Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Today we are going to make a wonderful side dish that you’re absolutely going to love. My little picky kids love this side dish and they request it all the time. Usually at the beginning of the week I’ll try to ask them what’s one item you want to have for dinner this week? So we can avoid tears at dinner time. These crispy cast iron skillet potatoes are one of the number one requested items on our table. They are super easy to make and any time you have a main dish that calls for a potato side dish, these can sit in perfectly instead of having to go through all of the work of making a cheesy potato casserole or mashed potatoes or potato salad. These crispy oven potatoes are perfect. 

Tips and Tricks: This is actually going to be a really quick episode. So not many tips and tricks. The only thing I’ll tell you is that number one, you do need a cast iron skillet to make this recipe. And number two, you definitely want to find the really tiny potatoes. They may even be called tiny potatoes at the grocery store. They’re going to be smaller than a ping pong ball. Maybe actually the size of a ping pong ball and smaller is what I’ll say. Then that is what allows them to get super crispy and creamy on the inside while they cook in the oven. You’re going to love them. 

Crispy Potatoes Recipe: So let’s go ahead and just get into the full recipe for these little crispy oven potatoes. So you need about one pound of tiny Yukon gold potatoes, three tablespoons of olive oil or extra virgin olive oil. 3 quarters teaspoon of kosher salt and a 1 teaspoon of dried oregano. 

You’re going to preheat your oven to about 425 degrees. Cut all of the potatoes in half and then in the bottom of a large cast iron skillet, probably like a 10 or a 12 inch cast iron skillet, you’re going to pour two tablespoons of that oil across the bottom of the cast iron skillet coating the whole surface. Then you’ll sprinkle in a half a teaspoon of the kosher salt and a whole teaspoon of dried oregano. You’ll place those cut potatoes, cut side down into the oil, making sure that all of the potatoes are touching the surface of the skillet. Then you’ll drizzle the remaining oil. You should have about one tablespoon left of oil, over the top of the potatoes and sprinkle with the remaining quarter teaspoon of kosher salt. You’re going to roast them in that hot oven for at least 30 to 35 minutes. Then at the end of that time, pull that cast iron skillet out and double check a couple of the potatoes on the bottom to make sure that they are crispy. I don’t mean they look a little golden brown. They should be crispy like a potato chip crispy. You are going to love them. So if they don’t look super duper golden brown, pop them back in the oven for about another five minutes. 

These suckers are going to be hot when they are ready. So let them cool for probably about 10 minutes and then you can go ahead and serve them. They are creamy and buttery on the inside and the outside is literally crispy like a potato chip. 

Like I said before, this is a side dish that goes with just about anything that requires a potato side dish. We love them with roasted chicken, maybe a rotisserie chicken, grilled burgers, grilled chicken, meatloaf, barbecue meatballs, hamballs, just about anything. So I really hope you make these. If you really, really love them, I would love to have you give the recipe five stars and leave a little comment about what you served these little potatoes with. 

As always, I will link all of the recipes I talked about in the show notes for you so you can go and check it out, cook with the recipe, pin it, save it, share it, whatever you want to do.

Outro: So until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya!

Double Dip: All right guys, now it’s time for your double dip and I’m so excited for this. So every week when you listen to the new podcast episode on Thursday, you can always stick around for the end of the episode where I go over the ingredients you need to make the recipe for next week. 

So next week we have a fun little recipe that I think is great for the end of summer. It’s easy to make and it’s so, so delicious. This is a newer recipe on Mom’s Dinner, the website where I share all of my recipes that I go over here on the podcast. We are having tilapia fish tacos next week. You are going to love these. Tilapia is great. It is really economical and it cooks up super fast.

So what you’re going to need for these tilapia fish tacos is one and a half pounds of tilapia filets, salt and pepper, olive oil, a couple limes, garlic cloves. chili powder, ground cumin, smoked paprika, and cayenne pepper. 

Now, of course you want to have anything you want to have with your tacos. So either flour shells or corn shells. We like to do a little bit of angel hair slaw on the bottom. Then we do a chipotle lime crema that gets drizzled over top. Let me tell you what you need for that. Some mayonnaise, sour cream, some more lime juice. You need a can of Chipotle Chios…. This is always, this is always a tongue tie for me. Chipotle chilies in adobo sauce. So just one can. Garlic and milk. So I hope you’ll join me next week when we make these tilapia fish tacos.

Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: All right, we’re up for a little controversial recipe today. I had no idea how much controversy surrounded cornbread, but when I posted a recipe on Pinterest about cornbread, I got all sorts of comments. I am telling you. People feel very passionately about cornbread. 

So what I’m going to say, the disclaimer for this episode is that this is my take on buttermilk cornbread. If you don’t like it, don’t make it, don’t shame me. We love it. But maybe you won’t love it. But I think it’s a perfect combination of corn flavor, cornbread texture, but still enough moisture so that the cornbread is tender and not dry and crumbly. So if that sounds good to you, then I highly recommend you try this buttermilk cornbread recipe. 

We’re also going to make a delicious honey butter to go on the cornbread. So yummy. This is obviously not a full dinner, but it makes a great side dish for especially any soups in the fall. Like chili white chicken chili, even chicken noodle soup. Cornbread is wonderful as a side dish, kind of across the board there. It’s also great with a lot of grilled items. Maybe not burgers or things that are served on a bun, but something more like a barbecue grilled pork tenderloin, even ribs. It’s a great side dish for ribs. 

Tips and Tricks: So let’s get into a couple tips and tricks and myths about cornbread. When I say myths, it’s not really myth, it’s just that there’s a lot of different takes on letting your batter rest. So when I read on the internet about letting your cornbread batter rest before you bake it, there’s all sorts of different reasons. You know, activating the baking soda. Letting the corn flour absorb the liquid. There’s something about air being added. People that say it helps the cornbread rise better, especially if you’re making muffins, then it will have a bigger crown. I have found that this recipe works just fine without letting the batter rest, but if you want to let the batter rest, they recommend like 15 to 20 minutes, and then pour it in the pan and bake it. But I find that it’s completely fine just as it is. 

In this recipe, we’re using buttermilk as part of the liquid for the mixture. The buttermilk is going to serve two purposes. Obviously, as the wet ingredient that’s mixing into the cornbread batter. Then, it’s also considered an acid, so it’s going to activate your baking powder, which is the difference between baking soda and baking powder. Baking soda is already activated, it doesn’t need that activator. Baking powder needs an acidic activator to help it work.

Otherwise, everything is pretty much straightforward for this recipe. You will need a nine inch round baking pan or dish to make this buttermilk cornbread. You could also use a nine inch round cast iron skillet, which would work here as well.

Cornbread Recipe: Let’s get into making the full recipe for buttermilk cornbread. It’s actually pretty easy. So you’re going to preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Then you’re going to prep a 9 inch round pan by spraying it with non-stick spray. In a large bowl, you’re going to stir together the dry ingredients, which is going to be one and a half cups of medium grind cornmeal, one cup of all purpose flour, and three tablespoons of sugar. That’s going to add just enough sweetness to enhance the flavor, but not so sweet that it tastes like cake instead of cornbread. One teaspoon of baking powder, one teaspoon of baking soda, and one and a half teaspoons of kosher salt. Just stir that all together. Then you’re going to whisk together the wet ingredients. I like to do this in my, I have a large four cup Pyrex liquid measuring cup and this works perfect for this. So you’re going to measure together one and a half cups of buttermilk, two large eggs, and a quarter cup of vegetable oil. Whisk that all together so that the eggs incorporate into the liquid. Then what you’re going to do is you’re going to stir the wet mixture into the dry mixture. So pour that wet mixture right into the dry mixture and just stir until everything is wet. Don’t over mix your batter. 

Now at this point, you can let it sit. Or, you can pour it right into your 9 inch round prepared baking dish, and then bake it at 400 degrees for about 30 to 35 minutes. Your cornbread is ready. Let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes, and then you can cut it into wedges, like pie wedges, and serve it up.

We’re going to take it to the next level, and we’re going to make a little bit of homemade honey butter to go with that cornbread. Super duper easy. You only need three ingredients to make this honey butter. I want to talk about just a couple of the ingredients. With this recipe, we are using salted butter. I do not believe in unsalted butter. I can’t believe I admitted that in public. Unsalted butter is basically like grease to me. It doesn’t taste like anything. You need that salt in there to give that butter its sweet, creamy flavor. So please use salted butter here. 

Then the recipe calls for a flake sea salt, like Maldon sea salt. If you don’t want to use that, then if you’re going to use just a kosher salt, you’re going to want to start with about a quarter teaspoon and then add more to taste. That flake sea salt is a little bit more delicate than some other salts, so we can add a little bit more. It adds, oh my gosh, it adds the most beautiful little texture in your honey butter. So if you can, get that flake sea salt. You will not be disappointed. 

Alright, to make your honey butter, in a small bowl with a spoon or a spatula, you’re going to mix together that room temperature salted butter. It’s 12 tablespoons of salted butter, two and a half tablespoons of a good quality honey, and three quarters teaspoon of flake sea salt.

You’re just going to whip it together. Now, if you want to use a handheld mixer, or you want to use your stand mixer, you can absolutely do that. It’s not totally necessary to get all that equipment out. You can just do it with a spoon or a spatula, promise. Now, what I like to do is once it’s completely incorporated and mixed together, I like to put it in a little ramekin and then I sprinkle a little bit of extra flake salt on top and I drizzle a little extra honey over the top and then serve it at room temperature so it’s nice and spreadable with cornbread, muffins, waffles, whatever needs a little bit of sweet butter. A little sweet and salty and creamy. It’s just the perfect mixture. So this can be stored for a few days in a covered container at room temp, but to keep it longer, like up to two weeks, three weeks, you want to keep it in the fridge and then pull it out like an hour before you need it to soften it up just a little bit.

All right, so that does it for the full episode today on cornbread and honey butter. If you are enjoying these episodes, I would love to have you subscribe or follow on your preferred podcast player. As a newer show, it just helps us to be shown to new listeners. 

Outro: So until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya!

Double Dip: Alright guys, now it’s time for your double dip. Thank you so much for sticking around. Every week, I will share the next week’s recipe that we’re making, so that if you do enjoy cooking along and you want to make the new recipe, you can make sure that you have all of the ingredients you need to cook along with me.

So next week, we are making one of our very favorite side dishes that we have all the time here. It’s a highly requested recipe from my kids. We are making crispy oven potatoes. So you don’t need much to make these. Basically, what you’re going to need are these really tiny potatoes. Sometimes they actually are called tiny potatoes. They will be smaller than a ping pong ball. Really, really tiny. Usually they come bagged in your grocery store. So they’ll be in a branded bag of some sort. 

So you’ll need one pound of tiny Yukon gold potatoes, three tablespoons of olive oil or extra virgin olive oil. Then three quarters teaspoon of kosher salt and one teaspoon dried oregano. You’ll also want to make sure that you have a cast iron skillet to cook these in. So I hope you will join me then and make these delicious little crispy potatoes and I hope that you guys all have a wonderful week ahead.

Intro: Welcome, welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Fire up those grills, everybody. Today, we are making a grilled chicken burger that is full of flavor. You are not going to have a dry piece of shoe leather for dinner tonight.

This burger, I’m gonna give you all of the tips and tricks for cooking with that ground chicken that can tend to be a little bit flavorless. It can be a little bit hard to work with. If you don’t spice it up just right, it can be a little bit dry. So we are going to make sure that your chicken burgers are amazing.

One thing that I love about this chicken burger is that when you serve it, you serve it with an adobo aioli that you make just with chipotles in adobo, you know, that little can of those spicy little peppers and some mayonnaise and a couple spices, and it just makes your burger so, so yummy. 

This recipe will make about four or five chicken burgers for you, will take about 15 minutes to prep, probably about a 15 minute total cook time and cooling time. So you’re in about 30 minutes for this dinner. 

Tips and Tricks: Now let’s start by going over a couple tips and tricks for this Chipotle chicken burger recipe. First of all, when you’re buying your ground chicken, you want to make sure that you’re buying a ground chicken that just says ground chicken. You don’t want all lean breast meat ground chicken or extra lean ground chicken or 99% lean ground chicken. That is going to be all breast meat and be way too lean to make a really good chicken burger. The ground chicken that you want is probably going to be more around like 93% lean, meaning that it has some fat and some dark meat in the mixture so that you have more flavor and you have more juiciness. That’s what you’re looking for. 

Now you’re also going to use a little bit of bread. With most of the ground meat recipes on Mom’s Dinner, we’re making something called a panade, which just is going to help keep your burger extra juicy. So it says one slice of white or wheat bread. What you want to avoid, you know, you could use sourdough, you could use a ciabatta, you can use just sandwich bread. You just want to avoid any kind of bread that has a lot of seeds or nuts, because you’re not really looking for that in your ground chicken burger. 

Alright, one other ingredient is the chipotles in adobo. This is going to be a little can that’s going to be called chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. You just need one can. They’re very spicy, so don’t be fooled when you open the can and you smell it. It smells nice and smoky and looks like little red peppers in the sauce. They are very spicy. So I think the burgers call for about a tablespoon of the sauce from the can and then the aioli that we’re going to make calls for a little bit of that sauce as well as one of the chipotle peppers. The rest of the can you can save to make something else. You can put them in the freezer. But that’s all you’ll need for this recipe. 

The other thing that you want to make sure you have on hand is plenty of nonstick cooking spray. When you’re working with ground chicken, it’s very wet and very sticky. So you want to make sure you have that non-stick cooking spray so that you can transfer the burgers to the grill and then also ensure that they don’t stick to the grill.

Chipotle Chicken Burger Recipe: Okay, I think that’s all my tips and tricks for this recipe. Let’s get into making the full recipe for your Grilled Chicken Burgers with Adobo Aioli. You’re going to want to start by preheating your grill to high heat and get ready for direct heat cooking. So if you have a gas grill, a charcoal grill, anything will work here.

Then you want to take a baking sheet and line it with wax paper that you’ve cut into squares about the size of a burger. This is going to help you transfer those sticky chicken burgers to the grill. You want to spray all of those wax paper squares really generously with that non-stick cooking spray.

Now you can set all that aside. We’re going to go ahead and make the mixture for your chicken burgers. So in a medium bowl, you’re going to combine one tablespoon of flat leaf parsley that you finely chopped, one tablespoon of that adobo sauce, two minced garlic cloves, one teaspoon of onion powder, three quarters teaspoon of kosher salt, half a teaspoon of black pepper. Two tablespoons of milk and two tablespoons of mayo. Give that a really good stir. Then you’re going to add in that one slice of white or wheat bread. You can remove the crust or leave the crust on, totally up to you, and just either cut it into small squares or rip the bread apart and put it into that mayonnaise and milk mixture.

Give it a really good stir so that the bread starts to absorb all of that milk and mayonnaise and adobo sauce. Then you can add in that one pound of ground chicken. Give it a really good stir, either with a fork or with clean hands, just until it combines and it looks basically like a burger mixture. 

Now you’re going to want to form that mixture into about four or five equal sized patties. They’re going to be really, really sticky. So what I like to do is slightly wet my hands and then start forming the patties. I just make basically a big meatball and then I press it onto that prepared wax paper. Make a little divot in the top with your thumb by pressing your thumb into the middle of the patty. Then spray the tops of the patties really generously, I mean really generously, with that non stick cooking spray. That will help prevent your burgers from sticking to the grill. 

Now once those are all made, you can either refrigerate them for a little while, or you can take them directly to the grill. You just want to grill your burgers over direct heat for about four or five minutes on each side. Since this is chicken, you want to make sure, and actually you don’t want to, you need to make sure that your burgers are cooked to 165 degrees internal temperature with an instant read thermometer to make sure that that chicken is cooked all the way through.

Now at the very end of cooking, I like to move mine to indirect heat and top each one with a slice of pepper jack cheese, pop the lid on the grill, and just let that start to melt for about a minute. 

Now, while you’re out at your grill, if you want, you can toast your buns. We love to toast our burger buns on the grill. Just brush them with a little bit of olive oil or butter, pop them over the heat just for 30 seconds, and they’ll be nice and toasty. 

You also want to make sure you have some of your other favorite burger toppings, maybe lettuce, tomato, red onion, would be great on top of this burger. 

Now, bring everything inside and what you want to do next is make your Adobo Aioli while the burger’s cool. So this is super duper simple. All you need to do is mix together half a cup of mayonnaise, three quarter teaspoons of sugar, one small chili pepper from that chipotle in adobo can. Just pull one of the chilies out and mince it up really well. One minced garlic clove. Juice of about a half a lime and half a teaspoon of that adobo sauce from that can. Now just mix that all together and that’s your Adobo Aioli.

To put it all together, you take a bun, slather some of that Adobo Aioli on, maybe put some lettuce, tomato, red onion, your chicken burger with the pepper jack cheese, and then top it off with more of that Adobo Aioli. Then serve them up. 

We love to serve these with just some chips or fries. Some sweet potato fries would be really good. Some grilled corn on the cob since you have your grill going. Maybe some chips and guacamole or just grilled vegetables. You can make skewers of zucchini, bell pepper, onion, mushrooms, asparagus. Those can all be a wonderful side dish for these burgers. 

All right, so that does it for this full recipe. As always, I will link all of the recipes I talked about in this show right in the show notes for you so that you can click through, check it out, print it, pin it, share it, and make this recipe for dinner. You will not be disappointed. 

Outro: So until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya. 

Double Dip: All right. Now it’s time for your double dip. Thank you so much for sticking around guys. So next week we are not doing a full dinner recipe. This is more of a side dish, but it’s one that you are absolutely going to love. We’re going over how to make buttermilk cornbread and honey butter, which makes an excellent side dish for so many dinners. A lot of grilled dinners in the summer and then some really delicious soup dinners in the fall and the winter.

So if you want to join me next week and make that delicious buttermilk cornbread and some honey butter, here are the things that you need to grab. One and a half cups of medium grind cornmeal, one cup of all purpose flour, three tablespoons of sugar, one teaspoon of each baking powder and baking soda, one and a half teaspoons of kosher salt, one and a half cups of buttermilk, two large eggs, a quarter cup of vegetable oil, and then some kind of nonstick baking spray or just additional oil.

Then, if you want to really go over the top, which I know you do, for the honey butter, here’s what you’ll need. Twelve tablespoons of salted butter that’s softened at room temperature. Two and a half tablespoons of good quality honey, and then three quarters teaspoon of flake sea salt, like Maldon sea salt. Or if you’re using a kosher salt, you want to just start with about a quarter teaspoon. So we will make both of those things on the podcast next week. 

Until then, I hope you guys have a wonderful weekend and week ahead.

Intro: Welcome. Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: What’s up everybody. Happy July. Oh my gosh. We just had 4th of July and this summer is flying by. I was looking at a calendar the other day and I think by the time the end of the swim team goes by and we have one more vacation, school starts in like a week and a half. So if you’re listening to this real time, I am hanging on to summer with every muscle in my body. 

I had my alarm go off the other morning to wake up at 7:30 or whatever time, 7:30, 8 o’clock. Then I thought, you know what? I’m going to go back to sleep because in just a couple weeks, I’m going to have to get up every day anyway. So I slept in and it was wonderful. 

Today on the podcast, we’re doing something just a little bit different. Normally I go over a full recipe and we talk about how to make it, the ingredients, tips and tricks, but this time I’m going to go over one of my most popular recipes. Nope, it’s not a recipe. One of my most popular posts that’s on my website, Mom’s Dinner. It is a post for 30 plus meals that are easy to make for large groups that go on vacation together. I consider myself a pro in this area because my family and my extended family have been going on one vacation together Every summer for, I don’t know, maybe 70 years. So this vacation even predates me to when my mom was a little girl. Through all of those years, as our family has grown and we’ve added more cabins, meal planning is Crrrrroosh. I mean, you have got to get the pre meal planning together ahead of time so that you can still enjoy the dinners together and everybody’s not eating in their separate cabins. It’s actually a time to come together and be together. So, I feel like, over the past, I don’t know, I’m like 45 or 46, I forget how old I am. I feel like over the past years of my adulthood and being a part of that menu planning, I have some great tips and tricks to share with you if you are planning a large group vacation.

Group Vacation Recipe Ideas: So we’re just going to go ahead and get right into things. The very first step is that you want to plan ahead. Do not wait until you get on vacation to start planning the meals. You want to plan a couple weeks ahead so that you can make sure everything is the way you want it and everything works for all of the families involved.

You want to plan a meal for each night. What I recommend is that each family plans one night where they’re doing the main entree. So let’s say a meat dish. Then all of the additional families will plan the side dishes to complement that main entree. Going along with that, you want to plan what dinners will be had on each night. So that each family can plan their vacation around the night where they have the most work. 

Now, of course, when you’re planning on your meals, if you are planning to grill any of the nights or cook outside, you want to make sure as the vacation gets closer that you’re checking the weather so that you can make sure you’re grilling outside on a night with no rain.

The next thing you want to do is make sure, if you have never been to this vacation location, you want to make sure that they will have the supplies and tools and grills and ovens and dishes and pans that you need to make the dishes you’re planning. 

If you’re vacationing with your family, this may not be an issue, but if you’re vacationing with some new families or people that you don’t know, you want to make sure that you are double checking any food aversions, food allergies, to make sure that everybody has something to eat each night. You don’t want to plan a pasta and bread night if half of your group is gluten free, right? Or, if you do, make sure you have gluten free pasta and gluten free bread. 

The last plan ahead tip is make sure that you have enough dinners for all of the nights that you’re staying on vacation. But, the last night should be planned as a leftover night. You can even make a game out of it and every family has to see what they can make with the leftovers that they have in their room or cabin or house or wherever you’re staying. So those are all the plan ahead tips. 

Now, here is my other tip for the meals on vacation. I recommend only planning dinner. Don’t plan lunch. Don’t plan breakfast for the group. Because usually on vacation, people are sleeping in. People are doing different activities. They have different likes and desires. Some people eat breakfast. Some people don’t eat breakfast. Some people may have slept in and they’ll eat a really late breakfast and not want lunch. I recommend just planning dinner. Now, that doesn’t mean that you don’t want to make sure that you have some breakfast supplies and lunch supplies. Keep it really simple here. Breakfast supplies to consider, maybe cereal, bagels and cream cheese, packaged muffins, granola bars. Eggs and toast, frozen breakfast sandwiches are really great, or yogurt, fruit, and granola.

Some lunch supplies to consider: maybe some store bought soup or like Panera style soup, grilled cheese, turkey and ham sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches, chips. Veggies and fruit, ramen noodles, always a favorite, peanut butter and jellies, mac and cheese, frozen chicken nuggets, things like that. 

We are talking about a large group vacation here. We’re talking a lot of people, maybe a lot of families. We talked about this in the beginning, making sure that each family or each person is responsible for one part of the meal. So maybe one family takes the main entree. Two other families take the side dish and another family takes the dessert. Or, if you’re a family that has multiple kids, give the kids some responsibilities.

Say on Tuesday, you’re responsible for getting the chips out. On Wednesday, you need to make a vegetable plate with ranch dip. Some easy things that the kids can do to be involved and still have duties so that it doesn’t all fall on the mom and dad. 

We’re talking about vacation here. Let’s not make everything homemade. Let’s not make our own bread. Let’s not make our own salsa. Let’s talk about keeping your meals semi-homemade. To me, that means making sure that 50% of the meal is something homemade, economical, and 50% of the meal could be purchased ahead of time or maybe even brought from home, made ahead of time.

Some things to think about when you’re thinking about semi-homemade are maybe meat from your favorite barbecue restaurant, dessert from a wonderful bakery, bagged salad can even make it semi homemade. Some side dishes from your grocery store deli, maybe salsa from your favorite Mexican restaurant. Rotisserie chickens are one of my favorite things ever, ever, ever. They’re so versatile and so inexpensive from Costco. Frozen meatballs, that’s another great semi homemade because you can boil the pasta, warm up the sauce, make a really good salad, make some garlic bread, but then you have the frozen meatballs. Again, Costco is a great place to buy your frozen meatballs. 

At the beginning of this episode, we talked about planning a dinner for every night, except the last night. You want to make sure that you plan one leftover night, and I think the last night is always the best night to do a leftover night, because you can clean out the fridge, especially if you flew to vacation. Chances are you are not taking all of the food home with you.

Do a leftover night. Maybe you have leftover veggies from a veggie tray. Cauliflower, broccoli and carrots roast up perfectly and make a wonderful side dish. Maybe you had planned to do a lot of scrambled eggs, but you have a lot left. Make some deviled eggs or make some egg salad. The last night is a great night to make sure that you’re using up all of the food. You can even do a cooking contest and say, everybody brings a dish with your leftovers and then we’ll vote on who has the best leftover makeover. 

Another great way to think about making your meals really, really easy is doing some make ahead meals. Some things that are great, especially if you’re driving to vacation. Some great things to think about that you can carry to vacation in a cooler are soups that can be frozen and then thawed later or large cuts of meat like brisket, pork butt, chuck roast that can be cooked ahead of time and maybe shredded and served as barbecue pork or shredded Italian sandwiches, something like that.

So, let’s talk about a few make ahead meals. Within the make ahead meal category, I have about 12 different menus that include everything you need, including, we’ll just go over one here, an instant pot Italian beef sandwich night. So, if you did something like this, you could even cook that beef ahead of time. You want to make sure you have some crusty rolls. Provolone cheese slices, extra pepperoncinis, a pasta salad with veggies, french fries doctored up with maybe some parmesan cheese and garlic powder, and then a fresh fruit salad. That’s the menu that I have fully written out here on my website, MomsDinner.net. You can come over here and look at all of these different menus. I’ve got a taco night, an Italian meatball night, barbecue beef night, spaghetti and meat sauce night, chili, chicken noodle soup, and a beef ragu with pasta night. 

Now, the next category on this post are super easy dinners. So maybe you have a really busy day where you guys are out doing activities or you’ve been out on a boat all day and you just don’t want to come home and make something super complicated. So some of the meals that I have planned out on here are fish stick tacos. Yes, that’s taking fish sticks and making tacos with it. Sloppy Joe’s, beef enchilada casserole. It’s a super easy version of enchiladas made in a casserole style. A chili dog bar. So making the really quick chili for chili dogs and then putting out maybe some chips, baked beans, store bought macaroni salad, maybe some potato salad and making a really easy dinner that way. A taco bar is also a really great idea. Meatball subs. We talked about those frozen meatballs. This is a great way to use frozen meatballs or baked Cajun salmon. Salmon cooks really fast in the oven. 

Now let’s say you’re on vacation and you have some grills to use and it’s really nice out. You want to get out that grill. Here are some wonderful dinner ideas for your grill night. Hamburgers, pork burgers. Grilled chicken sandwiches, grilled steak tacos. When I say those, those are just the main entrees. I also include all of the side dishes to think about serving with each one of those items. 

Now maybe you have a cold night. Maybe you traveled up north in the summer, or maybe you are traveling for a ski vacation and it’s nice and cold. Here are some wonderful soup dishes to serve for a large group on vacation. An Instant Pot Beef and Barley soup. A Classic Chili, Corn Chowder, an Instant Pot Creamy Potato Soup that is sure good. Or a Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup night.

Again, I’ve got all the side dishes written out here that you can come and check out. There will be a link in the show notes of this episode so that you can check out the full menus. 

If you are traveling in your car, bringing your instant pot is a great idea. to keep dinner nights super simple. So I have a lot of different instant pot menu ideas. Then at the very end of the post, I go over some really easy desserts that you can serve for a crowd, as well as cocktails for a group. So if you guys like to have a few cocktails, there’s some great easy cocktails that you can make for more than two people. 

Like I said, I will link this full post in the show notes for you. So the full post has full menus, not just the main entree. It has full menus and all of the tips and tricks plus more in the actual post. So I will link that for you. You can click through, you can pin it, read the whole thing, print it out, save it for later, share with your family, whatever you’d like to do. 

Outro: So until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your vacation time super easy and super amazing. See ya.

Double Dip: All right. Now it is time for the double dip. Thank you for sticking around, guys. I know this was a little bit of a different episode, but next week we are coming right back into going over recipes and dinner ideas. So next week, if you stick around and listen next week, we are making a Chipotle Chicken Burger, Grilled Chipotle Chicken Burger for dinner.

So let me go over all of the ingredients that you need to cook along with me next week. All right, this Chipotle Chicken Burger, it not only has ingredients for the actual burger that you grill, there’s also ingredients for an Adobo Aioli, which is basically just a flavored mayonnaise. 

So, for the burger, you need flat leaf parsley, one can of chilies in adobo sauce. Garlic cloves, onion powder, kosher powder, black pepper, two tablespoons of milk, two tablespoons of mayonnaise, one slice of white or wheat sandwich bread. One pound of ground chicken, then four to five slices of pepper jack cheese, and nonstick cooking spray.

Of course you’ll need buns and your favorite burger toppings like lettuce, tomato, and red onion. For the Adobo Aioli, you need mayo, sugar. You’ll need that can of chipotle chilies in adobo sauce, you’ll just need one for both the burger and the sauce. Garlic and juice of a lime. 

So I hope you guys will join me then and make that Chipotle Chicken Burger with me for dinner next week on Thursday. So until then, I hope you guys have a wonderful week ahead.

Intro: Welcome, welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Wenrich. 

Susie Weinrich: All right, we are going to start this one with a little disclaimer. I’m probably going to struggle to say this word 400 times through this episode, so I almost feel like I should find another name for these.

We’re making Gochujang Meatballs today at Let’s Make dinner. I’m going to have to pause before I say it every time. We’re going to practice. Gochujang, gochujang, gochujang. You know what? I’m awful. I may even be saying it wrong. I just know that I love this sauce so much. It’s a tangy, chili pepper, slightly sweet and sticky sauce. It is so delicious. You’ve probably seen things with gochujang sauce. Oh, I said it was really good right there, gochujang. Gochujang sauce at restaurants and maybe you’ve seen some of the chili paste, the gochujang chili paste in the stores. For this recipe, we’re actually going to use a gochujang barbecue sauce. You can find it at a few different stores, but the one that we really love and that we know you can find is they have a Good and Gather gochujang barbecue sauce at Target. So I don’t know if it is actually  Good and Gather or is it Market Pantry? You know, they swapped those two names, so I’m not sure which one it is, but you can find it at Target and it is super duper delicious. 

So in this recipe, we’re actually gonna make a pork slash beef meatball, an Asian flavored meatball. Then we’re going to finish it with this gochujang sauce. You can actually serve this with a little fried rice on the side. You could do just a white rice or brown rice, some roasted broccoli, or, I have a wonderful recipe for an Asian style slaw that has crispy ramen noodles in it. Woo. So good.

Tips and Tricks: Just a couple recipe tips and tricks before we get into making the full recipe. Number one, you need ground pork for this recipe. Make sure that you’re buying ground pork and not ground sausage. Ground pork will just be, it will look like ground beef, but it’ll be pink and that’s what you need. It will also be super inexpensive. 

You also need ground beef for making a combo of beef and pork always for meatballs. I recommend using a little bit leaner beef so that your meatballs don’t turn really greasy. So an 85% lean or a 90% lean is perfect here. 

Another ingredient you need is fresh ginger, and I’ve talked about this before. There’s a product in your freezer section of your grocery store that’s frozen, minced, or grated ginger, which is so much easier to use than buying a ginger knob and then peeling it and grading it and mincing it. They’re literally just cubes of frozen ginger. Each cube, I believe, is one teaspoon. This recipe calls for three teaspoons of fresh ginger. So you just need three of those little cubes, pop ’em out and they’re ready to use. Super duper easy. 

All right. But the main thing that we talked about in the beginning of this episode, we’re going to talk about it again. When you go to the store, there’s probably going to be a few different options for a gochujang sauce. You want to make sure that you’re buying a gochujang sauce and not the concentrated paste. The concentrated paste is just the gochujang chili paste. Then you would need to make that into a sauce, which is not included in this recipe. It has an already made sauce on it. Like I said before, I love the one that they have at Target. It’s either Market Pantry or Good and Gather. It’s a gochujang barbecue sauce. Right in the post you’ll actually see a picture of it. So if you want to see what that looks like, you can click through to the post. There’ll be a link in the show notes for you and you can check it out. 

Okay? Otherwise, everything is pretty much straightforward for this recipe. So let’s go ahead and make your gochujang meatballs. I want to give myself a little pat on the back. I am saying gochujang very, very well. 

All right, so you’re going to start by preheating your oven to 400 degrees. Then you’re gonna line a large rimmed baking sheet with foil and spray it really generously with non-stick spray. Set that aside. 

Now we’re going to make the actual meatball mixture. So in a really large bowl, we’re going to start by making that panade. If you’ve been here a while, you know anytime we make a ground meat recipe, we’re going to add a panade to keep it really juicy and tender. So you’re going to add one egg, one tablespoon of soy sauce, two tablespoons of water, a quarter cup of very thinly sliced green onions, and two large garlic cloves that have been minced. Three teaspoons of minced fresh ginger, a quarter teaspoon of red pepper flakes, a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt, and two thirds cup of plain breadcrumbs. Now give that a really good whisk so that the egg is all broken down and that the breadcrumbs are all mixed into that liquid. Once that is all combined and the breadcrumbs are starting to absorb some of that liquid, you’re going to add in three quarters pound of ground pork and three quarters pound of ground beef. Then either with clean hands or with a fork, you’re just gonna lightly mix that together until everything is combined. Then you’re going to form golf ball sized meatballs. For this, I do like to use a medium sized cookie scoop so that they all come out the same size and that they all cook evenly. You’ll have probably about 20 meatballs here. 

So place the meatballs on your prepared baking sheet. Then I like to give the tops of the meatballs a really generous spray with that non-stick cooking spray. That just helps the meatballs brown evenly from top to bottom. So you’re going to bake your meatballs for about 20 minutes, and I do like to flip the meatballs about halfway through the cooking time, so you get that nice browning on both sides.

While those meatballs are cooking, I recommend taking a large skillet, popping it over low heat, and pouring that gochujang sauce into the skillet and just let it warm through. Then when the meatballs are done baking, you can transfer them to that gochujang sauce. Give them a really good stir so they coat and they get all sticky and saucy, and just let them simmer and warm together for about five minutes. 

That’s it. That’s your full recipe. Your gochujang meatballs are ready. Now, as I said before, I love to serve these over rice or fried rice. Top it off with maybe some sesame seeds or some green onions, maybe even some cilantro. Then either roasted broccoli or that Asian slaw that I talked about would be delicious on the side.

So that does it for this full recipe. I hope you enjoyed this and I hope you make it for dinner. Now, if you make this for dinner and you are like, that was five stars, I absolutely loved it. I would love to have you go onto the recipe and actually click down to the rating section, give it five stars, and let me know what you loved about this recipe.

Outro: So until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.

Double Dip: All right, so now it’s time for your double dip. Thank you so much for sticking around. Next week we’re doing something a little bit different here on the podcast. I’m actually going to go over one of the larger posts that I have on my site that is excellent for summertime. It’s a whole entire post talking about feeding a large group on vacation.

So if you have a bunch of families that get together and go on vacation, or if you have a large family reunion or any time that you have a large group of people that you’re trying to feed over multiple days, I have an entire post that goes over how to do that easily. Even like, 30 plus menus that you can use to feed a large group on vacation.

So I hope you’ll listen to that next week and maybe even go check out the post, especially if you have a vacation coming up. But then, next week, we’re going to go over how to make buttermilk cornbread and honey butter, which is a perfect side dish for any summer barbecue. So until then, I hope you guys have a wonderful and beautiful summer week ahead of you. We’ll see you then.

Susie Weinrich: Hey. Hey everybody. Okay, we’re starting this one just a little bit differently today because if you’re listening to this in real time, you know that it’s just about the 4th of July. I decided to take just a little bit of time off to spend some time with my family in the sun and by the pool and to relax.

So we are going to republish the 4th of July episode from last year where we went over a whole bunch of different 4th of July menus. So I hope you enjoy this and get some yummy dinner ideas that you can make for the 4th of July and beyond honestly. These are great dinner recipes for any night of the week, so enjoy this episode and we will be back next week with a brand new episode for I believe Gochujang Meatballs. I’ll see you then.

4th of July Menu: So let’s get started on this menu. I’m going to go over the entire menu now, and then I’m going to talk about each individual item and give you some tips for that item, and also ways that you can make it ahead to make your 4th of July a little bit smoother.

So we’re starting with just a classic hamburger, potato salad, some type of corn. I have two different recipes to share with you. A broccoli bacon salad. A veggie pasta salad, fresh watermelon, and of course some chips. Then for dessert, we’re talking either a blueberry crumble or a no-bake chocolate pot de creme.

All right, starting with those classic burgers, you’re of course going to need whatever grilling situation you have set up. Get that already a couple of days ahead. Make sure you have charcoal, make sure you have propane, or whatever you need for your grill. For the burgers, you can absolutely make these a day ahead.

You’re going to make that burger patty mixture, form your patties, pop them onto a sheet pan, get them in the fridge, and let them just sit in there overnight. They’ll be good to go as soon as you have your grill already. Of course, you want to make sure that you have all of the toppings ready for your burgers. What I recommend is just getting a big platter or again, a sheet pan, laying out all of the toppings, covering it with plastic wrap, and putting it in the fridge. Here are the toppings that I recommend. Just a romaine or a green leaf, lettuce, pickles, or onions. Now slice your onions and then give them a nice little rinse under cool water. What that does, is it removes the enzyme that makes your onion flavor stick with you forever. Three hours later, you’re still tasting the onion. Once you rinse that enzyme away, you can still taste the onion, and it’s still delicious on your hamburger, but it’s not going to overpower the entire dish. Then you’ll also want to slice up some tomatoes. I actually recommend doing that the day of, because tomatoes should not be stored in the fridge. When they’re stored in the fridge, they actually break down and they lose flavor. So I recommend waiting to do your tomatoes and then right before you serve them, season them with some kosher salt, black pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. It makes all the difference on your burger, promise. Then just make sure you have ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise, and you’re good to go for your burgers.

Next, let’s talk about potato salad. Potato salad is better done the day before anyway. When potato salad has a little bit of time to sit in the fridge, the flavors kind of meld together and it’s so much better. It’s just like chili. So I have a recipe for Instant Pot Potato Salad or just a Classic Potato Salad, and I will link both of those in the show notes for you.

I said that I had two different corn options for you. You can of course do just your classic corn on the cob. You can boil it just in salted water for around eight minutes. Or you can make your corn on the cob in your instant pot. So if you are a pothead, get out that instant pot and cook it up in there. I have a great recipe, a complete how-to-make corn on the cob in your instant pot that I will link in the show notes for you. 

Now if you have that fresh corn, but you maybe don’t want to serve corn on the cob, I also have a killer recipe for homemade creamed corn. You can absolutely make that a day ahead. If you’re going to serve corn in the cab. I would do that the day of. But if you’re going to do the homemade creamed corn, make it up on the second or the third and just reheat it on the stovetop on the 4th of July. 

This next recipe is actually a family favorite. It’s the broccoli bacon salad. If you haven’t had this one, it’s like a raw broccoli salad that has bacon, onions, sunflower seeds, and raisins, and then it has this creamy kind of tangy mayonnaise-based dressing that you put on it and it’s delicious. You can absolutely make most of the components ahead of time for the salad. Chop up your broccoli. Measure out your raisins. Measure out your sunflower seeds, chop up the onions, get all that ready, pop that in the fridge, and then make up the dressing in a little mason jar and pop that in the refrigerator, separate from the salad. Then just like an hour before you serve, mix it all together and you’re good to go. 

With your veggie pasta salad, it is like potato salad, where it’s actually better if you can make it a day ahead because it kind of marinates everything. So I would completely make the veggie pasta salad a day or two ahead and let that sit in the fridge.

Of course, there’s watermelon and chips. Those are easy. Good to go the day of. For dessert, I have two different options for you. If you’re more of a berry type of person, you can go with a blueberry crumble. What I would do with that, is serve your blueberry crumble, sprinkle a couple of fresh raspberries on top, and then add a little bit of vanilla ice cream so you have your red, white, and blue for the 4th of July.

Now, if you’re more of a chocolate person, I would recommend doing these no-bake chocolate pot de creme. It is delicious. No baking is required. Basically, everything is made in your food processor or blender, and then it goes in the fridge and it’s a chocolate custard. It’s silky chocolate mousse. It’s delicious. Again, I would recommend topping it with maybe some fresh blueberries, fresh raspberries, and a little bit of whipped cream so you have your red, white, and blue for the 4th of July. 

I hope all of these tips and recipes help you have an amazing 4th of July and celebrate our beautiful country. I will place links to all the printable recipes right in the show notes so you can make them for the 4th of July and plan out exactly how and when you are going to make all the recipes.

If you are loving these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow on your preferred podcast player. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier.