Dining In: Dinner is served with sauce

Unfortunately, loving food is not always economical.  Also, my skills as a chef at home are not very complex and quite frankly it’s difficult to take the time to cook dinner.  So after some experimenting and searching on the internet, I have a few dinner suggestions that help the wallet and the clock.  I didn’t intend for everything to have sauce on top but it just happened that way.

 

Peppercorn Steak sauce: comes in a dried mix packet and can be found in most grocery stores.  All you have to do is season any steak with salt and pepper, then cook to your preference and pour the sauce on top.  Here, I used rib eye cooked medium.  The sauce is thick in consistency and is nice and rich from the butter you add.  It’s a nice change from regular steak sauce, not that I mind steak sauce at all but its good if you want to mix it up.  It’s also great over potatoes.

 
In a separate meal, I roasted yams and red onion inspired by “Roasted Vegetables” recipe by Saundra on allrecipes.com.  The original has more veggies that you can use but I stuck with two because that’s all that I had on hand at home.  I peeled and cubed one large yam and sliced up one red onion.  The sauce is 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 tablespoons balsamic, 1/2 tablespoon of dried thyme and 1 tablespoon dried rosemary.  Pour the sauce over the veggies in a mixing bowl and mix by hand.  The lay the veggies over a baking sheet and bake for about 30 mins or until fork tender in 475 degrees.  Lastly, salt and pepper to taste. 

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Roasted-Vegetables/Detail.aspx

For my main, I used McCormick’s Garlic, Herb and Wine marinate on chicken.  Like the peppercorn sauce, it comes in a dried mix packet.  After you mix up the marinade, I put aside a couple tablespoons so that I can top the chicken with a little extra.  The directions calls for the meat to marinade for only 15 mins, but I did it for two hours to give the chicken more flavor.  This marinate has a lot of great flavor and you can really taste the wine component even though it was dehydrated at one point.
Tip: sear both sides of the chicken on high heat for three minutes each and then bake in the oven at 350 degrees until it reaches an internal temp of 170.


This is one my favorite dinners to make at home, “Heavenly Halibut” by chellebell on allrecipes.com. I have made this at least a dozen times, I actually don’t cook that often, so for me that is a lot.  The sauce is a mayo, parmesan cheese, green onion sauce that goes over the halibut.  The mayo gives it its creamy richness and the parmesan gives the cheesy salty bite.   The only tip I have is to double the recipe so that you have plenty of extra for broccoli, which goes perfectly.  I’ve also tried the sauce on carrots.  Let me spare you the time by saying don’t do it!  With the broccoli, first I steam it, then season it with salt and pepper.  Then I place the broccoli under the broiler and pour the sauce on top so that it melts.  I really do think you can make a broccoli gratin with the same sauce, although I haven’t tried it yet.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Heavenly-Halibut/Detail.aspx