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What's on your menu? Need quick, easy meals.
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I am really needing help with supper ideas that are quick and easy, at least for this season in life. I tried cookbooks, but everything I want to try looks like it will take too long. Also I need simple, common ingredients. Can you direct me to a blog or cookbook you use? Vicki Bentley’ s Everyday Cooking has been somewhat helpful. I cook chicken and ground meats in large batches and freeze to use in casserole and soup recipes. I think we are tired of the same old foods and I am at a lose of what to fix. Please share your menu plan and any recipes.
Breakfast and lunch and snacks are okay. I fix various fruit baked oatmeal to set overnight in the fridge or we eat Cheerios and fruit. We have smoothies often for snack. Lunch is leftovers, sandwich, pizza, etc. I need ideas for supper though. Thanks.
Here are my baked oatmeal recipes I bake in a 9 x 13:
http://www.onceuponachef.com/2014/03/amish-style-baked-oatmeal-with-apples-raisins-walnuts.html
http://www.annies-eats.com/2011/09/12/baked-oatmeal-with-fruit
Casseroles:
Tater tot casserole with green beans
Easy chicken pot pie with drop biscuits on top
Creamy chicken and noodles
Beef and noodles
Chicken broccoli rice
http://www.pauladeen.com/cheeseburger-casserole
Soups:
Chili
Chicken noodle
Vegetable bean
I’m in a season of needing super simple meals too. Here are some of our favorites right now:
tacos: ground beef, crockpot shredded beef or chicken. These can easily be burritos too.
roast chicken or chicken legs, serve with mashed potatoes or rice and salad or broccoli
chicken casserole: I vary this a lot. The original recipe was artichoke hearts, chopped tomatoes mixed with garlic, basil, olive oil, and s&p topped with chicken breasts seasoned with s&p. Throw it in the oven and walk away. at the end you can top with cheese and broil a little. Serve with noodles. But you can do any combination of veg and spices. I’ve skipped the tomatoes and thrown in a little two buck chuck. I often skip the cheese. I’ve done sweet peppers, cumin, onion, cilantro, and red palm oil. I served that one with rice. The only time it flopped was when I used broccoli, because it was mush.
fish: I take cod or salmon fillets straight from the freezer, rub them in oil, s&p and roast in 400 degree oven. Eat with butter and lemon. Have rice and veggie on the side. I recently did a variation on my chicken recipe but with cod and that was good too. I just put the frozen cod in a 9×11 pan, threw in capers, butter, lemon juice, s&p and some white wine. And baked it.
roast beef in the crockpot served with mashed potatoes and veggie.
pork roast, pour teriyaki sauce over it, and bake. Can also be done in the crockpot. serve with rice and veg. Teriyaki chicken legs are a favorite too. Just line your pan with foil for easy clean up! Teriyaki sauce burns on the pan big time.
Italian meatballs from Costco and noodles. Salad.
breakfast: my kids love Dutch puff and it has only four ingredients. Put a stick of butter in n a 9×11 pan, can use less, put in the oven to melt. Meanwhile mix eight eggs, two cups milk and two cups flour. When butter is melted, pour in mixture. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes. Serve with maple syrup or jam or fruit.
Baked overnight French toast is good too. Mix it up he night before and assemble in a 9×11 pan (I can fit six slices, then I put a second layer on top). Put in the fridge. In the morning just bake for 40 minutes.
I will be following for ideas!
I make taco salad alot. And baked potatoes and ground beef gravy. Or baked potatoes w/ ground beef and shredded chesse and sour cream. I also do chicken gravy often, over baked potatoes or instant mashed potatoes or rice.
My instant pot does great bean soup.
We’re avoiding processed foods and sticking with whole grains, and I’ve been trying many Paleo dishes…although we aren’t on a Paleo diet. I am amazed at how tasty and simple they’ve been. I posted a link to one recipe we tried, but the other recipes on the site looked really good too.
We’ve been having things like pork loin roasted with veggies, beef stew (in pressure cooker or crock pot to save time), burgers (on whole wheat bread or plain) & salad, rice bowls (either with Mexican or Asian ingredients), taco salads, or a simple meat/sweet potato/veggie combo. We had spaghetti squash lasagna the other day and it was delicious! We just subbed layers of spaghetti squash for the lasagna noodles.
A couple weeks ago I cooked a large turkey breast in our crockpot. We had roasted turkey & mashed potatoes for dinner, then made two lunches later on: turkey veggie soup & turkey salad sandwiches. I was amazed to get 3 meals from one hunk of meat to feed 7 people.
Honestly? I find the simplest meals are fixing meat, potatoes and vegetables.
Bake your potatoes (either regular baking potatoes or sweet potatoes for a treat) in the oven – quick and easy. Or buy new potatoes and boil/mash them (no peeling!).
Steam a vegetable: baby carrots and brocolli florets are very quick and easy and need nothing more than a quick rinse. We also love squash: cut it in half, scoop it out, stick some brown sugar and butter on the inside and bake it.
Cook your meat: stick a roast in the slow cooker, and you’ve got meat for two days. For pork roasts I just buy a bottle of BBQ and throw that and some diced onions, in with the meat. For a beef roast, I’ll add some water, diced onions and a bit of Montreal Steak spice. Then if you choose you can use the liquid when it’s done cooking to make gravy. Or you can always roast a whole chicken, I just rub with a bit of butter, sprinkle with Montreal Chicken spice, throw some water in the pan and bake it. Again, you can use the juice to make gravy.
We eat very simply, but also healthy. A meal like this ^^^ with meat, baked potatoes and steamed veggies takes no more than about 10-15 minutes prep total. The roasts can simmer all day in a slow cooker. The potatoes take about an hour. The steamed veggies 8-10 minutes. So, it’s all stuff that’s very quick to throw in, and except for the steam veggies (which they can be cooking while you set the table etc…), it’s also stuff you can throw into the oven/cooker etc… and then walk away and leave and do other things during that time, without having to be standing over a stove, tending to the meal. It also leaves you with leftovers for the next day’s lunch and/or supper.
With a large beef roast, I can get four meals for our family of 4: first night we’ll eat the roast and meat and potatoes. The next night we finish up the potatoes and veggies from the night before, using the beef and gravy, make hot roast beef sandwhiches. The next day, I’ll take the remaining beef and shred it in my food processor, add some mixed frozen veggies, mash some potatoes, and make a Shepard’s Pie…. which in turn typically gives leftovers for the next day.
I cook chicken breasts in the crockpot in bulk, then shred and freeze in 2-cup portions. A few things we do with shredded chicken: (1) thaw, add bottled BBQ sauce and heat – then serve as sandwiches or just a pile of barbecue plus a starch (baked beans or corn) and a veggie (cole slaw or cut up raw veggies; (2) thaw, add salsa and heat – then serve with burrito style or with tortilla chips plus all the fixins; and (3) thaw, add to a quart of chicken broth, 1 can of diced tomatoes, 1/2 chopped onion and a bag of frozen soup veggies – bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer about 45 minutes.
Another easy meal is beef chili that I cook in bulk and freeze the extra. Usually I serve that with tortilla chips for scooping (or french fries) plus cole slaw. We make our own cole slaw – a bag of shredded cabbage and carrots, 3 Tbsp. sugar, 3 Tbsp. olive oil, 3 Tbsp. cider or red wine vinegar and 1/2 tsp. celery seed.
Good ideas. Keep them coming. I do need to make more potatoes and vegetable sides to put with a meat. Tonight, I roasted cauliflower and everyone liked it, including the kids.
The new Trim Healthy Mama cookbook has a lot of easy recipes, and I agree that often thinking ‘meat, starch, vegetable’ is the easiest way to cook. Here are some of the simple things I like to cook:
Easy Tex-Mex Meatloaf – from the THM cookbook. Basically this is ground beef, eggs, salsa and sour cream mixed and put in a dish to bake. Pretty simple.
Salmon with salt, pepper and pure maple syrup, baked. Serve with sweet potatoes.
Black bean soup – canned or soaked black beans with rotel tomatoes in a slow cooker. You can add chopped carrot and onion or ham if you have it handy – in the final hour for veggies.
Crockpot mac and cheese – lots of good recipes for this on the internet and it’s pretty darn yummy.
Summer sausage, cheese and fruit – I know, this isn’t a real ‘dinner’ but it sure is quick and the kids love it
BBQ Pork Loin – Put a pork loin in the crock pot with bbq sauce, cook it all day, serve on hamburger bunsParmesan chicken – this sounds gross but its really tasty! Take chicken tenderloins and spread with mayonnaise, top with parmesan and bake.
Pasta is always pretty quick and simple, too.
Quiche, omelette, or another egg dish is a quick option as well.
Today, I diced up potatoes, onion and turkey kiabaska, then sdded a package of baby carrots, some olive oil and a package of dry Italian dressing mix. I let that marinate in the fridge awhile and then roast it in the oven at dinner. A bread or salad could be added, but we keep it simple.
We also like stromboli. Let a loaf of frozen bread dough rise all day (or make your own in the bread maker). Roll into a rectangle, add meat, cheese and veggies (pepperoni and mozarella or ham and cheese, etc.), roll into a log and pinch ends closed. Bake according to bread directions. Can serve pizza one with marinara.
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