cooky: June Re-Make Recap

I've been a horrible blogger lately. I've been remaking so many recipes I haven't had enough content for new blog posts. And I can't find the time to blog about the new things I have made. Sunday night I vowed to get a blog post done and when I went to schedule it for Monday I realized Monday was the end of June. Eeeek. How did that happen? For some reason June always flies by for me. I truly cannot believe it's already June 30 and tomorrow is July 1. At my previous job we had a big annual meeting mid-June and I always thought that being caught up in preparing for and running the meeting was the reason June flew by, but I haven't been at that job for a few years now and June still flies.

Unfortunately we only made it to the pool once this month and it wasn't even a good pool day - windy and overcast and not quite warm enough. Baby Girl is still taking swim lessons and gaining more confidence. She started summer camp at her daycare this month and has gone on a few field trips already. Today is their first swimming lesson in our community pool. Work has been busy for both of us as well. Today we're getting a new roof. Yay for home ownership!

As I said, I've been remaking a lot of family favorites and this month was no exception.

I've been wanting to remake these chicken nuggets with honey mustard dipping sauce for ages and finally got the chance this month. These are so good I have to make way more chicken then I think we'll eat because we have no self control. Absolutely delicious.

And to go with the nuggets, cheesy zucchini rice. This is my favorite summertime side dish because it's a starch and vegetable in one. Plus we all love it.

Baby Girl had one request this month: pasta with asparagus and peas. It's an easy, light dinner, perfect for summer. Asparagus is no longer in season so this wasn't as good as it was a few months ago, but we still enjoyed it (without the egg this time).

No roundup is complete without the TRH salad.

I brought these salted fudge brownies to C&T's house for our BBQ cookout and they were a big hit, even if I did undercook them.

I love the ease of these crunchy baked tacos. I had some leftover taco filling frozen from the previous batch so all I had to do was defrost it and chop up the toppings.

We can't have Mexican food without homemade refried beans.

Whenever I'm in the mood for a big dinner salad I turn to the california club blue cheese chopped salad. We had blue cheese leftover from C&T's BBQ, but I think I might prefer this salad with feta. It's milder and doesn't overpower the other flavors.

I needed an easy dinner one night. I had some cooked pork tenderloin in the freezer and immediately thought of pork with noodles. I made a few changes - used fettuccine instead of rice noodles and added chopped bok choy and shiitake mushrooms to bulk up the dish. We all loved the changes so I think that's how I'll make it from now on.

I found two more balls of pizza dough in the freezer so of course I had to make 3 cheese pepperoni pizza. Unfortunately I was out of rosemary, but those two pizzas were still delicious. I don't want to rush through summer but I'm definitely looking forward to revisiting this pizza when the weather turns cool again.

I actually made these bang bang chicken skewers twice this month - once for dinner with our new neighbors and again for my parents for Sunday dinner. The original recipe calls for red pepper, but we're not big pepper fans. I actually like to grill zucchini, grape tomatoes, red onion and mushrooms. I always serve it with couscous to soak up the extra sauce.

Another meal we can't get enough of lately is crispy fish. This month I turned them into fish sticks and we ate them with more of the cheesy zucchini rice. The tangy dipping sauce is perfect.