Any Good Dinner Ideas???

We had peanut butter and jelly. It wasn't very creative, but I didn't hear any complaints.

(I don't do this often)

1. blue cheese burgers. I put red onions and blue cheese crumbles into the beef patties and cook them on the stove top.
2. oven kebabs. I soak wood skewers and alternate sliced eggplant and seasoned ground beef on them. Lay in a roasting tray, and top with pierced plum tomatoes and onion wedges.
3. spanikotiropitera- fillo dough (or you could use crescent rolls or puff pastry) filled with thawed wrung out frozen spinach, onion, feta, another cheese if you choose, egg, salt, pepper and I happen to like dill. baked in the oven until the dough is browned and the filling is cooked through.
4. pan fried steak (no breading, just salt, pepper, garlic and paprika).
5. fasoulia- french cut string beans parboiled, then put in an oversized pan with onion slivers, and cherry tomatoes, a bit of oil or butter salt and pepper.
6. mango chicken curry. marinade chicken in coconut milk and curry sauce/ powder, and chili flakes together with onions and peppers. stir fry and add water chestnut and those mini ears of corn if you want, at the last minute add some diced mango and let the sugar of the mango cut the heat of the curry, serve in the mango skins with a side of jasmine rice.
7. meatballs are popular in our house.

Best,
F. B.

Homemade soup - we just had lentil barley chicken soup the other night. With fresh basil/cilantro on top - yum!
Salmon or crab cakes
Pulled pork sandwiches (cook pork all day long in the slow cooker)
Stuffed shells (I make a sauce that is marinara with a little cream)
Italian sausage, kale, and beans (look up a recipe - it's yummy)
Chicken parmesan (I pound the chicken flat, pat it in flour, then beaten egg, then a mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan...brown in frying pan. Serve over salad with a homemade lemon and olive oil salad dressing)

Tonight we're having homemade macaroni and cheese with two veggies for sides... steamed broccoli and I'll let the girls choose the other one. Probably honey glazed steamed carrots. I use Land O'Lakes American cheese; and either heavy cream or fat free half and half, depending on if it's a holiday or not. It's a favorite in our house as a comfort food but of course it's a rare treat.

I like to add mushrooms and other earthy veggies in place of any dish that would normally have beef or pork in it. We use a lot of black beans and add them to salads, quesadillas, fajitas. We make veggie fajitas and tacos.

Broccoli casserole and other veggie casseroles. Delicious veggie soups with our favorite veggies, especially potato soup with potato, celery, carrots, cauliflower, if you like onion, and any other veg you can sneak in with some cheddar and fat free milk all nice and pureed with a stick blender; tomato soup with pasta and sauteed zucchini.

I think of our favorite casseroles and convert them to be soups.

Wild rice, tofu, cous cous, quinoa, help bulk things up too. Nice and filling and full of protein.

We love stir-fry with rice an egg rolls.

Or grilled meat with fresh veggies (chicken, steaks, ribs, wings, salmon) and green beans or peas and zucchini and summer squash cut into spears and baked with seasonings and panko, or potato cubes, tossed in seasoned olive oil and baked. Or baked potato.

Or "swiss steak" which is seasoned and lightly floured cubed steak, browned, and then simmered in a lidded stove top pan for 90 minutes with tomatoes/peppers/onions. Served over rice with a veggie side.

Or tacos.

Or enchiladas.

Or home made chicken pot pie.

Or chicken chili (or traditional chili for that matter).

Or, last night, we had meatloaf.
:)

-Shepherd's pie (pretty easy)
-tacos
-steak & mashed potatoes
-burgers & fries or potato salad
-Rotisserie chicken, macaroni salad
-Stouffers lasagna, garlic bread, salad
-chicken/veggie stir fry & rice
-meatloaf
-chicken enchiladas, beans
-bean tostadas
-grilled salmon, rice & salad
-spagetti w/meat sauce, salad & garlic bread
-taco salad
-cooked ground beef or turkey, can of mushroom soup served w/white
rice

I made lasagna in a crock pot tonight. Took four hrs in the crock pot.
It's on my fb...if I could figure out how to put it on here I'd share it! It was so gd, fed five w/salad addition. :)

We love anything Mexican - burrito's, tacos, enchiladas, tacos in a pasta shell, taco salad, you get my drift.

Baked chicken with a starch and a veggie - this can be varied so much by the flavoring on the chicken. For starches we do pasta, rich, stuffing, or potato normally. Veggies are whatever color we need on the plate.

Kielbasa and Pierogies are a quick and easy meal. We always keep these on hand for those last minute dinners when we didn't plan.

We use the crock pot a LOT. Pork , chicken, soups, etc.

Breakfast for supper. My kids love it when I make bacon or sausage with pancakes or French toast, or egg mcmuffins.

I try to alternate chicken/beef/pork/fish and alternate potatoes/rice/pasta.

Do you have a Pinterest account? You can find anything on there. Just plug "dinner" into the search bar and your good to go..

check out allrecipes.com

We like a lot of meals that can be adapted based on what we have in the house or what we need to use up. Chinese stir fry is one - with tofu or chicken as the protein, various vegetables (any of the following: carrots, celery, onions, peppers, broccoli, zucchini, green beans, occasionally with added water chestnuts or bamboo shoots), a simple sauce of soy sauce & ginger, and a side of rice. We usually add soy sauce and Chinese 5 spice powder to the rice while it's cooking.

We also do enchiladas the same way, using several types of beans, or leftover chicken or ground beef (or turkey) as the protein. Then we use up peppers (especially after they start to get a little soft and aren't so great in salads), a handful of frozen corn or peas, diced onions, Cheddar or Mexican-style cheese, and tomato sauce (we just make our own with puree, cumin and coriander). Usually we use the large tortillas - burrito size. We make rice with some of the tomato puree and the spices. They're good because they can be "personalized" if someone really doesn't like a particular item.

We often substitute spaghetti squash for regular pasta.

If you have a crock pot, it's a great way to prep earlier in the day and have something ready later after a busy day.