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: Oh my gosh, I’m so excited you guys are here. We are going to be making a super classic dinner, Coca-Cola Classic. We’re making meatloaf muffin cups. So meatloaf is a super traditional, Sunday family dinner recipe, eighties, seventies, yummy. Something that I grew up eating. We are going to put a little modern spin on meatloaf. It’s still going to have all of your classic flavors, you know, onion, tomato, with a ketchup topping. But it’s just going to be made a little bit easier by baking them in a muffin tin so that it bakes faster.

Sometimes meatloaf can take an hour and a half to bake if you make a really big, solid meatloaf. So if you cut it down into smaller little individual portions, it’s ready in a flash. Which we’re all busy, okay? We need minimum effort, maximum flavor. Maybe that should be the name of my podcast. Minimum Effort, maximum flavor, let’s make dinner. 

Tips and Tricks: Okay, let’s get into a couple tips with this recipe. So we’re making ground beef muffin cups. With ground beef, there’s lots of different fat ratios that you can buy for ground beef and different fat ratios work for different things. So if you’re cooking something made with ground beef in its own juices, like a meatball or a meatloaf, or a casserole or a chili, something where the beef and the fat are contained, you want something that is not quite as fatty as an 80/20. 85/15 is excellent. If you want to go, if you can find a 90/10, wonderful. You could go 93/7. That’s getting a little bit lean, but you could certainly use that. 80/20 is going to be great for burgers or something that you’re cooking where the beef is not cooking in its own fat. Because the fat is good. I mean, it adds flavor, but it also makes things greasy. So you want to avoid that. 

Now the other tip with these meatloaf muffin cups is that we’re going to be adding a panade anytime. I’ve talked about making burgers, making meatballs, anything that’s really made with ground meat, we make a panade to add to it. That’s basically just a mixture of a starch and a liquid that keeps a ground meat recipe juicy.

So for this one, we’re using panko breadcrumbs and milk. It’s the perfect addition for meatloaf. Now let’s talk about the topping. I’ve seen a lot of different toppings for meatloaf. I mean, I’ve seen zhuzh up ketchup, I’ve seen a barbecue sauce, I’ve seen a barbecue ketchup mixture. Lots of different options here. If you have a family favorite, use whatever you like. At my house, we like straight up traditional ketchup. Nothing added in, just ketchup. It’s not going to taste like straight up Heinz ketchup after it comes out of the oven. Something happens. To the ketchup when it’s in the oven, and I think it has to do a lot with the sugar content in ketchup. It caramelizes and really becomes rich in flavor and it’s the perfect topping for these meatloaf muffin cups. So if you trust me and you trust my flavor, then go with just the straight up ketchup. I think that’s all the tips that I have for this recipe. 

Meatloaf Muffins Recipe: So we can just pop right into making the full recipe. You want to start by making sure that you have a 12 cup muffin tin. This recipe’s going to make exactly 12 cups. Get yourself a 12 cup muffin tin. Then the other thing that I recommend is placing that muffin tin on a rimmed baking sheet because the meatloaf muffins will pile a little bit higher than your muffin tin, and you don’t want any grease to bake out and spill in your oven and make a mess. It will make a smoky mess if grease runs out in your oven. 

Okay, let’s get to making these. You’re going to start by preheating your oven to 400. Then you want to spray your 12 count muffin tin with a little non-stick spray baking spray, or you can coat it in some kind of olive oil or canola oil.

Then you can set that aside. In a skillet over medium heat, you’re going to saute one diced onion and three chopped garlic cloves until they’re softened. So this will be like eight to 10 minutes. Then you remove that from the heat and you’re going to stir in two tablespoons of worcestershire sauce, one tablespoon of tomato paste, and one teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary.

Now, if rosemary is not your jam, then you can absolutely sub in chopped fresh thyme. I think those are probably the two herbs that I would use here. I don’t think I would stray into basil or oregano. I would keep it to that rosemary or thyme, or you could do a combo of the two. That would work as well.

So go ahead and set that mixture aside and let it cool while we make the ground beef mixture. In a large bowl, you’re going to add one cup of Panko breadcrumbs, and a third a cup of milk. You’re going to let that sit for just like a minute or two so that the Panko breadcrumbs can soften in that milk. Then to that, you’re going to add two pounds of ground beef, two eggs that are lightly beaten, one teaspoon of kosher salt, half a teaspoon of black pepper, half a teaspoon of onion powder, and then that sauteed onion mixture.

With clean hands or a fork, you’re going to mix everything together, just until it comes together. You don’t want to overmix it because we’re not trying to make compact little meatballs here. We’re trying to make some nice tender meatloaf cups. Once that is all mixed together, it’s time to grab that prepared muffin tin. With a third a cup, a measuring cup, you want to portion the meatloaf mixture into the muffin tin. So it should be just exactly one third of a cup into the muffin tin. No need to pat it down or make it look perfect. It’s totally fine if it looks kind of craggy on the top and is just messy. Totally fine. 

Next, you want to top each individual little meatloaf cup with about one tablespoon of ketchup and just spread it just a little bit so it’s not all the way to the edge, but so that it covers the surface.

Then you’re going to place that muffin tin on top of the baking sheet, like I said before, to catch any spills. You’re going to bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes until the center of the meatloaf cups reaches around 160. If you have an instant read thermometer, you can check the internal temperature there. 160 is totally fine. It will climb a couple degrees once you take it out of the ove., and that’s just called carry over cooking. Let them rest for a few minutes and then you can pop them right out of that muffin tin and serve them. Serve them! 

I got really excited about serving my meatloaf cups. Okay, so you’re going to serve one to three meatloaf cups per person. One per kid, right? Maybe three per super hungry person is great. 

As far as side dishes go, keep it classic,okay. It goes great with mashed potatoes and any kind of green veggie; like roasted broccoli, green peas, roasted asparagus, green beans, anything like that is just super classic.

Now if you want to make this recipe with ground Turkey, I actually have a recipe for ground Turkey meatloaf muffin cups that’s wonderful. So I will link that in the show notes for you. I also have a really fun recipe for meatloaf slider sandwiches, you know, like little mini sandwiches. I will link that in the show notes as well, because you can serve your meatloaf muffin cups one night and then a couple nights later you can serve meatloaf sliders if you have leftovers. So a great two for one dinner. 

That does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner. Of course, I will link all of the recipes that I talked about right in the show notes for you so you can find them when you’re ready to make dinner. 

If you’re enjoying this show, I would love to have you follow or subscribe to your preferred podcast player, as well as let a friend or family member or somebody you love know about this podcast. I would totally appreciate it. 

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

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 have a little extra special bonus episode for you today. This is not a dinner recipe. Since we are headed right into winter, I thought I would come on and do a little hot chocolate recipe. I am all for a really good shortcut in the kitchen. Really good marinara sauce, a really good refrigerated pesto, really good refrigerated pico de gallo you can get at the store. Packaged hot chocolate, it’s fine. But if you’ve ever had homemade hot chocolate that has a really rich, deep chocolate flavor and has a thicker texture, it’s almost like drinking chocolate, you won’t go back to the packaged stuff. It’s super, super easy. If you have a well-stocked baking cabinet, most likely you can actually make hot chocolate any day, especially on a snow day. This will be an extra special treat. If you have some teens in your house that maybe are feeling a little bit too old to go make a snowman outside, you can leave them inside and they can make this hot chocolate for everybody. They’ll love it. It’s a great little snow day project for the older kids. 

Tips and Tricks: So there is one ingredient that you may not have in your baking cabinet already, and it’s powdered milk. It’s kind of an odd ingredient, but it definitely makes this hot chocolate recipe extra creamy and rich. You can find powdered milk usually in the baking aisle, and it’s probably going to be on one of the bottom shelves. It will either be in a box or in a canister. The one I have is just from Target. It’s on the bottom shelf. It comes in a box, and then there’s three pouches in the box. So look for that at your store and pick it up, and then you can just keep it in your baking cabinet. When you’re ready to make this hot chocolate, you’ll probably have all the ingredients you need.

Homemade Hot Chocolate Recipe: To get started, you’re going to need three cups of milk. In the recipe, I recommend whole milk just because it’s extra creamy and rich, but you can definitely use a 2% if that’s what you have. So in a small saucepan, you’re going to get that warming over medium low heat. While that warms together, you’re going to whisk together a quarter cup of powdered milk, a quarter cup of unsweetened cocoa powder and three tablespoons of powdered sugar. Whisk that together until it comes together and there’s no clumps or anything. Then once that milk is warm on the stove top, you’re going to slowly whisk that cocoa mixture into the warm milk and keep whisking until it is smooth and fully combined. Then you’re going to pour in one cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips into that warm milk cocoa mixture and stir until they’re completely melted and incorporated. Remove that from the heat, and that’s it. That is your hot chocolate. It is super simple and is so much better than the package stuff. I hate saying that because it feels snooty, but it really is. It really is better than just the package stuff, I promise. 

So this recipe will fill two mugs completely. Or to be honest, what I find is that when I pour hot cocoa for the kids, they generally don’t drink the whole cup anyway. So I would pour it into three cups, filling it about two thirds of the way full, and then leave the rest of the room for the kids to pour on all their toppings. We’re not having hot cocoa every day, so let them go crazy with their toppings. 

Some of the things that I like to have for the kids to add in are, of course marshmallows, mini marshmallows, whipped cream, maybe some chocolate sauce, maybe some extra cocoa powder or powdered sugar in a little shaker. For the adults you could add a little boozy note to your hot cocoa. So some things that would be really good are Peppermint Schnapps, Baileys, maybe Kahlua. RumChata is probably my favorite. It has a cinnamon and cream flavor to it. You could do whipped cream vodka, marshmallow vodka. Fireball or just a chocolate liqueur to add a little bit more chocolate flavor.

So I hope that this hot cocoa recipe warms up your next snow day. Of course, I will link the full recipe right in the show notes for you so you can find it when you’re ready to make your homemade hot chocolate. 

If you’re enjoying all these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That just makes it easier for you to find all of our new episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: All right. Usually at the end I say, I hope this recipe makes your dinner time easier, but since this isn’t for dinner, I guess we’ll just see you later.

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: I am super excited to share this recipe with you guys today because if you have picky eaters in your house, they are going to love this recipe. We are making chicken noodle soup for the kids for dinner tonight. This is a perfect kid-friendly dinner. It’s full of flavor so the adults can eat it, but not full of ingredients that your kids are going to hate. Like pieces of onion, pieces of garlic, chopped-up celery, and no green stuff; no parsley, nothing that they’re going to turn their nose up at.

Intro: This is a homemade chicken noodle soup with just a few ingredient adjustments. That makes it a perfect kid-friendly dinner, that is great for your picky eaters. I also will tell you that this recipe is famous adjacent. So Jenna Fisher, who played Pam on The Office, made this recipe for her kids and her family for dinner, and everybody loved it and she shared it on Instagram and the recipe blew up. So you can tell your kids that Pam from the office even likes this recipe. 

Tips and Tricks: All right, so a couple of tips on a few ingredients when you’re making this chicken noodle soup. Number one, the chicken. I always recommend that you take advantage of the rotisserie chicken either at Costco or at your local grocery store.

It’s super tender and juicy chicken that is perfect in any recipe that calls for cooked chicken. The other option would be to roast a chicken breast in the oven at 350 for about 15 to 20 minutes until it reaches 165. Or you could poach a chicken breast in simmering water. I have a great recipe on Mom’s Dinner that I will link in the show notes for you on how to poach chicken breasts. The last option would be just to use the leftover chicken that you have in your fridge. 

Another ingredient I want to chat about is chicken base. So chicken base I always say is like the older, better-looking brother of chicken bouillon. Basically, it’s a paste form of bouillon that has so much more flavor and is so much more delicious. So you will find it in your soup aisle, and I usually purchase the Better Than Bouillon brand. It comes in a jar and it’s a paste form. Definitely do not skip that ingredient. 

The last thing I want to talk about before we get to the full recipe is the noodles traditional. You know, like canned Campbell’s chicken noodle soup has a very specific noodle. It is not spaghetti, it is not a frozen thick egg noodle. It’s something called a kluski noodle, and I believe it’s spelled K L U S K I. They sometimes are also called Swabian Spaetzle noodles, which you’re probably like, yeah, I’m never going to find in my grocery store. But you’ll be surprised. It’s probably going to be called a Kluski Noodle at your grocery store, and most likely it’s going to be maybe in the soup aisle, or it’s going to be on the bottom shelf near the pasta. So definitely look for that. That is the type of noodle that your kids are used to if they’ve had just canned Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. 

Chicken Noodle Soup for Kids Recipe: So let’s get on to making this full recipe. You’re going to start with a large pot over medium, medium-high heat. Add a little bit of olive oil or canola oil. Then you’re going to add in one cup of diced carrots. You can use baby carrots or you can use whole peeled carrots. Whatever you have in your fridge will work just fine. You’re going to let those soften for about three to five minutes, and then you’re going to sprinkle in a quarter teaspoon of garlic powder and onion powder.

I know I said there would be no garlic or onion. This is just a quarter teaspoon, so it’s going to add enough flavor to the soup that they won’t be able to put their finger on. They’re still going to love it. They also sprinkle in an eighth of a teaspoon of kosher salt, celery salt, and turmeric powder. Give that a good stir around the pot. Then you’re going to pour in 32 ounces of chicken broth and one teaspoon of that chicken base that we talked about. Give that a good stir and turn the heat up to medium, medium-high, and bring the pot to a simmer. Once that broth starts to simmer, you’ll add in one cup of cooked chicken that’s diced pretty small. Whatever you think your kids will like, dice it to that size. And one cup up to one and a half cups, if your kids really like noodles of those kluski noodles that we talked about in the ingredient section as well. You’re going to let that simmer for about 12 to 15 minutes until the noodles are cooked through, and the carrots are nice and softened. 

At the end, you want to make sure you taste it for additional seasoning and it’s good to go. Now as far as serving your chicken noodle soup for kids for dinner, we just keep it really simple and we either add some warm, crusty bread on the side, as they would get at Panera or saltine crackers. Then we might mix up some chocolate milk to go with the soup. 

That does it for today’s recipe. As always, I will link all of the recipes I talked about in this episode right in the show notes for you. 

If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow your preferred podcast player. We’ll just make it easier for you to find all of our future episodes right in your podcast feed.

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

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

Susie Weinrich: All right, calling all of my instant pot lovers. Today we are making some Instant Pot Pulled Pork. It is so delicious and it is so versatile for dinner. I mean, you can do pulled pork tacos, pulled pork pizza, nachos, pulled pork barbecue sandwiches, and pulled pork grilled cheese. Anything is possible with pulled pork. So it’s a great option for dinner. It’s a great meal prep option too because your pulled pork freezes beautifully. 

Tips and Tricks: So let’s talk about what you’re going buy when you’re ready to make instant pop pulled pork. You obviously need a large piece of pork. What you’re going to look for in the grocery store is one of three things. It just depends on where you’re at and how they’re labeling. You’re going to look for either a pork butt, a pork shoulder, or a Boston butt. Those are basically all going to come from the same area on the pig and be basically the same thing. The only other thing you’re going to find on the packaging is whether it’s bone-in or boneless. With this one, it’s easier to use if it’s boneless, but you definitely don’t have to buy it that way. If you get a bone in pork shoulder, you can either cut the bone out or cut around it, still put it in the instant pot, and all the meat should come right off of that bone when you’re done with the cooking time.

This is also a great recipe to make if you love barbecue, but maybe you don’t have a smoker, which would be me. We just have a traditional grill. I don’t have a smoker, and so when we have pulled pork, I like to just do it in the instant pot. It’s easy for me. It’s quick, and it’s still super delicious. 

A couple of questions that I get when people are making pulled pork. First of all, people will ask, how should I estimate how much pork to make? If I have 10 people coming, how much pork should I make? What I usually say is that you should estimate anywhere from three to four people per pound of pork. So if you’re having 10 people for dinner, then you should estimate probably around four pounds of pork.

Here is another common question that I get when people are making larger cuts of meat in the Instant Pot. If I double the recipe, do I double the time? The answer here is, it depends. With this recipe, we are taking one large pork shoulder and cutting it up into equal sizes, so three-inch pieces. So since we’re cutting it up into those individual pieces, if you double the recipe, there is no need to double the time. Now, in the case of my pork roast, my Instant Pot Pork Roast, that’s going to be cooked as one large piece of meat. So let’s say you were going to try and double the recipe. So instead of a three-pound pork shoulder, you were going to try and find a six-pound pork shoulder, then you would need to increase the time because you’re trying to cook one large piece of meat. So I hope that clears that up for you when you’re using your Instant Pot. 

Instant Pot Pulled Pork Recipe: So let’s get on to making this full recipe for Instant Pot Pulled Pork. As I said before, you can use any size pork shoulder you want. This recipe is written for a three to five-pound fresh pork butt. We’re going to start by actually making a dry rub. So if you happen to have a pork barbecue dry rub that you really like, you can absolutely use that and skip this step. But if you are going to make this barbecue dry rub, in a small bowl, you want to combine two tablespoons of brown sugar and one and a half tablespoons of kosher salt. One teaspoon each of onion powder, garlic powder, and black pepper. Half a teaspoon of chili powder and smoked paprika and then a quarter teaspoon of dry mustard. Just give that a really good stir and make sure there are no brown sugar clumps left, and you can set that aside. 

Now we’re going to turn our attention back over to the large pork butt. What you want to do is trim away any of the white fat that you can see around the outside, and then cut it into large three-inch chunks. 

So a note about the fat. Usually, we love the fat and we want to keep the fat. But since we’re not cooking low and slow as you would on a smoker, the fat renders down and just creates flavor and juiciness. When we’re cooking hot and fast at this high pressure, that fat is not going to render down completely, and it’s just going to turn into these little clumps of gross, jiggly fat. You don’t want that in your pulled pork. So try and trim away as much of that fat as you can. 

Now as you’re cutting your pork into three-inch chunks, you may find some more pockets of fat or some connective tissue. Go ahead and cut those away as well. What I like to do at this point is take all of those pieces of pork and put them on a rimmed baking sheet, or you could put them on a large piece of parchment paper and sprinkle them with that dry rub we made in the first step and sprinkle it and press it onto all sides of the pork.

Now it’s time to get your instant pot out. In the bottom of the Instant Pot, you’re going to pour in one cup of water, one tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, and one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar. Your Instant Pot probably came with a metal trivet. It’s up to you if you want to play set in the pot, or if you just want to put your pork right in the liquid.

But go ahead and pile all of your pork pieces right into the instant pot. Then you want to just pop that lid, turn it, and lock it in place. Turn the pressure valve to seal and set the pot to cook on high pressure, normal heat for 40 minutes. At the end of that 40-minute cook time, you’re going to do something called a 10-minute natural release, and that’s basically where the 40-minute cooking time is up and the instant pot will start to count back up to 10.

So let that happen for 10 minutes and then you’ll finish with a quick release of pressure by turning that valve on top to release. Then go ahead and open up your pot, and with tongs, you can remove all of the pieces of pork. Again, I like to put them on a rimmed baking sheet because it collects any juice that seeps out from the pork.

There will be a good amount of liquid left over in your instant pot. You can use that to pour a little bit over your pork. You can discard it. You can save it for gravy, whatever you like to do with that liquid, but you don’t necessarily need it for the rest of the recipe. 

So now you can just shred up your pork. You can do it with two forks and it should fall apart really easily. Or if your pork is still warm, you can actually put it in a stand mixer and take a paddle attachment and run it just on low speed for about mm, like 30 seconds and it will shred it perfectly. 

Like we said at the beginning of the episode, you can use this pulled pork in so many different ways. So I’m not going to tell you how to use or serve your pulled pork. But if you are going to do barbecue pulled pork sandwiches, then pour on some of your favorite barbecue sauce and grab some buns and some coleslaw, and some pickles, and make yourself a delicious sandwich. 

So that does it for your Instant Pot pulled pork recipe. As always, I will link all of the recipes I talked about in this episode right in the show notes for you. If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow your preferred podcast player. That will just make it easier for you to find all of our future episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier. Anything is possible with pulled pork.

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

Susie Weinrich: All right, raise your hand if you love a sheet pan dinner. I absolutely love them. I feel like a couple of years ago, they were on a real trend and a craze. Everything was sheet pan dinners and it was a wonder. Well, during that time, I created a recipe that has gone bonkers on Pinterest. And this recipe is for sheet pan sausage and veggies with a twist. It has a smoked paprika vinaigrette that you drizzle over the entire dish that sets it apart, heads, and tails above other sheet pan dinners.

Tips and Tricks: So I don’t have a lot of tips or tricks or anything for you with this recipe. It’s pretty straightforward. The only thing I will say about this recipe and really any sheet pan recipe that you’re making, you want to make sure that you are using the largest sheet pan you can. So we’re talking like a half-sheet pan. If you have to use two sheet pans. What you want to avoid is overcrowding the pan because whatever you have on there will not roast. It will steam if it’s crowded. So make sure you have that nice large pan. I think we should just go ahead and get started with this recipe. 

Sheet Pan Sausage Recipe: What you’re going to want to do is preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Grab one or two really large rimmed sheet pans, and we’re going to prep a whole bunch of veggies. What you’re going to want to do is take one small red or yellow onion and chop it into about one-inch chunks. Take about 15 fresh brussels sprouts. I find that hard to say brussels sprouts, and actually, did you know it’s Brussels sprouts? There’s an S on the end of Brussels, which is really bizarre. Anyway, trim off the stem and cut them in half. Take one large sweet potato and peel it and cut it into about half to one-inch-sized pieces. Two really large carrots. Go ahead and peel those and cut those just into coins, which are just the rounds. Take half a head of broccoli and cut it into florets and half a head of cauliflower and cut it into florets.

So go ahead and put all of those veggies on your sheet pan or two sheet pans if you need to use two. Drizzle on one and a half tablespoons of olive oil and then sprinkle on one teaspoon of kosher salt and add pepper to taste. Give everything a toss so that you coat it really well with the olive oil and then pop it in the oven for 15 minutes.

While that’s baking, you’re going to cut your smoked beef sausage link into 20 pieces. Your beef sausage link will actually look like one really large link that’s kind of in a circle. So that’s what you’re looking for at the store. Cut that up into 20 pieces and as soon as the veggies are done roasting, pull those out and you’re going to give the veggies a little toss with a spatula and then place the sausage pieces in with the veggies. You’re going to pop it back in the oven for an additional 12 minutes. 

Now while that’s finishing in the oven, we’re going to make a smoked paprika vinaigrette. This stuff is so good. I am telling you, I could eat this on everything. I have had many comments on Pinterest that they double the smoked paprika vinaigrette because it’s so good. 

On here, I’m just going to go through one recipe, but if you think that this sounds really good, double the smoked paprika vinaigrette recipe when you make this. When I make vinaigrette, I like to just do it in a mason jar because you can put all the ingredients in there, screw the lid on, and just give it a really good shake.

So what you’re going to add is one and a half tablespoons of olive oil, one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, one teaspoon of dijon mustard, one and a half teaspoons of honey, and one minced garlic clove. Then a quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika. Make sure you get smoked paprika, not just a regular paprika, not sweet paprika, not Hungarian paprika. It needs to be smoked paprika. It has a very distinct flavor. So screw the lid on your mason jar and give it a really good shake. 

At this time, your veggies and your beef should be ready to come out of the oven. Pull it out, take that vinegarette and drizzle it all over the veggies and the sausage and toss it to coat, and serve it right away. It is so delicious. You are absolutely going to love this, and it’s great for fall. It definitely has the colors and the flavors of fall. So as far as side dishes go, we really keep this simple. It has your veggies. It has the starch, it has the protein. So usually we’ll just add some really good, either garlic bread or some warm crusty ciabatta bread or sourdough or something like that, which goes perfectly with this dish.

That does it for this quick recipe today. Of course, I will link all of the recipes right in the show notes for you so you can find them when you’re ready to make this for dinner. 

If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you rate and review the show in your preferred podcast player. 

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

Intro: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes and cocktails that you can get in your mouth any night of the week. 

Susie Weinrich: I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. We have a little bonus episode for you today. That’s why I said we can get those cocktails in your mouth. So we are making an apple cider margarita today, you guys. I love this recipe so much. Because number one, I’m super excited about the colder weather, which is not typical of me. Normally I am hanging on to every last warm day that the summer has to give. This year, I’m kind of pumped for a little bit of cold weather. I’m ready for some apple cider. I’m ready for all the soups and stews, and this apple cider margarita is definitely going to be on the menu. 

Tips and Tricks: So let’s get into a couple of tips with this recipe. Number one, let’s talk about apple cider. If you have, like here in the Midwest, I live in the Kansas City area. We have a lot of apple orchards, like local apple orchards around that sell their apple cider in the grocery stores. So we have one called Louisburg Cider Mill. They have excellent apple cider, and it’s what I usually buy. If I can’t get that, then I’ll just buy what’s on the shelf, or I’ll go to Trader Joe’s. They have a great apple cider in the fall. Any of those will work. 

What you don’t want to get is a hard apple cider, which is going to be carbonated and usually has some kind of alcoholic content. That’s not what you’re looking for in these margaritas. Also, your apple cider should be kind of opaque. It shouldn’t be translucent like apple juice. That’s not going to give you the same flavor that you want with cider.

Okay. Let’s also talk about tequila. I am a huge tequila fan. So if you love tequila, you’re super duper going to love this apple cider cocktail. I recommend using the warmer tequilas in this cocktail since it is kind of a fall-flavored drink. You want to use either a reposado or an añejo. I just say añejo, I’m sure it’s not right, tequila because they have that warmer flavor. So reposado tequila is going to be kind of a light brown caramel color. What it is, it’s a blend of the aged Anejo tequila and the baby Silver Blanco tequila.

The other one, the añejo tequila is an aged tequila. It’s aged one to three years in oak barrels, so it has a very dark caramel color, and it will have a super pronounced flavor of caramel and vanilla. It’s excellent alcohol to drink on the rocks. I love Anejo on the rocks in the winter. Mm-hmm. So delicious. So those are all my tips. Let’s get on to making your apple cider margaritas.

Apple Cider Margaritas Recipe: As with any margarita, you’re going to want to rim your glass with that classic salt or sugar rim. What we’re going to use is actually a sugar-salt cinnamon combo. So on a flat plate, you want to mix one teaspoon of sugar, a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon, and then a pretty decent pinch or two of kosher salt. Mix that all together, stir it all together so it’s really well combined, and that’s going to be your rim. What you’ll want to do is take the glass that you plan to make your margarita in. So you’re going to want to have an eight to 10-ounce glass rub an orange slice around the rim of your glass, and then dip it in that cinnamon sugar salt combo, and it should stick right to your glass. Then you want to turn to make your cocktail. You can do this in a cocktail shaker, or you can make it right in your prepared glass. So you’ll want to fill that glass with ice. Pour in one ounce, up to one and a half ounces, depending on how strong you want your cocktail. One to one and a half ounces of either reposado or añejo tequila. Then add half an ounce of triple sec, and this can be like Grand Marnier. It could be a Quantro or just triple sec, whatever you like. Whatever you have. Then three ounces of your Apple cider. You’ll give it a really good stir. Or if you made it in a cocktail shaker, give it a really good shake and then strain it into your glass.

You can garnish it with apple slices, orange slices, cinnamon sticks, or star anise is another fun little garnish. That’s your whole cocktail. It’s so good. It is perfectly paired with fall people. You’re going to love it. 

So that does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner and cocktails. If you’re enjoying these episodes, I would love to have you subscribe or follow your preferred podcast player. It will just make it easier for you to find all of our future episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this cocktail recipe makes your cocktail time a little sweeter.

046 Tomato Cream Sauce Pasta_final

Intro: Hey everybody. Welcome 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, today we’re going to start a little different. I am going to read a review and comment on this recipe for Tomato Cream Sauce that goes awesome with pasta. This is from Robin. Five Stars. This is our favorite restaurant sauce and I’ve tried multiple times to make it. Your recipe is the easiest and best-tasting ever. The whole family goes nuts over it. It is delicious. 

Thank you so much for the five stars in the comment, Robin. Totally appreciate it and it couldn’t be more true. This is a super easy 30-minute dinner that tastes like it is restaurant quality, like a tomato cream sauce that you would get at your favorite Italian restaurant. It uses super simple ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen. 

So as long as you’ve got some tomato paste, onions, garlic, a few seasonings, heavy cream milk, and some of your favorite jarred marinara sauce, you’re going to be good to go with this recipe, and I bet your kids are going to love it.

Tips and Tricks: So let’s talk about a few tips with the ingredients and just the recipe in general. First of all, let’s talk about pasta sauce. Every family has a pasta sauce that they love. I have one that I would love for you to try sometime, and I’m not sponsored by them. We just love it so much and it was a big change for us when we switched to this brand. We’ve been using RAOs pasta sauce and their traditional marinara or their tomato basil marinara is so good. I mean, it is like heads and tails above other brands. The best place I find to get it is actually Costco. If you have a Costco nearby or a Costco membership, it’s much less expensive than if you buy it at your traditional grocery store. Or I think Target or Walmart both carry it as well and it’s going to be a little bit cheaper there. It is one of the more expensive marinara sauces, but it’s worth it. I mean, your box of pasta’s going to be like a buck, so spend a little bit more on your marinara sauce and you won’t regret it. 

Alright, the other thing is with your tomato paste. When you buy tomato paste, generally it’s not going to call for the entire four-ounce can of tomato paste. In this recipe, you are only using, let’s see, one tablespoon of tomato paste. I think an entire can is like four ounces. So what you can do is actually freeze the remaining tomato paste that you have in that can. What you want to do is just scoop it out in tablespoon portions, put it on a little rimmed baking sheet, pop it in the freezer for like an hour, and then once it’s frozen, pull it out, put it in a Ziploc baggy, and those little pucks of tomato paste will be good for, it says up to three months. But really, I think that you could keep tomato paste for like six months at least, and still have it be good in the freezer. 

The other tip though with tomato paste is if your grocery store has tomato paste in the little tube, it almost looks like a metal toothpaste tube, buy it that way. Because that will stay good in your fridge for a really long time.

The last tip that I have with this recipe is since you’re using pasta and making a sauce, I recommend multitasking here. So while that pasta is cooking, you’re going to make your sauce. It’s going to make dinner come together much faster. 

All right, so those are all my tips. Let’s get on to making the full recipe. You’re going to start by obviously boiling your water. You know what? I do have another tip for you. When you cook pasta, you need to salt the heck out of your pasta water. I’m telling you, put in way more salt than you would ever imagine. Get that water super salty. You can even taste the water, so dip your finger or dip a spoon in there. It should taste like salty sea water. It should be very, very salty. That’s your opportunity to season your pasta. 

Tomato Cream Sauce Recipe: Get a big pot of salted water boiling, and cook your pasta.

Now onto the sauce. You can use a skillet or you can use a saucepan, but you’re going to pop it over medium-low heat and add one tablespoon of olive oil or you could use a canola or vegetable oil. You could even use avocado oil or something. Whatever neutral oil you use in your kitchen will work here. You’re going to add half a cup of diced onions. For these types of Italian recipes, I like to use either yellow or white onions. Add three chopped garlic cloves. Get that softening in the oil. It will take somewhere between five to eight minutes to get the onion nice and softened. 

Now, here’s one thing I will tell you about this sauce. If you have kids that hate onions or don’t want to see any onions, my son used to call him pickles when he was little. If your kids don’t want to see any onion pickles, then skip the onions altogether. But I would still recommend adding the garlic in.

Okay, so then after your onions in, your garlic is nice and softened, you’re going to add in one teaspoon of dried basil, one teaspoon of dried oregano, half a teaspoon of kosher salt, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and then that one tablespoon of tomato paste. You’re going to give it a stir all around the pot until the tomato paste is coating the onions and the garlic.

Now, of course, I have another tip. One tip about your dried herbs. Dried herbs, of course, lose flavor and potency over time in your spice cabinet. One way to wake your spices up is to put them in the palm of your hand and then with the fingers on the other hand, rub and crush that dried basil and dried oregano, and it will wake up the spices and release their oils into your sauce.

Once that tomato paste is coating the onions and garlic, you’re going to stir in one cup of heavy cream and half a cup of milk. You want to bring that to a light simmer over that medium-low heat and let it simmer for about five to eight minutes. You want it to coat the back of a wooden spoon so it’s getting thick as it’s simmering.

In the end, you’re going to stir in two cups of your favorite jarred marinara sauce and mix it in with the cream mixture and that’s it. Everything’s done. You’re just going to add your pasta to the sauce, give it a good toss. You can taste your sauce, of course, for additional seasoning. If you want more salt or more pepper. You can add more red pepper flakes for a little bit of a spicier sauce. When you’re serving it, you can garnish it with Parmesan cheese or some fresh chopped parsley. 

Now sometimes if we want to have a little bit of protein added, a grilled chicken or a sauteed shrimp would be excellent with this pasta. The other thing I want to tell you is that this is actually a great gluten-free cream sauce that you can serve to any of your gluten-free family members. So just make sure that the jarred marinara sauce that you use is gluten-free, and then use a gluten-free noodle for your pasta. Since we’re not using flour to make the cream sauce, it’s a great gluten-free option. 

Now as far as serving goes, of course, since this is a pasta recipe, I recommend just pairing it with a nice green side salad, whether you do Caesar salad or I have a great recipe for a big Italian salad on Mom’s Dinner that I will link in the show notes for you. It’s full of veggies and has a basil vinaigrette that’s drizzled over top. Then of course garlic bread. 

All right. That does it for this full recipe. If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. It just makes it easier for you to find all of our future episodes right in your podcast feed. Of course, as always, I will eat all of the recipes that I talked about in this episode right in the show notes for you. 

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

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 am your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: All right. I have such a killer recipe for you today. If you have a really well-stocked spice cabinet and your family likes fish or seafood, you’re going to love this recipe. You can get it on the table in about 20 minutes. It’s mostly hands-off cooking, which is an extra bonus when you’ve got your hands full. 

Tips and Tricks: Tonight we’re making Cajun Salmon for dinner. You are especially going to love it if you like Cajun flavors, which we love Cajun flavors here at this house. I always say that smoked paprika is probably one of my very favorite spices.

This Cajun salmon definitely has a strong flavor of smoked paprika. So I don’t have a lot of tips for this recipe. Really, it’s pretty much straightforward. You want to make sure that you’re buying fresh salmon. The recipe calls for skinless salmon. But really when you bake the salmon, it flakes off the skin pretty well. So it’s not totally necessary to have skinless because honestly, sometimes I find it hard to find skinless salmon at the grocery store. 

Cajun Salmon Recipe: So let’s get on to making this full recipe. It’s so easy. So you’re going to start by preheating the oven to 400 degrees. Then make sure that you have an oven rack that’s right in the center of your oven. Then you’re going grab a large baking sheet, probably a large-rimmed baking sheet, and give it a good spray with a non-stick cooking spray. Or you can grease it with just olive oil or canola oil. Canola oil. That’s hard to say. Then you are going to make your Cajun seasoning mix. So this is where your spice cabinet’s going to come in.

In a small bowl, you want to mix together two teaspoons of brown sugar, one teaspoon each of smoked paprika, kosher salt, garlic powder, and onion powder. Then you’re going to do half a teaspoon each of black pepper and dried oregano and a quarter teaspoon each of cayenne pepper and dried thyme. Now, mix that all together. The one tip I have here is whenever you’re making a seasoning mix that has brown sugar, you want to make sure that that brown sugar gets mixed all the way down in and you don’t have any clumps left. Also, if you like more of a spicy flavor in your Cajun seasoning, add a little bit more cayenne pepper or some red pepper flakes.

Now you’re going to take about one and a half tablespoons of olive oil and brush that on all sides of the salmon. Now again, if you have skin-on salmon, you don’t have to worry about putting any olive oil on the skin side because you’re not going to put any seasoning on that side. So rub the olive oil on all sides if you’ve got skinless. Then you’re going to sprinkle that Cajun seasoning on all sides of your salmon. You’ll place the filets on that prepared baking sheet and pop it in the oven for about 12 to 14 minutes. You always want to cook your salmon until it is firm, but it’s not dried out. 

Salmon only needs to be cooked to 135 degrees internal temperature. So if you have an instant-read thermometer, this is a great time to use it and make sure that you’re not overcooking your salmon. 

When you serve your Cajun salmon, I have an excellent recipe for a Cajun aioli that makes a great dipping sauce for your Cajun salmon. Not necessary, but if you’ve got a little extra time, it’s actually a super easy recipe.

As far as side dishes go, I recommend a roasted green veggie that you can just cook in the oven right alongside the salmon, so maybe roasted asparagus, roasted Brussels sprouts, or roasted broccoli. Then add rice or a pilaf on the side. Zatarans is a brand that you can buy in the store. They have just boxed dirty rice or Cajun rice that you can buy that would be excellent on the side. Or on Mom’s Dinner, I have a recipe for a Skillet of Dirty Rice and Beans that would be so good with this Cajun salmon. The dirty rice and beans have a little bit of smoked beef sausage in it that would just be an amazing addition to this dinner. So whatever you choose to put together, your Cajun salmon is going to be the star and it’s going to be delicious. 

That does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner. As always, I will link all of the recipes that I talked about in this episode right in the show notes for you, so when you are ready to make dinner, you’ll have all of the recipes you need.

If you’re loving these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. It just makes it easier to find all of our future episodes right in your podcast feed. 

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