Kalyn's Picks: 20 Current Favorite Salads and Side Dishes for Outdoor Eating

I'd never get tired of this Southwestern Quinoa Salad with Black Beans, Red Bell Peppers, and Cilantro.

Are you the kind of cook who always makes your favorite recipe for a summer get-together, or do you like to try new things when you're taking something to a party?  For me, the answer is "It depends." Probably my father's favorite Shrimp and Macaroni Salad is the thing I've taken most often to Denny family get-togethers for quite a few years, but when I have new favorites on the blog I do like to try those out on the family as well.  If you're looking for a taste-tested salad or side dish to try out for the holiday weekend, here are twenty current favorites of mine.  And after I post this I'm going to take a few days off to spend time with my family, including taking some adorable kids to see Real Salt Lake play soccer tonight.  Happy Memorial Day Weekend everyone!

Recipe for World's Easiest Grilled Vegetables (How to Cook Vegetables on the Grill)

These easy grilled vegetables are something I make all during grilling season!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  These easy grilled vegetables are something I make at least once a week during grilling season!)

I regularly get comments from people who tell me they are learning to cook from my blog.  Feedback like that is partly what's motivating me to share this simple not-really-even-a-recipe way that I cook grilled vegetables all during the grilling season.  Whenever I'm cooking grilled chicken, meat, or fish, there will usually be one of these grill pans full of vegetables cooking alongside it.  Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of grilling season for many people in the U.S. so I'm sure there will be vegetables on the grill at my house over the weekend!

Recipe for Slow Cooker Shredded Beef Tacos with Spicy Slaw and Avocado

A beef roast is cooked in the slow cooker with Mexican flavors until it easily shreds apart and then it's made into tacos with whole wheat tortillas, spicy slaw, and avocado.

It only makes sense that with my new slow cooker blog, I'm paying more attention to how people use their slow cookers year round.  I'm finding lots of slow cooker recipes like these shredded beef tacos, which would taste just as good in the dead of winter as they did on a warm night last week. But one happy thing about cooking something like this when it's starting to get hot outside is that the slow cooker doesn't heat up the house for those hours that the meat is getting tender.  I love the spicy slaw that comes with fish tacos, so I couldn't resist adding some of that to my tacos, along with a little avocado, and two of these tacos made a perfect dinner for me.

Turkey Cutlets with Dijon Sauce Recipe

A super-quick and easy recipe and if you have picky kids, just give them a piece without the sauce!

(Updated May 2012 with greatly-improved photos and step-by-step instructions.)  I've been getting so much satisfaction from the process of updating my very earliest recipes with new photos.  Not only does it give me a chance to cook some of my favorite recipes again, but I know that the new photos might entice someone to try a recipe that they probably wouldn't have been inspired to cook otherwise.  If you scroll down to the end of the step-by-step photos on this post, you'll see why I was especially happy to get new photos for this delicious recipe of quickly-sauteed turkey cutlets with Dijon sauce.  That first photo was from September 2005, when I'd barely entered the digital camera age with a little point-and-shoot camera, and in those days I had plenty of passion for cooking, but very little skill in photographing the food!