Grilled ham and cheese sandwiches
Combine either canned vegetables or quickly-sauteed fresh vegetables (whatever is seasonal and affordable), with a nice vegetable stock and rice for a hearty soup.
Cook a supply of a couple of kinds of beans (black, pinto, etc), and some rice at the beginning of the week. Store in the fridge alongside tortillas, and chopped up tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, etc. Let your family members make a bowl, or a wrap, or a salad. Serve with salsas. Change it up by sometimes by adding grilled corn kernels, cooked shrimp, or avocados to the topping choices.
Toss shrimp (heads removed, shells still on, but you can remove the shells if you want, "veins" cleaned out) in just a little olive oil, and spread them on a flat cookie sheet. The shrimp should just be lightly drizzled with oil, not soaking in a puddle of it. Roast at 400 degrees for about 6 or 7 minutes. Serve with rice, peas, and lemon wedges;
Avocado, lettuce and tomato sandwiches
Roast root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, radishes, onions, etc) that have been chopped into similar-sized pieces. Roast at 425 degrees, drizzled with a little olive oil, until golden and tender. Serve over rice.
Trim the tips off of fresh green beans. Drizzle with olive oil, and season. For a peppery taste, sprinkle with Montreal Steak Seasoning (my favorite way to make them). Or choose lemon pepper, or salt, or cajun spices, or whatever you like. Place an empty sheet pan in the oven and preheat both the oven and pan to 425 degrees. When preheated, quickly place the beans on the hot pan and roast for about 20 minutes until lightly charred. You can also add shelled edamame to the beans before cooking. Serve as a side dish, or snack, or add to a salad.
We sometimes make a meal of edamame pods, and a crusty, rustic bread or baguette. Buy the edamame pods whole, bring a salted pot of water to boil, dump the whole pods in and boil just for about 3 or 4 minutes until they all rise to the top of the water. Drain and serve with lots of lime wedges, coarse salt. Just bite into a pod that's been spritzed with lime juice, and suck the beans out.
Make a steak or roast beef salad. Either broil a London broil and slice it thinly, or cook another tender steak and slice it, or buy deli slices of roast beef. Make a salad with lettuce, tomatoes, fresh zucchini slices, shredded carrots - whatever you love on a salad or from a salad bar. Top with the meat, and drizzle with a little olive oil and red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar (just a little), and some salt and pepper.
Greek salads: chop up cucumbers, tomatoes, red or sweet onions, Kalamata olives, and combine with olive oil and vinegar (just a little). Add tuna, or sliced hard-boiled eggs, or edamame beans (out of the pods), or roasted green beans, for variety. Top with feta cheese (or Queso Fresco, a Mexican cheese much like feta cheese but cheaper).
Sliced ham, roasted potatoes, and vegetables. Then make a hearty ham soup with the leftovers.
Loaded baked potato soup. (lots of recipes online - a good one is the Hard Rock Cafe version which is easy to look up online). If your husband doesn't like bacon, leave that out and you and your daughter can add that to your individual bowls.
Twice-baked cheese stuffed potatoes.
Since you can't use chicken stock, make a really flavorful and practically free stock to use in place of chicken stock in soups or gravies. You'll need a very large soup pot - the one I use is 12 quarts or larger. Buy corn on the cob. Trim the corn kernels off, and save them or freeze them or cook them. Break the cobs in half and place them in the pot, and fill it with cold water. Bring to a boil, and simmer for about an hour and a half. Remove and compost or discard the cobs. Now look at how much water is left in the pot, and boil it until it's half its original quantity. You can reduce it further for a stronger taste. Then freeze in quart size zip top bags and use like chicken stock.
