My friend Alisa commented on one of my recent posts saying she was interested in hearing the details of dinners I throw together. I do throw a lot of dinners together. In fact, if I’m not making a Martha recipe (or a recipe I picked up elsewhere), I usually am just throwing something together. I always think I should try to plan meals farther in advance, but generally find myself at 5 pm trying to figure something out. The fact of the matter is, I don’t know what I want until it’s close to dinner time!

Last night we returned from spending the weekend at my parents’ lake house and we were completely exhausted. I’ve been fighting a cold virus and not sleeping well. We did a lot of boating, kayaking, swimming, and outdoors activities over the weekend and were just bone tired. We got home and unpacked and Mr. MarthaAndMe went out to tackle mowing and trying to get the pool open. I flitted around the house putting things away, opening mail, getting things ready for the week, and trying to cool the place down. Soon I had to face the fact that dinner had to be made, even though I didn’t feel like cooking it. I thought for a minute about surrendering and going to the hot dog joint at the end of our street, but pushed through it.

I pulled out some Greek turkey burgers. I buy these in the meat dept of my grocery store and feel guilty every time I do because I could easily make them myself – and I have.  To make it yourself, mix ground turkey with some frozen spinach that’s been thawed and squeezed dry. Add in some feta cheese, Greek seasoning (or oregano), salt, pepper, and if you like, a few pieces of sun dried tomato. Mine were pre-made (for just such an emergency) so all I had to do was thaw them. They can be grilled or cooked in a pan. I served them on whole wheat rolls that had Miracle Whip, feta cheese and lettuce on them. Sometimes I buy bottled Greek dressing and put some of that on the roll too.

For a side dish, I thinly sliced half of a zucchini and chopped up about 1 tbsp of onion. I cooked the onion in olive oil, added the zucchini, salt, pepper and 1/4 tsp dried cilantro and cooked till done. I had an ear of corn that had been cooked and was left over from another dinner. I sliced the corn off and dumped it in the pan and cooked it a few minutes to heat it and brown it a little. That was it (this fed two of us – the kids did not want it and ended up finding some other alternatives). I also put a bowl of grapes on the table. Grapes, and other fruit like strawberries, cherries, watermelon, cantaloupe, or tangerines are another of my go-to items. No cooking necessary and I know everyone will eat them.

What do you make for your thrown together dinners?