September's Main Dishes and Desserts

As far as regular protein-based main dishes go, stuffed and sauced was definitely a recurring theme this month. I'm just going to go ahead and say it, I love chicken/beef/pork that is stuffed in some delicious way and served with a flavorful sauce that you want to eat by the spoonful.

Stuffed Fajita Flank Steak: Incredible. You’ve heard of steak fajitas in a tortilla? Well, ditch the tortillas, and stuff all of the other fixings into the steak, add a flavorful sauce, and you have stuffed fajitas. We actually skipped the cheese (for Matthew’s sake),  and the grits in the recipe (leftover mashed potatoes instead). For the sauce afterwards, in addition to the drippings and garlic, I opted for the chicken broth, we used a lot more (1/3 cup?), and I added in a squeeze of Dijon mustard and ½ Tbsp butter, which was a great addition. (Source: Confections of a Foodie Bride)

Apple Cranberry Stuffed Pork Roast: Super tasty, yummy, I liked it. The end. Although I will say, while it says to use ¾ cup brown sugar in the filling/sauce, I thought it made it suuuuuper sweet. Next time, I will definitely be reducing that amount of sugar, and using something else (chicken broth? white grape juice?) so balance out the acidity of the cider vinegar. (Source: Simply Recipes)

Chicken Bacon Roulades: Bacon, shallots and parmesan are rolled up in chicken breasts, seared, baked and served with a creamy, buttery sauce. Yumm. Definitely not a low-fat dish, but so worth the calories. (Source: Simply Recipes)     

Country Vegetable Skillet: I hesitate to even mention this because there really isn’t much to say about essentially a chicken vegetable stir fry, but until recently I’d never heard of putting fresh corn off the cob into something like this, but the small addition of that plus some bacon with the chicken, zucchini, yukon potatoes and bell peppers really made it a delicious, yet simple, meal. (Source: How Sweet It Is)

Teriyaki Meatballs with Mango Pineapple Sauce: This was supposed to be a burger with a sauce and salsa, but we ran out of buns, so instead, the burgers were made into meatballs, covered in a pineapple teriyaki sauce, with chunks of pineapple, mango, bell pepper and onion mixed in. It was quite good over rice. (Source: Annie's Eats)

Blueberry Lime Salsa: This was yummy… but I think that I’m just not a huge fan of blueberries in this sort of a thing. Still, good. And had lots of fruits and vegetables, which is never a bad thing. (Source: How Sweet It Is)

Mixed Berry Mini Galettes: It was like a little pie… without the pan. Sort of. Either way they were cute, fun, and delicious.(Source: Two Peas and Their Pod)

Salted Caramel Chocolate Shortbread Bars: These bars were like a fancy-ed up Twix bar. I love Twix. I loved these bars. We ended up putting them in the freezer, to try and not eat them all in the first day, and we decided that we actually liked them better frozen. They weren’t too hard to eat, and I think I liked the texture better. (Source: Annie's Eats)

Dulce de Leche Cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Frosting: Good grief, these were so good. I’m kind of embarrassed to say how fast we ate these… (Twelve cupcakes between the two of us gone in two days… you do the math). I loved the dulce de leche flavor throughout the cupcake, filling and frosting, and the frosting was so light and fluffy, which totally made it worth the extra effort of stirring over a double boiler forever. (Source: Confections of a Foodie Bride)

My favorites: Stuffed Beef Fajitas, Dulce de Leche Cupcakes, and Veggie Pizza

Matthew's favorites: Stuffed Beef Fajitas, Apple Cranberry Pork, Steakhouse Pizza, Balsamic Strawberry Chicken Pizza, and the Vegetable Chicken Skillet. Yeah... he chose five. Fine. I add the Balsamic Strawberry Chicken Pizza to my favorites too.

Oh, and go Cougars!