Simple, Easy, Egg Salad Sandwiches

My kids pack a lunch four out of five school days a week. (Fridays they get out early.) So this can be a challenge to try to come up with enough variety that they don't get bored. They have access to microwaves so sometimes they pack leftovers or heat-up type things like frozen bagel bites, Chef Boyardee, etc. But one thing all four of my minions have in common is their love of sandwiches. They come by that honestly because one of my very favorite things is the sandwich. At breakfast, I'll be the one making my scrambled eggs and toast into a sandwich. At dinner, I'm over there using my garlic bread and barbecued chicken or my roast beef and dinner roll to make a sandwich. Anytime I have the chance, I eat sandwiches and/or create a sandwich out of what I'm eating. So one of my kids' and husband's absolute favorites is egg salad sandwiches. And since it's super easy to make, I often make some on a Sunday to put in a container for them to use throughout the week. 

Makes 6 Servings

12 eggs

1/2 - 1 cup mayonnaise

2 teaspoons yellow mustard

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon dill weed

2 tablespoons minced onion

Directions:

Place eggs in a saucepan and cover with cold water to 1" above eggs. Bring to a boil and turn off the stove. Let eggs sit for 15-17 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. Peel eggs and dice as big or as large as you prefer the cubes. Mix together diced boiled eggs and remaining ingredients, tasting and adding extra seasoning as desired. 

Use your judgment on how much mayo to add depending on how wet/dry you like your egg salad. I like mine not too watery but not too dry…in the middle. We like to put some sliced pickles, sliced Romaine lettuce or baby spinach leaves and extra pepper and a dash of paprika on ours. I also like my bread toasted, but the kids like theirs soft like in the photo above. You could also make egg salad melts by spreading the egg salad on a piece of bread or english muffin and topping with a slice of cheese (and tomato if you like that) and putting it under the broiler for a minute or two. Yummy!! Hope you have a great weekend, see y'all next week.

Rewind: Timothy's Amazing Turkey Burgers

It's been nearly 5 years since I first posted this recipe, and it remains one of my favorites! My brother Timothy came over last night and cooked some up for us and I was amazed again at how much flavor and moisture can be found in something so lean. He made them in a skillet with a little olive oil last night and I baked up some frozen french fries to go along with them. We had some bakery rolls as well as some of the Arnold Sandwich Thins, which honestly were my favorite, and I'm ALWAYS a bakery-bread kinda girl. The ratio of bread to meat was smaller so it allowed the flavor of the meat to be the shining star of the dish. I like mine best with a little bit of mayo, a slice of romaine and a slice of onion, but the hubs does his up all the way with lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, mayo, ketchup and mustard. We didn't do any cheese on ours last night but I tend to think a mild tart cheese like Provolone or Swiss would be perfect with these burgers. 

Makes 12 Burgers

3 lbs ground turkey

1/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs

1/2 cup finely diced onion

2 egg whites, lightly beaten

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix turkey, bread crumbs, onion, egg whites, parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper. Form into 12 patties. Cook in a skillet on medium-high with 2 tablespoons of olive oil or grill them about 5-7 minutes per side. Put on a serving dish, cover tightly with foil and let rest for 5-10 minutes before serving. 

If you read back over the original post nearly 5 years ago, you'll read about how I had a huge aversion to ground turkey for about 5 years after my pregnancy with my second daughter, Annabelle. I'm so glad that I got over that because I had always been a huge fan of replacing ground beef with ground turkey whenever possible, and now I've gotten back into the practice of doing that at least half the time. These burgers are truly delicious, much lower in fat than beef burgers, and with the awesome flavor they have, you don't even miss the fat. Trust me! 

Have a great weekend, see you next week!

Summertime Eats!

I really can not believe it's summertime again already! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE summer. I love having my kiddos home with me and we always make a summer bucket list of things we want to do and try to do a different thing at least 4 out of the 7 days in a week, if not more. We also love taking road trips together. One of my very favorite type of vacation is a road trip. I just love seeing the country; all the different cities and states and scenery and stopping at lots of different restaurants and local eateries, visiting museums and state parks and even playing all the silly car games. I love it all! ABC license plate? You got it! Ahem, back to my point: so summertime gets really hot and humid in my lovely state of Florida. So we try to eat a lot of sandwiches and cold salads and we do a bunch of grilling and eating outside. So we hardly ever eat a big, hot dinner that requires a lot of oven and/or stovetop cooking--it's just too darn hot for that! So I thought I would share some of our favorite Summertime Eats. I'm always on the lookout for new favorites and we like to mix those in to our traditional standards.

Summer Meal #1: Meatball Hoagies with a big garden salad.

This is pretty quick and easy and won't heat up your oven for long--the hoagies only need to bake for 15 minutes or so. I usually make some homemade ranch dressing to go with it--I love Pioneer Woman's version!


Summer Meal #2: Chicken Salad Focaccia Sandwiches with Carrot Sticks, Potato Chips and PW's Ranch Dressing.

Again, the focaccia doesn't take long to bake and you chill the chicken salad, so you've got a nice, cool but filling meal that even the kids love!


Summer Meal #3: Grilled chicken with macaroni salad and corn on the cob. (Recipes Coming Soon!)

I love to make a quick marinade for chicken in the morning, put it and the chicken in a ziploc in the fridge in preparation for the hubs to grill it later that night. My mom's Basic Macaroni Salad is always a popular side dish in the summer and there's just something about pairing it with grilled chicken that brings back all the memories of my childhood during the summer.


We love to wash all our food down with a big glass of ice cold sweet tea or my Homemade Strawberry Lemonade and serve up some delicious Blueberry Cobbler for dessert--made with fresh from the farm blueberries! We go blueberry picking every summer and freeze enough fresh blueberries to last us until the next summer. This delicious bounty leads to muffins, pancakes, cobblers, ice cream...and just blueberries eaten by themselves accompanied by little bluish purple faces and fingers. :)

Here's a recipe that is quick and easy as well as SUPER delicious. I mean, it's got bacon in it, you just can't go wrong. If you love BLTs like I do, you'll go gaga over these roll-ups. They're great to serve for lunch, as a snack, or to bring along with you to those summer BBQs where everyone brings a dish to share:


BLT Roll-Ups

Makes 12-14 Servings

8 oz cream cheese, softened 
1/2 cup mayo 
16 slices of bacon, cooked & crumbled 
1 cup of chopped, seeded tomatoes 
4  8" flour tortillas
1 cup shredded romaine lettuce 

Directions:

Mix cream cheese and mayo in a medium bowl. Add bacon and tomatoes and mix well. Spread evenly onto tortillas and top with lettuce. Roll up tightly, place on a plate, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes or more. Take out and cut each wrap into 7 one-inch slices and serve.


Another easy one we love to make for parties:


Ham Roll-Ups

Makes 10-12 Servings

8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 (2 1/4 oz) can chopped black olives, drained
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
8-10 slices fully cooked deli ham

Directions:

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Stir in olives and onions and mix well. Spread evenly over ham slices and roll up tightly starting with the short side. Chill for at least an hour or overnight. Cut into 1-2" slices and serve.


Well, I hope that gets you started on some yummy summer food. I've already made a few items on this list and have plans to make the rest of the list and then some. I LOVE summer! Happy dance!!!

Timothy's Turkey Burgers

Makes 12 Burgers

3 lbs ground turkey
1/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1/2 cup finely diced onion
2 egg whites, lightly beaten
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper


Directions:

In a large bowl, mix turkey, bread crumbs, onion, egg whites, parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper. Form into 12 patties. Cook in a skillet, on an outdoor grill, a Foreman grill or you can broil in your oven! 



Okay, so there's a story behind this one. I used to love using ground turkey in place of ground beef. When my husband and I were poor college students, we used to make miniature burgers out of ground turkey because we liked it, and also because it was DIRT cheap! We'd serve them with shoestring fries and it was one of my favorite meals. Then I got pregnant with our daughter Annabelle, and suddenly I couldn't eat ground turkey. The sight, the smell, the taste, the very THOUGHT of it made me throw up. Annabelle is now 6 years old and I hadn't eaten a single bite of ground turkey since being pregnant with her in 2001 until earlier this summer when I went to my brother Timothy's for a Memorial Day pool party and bbq. He made these burgers. They smelled heavenly. I took a risk and tried one. I about fainted, they were beyond delicious. The seasonings were perfect, the meat was moist and flavorful and I am now once again a ground turkey lover! And I owe it all to him! So here you have it, Timothy's Turkey Burgers!

Chicken Salad Focaccia

Makes 4 Sandwiches

Focaccia:
1 can pizza crust dough
3 teaspoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary

Salad:
1 1/3 cup chopped cooked chicken
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 green onions, chopped
1/2 teaspoon mustard
garlic powder
onion powder
salt
pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 

Unroll dough onto sprayed cookie sheet. Starting with short end, fold dough in half and press lightly. In a small bowl, mix oil and garlic. Spread over dough. Sprinkle with salt and rosemary. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until edges are golden brown. While that's baking, mix all chicken salad ingredients in a bowl, seasoning to taste. Refrigerate 15 minutes. To serve, cut warm focaccia into 4 pieces. Split each piece to form 2 layers. Spoon and spread salad on bottom halves of focaccia pieces, cover with top halves to form sandwiches.



These are a family favorite and I find myself making these at least once a week. I usually have to triple the recipe for me, my husband and our three children. We usually eat either tater tots or potato chips along with these. Pudding makes a nice cool dessert to this light meal.

Easy Meatball Hoagies

Makes 4 Servings

2 cans crescent roll dough
20 or so meatballs, halved
Spaghetti sauce
1 8 oz. package mozzarella slices or cheese sticks
1 beaten egg
Parmesan
Garlic Powder
Salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375

Unroll dough, separate into 8 rectangles, press perforations to seal. Place meatball halves down the center of each rectangle. Spread a couple spoonfuls of spaghetti sauce on top, then tear a slice of mozzarella in half and put end to end vertically on top of meatballs, or if you are using the sticks, just put it next to the meatballs. Pull the wide ends of the dough up and pinch together to seal in a pocket, with the ends open to vent. Brush with the egg, then sprinkle parmesan, garlic powder and salt. Bake for 17 minutes until golden brown on top and sauce is bubbly, cheese melted, etc.



One of our top favorites!! I serve these with a big garden salad with PW's Homemade Ranch Dressing. We usually have something simple, like Choco PB Cookies for dessert. Easy and delicious, and best of all, FAST.