chili Enchiladas
- Spanish rice – Rice-a-Roni mix
- Cherry Cobbler(not pictured)
This was SO good! In fact, David and Chris shooed me out of the kitchen and did the cleanup themselves so that I could go write down how I made them. It’s an ongoing joke that I often cook something they love but they bemoan the fact they’ll never have it again because I don’t remember how I made it. This one was super, super easy and I’ll have it posted here on the blog tomorrow. I’ll then come back and include the link here.
- Sweet and Spicy Meatballs
- Homemade Mashed Potatoes
- side salad
This is another of those things I sort of “throw together” that I really need to write up for the blog. I made this for my mom but had such a huge pot of it that we ate it for dinner, too. She doesn’t eat well and I wanted to make sure she had plenty of nourishing food on hand during this current cold snap. Mom has now called me four times to tell me how much she has been loving this soup. In fact, she said I need to share it on the blog and call it “Fussy Eater Soup”. 🙂
- “Fussy Eater Soup” topped with grated cheddar
- toasted Hawaiian sweet roll
And that wraps up A Dozen Dinners for January of 2024! Be sure to tune in next month for more dinners. And scroll down a bit to read my thoughts about “cooking from scratch”.
More about this month’s meals:
While I generally prefer to cook from scratch, I do appreciate the occasional convenience of certain mixes. In this month’s meals I used Rice-a-Roni mixes twice. I find them to be an easy side dish and like to keep a few in my pantry. Here is a link to the Spanish Rice flavor:
Amazon is currently selling them for $12 for 12 boxes which is a good deal. Even better, if you add them to your Subscribe and Save orders, they are only $10.20 which is 85 cents a box. My supermarket sells them for $1.39 so I’m going to start ordering from Amazon. It calls for a 14 ounce can of diced tomatoes so of course you have to add that to the cost. I like this brand – Colavita – because they come in cartons instead of cans. I buy them by the case from Amazon.
The chicken flavor of Rice-a-Roni is a little more expensive at $15.16 for twelve boxes, or $12.89 on Subscribe and Save. It’s not as big of a savings over my supermarket price.
I didn’t use it in this month’s dinners but I also really like the Rice-a-Roni Stir Fried Rice. I buy a bag of fresh, stir fry veggies from my supermarket and cook them in my wok along with a can of chicken, drained pineapple chunks, and teriyaki sauce. I serve this with the Rice-a-Roni Stir Fried Rice. It makes an easy, relatively low-cost dinner. For some reason, Amazon’s prices on this variety are ridiculous so I’m not even going to share the link.
Knorr also makes some good flavored rice and pasta side dishes. (Don’t buy these from Amazon as they are way overpriced!).
There was a time when I was more of a purist about cooking everything from scratch. However, the pandemic has “cured” me of that. We used to go out to dinner a couple of times a week but we don’t anymore. We get takeout once in awhile but for the most part, I cook all of our meals at home.
As you can see from these “Dozen Dinner” posts, most of our food is homemade. But if I can make life a little easier with the occasional boxed side dish, or a bag of frozen meatballs, I’m okay with that. I still don’t use canned “cream of” soups in recipes because I can make a much-tastier white sauce-based version so easily. But if you like the flavor and it makes dinner prep simpler for you, do what works for your family. The important thing is that we feed our families tasty, nourishing meals.
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