“the usual” but with tartar on top.
The truth is, I make a lot of default dinners.
We are a busy family, with school and extracurricular, sports, music and you name it pulling us in a million different directions. Though my pie in the sky would be to cook an elaborate meal with new recipes every evening, it just isn’t practical. Instead, I aim to add maybe 1-2 new recipes in a given week, hoping that one will be a ‘keeper.’
When I am not trying a new recipe, I am grabbing, tossing and otherwise throwing together a meal for my family. My priorities in the midst of fashioning a family meal are 1. well-balanced and 2. quick. So, with no room for thought I start making ‘the usual.’ Though if you know me, I take great pride in my list of usuals and have even given these fall-back recipes the token term Default Dinners. This week I leaned on some old favorites:
- Roasted Fennel
- Roasted Peppers and Sausages
- Sausage Cream Pasta
- Buttermilk Chicken
- …and for the kids’ lunches: Ginger Sugar Pecans
AND I have to admit, when time is screaming in my face, I even reach for meals from my freezer. Battered cod was baked this week; my contribution was tartar sauce. I confess it is hard for me to use jarred tartar sauce (or salad dressing for that matter). So while the oven bakes the ‘it’ll do’ meal in 18 minutes or so, I grab my little blender and make a nice tartar sauce from scratch.
This little recipe has traveled with me for years; I have almost lost it numerous times (which nearly caused me to panic). But alas, it is still lovingly tucked in my semi-organized but adequately disheveled recipe binder. And now, you too can have it to use and to lose:
Tartar Sauce
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tsp dijon mustard
1-2 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 T minced shallots
1/4 cup dill pickles
pinch cayenne pepper
I know: lose it? With this short ingredient list, you would think I had this one committed to memory. I figure I will memorize it right around the time my memory begins to slip. Timing is everything, right? The instructions, however, I can remember: place all in blender and blend. And this tartar sauce is also great on a salmon burger with big leaves of basil… yet another easy meal…
Tags: Default Dinners
Comments
The thing about default dinners is that they are usually the family’s favorites, so having a repertoire of fast and easy (and healthy and pleasing) things to serve is actually a good thing!
I have never even thought to make my own tartar sauce, but I will be doing that now!!!
I love tartar sauce, I think it’s a mayo thing! Thanks for the recipe.
You can only do your best, and it seems to me that this particular best was pretty good - baked fish, no matter that you didnt make the batter - with a lovely homemade sauce … great recipe, love the instructions, no chance of remembering the ingredients, unless I made it every day for six months, and I don’t think anyone likes tartare sauce that much!
Thanks for sharing,
Joanna x
Lydia: I love having a list of defaults!
Deborah: Awesome—let me know what you think!
Kalyn: some don’t like mayo: I do:).
Joanna: thanks, Joanna. yes making the sauce makes me feel much less guilty for not preparing from scratch…
And do you know that people think that we food bloggers sit down to gourmet meals every night? Most of us I think do what you do too.
I agree with you on your priorities, and my how different they are for me than just six months ago. After we brought our daughter home in June, I noticed that even the way I read magazines changed. Now, I don’t even bother looking at all the fancy shmancy dinner party stuff in Gourmet–I just flip right to the Make it Fast (or whatever it’s called) section. Hoping, as you said, to try a couple new recipes each week in hopes one would stick as a ‘default’ for the future. Cheers!