Quick Meals

Every mom needs to get at least one of the Saving Dinner cookbooks! The author, Leanne Eli, also offers menus for sale, that are helpful but I use the cookbooks and find them to work best for us.

Basically, it's a cookbook broken down into several weeks per season so the recipes are appropriate to what is in season and appropriate (ie not calling for hot soup in August). What is exceptional about these books is that she offers suggestions for side dishes, the recipes are healthy but not freaky to kids (even ones you'd think your kids will never eat, they love, it's weird), the author is a nutritionist, the recipes truely do not take long at all (20 mins tops) and she includes a shopping list for each week, broken down by the section you'll find it in the grocery store (ie produce, frozen, etc). You can also get the shopping list at her website so if you're at work and want to stop at the store, you can print it off & head out. It's very handy.

She has 3 or 4 cookbooks, Saving Dinner, Saving Dinner the Low Carb Way (I have both and love them, some of our family favorites have come from them) as well as one for holiday cooking & another really basic one for basic learning how to cook.

Bon Appetit!
D.

2 moms found this helpful

A friend gave me this recipe a couple of weeks ago. It takes minutes to put together, literally. I made it for the first time when my parents came over and they loved it!EXCELLENT!

Swiss Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2-4 slices lorraine swiss cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/4 to 1/2 cup cooking sherry (or any wine you already have open in the fridge)
Chicken flavored stuffing - you choose how much (I use a lot!)
1/2 stick melted butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 9x13 baking dish. Place chicken in bottom of dish, layer cheese across chicken. Mix soup and sherry/wine together and pour over cheese. Cover with stuffing - I use enough so that you can't see the bottom of the dish or any part of the chicken/cheese/soup because we like a lot of 'goop', as we call it! Drizzle with melted butter. Cover with foil and bake for 30-40 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. Remove foil and bake additional 5 minutes or until stuffing is slightly golden and crispy on top.

1 mom found this helpful

Hi M.,

I get the real simple magazine. They always have quick and easy recipes and they give you a shopping list you can rip out of the magazine. If you don't want to subsribe to a magazine you can check out their website www.realsimple.com and find their recipes there with reviews. I am a novice cook and can follow their recipes fine.

I am not sure where you live but in the suburbs our grocery stores also run some good specials on prepared foods throughout the week. I think Whole foods has 5.99 whole roasted chickens on Thursday and 8.99 one topping pizzas on wednesday.

Good luck,
H.

1 mom found this helpful

Everyone always enjoys the Rachael Ray meals I make, they are 30 minutes or less.

Hi M.:

I use Kraft Kitchens recipes on a weekly basis. They are, for the most part, quick and simple and easy to vary based on your family's tastes. Each recipe gives you estimated prep and cook time. They have them well organized to search based on the food category and menu type (entree, app, dessert, etc.). If you find recipes you like, you can store them in your "recipe box" on the site so they are easy to access for future. www.kraftfoods.com

Take care,
M.

Hit the Kraft site.....they have a free magazine they send out quarterly you can sign up for that has many easy quick food idea and a feature that has a week's menu in one grocery sack! (Friday is always DiGorno pizza, but the other days offer a wide variety of ideas) They frequently offer coupons for the items featured.
Also Cooking Light magazine's site has recipes and menu ideas that offer prep time estimates, shopping lists and menu ideas.

M.-try kraftfoods.com, campbellskitchen.com, recipes.com or google meals in 20 minutes or less.Good luck and happy cooking!

For quick no-cook ideas, think fresh veggies, fruit salads, pasta and rice salads, grilled meats at the beginning of the week and then use the meat in salads and such all week long. Gazpacho soup is a summer favorite at our house with garlic croutons. Chef salad, deli meats and cheeses rolled up and served with crackers, fresh veggies and fruit salad, black bean burritos or tostadas are quick and easy to make too. Good luck.

I think some of the fastest meals are:

hamburgers with a salad side or carrots/celery with ranch dressing or watermelon

BBQ chicken sandwiches with slices of fruit on the side

Cook some chicken breast, cut into pieces - put out soft taco/hard taco shells, salsa, lettuce, black beans, onions, and have people make their own taco/fajita

Cook some chicken and some ground beef - put out all your salad fixins - carrot, cucs, tomatos, olives, croutons, whatever you have and let people make their own salads

sautee a few pork chops and serve with a coleslaw/vinegarette salad

Grill cheese and tomato sandwiches with pickled beets on the side

cook some chicken breast, cut into pieces (or cut it then cook it for faster cooking). Make a grilled sandwich with cooked chicken, cheese, basil and sun dried tomatoes.

Make a couple of quick nachos on a couple of large plates or make one for each person on small-med size plates: throw some torilla chips on a plate, top with chicken or ground beef, black beans and artichoke hearts and cheese; nuke for two minutes; top with lettuce and serve with salsa.

Egg salad, chicken salad or tuna salad sandwiches

Saute some salmon w/teriyaki sauce and serve over salad or with a pasta salad

pasta salad with chicken, basil, fresh mozarella and tomatoes with a balsamic vinegarette dressing

Hi M.,
I find this website very useful allrecipes.com/Recipes/Main.aspx. You can subscribe (free) and they email you a daily recipe. I enjoy getting new ideas every day. With the daily recipe there's tons of others you can look up on their index list. Yeah, I hear you I'm not big on crock pots either.
Bernie

M.,
Pampered Chef has 2 great recipe books called 29 Minutes to Dinner -- Volumes 1 and 2. They do have really good recipes and I've actually been able to fix them as fast as they say you can. I am a consultant who can hook you up with them, but I'm also honest and trying to help a fellow mom out, not trying to just get a sale. These are what I go to when I need something quick, easy and good. I could even send you a recipe to try if you wanted. I had a Rachel Ray cookbook once but found that I didn't really use the recipes. If you like her style, I know she has stuff out there too.

Our family's favorite (the 3 and 1 year old included!) is a quick veggie pizza. I go to the farmer's market every week and grab all kinds of goodies, and then I defrost a pizza crust (you can get the Rhodes ones at Jewel for like $3.00 for 3 of them), I grab everything I can find out of the fridge (spinach, onions, peppers of all colors, tomatoes, garlic... whatever I have) and I saute' that in some butter or olive oil, spread it on the pizza crust and top with cheese. It takes MAYBE 15 minutes and it's SO healthy and good. The kids are eating tons of veggies this way, too, which is hard to find fault with. :)

Hi M..

My name is J. S. and I'm a Team Leader with the Pampered Chef. We have amazing recipes for $2.00 per serving prepared in 15-30 minutes! We even have a power cooking show that we make 5 meals at once, put them in your freezer and when you are ready, just pop them in a skillet to finish them up in 10-20 minutes. AMAZING and DELICIOUS!
I'd love to tell you more.
You can go to www.pamperedchef.com to get some of the recipes or email me and I'll be happy to send you more information. If you are interested, I would love to come teach you and your friends how to save money in the grocery store, prepare these meals like Chicken Fajitas in just 15 minutes! and bring your family BACK to the table!
Email me at ____@____.com or call ###-###-####. I also have a personal website that I can give you when we email/talk. You can get recipes or shop online 24/7!

Best of luck!

My company sells 2 great cookbooks - 29 min. to dinner - let me know if you would like me to send you a recipe via email so you can try one out.

M. Hay ____@____.com

Hi M.,

One of my favorite and easiest is Mexican chicken. You can make them in advanced and freeze them.

Take a chicken breast place on top of foil. Put salsa and cheese on top. Wrap the foil up so that it is not touching the cheese. Bake until chicken is done. The salsa makes the chicken so moist you can not over cook. Make with some rice and dinner is done.

Good luck.

M. -

Without knowing what/how you eat - if you have kids, etc - it is hard. I have 3 tips, which may or may not help you. I make all my meals from scratch and fresh/non-processed ingredients. For quick meals, I use a pressure cooker (a good investment for an expensive one from Williams/Sonoma - it saves money in the long run. Theirs comes with a cook book. Secondly, I meal plan and chop/prep my veggies either weekly or bi-weekly, depending on the produce. Onions, garlic, broc, will keep for a week in the fridge. I have a foods saver which will keep chopped onions for a couple of weeks. With prepped veggies and a pressure cooker I can have most meals on the table in under 15 mins - but my kids eat coucous, rice w/veggies, etc. You can brown chicken, meat, whatever in the cooker and then cook it while you steam veggies.

Finally, a friend swears by Cookn', a software program with recipes that does meal planning and shopping list creation for you. I use Macs', so I'm not their waitlist for a mac release. (http://www.dvo.com/) You can use their recipes, or add your own as you accumulate them and it will print you a grocery list.

Good luck - it is hard...

This has worked for me in a pinch:
1) Boil some water for a bag of those fat, wavy egg noodles (use a pot with plenty of room).
2) While that is going, cut up some chicken breast into bite-size pieces.
3) Saute them and season to your liking.
4) When the water is ready, throw the noodles in.
5) When the noodles finish, put in a few handfuls of frozen broccoli and stir/let it sit for a minute or two (the broccoli will thaw/cook to a point so it stays a little crunchy).
6)) Drain everything (noodles and broccoli) into a colander. Mix it together with your seasoned chicken pieces and it's ready!
You can overlap steps three and four depending how fast you water boils, how long it takes to cut and saute chicken, etc. and you should be done pretty quickly. I've never timed it, and I usually need a couple of extra minutes to defrost my chicken, but only a couple of ingredients, and it's quick.
Hope that helps!