Best Recipes of 2013

Here we are at the beginning of another year, so it's time for the 2013 edition of our best new recipes! You can now access all previous years' recipes through the recipes tag.

Spinach Salad with Chicken, Avocado and Goat Cheese
Source: RecipeGirl.com

This was a good year for salads for us. While salads aren't particularly difficult from a preparation perspective, for some reason we have had a difficult time making really good ones. This one is. Of course, anything with goat cheese and avocado is probably delicious.

Greek Quinoa and Avocado Salad
Source: Recipe.com

Delicious, particularly when cherry tomatoes are in season. We have made it with brown rice when we didn't have the specified quinoa on hand. The quinoa has a firmer texture, but the brown rice still works. (Oh, and see previous comment about avocado and goat cheese.)

Southwestern Salad with Black Beans
Source: EatingWell.com

This salad can be made mostly from pantry staples, with the addition of whatever tomatoes and greens are available and fresh at the time. Using fresh corn is, of course, also allowed.

Tex-Mex Summer Squash Casserole
Source: EatingWell.com

When August comes and the summer squash onslaught has begun, it helps to have as many squash recipes on hand as possible. This is a simple casserole that can be adjusted or altered as you like. We like to add some black and refried beans for more texture variation.

Chile Rellenos Casserole
Source: AllRecipes.com

Who needs to spend time stuffing individual peppers? The prep time to flavor ratio is much more reasonable in this recipe.

Italian Cream Soda
Source: AllRecipes.com

Okay, so this is barely a recipe. We had our SodaStream carbonator for about a year before we realized that we could make Italian sodas at home. It is now our go to summer refreshment. The cream is a nice addition.

Happy Eating!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders