Dinner Recipes Needed for Vacation

I secopnd the idea of pulled pork or beef in the crock pot. Just place the large roast in crock with a cut up onion or two. Add a tiny bit of water. Cook. Drain. Shred with 2 forks in crock and add JDaniels BBQ sauce AND 1/2 jar apricot preserves! Yummy buns and a salad and you're done! Have a blast!

We do the same every year---Corolla, OBX with five families and each family has 1-3 children, so we are 10 adults and 12 kids under one roof. We plan the first night we all arrive as cookout night (burgers, dogs, veggie burgers, veggies) because that's a no-brainer, then one take out seafood night, and sometimes a pizza night toward the end of the week. For the other nights, each family is responsible for planning one meal. We typically have one family who makes lasagne, one family who cooks Indian/vegan fare, one family makes an amazing pork loin, one family who does kebobs or satay (some version of meat on a stick on the grill) with a huge vat of fried rice, and one family who makes bbq (pulled pork or similar) with big baked mac and cheese. Taco/fajita/mexican night is also an easy option and you can do roasted veggies and black beans to make it healthier and veggie friendly then grill your meats to keep from heating up the kitchen. Our breakfasts are always fun, and usually we end up doing pancakes one day, scrambled eggs and sausage one day (breakfast burritos), bagels one day, etc... then by the end of the week we're all on pop-tarts and cereal. For lunches, we pack lunch meat sandwiches or PJB and eat on the beach, bringing along a watermelon, grapes, crackers, etc to munch on as well. We found that bringing a HUGE pitcher or cooler of water out to the beach saved lots of trips back to the house to rehydrate, especially for the little ones, and is much better than juice boxes or sodas, which just get full of sand and have to be dumped and wasted. We also ALWAYS make a stop at the Weeping Radish brewery on our way into the OBX to buy cases of their microbrewed beer... which is always a hit.

I saw the idea of Pizza night - we have done multi-family pizza night by buying the LARGE english muffins and let the kids make their own muffin pizza - the kids love it. The adults use the pizza dough from Pillsbury and 3 large pizzas are made for the adults.

Enchiladas freeze well and you can make a pan of cheese, chicken and beef each in advance and freeze them - they re-heat well and feed a lot of people. We include spanish rice and tortilla chips.

We used to go to OBX with a group as well. Each family was in charge of a dinner. One couple would make 2 lasagnas ahead of time and freeze- it was a 6 hour drive for us. Frozen lasagnas travel well in cooler and made for an easy dinner to prepare. just thaw and reheat.

Have you thought about Pizza Nite, let the kids make there own pizza.

we also have 3 families with 6 adults and 8 kids that vacation together every summer. what i have found that works well is to have each family in charge of one yummy dinner. it gives the ones who really like to cook a chance to show off :) we have had great stuffed chicken and lobster and other types of seafood. on the other nights we try to stick to what will be easy to persuade the kids to eat. we have pizza night, taco night, burgers and dogs, grilled chicken, jambalaya (which you can use lots of different meat in). and breakfast and lunch everyone does on their own, unless someone wants to do pancakes or french toast. the outer banks is such fun! have a great time!

This was our menu plan for our beach trip last year (we had 7 kids, 9 adults-some vegetarians, some lactose intolerant, some very picky)
Breakfast:
pancakes
baked french toast
egg casserole
cinnamon buns

Lunch:
grilled cheese
tacos (lentils/ground beef)
sloppy joes
lunch meat sandwiches
stir-fry

Dinner:
Main dishes:
stuffed shells (cheese and meat)
grilled meat (salmon and steak, hotdogs, hamburgers)
smothered chicken/ BBQ chicken
black bean and rice enchiladas/ black bean and sweet potato burritos
stouffers lasagna
chicken or turkey pot pie

side dishes:
mashed potatoes
sweet potato casserole
mac and cheese
and lots of assorted vegetables (we're big fans of green beans, peas,
spinach, carrots and broccoli around my house)
I printed out recipes and a list of needed ingredients before we left since I hate having to go to the grocery store a million times throughout the week to get things you forgot. It also helps to be able to bring spices and things with you that will be expensive to purchase at the beach just to use one teaspoon. Most of the recipes I use come from allrecipes or my Betty Crocker cookbook.

We just went on vacation and hauled way too much food from IN to SC.

The one meal that we ate repeatedly and made a second time was Frank's RedHot Buffalo Chicken dip.

I modify my recipe slightly based upon our preferences (I don't add the crumbled blue cheese). I also use fresh chicken that I boil and shred vs. canned chicken.

Serve with crackers, tortillas, fresh veggies, and you're good to go.

http://franksredhot.com/recipes/FRANK'S%C2%AE-REDHOT%...

HOT SAUCE MEXICAN CHICKEN

ingredients: chicken breasts ..probably 10- 12
2 large jars of mild or medium hot sauce
cheddar cheese

pre heat oven to 375 , place chicken breasts into 13x9 pans(2 pans) pour hot sauce all over, cover with foil bake for 1 hour or until cooked through, remove from oven top with cheese...serve with beans and spanish rice.

Slow cook pork roast, or beef roast. When finished cooking shred it, or chop it. Add Sweet Baby Ray's Bar B Que Sauce to meat and cook for about 10-15 min. Get some nice potato rolls and add the meat to the roll. Get some potato salad, and speared pickles and you have a nice little meal. Good luck and enjoy your vacation.

Sub sandwiches and breakfast for dinner are also favorites. You could also do a make your own pizza night. Pillsbury has some refrigerated crusts that are good as well as Boboli or the Chef Boyardee box mixes.

Outerbanks is a blast! I will strongly suggest that you get take-out one night from Dirty Dick's- amazing shell fish and really reasonable. We used to cover a picnic table with newspaper and go to town! Other than that night, we always made dinners at home to keep costs down.

I would suggest doing a homemade pizza night. We used to do it as a competition- each couple (now family) would design a pizza and the rest would taste and vote. We had paper-plate awards for the winners and it was great taste-testing! That with a big tossed salad and you're all set.