June 27, 2022

Laura and Dalton’s go to weeknight dinner recipes

In the Henshaw household, we really enjoy cooking and we LOVE our food. We’re that obsessed that Dalt’s even started to grow his own veggies! In all honestly, there’s something so special about cooking and using your own fresh organic produce from your very own backyard.

I don’t know about you, but time can often get in the way of our cooking. We both work long hours and we’ll pull up home after work feeling tired, hungry and often hangry! We’ve come to learn that anything that takes around 30 minutes to prepare in the evenings is a winner. 30 minutes is the sweet spot to cook something fresh and yummy, anything longer and we’re too tempted to say “I’m too tired to cook, let’s just get takeout”. Of course there’s nothing wrong with getting takeout, but we try to keep it to a minimum to ensure we use the produce we have at home and of course because it’s a more budget friendly option.

So, if you’re looking for some quick and easy weeknight dinner inspo that doesn’t require you to slave away in the kitchen after a long day, here are the recipes that Dalt and I have on repeat…

One Pan Salmon and Veg

We love this recipe not only because we love salmon but because it features one of our all time favourite herbs – basil!

Halloumi and Vegetable Tray Bake

Some nights we enjoy eating vegetarian and this is often the recipe we’ll resort to. It’s got less than 10 ingredients so it’s super easy to prepare. It’s also one of those recipes that you can swap in whatever veggies you have on hand – it will honestly work with ANY veggies. I recommend this for those nights you want to clear out any veggies leftover in your fridge.

One Pan Chicken Fajita

Dalt and I LOVE Mexican food so whenever we we’re in the mood for those classic Mexican flavours, this is one of our go to dishes! One of the best things about this dish is how great it works for leftovers. It serves 4 and so the remaining 2 serves we’ll divide into our reusable containers, pop them in the fridge and taken them to work with us for lunch the next day.

Meatball and Mozzarella Tray Bake

We love how deliciously cheesy and hearty this dish is. It’s one we find ourselves cooking throughout the cooler months as it’s a super comforting dish. Now this one takes a little longer than 30 minutes to prepare, so it’s usually one we’ll enjoy when we’ve had a WFH day, so we can finish off our work and keep an eye over it while it cooks.

One Pan Chicken with Halloumi, Lemon an Thyme

When this recipe first launched, we were cooking this at least once a week because if you’re anything like us, you saw the word halloumi and started drooling. If we’re super time poor we’ll skip out on the potatoes and instead opt a fresh salad or some steamed rice as they take a lot less time to prepare.

Eggplant Pasta Bake

When we know we have a busy week ahead this is a dish we’ll often cook as it uses only 7 ingredients and we know it’ll take us across 2 nights (it also works well to take into work for lunch the next day). Dalton’s next challenge is to grow eggplants so we can make this dish using our own!

Reflecting on the list, you couldn’t tell that we love one pan recipes or tray bakes, could you?

Laura Henshaw