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: We are going to get right to it today. We have an amazing recipe that you can use in so many different ways. We are talking about basil pesto today.

You’ve probably had basil pesto out at restaurants. If you get a pesto pasta or a pesto pizza, it goes great with chicken, it goes great with pasta. There are so many different ways that you can actually use this sauce. Believe it or not, if you haven’t made it, it is extremely easy to make. It’s made with just a few ingredients. It comes together in about 10 minutes. That really includes your prep, so cracking garlic cloves, and getting all of your ingredients ready. This will be really easy to make. 

Here are the ingredients you’re going to need. Walnuts or pine nuts. Fresh basil, of course. Fresh garlic, extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, and Parmesan cheese are optional, but I do prefer Parmesan cheese in my pesto.

Also, to make your pesto, you will need some equipment. I like to make mine in a food processor because you can use the little feed tube at the top to drizzle in your extra virgin olive oil. If you don’t have that, you can absolutely just use a really powerful blender, whatever you have in your kitchen.

Tips and Tricks: A couple of tips with some of the ingredients. Number one, your fresh basil. You’re going to need a ton of fresh basil. You need about five cups. So if you’re buying it in the store, I find the best place to get it is actually Trader Joe’s, if you have one nearby. Their packages of basil are nice and full, so you probably only need to buy two of their packages to get close to your five cups, maybe three actually. If you’re buying it at the regular grocery store, you’re going to need a lot of those little packages of basil. So your best bet is to go to Trader Joe’s or to grow your own basil in the summer. It’s a pretty easy plant to grow actually and it is prolific. It grows and grows and grows. If you are into having a green thumb, my recipe post for this basil pesto actually has some tips for growing, harvesting, and regrowing your basil. 

Another ingredient I want to talk about is the extra virgin olive oil. E V O O. Extra virgin olive oil is not the same as just olive oil. It will say it right on the package so you can see what is what. You want to buy the extra virgin olive oil. It has a much stronger, more pronounced flavor than you want in your pesto. So if you don’t have that, go to the store and get extra virgin olive oil. 

Basil Pesto Recipe: All right, let’s get on to making this recipe. So you’re going to grab your food processor with a blade attachment or a blender, and you’re going to add a third a cup of walnuts, or you can use pine nuts and seven garlic cloves. It is very garlicky, but that is what you want. Now if you are very sensitive to garlic, maybe you could cut it back to like four cloves. But if you love that garlic, keep all seven. Then you’re going to go ahead and pulse that walnut and garlic mixture together about 20 to 30 pulses until it’s nicely ground up. Then you’re going to add five cups of basil, four tablespoons of lemon juice, one teaspoon of kosher salt, and then a third a cup of fresh grated Parmesan cheese if you’re choosing to use the Parmesan cheese. Then you’re going to start your food processor. In that feed tube, you will slowly drizzle in one cup of extra virgin olive oil and just keep blending it until it is smooth and all of the pesto comes together.

Now, if you’re using that food processor, you may need to scrape the sides of the bowl down a couple of times just to make sure that everything gets processed together. With your pesto. You can use it right away, or you can store it in the fridge. It should be good for about a week. This is my favorite tip though. Pesto can be frozen beautifully. It will keep for six months in your freezer. What I recommend is actually taking an old-fashioned ice cube tray, spooning about one and a half tablespoon portions into each little cup, and popping it in the freezer. Let all those cubes freeze up and then pop them out and put them in just like a freezer-safe baggie and keep it in the freezer for six months. That way you can use just a little bit at a time. Or when you are ready to use it, it will thaw and cook down a little bit faster than if it was just in one big block.

To use your pesto, it is excellent just tossed with pasta. A little bit goes a long way with pesto. It’s not like a marinara where you want it to soak the noodles. You just want it to lightly coat the pasta. So I also recommend if you’re going to toss it with pasta, save a little bit of your starchy pasta cooking water. It will help kind of thin that pesto out and mix it into the pasta a little bit better. My tip for saving your starchy pasta cooking water is when you get your calendar out and put it in the sink, pop a measuring cup in the calendar, and you won’t forget that water.

Pesto also makes a great dip for grilled chicken or roasted shrimp. You can make a pesto cream sauce by adding a little bit of heavy cream, or you can make a pesto lasagna. I have a great recipe for a pesto lasagna skillet that has a little bit of Italian sausage of pine nuts and pesto. It’s all made in one pan, right on the stovetop.

As always, I will link all of those recipes, the pesto recipe, and any recipe that I have to use that pesto right in the show notes for you. 

If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow or rate and review the show so other people can find it and enjoy the recipes too.

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

Intro: Welcome to 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: Okay. I have some food trivia knowledge for you that I hope sometime you are in a trivia situation. You’ll be like, oh my gosh, I learned this fact on Let’s Make Dinner. It’s a great podcast. All right, you ready? Today we are making barbecue chicken sliders, and I knew I was going to come on here and talk about obviously sliders. I thought, why are they called sliders? What does that even mean? Why aren’t they called minis or littles or cuties or something like that? So I got to researching and the first thing that Google pulls up, I typed in Why are small burgers called sliders? This random website comes up. Interexchange.org. They have an article about sliders, and here’s what they say: the name originated in the 1940s when sailors in the Navy referred to mini burgers as sliders because of their extreme greasiness. In just one or two bites, the burgers would just slide right down. The slider was first created at White Castle, a popular American fast-food chain. I have never eaten at White Castle, but I obviously know what that is. It’s those tiny little greasy burgers on the little white buns. 

Okay, so we’re having sliders for dinner. Ours are not going to be greasy and they are not going to be burgers. I feel like as soon as the sliders became really popular in the late nineties. Sliders were everywhere. You could get a flight of sliders at a restaurant. But what we are making for dinner is barbecue chicken sliders. So let’s get into this recipe. 

If you like barbecue chicken pizza, then you are going to love this recipe. It’s basically all of those flavors, so barbecue chicken, barbecue sauce, red onion, provolone, cheese, cilantro, but instead of a pizza crust, you’re serving it on that smaller slider-style bun.

This dinner will be done in about 20 minutes, and this is also a great time to use leftover chicken or rotisserie chicken. We love to get rotisserie chickens at Costco. I think they’re under $6 still, and they are delicious and the meat is perfect to use in any recipe that calls for cooked chicken.

Tips and Tricks: Before we get started making this recipe, I have a few different tips for you. When you’re using slider buns, there are a few different options. You can now get actual slider buns by the hamburger buns. Or you can get a sheet of buns that would be more like dinner rolls that are all attached. Those are the ones I love to use. I love the King’s Hawaiian savory butter rolls because they’re all attached. You can literally slice the top buns from the bottom buns and keep them all attached until you’re ready to serve. Then you can slice them up into individual sandwiches. 

Another tip is for using your cooked chicken. In episode four, we talked about making Instant Pot Pulled Barbecue Chicken. That would be a great recipe to use to make the chicken for these sandwiches. Or like I said before, a rotisserie chicken or poached chicken. Poached chicken is a great way to make a pre-cooked chicken for this recipe. 

Now the last tip that I had before we get started is dealing with your red onions. If you are like me, if you eat a raw onion, that flavor can stay with you in your mouth for hours. It can also tend to overpower the dish. What I always recommend when you’re using raw onions is to slice them up and then either run them under cool water or soak them in a little cool water for like five minutes and that actually washes away the enzyme that will stay in your mouth and have you tasting onions way longer than you want to. 

BBQ Chicken Sliders Recipe: Let’s get to making this recipe. So you want to preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and then you want to grab probably a 9×13 casserole dish. Go ahead and slice your buns in half so that the top buns are removed from the bottom buns. Take that sheet of bottom buns and place it in the 9×13 pan. Then you want to mix about two and a half to three cups of shredded cooked chicken with one cup of barbecue sauce. Then take all of that and spread it all across the bottom buns that are in your 9×13 dish, spreading it all the way to the edges. Then you’re going to top it with some sliced red onions, and some cilantro and then top it with provolone cheese so that it covers the entire span of chicken. Even if you have to overlap a little bit, that’s totally fine. You’re going to place the top buns on the sliders, cover the pan with foil, and then bake it for 15 minutes.

While that’s baking, you’re going to make this delicious garlicky butter deliciousness that’s going to go over the top of the buns. So in the microwave, you melt together two tablespoons of salted butter, one large garlic clove that’s well minced, and one tablespoon of parsley that is also minced. Give that a really good stir. Then you’re going to remove your chicken sliders from the oven. Take that foil off and brush that butter mix all over the top of the buns. Pop it uncovered back in the oven for five minutes and that’s it. It’s time to eat. You can slice them into individual little slider sandwiches or you can just pull them apart to serve.

When you’re serving your sliders. I like to plan about two sliders per person if it’s for dinner and if you have some hungry people, they may want to have three sliders. As far as side dishes go, I like to keep it simple. You could do macaroni salad, coleslaw, or potato chips. You could do fries, corn on the cob, or anything that goes with a barbecue dinner. These also make a great addition to a tailgating situation, game day, football party, or anything like that. Just set it out on a buffet, and then I usually plan one slider per person. 

That does it for today. As always, I will link the full printable recipes for you in the show notes so you can find the recipe when you are ready to have barbecue chicken sliders. 

If you are finding that these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner are helping you get dinner on the table every week, I would love to have you rate and review this podcast 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. 

Intro: Welcome to 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: Welcome in everybody. All right, turn up the volume and get ready to listen, because this episode is going to be full of tips and tricks for you to make really good grilled Turkey burgers. I know we’ve all had a grilled Turkey burger that was either too dry, didn’t have any flavor or fell apart on the grill. And I’m going to give you all the tips and tricks to make sure that doesn’t happen to you this summer. 

Let’s get started with this one. We are talking just a classic grilled Turkey burger. Just like you would have a grilled burger, which if you need a good grilled burger recipe, head back to episode number one. 

Tips and Tricks: This one we’re talking about ground Turkey, and that’s where you can run into some issues. My very first tip for you is when you are buying your ground Turkey meat, you want to get the 93% lean ground Turkey. The 99% will cook like the bottom of a shoe. It is way too lean to make Turkey burgers. So get that 93%, which just means that it has 7% fat content mixed in with the ground turkey meat. That fat is going to add juiciness to your burgers, and it’s also going to add flavor to your Turkey burgers, which we need when we’re cooking with Turkey.

The second rule, when you’re talking about making grilled Turkey burgers, is adding flavor to the mixture. It is crucial to add a lot of flavor to your Turkey burgers. In this recipe, we’re going to be adding a Lipton dry onion soup mix, sour cream, dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic powder, you could even add fresh chopped garlic if you want to. Then of course, salt, pepper, and some Tabasco, and all of that together is going to make for really juicy Turkey burgers and really flavorful Turkey burgers.

The third rule when you are making Turkey burgers is to make sure you cook them to 165 degrees internal temperature. Turkey is not like beef. Beef you can cook 130, 135, 140, 145 and be golden. Turkey and chicken need to be cooked to 165-degree internal temperature to be safe to eat. 

So those are my three golden rules for making great Turkey burgers. Let’s pop into the recipe and stay tuned because this recipe is going to be full of tips and tricks.

Juicy Turkey Burgers Recipe: So let’s get started. Get your grill out. If you have a charcoal grill. Wonderful. Set it up for direct heat grilling. Same if you have a gas grill. Set it up for direct heat grilling with medium to high heat. Then you’re going to make your mixture. You’re going to start by making somewhat of a panade. A panade is a starch and a liquid mixed together to keep a ground meat recipe really juicy. With ground Turkey, we need that help. Our panade is going to consist of a dry onion soup mix packet, two tablespoons of sour cream, one tablespoon of Dijon mustard, two teaspoons Worcestershire sauce, and then go ahead and put in half a teaspoon of garlic powder, half a teaspoon of kosher salt, and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper. If you want a couple of dashes of Tabasco sauce in there, go ahead and add that as well. This is your panade. This is what’s going to keep your Turkey burgers juicy. So mix that all together. Let that sit for just a few minutes. Then we’re going to add the ground turkey. You’re going to add one pound of 93% lean ground Turkey into your panade, and then just lightly mix it until it all comes together. If you overmix that ground Turkey, your burgers will have more of a compact texture, than more of a loose burger texture. 

For this recipe, you are just forming four patties, so divide that meat mixture into four equal portions and then form your patties. Here’s a great tip when you are making burger patties. Form them about half an inch to an inch larger than the bun you’re going to use. When they have a little bit of shrinkage on the grill, they will be the perfect size for your bun. 

Now, after you have your patties all formed, this is another great tip that works for any type of burger you’re making. You’re going to want to press either your clean thumb or a clean spoon into the center of your burger patty and make just a thumb size divot, that divot will help prevent more shrinkage on the grill so you don’t end up with a little hockey puck for a burger.

One key to making sure that your Turkey burgers don’t stick to the grill is making sure you oil the grill grates. I even like to oil the actual patties on both sides. Turkey is so lean that it sometimes can have a hard time releasing from the grill before it’s to a burned state. So making sure you get that oil in there is crucial.

Now take your Turkey burgers out to your prepared grill and start them divot side down for about five minutes over direct heat. Flip the burgers and cook for about another four minutes, and then you can pull them off, take their internal temperature with an instant-read thermometer and Thermo Works has the best. It’s even recommended by America’s Test Kitchen. They have the best instant-read thermometers. I will link that piece of equipment for you in the show notes. You can let the burgers rest for about five minutes. Then go ahead and serve them. You want to use all of your favorite burger toppings here because this is just like a classic burger. So, lettuce, tomato, onion, ketchup, mayonnaise, and mustard. If you want more of a barbecue-style burger, you could do provolone cheese, french-fried onions, pickled jalapenos, and barbecue sauce. If you like more of a Mexican-style burger, you could top it with guacamole, pico de cayo, and ranch. Or if you want a really good burger, you can make some of my bacon jam and top it with Borsin cheese, lettuce, and tomato. I will link that bacon jam recipe for you in the show notes so you can check it out. 

My favorite side dishes when I am serving these grilled Turkey burgers are sweet potato fries. It’s just the most perfect combination ever. You could also do just regular fries, chips, potato salad, anything that goes with barbecue, cookout style food.

That does it for today, of course, I will link all the recipes including the grilled Turkey burger recipe in the show notes so you can find it when you’re ready to make this for dinner. If you are enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow on your preferred podcast player. It will just make all of our future episodes easier to find. 

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. I am your host, Susie Weinrich, and we are going to get right into it today. 

Susie Weinrich: We are actually not talking about dinner at all. We are talking about cocktails today. I have an excellent summer margarita for you. It’s a fresh Blueberry Margarita. You are going to love this cocktail. It’s the perfect balance of tart from your fresh blueberries and lime, sweetness from a simple syrup and a little bit of orange, and then salty, of course from your margarita salted rim. 

I have kind of a special relationship with blueberries because my family goes up to the boundary waters in Minnesota every summer. In mid-July to maybe early August, blueberries grow wild in the northern United States, I think more than just Minnesota. And when we go up there, we pick wild blueberries and make all the blueberry things: blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, blueberry pie, and we love it. So I thought it was only appropriate for me to make a blueberry margarita on Let’s Make Dinner.

Tips and Tricks: So let’s get into this recipe. There are a couple of pieces of equipment that you will want to have to make your blueberry margaritas, and I have some hacks for you as well. So if you don’t have this equipment, don’t worry. We’re talking about a cocktail shaker and then a muddle. Now, if you don’t have a shaker and you don’t want to get a shaker, you can always use a mason jar. You just have to be careful because it’s glass. But a large mason jar with a lid will work perfectly. Just shake it a little bit more delicately than you would with like a metal cocktail shaker. Now, if you don’t have a cocktail muddle and you do not want to buy one, you can use the handle of a wooden spoon. It will work just the same. 

There’s one other thing that you need to make to make this cocktail. That’s a simple syrup. If you’ve never made a simple syrup before, it’s literally simple. It’s one part sugar and one part water. Let’s say you’re going to do a third cup of sugar and a third cup of water. Put it in a tiny little saucepan over low heat just until the sugar melts into the water and that’s it. That’s your simple syrup. You don’t need to boil it, you don’t need to do anything crazy. Once that heat hits the sugar and it melts in, it’s ready to go. Just let it cool and then you can actually store it in your fridge for up to six months. So it’ll be good for you to use it whenever. So if you want to make a larger batch, you know, do one cup sugar, one cup water, and you’ll have it for a while.

Blueberry Margarita Recipe: Onto the actual recipe. Let’s get started. You’re going to need fresh blueberries, a silver, or a Rapsodo tequila. Triple Sec. I like to use Cointreau, fresh limes, fresh oranges, and then the simple syrup that we talked about before.

Now since this is a margarita, we are going to rim the glass with kosher salt. It’s crucial that you use kosher salt and not table salt. Table salt or iodized Salt is not the thing that you want on the rim of your cocktail glass. If you’re like, eh, I don’t really like to have kosher salt on my cocktails, I have another great little tip for you with margaritas. If you don’t like that kosher salt, try mixing 50% kosher salt and 50% sugar on the plate, and then rim your glass and see if you like that a little bit better. You might like it just a little bit sweeter. 

To make this drink, you’re going to want to first put your kosher salt on a flat plate and then run either an orange wedge or a lime wedge around the rim of your glass. Then turn it over and dunk it into that kosher salt, and the juice will help the salt stick to your glass. Go ahead and fill that glass up with ice. Then in your cocktail shaker, you’ll go ahead and add about half a cup of fresh blueberries. Now if you have really huge juicy berries, you can get away with just about a third of a cup of blueberries. Muddle those with either your wooden spoon handle or your cocktail muddler until they are completely pulverized and all the juice is released. Then you’re going to pour in one and a half ounces of silver or reposado tequila, half an ounce of your triple sec, half an ounce of freshly squeezed lime juice, half an ounce of fresh squeezed orange juice, and half an ounce of simple syrup. Add some ice to your shaker, pop the lid on, and then shake it really vigorously for about 20 to 30 seconds. Now you’re going to strain that blueberry margarita into your prepared cocktail glass. 

Here’s the thing with blueberries, though. They are full of the tiniest little seeds you’ve ever seen and you have all that blueberry pulp. So when you’re straining, you may need to do a few passes where you shake the shaker to get all that pulp off of your strainer. If you are sensitive to seeds and pulp, you may want to do what’s called a double strain where you’re actually taking the cocktail shaker and straining that liquid through another fine mesh strainer into your cocktail glass. That’s totally optional. Not necessary, but like I said, if you don’t like to have any of that pulp or anything in there, you may want to think about doing that. 

That’s it. Your blueberry margarita is ready. It’s going to be so good. You are going to love this cocktail all summer long. 

As always, I will link the full recipe to the Blueberry Margarita in the show notes so you can find it whenever you want.

If you are loving these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow on your preferred podcast player. That will just make it easier for you to find all of the future episodes right in your podcast feed. 

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

Intro: Welcome to 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: Welcome everybody. Today we are doing a special episode of Let’s Make Dinner. We’re not talking about one dinner recipe, we’re talking about an entire menu.

4th of July is just around the corner, and so I wanted to give you guys a really good menu that you could turn to for the 4th of July that has all of your side dishes, really killer hamburgers, all of the garnishes you need plus tips on making everything ahead. Not everything, we’re not going to make everything ahead, but any of the dishes that you can make on July 3rd, or even July 2nd so that on the 4th of July you can have some drinks, have some fun with your friends, and not be in the kitchen the whole time. 

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.

Intro: Welcome to 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, I have a confession today. I fully have a secret food love. Do you have any foods that you love that’s like, oh God, do I admit that? I dunno. I super duper love hotdogs, like I really love hot dogs. I don’t know if it’s from my childhood or what it is, but I love a hotdog with a steamed bun and a really good all-beef hotdog that’s garlicy and oh my gosh. They’re so good. I know it’s like bits and pieces, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t know how the sausage is made and I don’t care because I absolutely love it.

If you love hot dogs, stick around today because we’re making a quick stove-top chili to make chili cheese dogs. This recipe is only going to take you about 15 minutes to make. You will definitely have dinner on the table in under 30 minutes. 

Tips and Tricks: Before we get started with the full easy Stovetop chili recipe, I want to talk about heating up your hotdogs. So of course you could grill them, you can poke some holes in them, and pop them in the microwave. But our very favorite way to cook hot dogs is to actually boil them in water. I think that’s how they do it at baseball fields, or if you’ve ever had hot dogs at Costco and they’re not boiled in water, but they’re more steamed. There’s just something about that method that makes your hot dogs super delicious. Fill up a pot of water and just pop all of your hot dogs in and simmer them for 15 minutes while you make this chili.

Chili for Hot Dogs Recipe: To make your quick stove-top chili to make your chili cheese dogs take a large pot and pop it over medium heat. Add about one to two tablespoons of olive oil or vegetable oil. While that heats up, go ahead and dice up one medium-sized white onion. Then pop that in the hot oil and saute it for anywhere from three to five minutes so that it just softens up a bit. Then add one pound of ground beef and crumble it while it cooks through and browns. When the ground beef is fully cooked, go ahead and drain off any grease before you move on to the recipe.

Next, you’re going to pour in a four-ounce can of diced green chilies, and an eight-ounce can of tomato sauce. Then we’re going to measure in some spices. You need one tablespoon of chili powder, two teaspoons of cumin, one teaspoon of sugar, and then one teaspoon each of garlic powder and onion powder. Finish that off with one teaspoon of kosher salt. Give that all a really nice stir and let it simmer together for about two minutes. That’s it. Your chili is now ready, and if you put your hot dogs in the simmering water, your hot dogs are also ready. 

For assembling your chili cheese dogs, I just like to set everything out for people to make their own, because everybody kind of likes their own toppings. Pull your hot dogs out of the water, set the chili out, and then some other additional toppings you might want to have is, of course, cheese, and then maybe some diced white onions, pickled or fresh jalapenos, diced tomatoes, lettuce, of course, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, relish, and maybe even some crispy bacon.

For side dishes, I recommend just keeping it pretty simple. Anything that’s a summer barbecue side dish will work here. Chips, french fries, corn on the cob, potato salad, corn salad, coleslaw, and anything like that will pair perfectly with your Chili Cheese Dogs. 

Of course, I will link the full principle recipe in the show notes so you can find it when you’re ready to make your Chili Cheese Dogs.

Outro: That’s it for today. If you are enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. Until next time. I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinnertime a little easier.

Take me out to the ball game. Take me out to the field, buy me some peanuts and gra good jacks. I don’t care if I have a comeback cause it’s root, root for the home team… because it’s one, two, three strikes you route at the old ball game.

Intro: Welcome to 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: Wasting away, again in Margaritaville. Did that make you uncomfortable? All right, you guys, today we are not talking about dinner. Today we are talking about margaritas. I mean, I’m a little nervous to make this episode because I love margaritas so much, and I want you to love margaritas. I want to make sure I’m conveying all of my tips and all my tequila knowledge to you so that you can make the ultimate tequila cocktails all year long.

Tips and Tricks: Let’s get into some tips for making the very best margaritas you can possibly make. I’m talking, okay, let me go over this first. I like a margarita that is very limey, that is a little tequila forward. That has just a hair of sweetness so that it balances the tartness of the lime. I’ve had margaritas that are way overly sweet that make you have that lemonade throat.

I’ve had margaritas that have no sweetness, and the lime almost burns your throat. That is not what you want. You want just such a beautiful balance of flavors that you can taste each one, and each one is beautiful and delicious and not harsh. All right. If that doesn’t make you want a margarita, I don’t know what will. My mouth is watering and I’m going to have to have margaritas tonight. 

So let’s get started with this. The first tip, you want to use kosher salt on the rim of your glass. This is not the time for your iodized table salt. You definitely want the kosher salt. It’s going to be a little bit milder in saltiness. It’s not going to be chemically like iodized table salt, and it’s going to have that nice, crispy, larger texture that you want around the rim of your glass.

Next tip, use fresh limes. Do not think you’re going to game the system and use the pre-squeezed lime juice that comes in a bottle. 

The next tip is to get yourself a good cocktail shaker. It makes all the difference in the world when you’re actually making a mixed drink. If you’re just having tequila soda or you’re having vodka soda, you don’t need a shaker. But when you have more than two ingredients, you want that shaker to get everything mixed together with a few ice shards and it’s magic. I will link in the show notes the shaker that I use and that I love. Actually, I have two that I really love. One that’s more of a professional shaker that has the shaker in a shaker, and then one that is really pretty, that’s a glass shaker that has an easier-to-remove lid. 

The last tip is tequila. You want to use silver tequila here. In a classic lime margarita, silver tequila is what you want. This is also called Blanco tequila. It’s going to be the clear bottle of tequila on the shelf. When you’re making a margarita, it’s okay to just have a mid-level price ranged tequila. I like to use a Jose Cuervo traditional. I like Cazadores. I like Espolon. I also love Casamigos, but that’s a pretty high price point and isn’t totally necessary to make a good margarita.

Classic Margarita on the Rocks Recipe: Now that you have all of my delicious tips, let’s get on to making a Margarita. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to start by preparing your glass. Take about an eight to 10-ounce glass. I’m not a big fan of the stemmed margarita glasses. I like to make my margarita just in like an eight to 10-ounce rocks-style glass. Rub a lime wedge around the rim of the glass, or you can dip the rim in agave or honey. Then put a little bit of kosher salt on a flat plate, turn your glass over, and dip the rim into that kosher salt. Turn it back over and fill your glass with ice. You’ll set that aside because now we’re going to make our margarita in the shaker. Let me tell you, if you don’t have a shaker, but still want to make this margarita, you can even use a mason jar. It’s glass so be careful when you shake it up, but it still works. 

Place a few cubes of ice in the cocktail shaker and you’re going to add one and a half ounces of silver tequila. One ounce of fresh squeezed lime juice. One ounce of triple sec, I use a Cointreau, and then a quarter ounce of agave. That’s just enough to give, your drink, just a little bit of sweetness, and I like to use the light blue agave, or sometimes it’s just called light agave. It’s a little less flavor-forward than the darker agave that you see on the store shelf.

Pop the lid on your shaker and shake it up for a good 20 to 30 seconds. Then you’re going to strain it right into that prepared glass, garnish it with a lime wheel or wedge, and that’s it. Oh my gosh. Your margarita’s ready. Take a drink. It’s so delicious. Sometimes I like to also top my margarita off with just a splash or two of soda water.

If you’re having more than one margarita, you could certainly rim your glass again, but sometimes on the second, maybe even third margarita, I will just take a pinch of kosher salt and sprinkle it into the margarita and stir it around instead of having to rim my glass every single time. 

Outro: Now set out some chips and salsa. Go enjoy your margarita. If you want the full principle recipe, you can find it right in the show notes.

 (singing) Wasting away in Margaritaville.

Intro: Welcome to 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.

Ooh, wee, I love me some egg salad sandwiches. That’s what we are talking about today. We love to eat egg salad in the spring and the summer when it’s a little bit warmer. It just makes a great cold sandwich dinner.

Tips and Tricks: If you listen to the last episode, then you heard my very favorite way to make hard-boiled eggs using my Instant Pot and the 5 5, 5 method. If you didn’t listen, you can go back and check it out, or I’ll just tell you here. If you’re a seasoned instant pot user, 555 means five-minute pressure cook, five-minute natural release, and a five-minute ice bath, and your hard-boiled eggs are perfect. I’m telling you. They practically peel themselves. It’s wild. 

I don’t really have any other mega tips for egg salad sandwiches other than when you choose a bun for your egg salad, make sure that it’s not something that’s too hearty. You don’t want a potato bun or some big country loaf. More of a delicate bun goes really well with egg salad. Something like a brioche bun or croissants. 

Egg Salad Sandwiches Recipe: Let’s get to making our egg salad. This is going to go fast. Are you ready? You’re going to take six hard-boiled eggs and chop them up and dice them so that they have little bite-size pieces. Add that to a bowl. Add a third of a cup of mayonnaise, one tablespoon of mustard, a third cup of diced celery. A quarter cup of finely sliced green onions. 

Okay, I guess I do have another kitchen tip for you. When you use green onions, I like to chop off the little stem end that has the little roots growing out of it, discard that, and then start chopping from the white side into the light green, and that’s what I add to my egg salad.

The really dark green ends are more for garnish, not really for that nice green onion flavor. Okay, so add your quarter cup of finely sliced green onions, half a teaspoon of sugar, and a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt. Now just stir that all together. Let it sit for about 10 minutes and then scoop it onto your buns, your croissants, or whatever you choose to use it for. You can also eat this on top of a lightly dressed green salad with just a really light vinaigrette.

To serve your egg salad sandwiches. If it’s steamy and hot outside, then you are going to want to just serve it with chips and maybe some raw veggies with ranch dip or blue cheese or something. If it is spring and it’s still a little bit cool outside, we love to serve our egg salad sandwiches with sweet potato fries. 

That does it for today’s episode. As always, I will link the full printable recipe for you in the show notes, I will also include the link to the recipe for the 5 5 5 instant hot, hard-boiled eggs.

If you are enjoying 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 these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, make your dinner time a little bit easier.

Intro: Welcome to 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: For years and years, I struggled to make the perfect hard-boiled egg. I mean, I even put a recipe on my website momsdinner.net for egg salad. In the post I said, I have to admit, I am not quite sure how to make a perfect hard-boiled egg because they either come out underdone, or overdone, or when you go to peel the actual egg, half of the egg goes with the shell. That was my plight until I found the Instant Pot 555 hard-boiled egg method. It is foolproof. It works every single time. I have not had a time when it didn’t work. My husband can even make these, which is saying a lot because he doesn’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen. We’ll just say that.

Tips and Tricks: Obviously you’re going to need an instant pot to make your hard-boiled eggs. I use the six Quart Nine and one Duo Plus. An Instant Pot is actually just a brand. Any electric pressure cooker will work here. 

You may be thinking, what in the world is 5, 5, 5? That is your basic method for making these hard-boiled eggs. It is a five-minute pressure cook, a five-minute natural release, and then a five-minute ice bath, and they’re perfect. If you’re a seasoned Instant Pot user, then that’s it. That’s all you need to know. 555. 

If you are not seasoned at using your Instant Pot, keep listening because I’m going to go over all the details of how to use the 555. 

Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs Recipe: Okay. So you’re going to start by taking about one and a half cups of water and pouring it right into your Instant Pot. Then your pot probably came with a metal trivet that you can set down into the pot. I recommend using this because it will hold your eggs in place and not allow them to kind of bump around when they’re being pressure cooked and possibly crack. So go ahead and place that trivet down in your pot and then layer your eggs in. You’ll notice inside the pot there’s probably a line that says Max fill. You can put as many eggs as you want in there. Just don’t go past that max fill line. Take your lid and fit it on top. Turn it so it locks into place. Then that little pressure valve that’s on top, make sure you turn that to seal. 

Now we’re going to set the five-minute cook time. You want to just hit manual or pressure cook whatever your instant pot says for high pressure, normal heat, five minutes. Once you get that set, your pot will beep saying that it has basically accepted your time and your settings, and it will start to build pressure.

Now while that is building pressure and cooking, I recommend going ahead and making your ice bath, and then you can just set that aside. I like to take one of my big mixing bowls, fill it with ice, or just halfway with ice and water. Set it aside. 

Now you may be wondering what in the world is a natural pressure release. You don’t have to do anything for your pot to move into natural pressure release. You set it to cook for five minutes. At the end of that five minutes, it automatically goes into natural pressure release and it will start to count back up in time. We want to do that for five minutes. So once it reaches five, then you’re going to turn that valve that’s on the top of your pot, to vent. The rest of the pressure is going to escape. There’s probably a little metal pin near that valve. Once that drops down, then you can open up your pot. 

The nice thing about using that trivet is you can take a towel or something and grab the little handles of it and pull all of your eggs out at once. Now, that’s if you use like six or 12 eggs. If you have three dozen in there, don’t try that. 

Pop your eggs right into the ice bath and leave them there for five minutes, and then your eggs are good to go. You can use them right away, or you can pop them right in the fridge. 

We like to use our hard-boiled eggs for either deviled eggs, which I have a killer recipe for deviled eggs that I will link in the show notes for you, or we like egg salad sandwiches. I will go over how to make egg salad sandwiches right in the next episode. I will also link the full printable recipe for your 555 Instant Pot hard-boiled eggs and the egg salad sandwiches right in the show notes for you. 

That’s it for today. If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That will just make it easier for you to find all the 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 to 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: Hello. Hello. Welcome back to Mom’s Dinner. Nope. This is not Mom’s Dinner. Mom’s Dinner is actually my food blog. This is Let’s Make Dinner, my podcast. Hello. Welcome. Welcome in everybody. 

Today I have an awesome pasta recipe for you that you can get on the table in about 15 minutes. It comes together so incredibly quickly, but it has nice layers of flavor so the adults will love it. But if you tell the kids they’re just eating Alfredo, they’re going to love it too.

Tips and Tricks: We’re talking about Mascarpone Pasta. If you have not used mascarpone cheese, sometimes I feel like cheese is a little bit of a misnomer here because it isn’t like a block of cheese. It’s more like a cross between butter and cream cheese. It has the texture of cream cheese, but it definitely tastes like really creamy butter. You should be able to find mascarpone cheese in just about any grocery store, probably near the dairy in the refrigerated section. 

Some other ingredients that you want to make sure that you have on hand to make this is obviously pasta, garlic, lemon, Parmesan cheese, and then you need white wine. If you don’t drink wine and you normally don’t have wine in your house and you maybe prefer not to use it, you could definitely sub in chicken broth. It just won’t have that extra layer of flavor. 

Now, if you want to use wine, but you’re not a huge white wine drinker, like me, I love my red wine. I don’t drink a ton of white wine. But what I like to do is buy the, let’s see, I’m going to try and explain this to you. It’s a carton of white wine, not the big box of white wine. It’s more of just like a two-serving little carton. You can buy that, pour out what you want to use for this recipe, then flip the top up so you create a little bit more space in that carton, and you can freeze white wine for up to six months. Now, obviously, you don’t want to drink that white wine after you freeze it. But it’s perfect to use in any recipes that call for white wine. So, great kitchen tip. Use it, abuse it. We’re not abusing. Use it and love it. 

Mascarpone Pasta Recipe: Let’s get on to making this recipe. You’re going to want to make the pasta, so boil the pasta while you’re making the sauce, and that way your dinner will be done in 15 minutes. So you’re going to take a large skillet and place it over medium heat. Add a quarter cup of white wine, two minced garlic cloves, and the zest of a whole lemon. Let that simmer together for about two to three minutes. Then stir in four ounces of mascarpone cheese and keep stirring it so that it melts down into the wine and the lemon juice. You should see me in here. I’m literally stirring while I’m talking. I gotta do the action so I know where I’m at. Okay. After that melts down into the wine, you’re going to remove the pan from the heat and sprinkle in half a cup of grated Parmesan cheese. Keep stirring so that melts down into the sauce, and then stir in a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper. If you don’t like black pepper, go ahead and skip that. 

Now, here’s one thing that you’re going to want to remember to do, and this is a great kitchen tip. Anytime you have a recipe that calls for reserved starchy pasta cooking water, how many times have you drained the pasta and then been like, oh hell, I forgot to save the pasta water? I’ve definitely done it. Until I found this tip. When you get your colandar out and you pop it in the sink, also get out a glass measuring cup or just one of your measuring cups and put it in the colandar. That way when you go to actually pour the pasta into the colander one, you’re going to stop and be like, oh yeah, I need to reserve some water. Let me do that. Or two, you’re going to pour it in there. It’s going to capture some of the water, and even if you forgot it, now you have it. 

Take that cooked pasta and toss it right into that mascarpone sauce and just stir it around so it coats all of the pasta. It will be a little thick, and this is where that reserved pasta water comes in. You can pour in a little bit at a time until you get the consistency that you want, and it coats the pasta just how you like. 

That’s it. Your dinner is done. Of course, give it a little taste. See if you want a little bit more salt or pepper, but otherwise, it’s ready to serve. 

I will say one thing about this recipe. It calls for 12 ounces of cooked pasta, which in one house may serve one person. In another house, it may serve four. If you have a house with some really hungry people, you may want to double this recipe. 

This pasta would also be excellent with a little bit of grilled chicken added on top, or if you want to toss in some mushrooms or asparagus, that would be delicious as well.

As far as side dishes go, I recommend serving this just like you would any other pasta dinner. Add a little side salad and maybe some garlic bread. 

That does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner. As always, I will link the full printable recipes of any recipe that I talked about in this episode.

If you are enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That way, all of our future episodes will show up right in your podcast feed and be easy to find. 

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