Hello, there! For the second edition of Weeknight Dinner Recap we're focusing on color! This week's meals were so vibrant, fresh, flavorful and just plain delicious! We even doubled up on a favorite - mostly due to lots of leftovers - but managed to make a totally different meal with the same base ingredients.

Full recap is after the jump!

Just imagine you're sitting in that beach chair, gazing at the ocean, as you settle in to read - and prepare to become very hungry!

Almond-and-breadcrumb baked Atlantic cod

Sunday: After our incredible pasta feast in the afternoon at Il Casale (find that article over in Reviews!), we could barely manage thinking about cooking, let alone another full meal. However, when a later dinner hour rolled around we decided that our hunger level was a little higher than expected! Baked cod saved the evening and this awesome almond-and-breadcrumb version truly hit the spot. This recipe is from the great Weeknight Gluten Free from the Williams-Sonoma cookbook series. It sits happily on my bookshelf filled with numerous easy, weeknight options. If we had been hungrier, I would have paired a fresh veggie with this dish such as grilled asparagus, or maybe a sautéed summer medley. But for that night, the cod was enough! The topping on it is so good, my husband caught me scraping the final crumbs out of the baking dish in the kitchen...oops! :)

Baked scallops and baked zucchini sticks.

Monday: Now, this was a seafood feast for a weeknight! We made my current favorite baked scallops from the wonderful The Lemon Bowl (her recipes are terrific!) and decided to try a baked zucchini sticks (fries) recipe that was featured on GlutenFreeGigi.com earlier that day. Both recipes were simple, quick, and yielded fantastic, delicious results on our plates. Baked scallops are an item that immediately throw me back to summers in Maine when I was little (and now, really) so they always make me a little nostalgic for relaxed summer nights with family. And those zucchini sticks! Wow! So quick to make and they come out so crunchy and good. Addictive with a spicy Greek yogurt sauce on the side for dipping - these would be an easy party-platter option for a crowd as well! This dinner came out so well I need to hold back from making it again next week! Yum.

Tuesday: It was new recipe night and taco Tuesday all rolled into one. We used our slow cooker and make chicken chili verde, which has incredible flavor and some spice, and turn it into fabulous tacos. The recipe came from Ambitious Kitchen online and we followed it pretty much as written. The results were scrumptious as we topped the tacos with fresh cilantro, red onion, queso fresco, and sliced radish. Because I cannot stand anything taco-related without the presence of guacamole, I whipped up a bowl of that too which we ended up loving as a base for the tacos. The flavors went so well together and looked pretty great! The trouble with tacos at home is that we had to keep getting up to make additional rounds, which kind of broke up the "relaxed dinner" vibe, but that's OK. This meal was a true winner in the tacos-at-home section of our repertoire. :)

Wednesday: A recipe we made a while ago that stood out for its flavor and somewhat put-together nature were stuffed peppers. So when we planned dinners for this week and I saw those great, bright Holland peppers while shopping, I knew I wanted to make these again. However, we ramped up the filling to make them "ultimate" for a more exciting meal. For the filling: we used a three-meat blend comprised of pork,beef, and veal, and cooked that with chopped peppers (the tops of the ones we were baking), one onion, a little tomato paste, one summer squash, and a few Italian spices. The smell of that group cooking together was heavenly! The meat blend worked incredibly well for this filling-a-pepper purpose and I would definitely use it again for this meal or many others. In terms of making it ultimate, in the pepper itself we alternated layers of this filling with a little gruyere cheese and then topped each one with an Italian breadcrumb and shredded Parmesan mixture! Wow, talk about a delicious mix and supreme flavor-to-bite ratio! These peppers were so good, but I am considering using a different "vessel" than a pepper next time since the filling was my favorite part! :)

Chicken chili verde taco with Serrano peppers, extra cheese, and corn on the cob

Thursday: When we finally got to Thursday, the temptation to go out was really on my mind, especially after a pretty frustrating commute on my way home. But! I knew we had alot of leftover chicken from those Tuesday tacos, and a fresh bag of corn ready for shucking, so we opted for the next semi-best option: another taco night! This time we layered the chicken chili verde with cheese on either side of it, plus Serrano pepper slices and a little queso fresco. While some of the same ingredients were included, I thought they tasted entirely different than Tuesday's original. We attempted to create an at-home version of one of my favorite tacos at Lone Star in Allston, the Dallas Spicy Beef, but with chicken and a couple other changes. Alas, they are definitely not the same, but these worked well given my taco cravings are pretty much round the clock. We quickly boiled corn on the cob to go with these cute plates and had a great dinner despite my serious consideration of ditching plans to go out. Next time, I would like to grill the corn though; it would be a lot more authentic to the dish offered at Lone Star. ;)

Friday: Well, those are the meals for this week! Remember, our "week" of cooking runs from Sunday-Thursday so follow along on Insta Stories for all of our weekend eating adventures. We may try out a new-to-us Thai restaurant in our neighborhood and are looking forward to a fun night out on Saturday. In fact, it's a birthday bash for me and another close friend! My birthday is next week and I'm pretty excited. Yippee! Have a delicious weekend!

Eat well,

Mollie

Weeknight Dinner Recap: Vol. II

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