As any regular readers will know, it’s been a looooong time since I’ve posted here on Monkeying Around The Kitchen. Unfortunately, with work and all kinds of other things going one — raising our two year old and prepping for a new little baby — MATK can fall to the wayside. But, I’m still cooking almost every night which means I have a huge backlog of meals to talk about going back to last fall. So, in an effort to try and document the good recipes I’ve tried out in the last few months, I figured I’d implement a new kind of a post called Recipe Roundup that will gather a bunch of meals from different places, throw in a few pics and do my best to remember how they turned out.

Today’s subject is one of my favorite new cooking sites, Closet Cooking which is great because there’s tons of older recipes on there and the site gets updated constantly. I also appreciate that Kevin Lynch seems to be cooking in a kitchen even smaller than mine which is no small feat. So, without further ado, hit the jump to check out the first batch of CC recipes I’ve tried out in the past few months! 

Summer Vegetable Quinoa Burrito Bowls With Corn, Zucchini & Black Beans

I don’t remember too much about trying this recipe for Burrito Bowls. I believe there are a variety of them over on the site, but this is the one I tried. From the looks of it, I added some cooked, shredded chicken I had on hand. I also switched from the red quinoa to white because I had a box of the latter open in the pantry. Aside from that, I followed the recipe pretty fully. The great thing about this type of meal is that it’s super adaptable and can handle pretty much anything you want to throw inside.

Creamy Pesto Caprese Pasta Casserole

Most nights I enjoy hanging out in the kitchen for an hour working on a meal, but other times I need to be a bit quicker in there and this recipe is right in that zone. You cook some pasta, cut up some cheese and veggies, mix everything together and throw it in the oven for 20 minutes. Bam, you’re done and you have a super cheesy, awesome meal. Next time, I might add some sausage or chicken to add some more protein to this one. I should note, I switched out the cream for milk to cut a few calories and because I almost never use up all the cream I buy and it bums me out when I have to dump it down the sink.

Pumpkin & White Bean Turkey Chili With Kale & Pepita Salsa

We’re going back to October or so when I made this turkey and pumpkin chili, so my memories are pretty sketchy. As you can see in the pictures, I veered away from the recipe by not grinding the turkey and skipping the chipotle chilis because they’re a bit too intense for us. I also can’t remember if I tried the kale pepita salsa because the pictures don’t go that far. Guys, I love chili, so this was probably right up my alley, but it’s definitely a meal suited for a particular season.

Creamy Avocado Dressing (aka Guacamole Buttermilk Dressing)

I can’t quite remember which meal I made this creamy avocado dressing for, but I’ve gone back to it a few times and think it’s a great topping for tacos or any other Mexican dish. Plus, it’s a good way to use up some buttermilk if you have it on hand.

Slow Cooker Bacon Wrapped Apple BBQ Chicken

This is another oldie, but I do remember it coming out a bit bland. Not sure what happened, but I’ll probably swing back around at some point to give it another go somewhere down the line.