Fast Dinner Ideas

I love crock pot dinners, I have made chili, soups, Pot roast, and some other cool dishes. A really good cook book to get for quick throw together crock pot dinner.. It is called Busy Woman's slow cookers cook book. It is about $20.00 but it has over 500 recipes. You can do a search on the internet and you should be able to find where you can buy one and even take a look at it a little bit.. :)

Chicken Breasts
1-2 Cans of Cream of Chicken
Swiss Cheese Slices
Stove Top Stuffing

Place Chicken Breast in a Baking dish
Add Cream of Chicken Soup and a little bit of milk to thin the soup. Soup should almost cover the chicken.
Cover chicken Breasts with cheese.
Put stove top over the entire dish. Just enough to cover

Bake at 350 covered for approx 30 min
Take cover off and bake an additional 10 min.

This dish is fantistic. It is easy and you can make it ahead of time. My family makes this for holidays to feed 50 and everyone loves it!!

This time of year is a great time to make big batches of soup that you can freeze and just thaw out ahead of time. Throw in a loaf of french bread and a salad. Also, plan your meals out for a week. My husband and I share the meal planning and preparing pretty much equally. I also get home from work an hour or two before him, so I start cooking if time permits. Some days I have dinner ready by the time he gets home, and some days I spend so much time chasing our son around that dinner has to wait until a little later. I highly suggest getting a slow cooker as well.

Jennifer has some great ideas. I love my crockpot. One of my favorite crockpot meals is to put 3-4 chicken breasts in (they can still be frozen) and 3/4 of a jar of bbq sauce. Cook on high for 4 hours. After 4 hours you can shred the chicken with a fork and add the rest of the bbq sauce and cook for 45 more minutes and it's so yummy! Also Campbell's website has great ideas. There are a lot of recipes for casseroles you just throw together and put in the oven. I do those a lot, too.

I found kraft.com has good meal ideas and you can sort by time....

I also have a good recipe from my mother in law- the longest part is browning the meat and waiting for it to finish in the oven:

Brown 1 lb of hamburger, add onions if you like.
add 1 can of Tomato soup

add 1 can french cut grean beans - drained

mix together and put in a 2 qt bowl that can go in the oven

put instant mashed potato's on top, (I make what they say is for about 6 people)
Put cheese slices on top (I use about 3 or 4 slices)

Put in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 - 30 minutes or until cheese starts to brown - basically you just want to heat the whole thing through

* my sister substituted corn for the french cut green beans, so you could probably experiment with the veggie

This is such a challenge for me too! Pasta with red sauce is always fast. The frozen meatballs from Simeks are alright, and there are lots of choices for frozen tortollini and ravioli. My son who is almost two always loves a pasta dinner. Another great thing to keep around for a side dish is potato latkes, which are found in the freezer section by the meat at Byerly's. They're in with the ethnic foods. Serve these with applesauce and sour cream. Have you tried a crock pot? If you have one with a timer you can set it to start cooking after you leave and then keep the food warm before dinner. I just got one and am totally sold on it. Foodnetwork.com has a whole section of good recipes for this. Otherwise, anything you can make ahead and freeze for a couple of weeks is great. Things that work well for this are soups, chili, lasagne, enchiladas, penne, and any breads, cookies or cakes. It is also great to always have a bag of prewashed baby greens salad and a good vinegarette on hand to go with just about anything.

I have found GREAT recipes on Pilsbury's website. I love the crescent rolls and there are a TON of great recipe's with those that are simple, filling, and use common spices and things you already have. LOVE them and there is a huge variety of stuff to try. Also try Betty Crocker's website as there are some good ideas there too. Lastly - Pampered Chef cookbooks have some good ideas too and are also reasonable for time and ingredients.

Hi S.,
Rachael Ray's 30 minute meals are AWESOME!!! There is such a wide varitey that you can have pasta, chicken, sandwiches--things that you would think take a long time, but don't--the longest I have worked on one of the dishes is 45 minutes. I would definately pick up one of her cookbooks--probably can find a used one on amazon for cheap!
happy cooking!
L.
mom to Gentry and Ainsley 11/03