Meal Ideas - Norwood, MA

Hi Kelly, I know you have gotten many responses but I have to tell you I have been going to allrecipes.com for a few years and it is the best site ever! you can find recipes for anything and people review them so before you try it you can get hints from other people it is fantastic! Every recipe is submitted by regular people and rated by regular people. try it out. Good luck.

I'm not much of a cook either but I have to rave about my crock pot. SO easy & smelling that food cooking all day is heaven! I would recommend you get one & there are tons of crock pot recipe books or you could find recipes online. Good luck!!

The back of the Stouffers Stuffing boxes and the back of soup cans have great ideas for quick meals (30 min) that I enjoy feeding my family.

Hi Kelly:
I love to cook, but my cooking is fairly simple. I have a 7yr old and 16mo old, they like most stuff I make. First off for dinner I get most of my ideas from magazines, and I watch a lot of the food network for ideas too. When I do my big food shopping order on Sunday, I make a list of 4 or 5 meals and get all the ingredients I need for them that week. When I know they like a dinner, I have a little on going list of meal ideas so when I'm stumped I can see what to make. We splurge too and like to get take out on Fri/Sat. Here are a few ideas of stuff I make, please feel free, you or anyone else to send me a personal message if you want my recipe:
-chicken, broc and ziti
-taco pie, w/ refried beans
-meatball subs
-swedish meatballs over eggnoodles
-greek pizza w/ salad
-chicken quesadillas w/ sour cream and avocado
-baked mac n cheese (add in, ham, ground beef, peas, broc, etc)
-breaded chicken cutlets w/honey mustard dipping sauce w/ with potato and veg
-chicken stuffing rolls w/ gravy, veg and cranberry sauce
-baked fish w/ potato and veg
-english muffin pizzas w/ toppings
-corn chowda (add chicken and cheese) w/ rolls, raw veggies to dip w/ dressing
-salmon baked in cream sauce on top of fresh baby spinach w/ rice or couscous
-BLT's and fries
-stuffed peppers (I actually dont like these!)
-breakfast pizza w/ fresh fruit
-bacon, eggs, potatos
-turkey divan, baked w/ cream sauce on top of broc or spinach
-ravioli (frozen) w/ sauce, salad and bread sticks
-potato pizza w/ salad
-haddock augratin w/ potato and veg

Hope this gives you some ideas.
K.

I know someone already mentioned Kraft's "Food and Family" publication - it comes once/season and its been a good source of easy and yummy ideas. I also have had a lot of success with Weight Watcher's 15 minute meals - its sold in the magazine section and you don't have to know anything about WW to use it... I think most of the recipes in that are about 5 ingredients or less too...

Also - here's an easy mexican soup for a busy mom (and pretty cheap too!) that my 13 mo DD loves:
1 can of each:
refried beans
black beans
corn
diced tomatoes
chicken
chicken broth (or use 2 cups of water and boullin cubes)
a jar of salsa.

Heat it up in a big pot on the stove, takes about 15-20 minutes to get good and toasty warm.

Serve it over some shredded cheese, a few crunched tortilla chips, and a bit of diced avocado, and you've got yourself a meal!

good luck!

Hi Kelly,
I have a quick and easy pizza dough recipe: (It involves yeast, but have no fear, it's really easy)
2 1/4 Cups flour
1 TBS sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1pkg yeast (2 1/4 tsp) dissolved in 1 cup of very warm, but not hot water. (think toddler's bath water, not too hot, but warm enough so they don't get a chill too fast)

Stir together 1st 3 ingredients, pour in water/yeast mixture.
Stir, then add a bit of flour so you can pick it up and knead it into a ball. Set dough in plastic baggie for 5 mins.

Ready to use. Press genty onto pizza pan or cookie sheet works fine, top with sauce/ veggies/ cheese, you know the drill.

Hint: We follow up spaghetti night with Pizza night to use up our extra sauce, or just use an 8 oz can of tomato sauce from the vegetable aisle (very cheap, but tasty and no corn syrup added.)

Enjoy,
A.

Hi Kelly.

There are TONS of online recipe sites that have some great ideas. Campbells soup has some quick and easy ones.

To add into your current mix (something that the kids will like and you can chop up pretty easy into small pieces for your little one) is quesadias (not sure on that spelling).
Use 2 pre-made flour tortillas (you can find them in the supermarket either at the deli or in the dairy section near the cheeses). Preheat oven to 350. brush olive oil on the tortillas. Place one on either a cookie sheet (if you have it, a round pizza sheet or stone works best). put ANY filling in (ground beef with cheddar cheese for a cheeseburger, Tuna and swiss make a great tuna melt, basically just get creative on what you like). top with 2nd tortilla and place in oven for approx 10-12 min (top will begin to brown at edges). Flip over and cook another 10-12 min. It's a nice change and an easy dinner or lunch.

Happy Cooking.

ps. if you want to look into getting a kids cookbook, I am with Pampered Chef and have a great one available. You can order online at my website www.pamperedchef.biz/alisonlarkin. It's designed to get kids cooking...perhaps your 11 y/o would like to help out in the kitchen.

Hi, Kelly,

I have so many moms coming in with similar problems, one great recipe is a healthy Frittata/quiche.
You can spray a pyrex pan with olive oil or pam whichever you prefer and just pour it all in.
Take a carton of eggbeaters, 2 eggs beaten into it. Add your favorite veggies 1- 1 1/2 cups, 1/2 bag reduced fat shredded cheese,s&P to taste even a couple of tablespoons of parm cheese. Bake at 350 for about 15min-20 minutes depends on your oven. This is loaded with protein and calcium and very light and heart healthy. this can be put on an english or eat alone. My guy 7 eats it with his waffles in the morning.

M. M

Try a subscription to Every Day Foods. They have excellent menus for the week with a shopping list included and their recipes are straightforward and well described. More importantly, they often feature articles on ingredients that are healty,tasty, and are somewhat unfamiliar to the general public--things like quinoa which is a grain that is cooked like rice but has more protein in it. Most importantly, my boys--one 22 months and the other three--will eat their recipes. Lastly, if you aren't up for a subscription, they have a PBS show too where you can watch the cooking techniques and download the recipes from their website. However, as a busy 30 year old mother of two myself, I like the mag. because it comes to my door in one neat little package. Good luck!

Hi Kelly - I just threw this easy kids version of "Chicken, Ziti and Brocolli" together last week and the kids loved it. I used these small noddles (so I didnt have to cut them, I cant remember the name though but you can do it with any type of pasta.) I took the kids chicken nuggets cooked them as usual, steamed the brocolli crowns. Then I used olive oil, a little garlic powder and Parmesen cheese in the noddles, chopped up the nuggets to bite size, chopped up the crowns of the brocolli and tossed it together. Both my kids ate it- my daughter is 3-1/2 and my son is 18 months. It took about 15 minutes and my daughter to eat more brocolli then I normally can! Jen

We do alot of chiken and veggies in the crockpot too like someone already said. You should also check out campbells.com (the soup) they have quick and easy recipes, I like the chicken and biscuits casserole. Hope this helps a little! I too am looking for some quick meals and thats what brought me to the campbells website. Not much for vegetarian but still good!

Slow cookers are great. I just made a great beef stew. There are seasoning packets you can buy at the grocery store made just for slow cookers. They have the recipes on the back too.

I also make a recipe I made up. You take stew meat and cook it in a frying pan. In a seperate pan saute peppers and onions. Meanwhile, cook a bag of egg noodles. Add meat and 2 jars of mushroom gravy to peppers and onions. Cook for another minute or 2. Mix together with egg noodles. Very yummy.

Stuffed Hot Dogs:
slice hot dogs down middle the long way (i use deli hot dogs)
stuff with cheese
make mashed potatoes
add potatoes on top of hot dogs
cook in oven at 350 for about 45 minutes

I have a 14 month old son and i feed him whatever i serve my husband and myself. i have been doing this since he was an infant - pureeing grilled vegetables (even onions and eggplant), etc. i think exposing them to different tastes makes them better eaters overall. so, if i make linguine with clams or eggplant parmesan, that is what i feed my son. i just cut the food up to make it easy for him to eat. some other easy things i serve my son are: boca/hamburgers, tuna fish sandwiches on whole grain bread, vegetable frittatas, vegetable quesadillas, tortellini/ravioli/pasta in tomato sauce, thick minestrone soup, chicken nuggets, egg custard and salmon cakes. i make all of these things from scratch. (i love to cook and come from a family of italian immigrants so basically we are cooking, serving, and eating all of the time!). if you dont know how to cook but are interested in learning, a great cookbook to have is "the new best recipe cookbook" by cook's iillustrated. every good cook i know has this book. it will teach you everything you need to know about cooking and give you good ideas. (the salmon cake recipe from it is fantastic and i use canned salmon and bake the cakes instead of frying to make it easier for me). the other thing i do is to cook in batches. i make a lot of one thing and then freeze it for another use. this helps save time.
i imagine this response may be too vague for you but i will leave you with one easy breakfast recipe: oatmeal. mix 1/2 c old fashioned oats with 1 cup milk. add 1 tbsp raisins, a dash of cinnamon, and 1/2 banana or apple cut up. cook for 5 minutes or so. it is a delicious and healthy way to start the day. if you want more specific recipes from me, just email me and i will try to get them to you.

Every month, Real Simple Magazine has a section on easy dinners. They give five or six recipes that don't take more than 20-30 minutes to cook. Also, the recipes don't call for a long list of ingredients. You could look at their website to see if any of their recipes sound interesting.

The thing to keep in mind about cooking, is the more you do it, the better you get. You start out closely following recipes. However, after a few months, you start to realize how different flavors work together. Eventually, you won't need recipes, and you will be comfortable experimenting and trying new things.

Hope this helps,
S.

This sounds familiar. I need advice on this too.

Kelly,

Have you tried using a crock pot that is really the easiest best way to cook if you are not a big cooker. You can either google recipes or go to www.cafemom.com set an account there and join a group i'm in called crock pot moms. there are also a lot of other great groups for moms to join. Good Luck!

My mom passed on a Bisquick recipe book to me and it has a lot of great easy meals. Quite a few are one dish recipes too, my favorite.

My kids love tacos and chili both of which are very easy to do. I can help you with recipes if these sound like something you would like. YOu could also make homemade pizza (Boboli works great or English Muffins). I hope these ideas are helpful!

Hi, when I was learning how to cook I used this website and they also have a magazine (Food and Family) that's free to sign up for. http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf The section that says "Food and Family" is great. The recipes are simple and you can search by ingredients or type of meal. I usually make a big casserole or dish and then I can freeze the leftovers or have them for lunch or dinners throughout the week. I love to make soup...that freezes well and defrosts easily for a quick lunch for my son who is 1 year old. Do you have a slow cooker? Those are great for easy meals. If you let me know more about what you're looking to make (main course, side dishes, soups, breads) I'd be happy to send you some more resources or recipes that I've used.

Hi Kelly, I have three kids (13,11 & 7) who are all fairly picky. The meal eveyone likes and I feel good about serving is Baked Ham. I buy a Boars Head Sweet Slice Ham (it's much smaller than the party/spiral sliced hams you see around the holidays) from the supermarket, slice it into 3/4 inch slices and arange in a baking dish. Sprinkle a couple of tablespoons brown sugar (or brown slenda) over the top, add a few slices of fresh pineapple (or canned) with the juice, cover and bake for 25 mins at 375. While it's baking you can put some Pilsbury rolls in the oven with them, and saute some broccoli with olive oil & a bit of garlic. I also serve the kids cut up carrots, celery, peppers & orange slices. The ham is precooked so you are just heating it up, when the pinapple juice is bubbly, it's good to go.The whole thing start to table takes about a half hour. Any left-over ham & veggies get diced up and added to eggs the next morning. There aren't usually any leftovers though!

buy a whole chicken, make slits under the skin. Slide in slices of oranges. i think its called keys lime style chicken. (if you want to look up the full recipe) Another good one is honey chicken. buy a whole chicken, make a 50/50 mix of honey and sweet mustard (i hate mustard but is really good) rub the mix all over the chicken. cook, with veggies on the side, sooooo good

I started cooking more in the last year and then someone told me about www.allrecipes.com. It's got unlimited recipes and you can type in a keyword and find all kinds of ideas. Also there is a spot for people to review the recipe and they give alot of alternate or extra ingredients for the recipes too! I love it.

Hi Kelly

I'm in the same boat you are. I don't cook much however in the winter I do like to cook a lot in the crockpot. It's really simple and tastes great. You can do a stew, a roast with potatoes and carrots or even a small chicken with the same. With these 3 dinners your son will at least be getting some veggies and all you have to do is put it all in the crockpot and cook it for a couple of hours. It's so simple.
Good luck.

I can totally relate to this. I recently to a trip to the local bookstore and was very surprised of the amount of children friendly cook books. Lot's of great ideas.

One of my favorites is an easy lasagna- and I vary the ingredients according to what I'm in the mood for. Get out the big 9x13 pyrex dish, and put in a layer of non-precook lasagna noodles (they cook with the other ingredients, no pre-boiling, then I layer on mushrooms, thin cut zucchini, yellow squash. In a separate bowl, mix up a small container of low-fat ricotta cheese with one egg, and mix in either fresh or canned spinach. Layer this on. Cover with another pasta layer, then dump a jar of your favorite garlic pasta sauce, and top with pre-shredded bag of Italian 3 cheese mix. Bake at 375 for about 45min. Sometimes, I trade out the squash for sauteed ground beef for a heartier meal. I use this meal a lot for pot lucks or hosting dinner- always easy and popular!

You may also want to check out, "mealmixer.com" it draws up recipes for you based on what you like and how muich time you have to prepare, and then prints out a weekly menu and shopping list.