For this week’s installment of the Friday Night DinnerProject (using Bonnie Stern’s cookbook Friday
Night Dinners, Menus To Welcome The Weekend With Ease, Warmth and Flair) I
decided to make the Diner Dinner.
Excellent choice. Our house was
in total chaos this weekend. My son is
getting his first tooth, my husband got sick (he never gets sick!) and we had company. The Diner Dinner was most needed.
Smoked
Chicken Noodle Soup
This was first up on the menu. After checking three grocery stores, I could
not find a smoked chicken or smoked deli chicken or turkey, so I decided to
just roast a chicken myself. I roasted
two chickens and used the meat from one of them for this soup. True, it was not smoked – but the soup was
still wonderful. This soup is so simple
to make – and very fast. The timing was
perfect with my husband being ill. This
soup looks like healing in a bowl. The
soup was topped with green onions, and to add that smoked flavour I shredded
some of the smoked mozzarella cheese that was leftover from last week’smenu. So good. My son (he’s almost 1) also enjoyed the
soup. Smoked
Chicken Noodle Soup
This was first up on the menu. After checking three grocery stores, I could
not find a smoked chicken or smoked deli chicken or turkey, so I decided to
just roast a chicken myself. I roasted
two chickens and used the meat from one of them for this soup. True, it was not smoked – but the soup was
still wonderful. This soup is so simple
to make – and very fast. The timing was
perfect with my husband being ill. This
soup looks like healing in a bowl. The
soup was topped with green onions, and to add that smoked flavour I shredded
some of the smoked mozzarella cheese that was leftover from last week’s
menu. So good. My son (he’s almost 1) also enjoyed the
soup.
Chicken
Meatloaf with Barbecue Sauce
This menu offers a choice between two different
entrées, I cooked them both (this being the first one) but for different
meals. The chicken meatloaf is hearty
and quite good. My company loved
it. The Bullseye Barbeque sauce is a
nice touch. I accidentally added two
much chicken to this recipe (in fact an entire extra pound of chicken, long
story) but it still turned out well. (We
definitely have leftovers!)
Potato
and Carrot Mash
This mash is simple and straight forward. I made it with olive oil, but if you are not
a fan of the olive oil taste you could replace the olive oil with butter. The carrot, potato and sweet potato
combination is delicious and healthy. It
is a win win – especially if you have little ones who do not like to eat their
vegetables. This dish pairs wonderfully
with the Chicken Meatloaf.
Meatball
Sliders
This was the second entrée. The Meatball Sliders were made with all beef
(not the beef/chicken combo – because the chicken I had for this accidentally
got included in the meatloaf). These
were my favourite and were very good. I
made them a bit smaller than the recipe called for (so I could fit two meatballs
on one dinner roll). Comfort food
central. These would be excellent to
serve at a party.
Iceberg
Lettuce Wedges with Thousand Island Dressing
Alright – this is amazing. First, I loved reading Bonnie’s comments
about lettuce snobs not wanting to use iceberg lettuce. I love this lettuce because it reminds me of
my maternal grandmother who always makes a beautiful salad using iceberg
lettuce when I go to visit her. I
followed the recipe exactly, I even used the lettuce de-coring trick
recommended in the notes (worked like a charm!). Even my husband, who does not really care for
salads, commented that he really liked the homemade dressing and iceberg
lettuce combination. I served the wedges
with the sliders.
Carrot
Tube Cake
This is a wonderful carrot cake recipe (you can find it at this link, scroll to bottom). I omitted the raisins. I also cooked it in a 9x13 pan simply because
I do not own a tube pan and everything was so crazy in our house that I did not
have the time to make the cupcakes.
There are actually three different recipes to choose from for the icing,
I made the Best Ever Cream Cheese Icing.
It might actually be the best ever too. Simply wonderful.
Now I have to decide which menu to make next weekend...
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