Easy recipes for the young married couple?
My husband and I cannot cook. Not for lack of wanting to, but because of time constraints (working college students) and not knowing what to make. I’ve heard from a lot of people that they make several meals on the weekend and freeze them, but I honestly have no idea how to go about that.
Can you give me some relatively easy, slightly healthy recipes? Do you have any special tips? Thanks!
October 26th, 2010 at 9:14 am
Ingredients
1 1/2 lb. ground beef
1/2 cup Pace® Picante Sauce
1 envelope (about 1 ounce) dry onion soup and recipe mix
6 Pepperidge Farm® Farmhouse Premium White Rolls with Sesame Seeds
Lettuce leaves
Tomato slice
Avocado slices
Directions
1. Mix thoroughly the beef, picante sauce and soup mix. Shape firmly into 6 burgers, 1/2-inch thick each.
2. Lightly oil the grill rack and heat the grill to medium. Grill the burgers for 10 minutes or until desired doneness, turning the burgers over halfway through grilling.
3. Serve on rolls with lettuce, tomato, avocado and additional picante sauce.
October 26th, 2010 at 9:30 am
Check out http://www.recipezaar.com. They have what are called OAMC (Once a Month Cooking) recipes. Just put OAMC in their search box. They have over 600 recipes in this catagory
October 26th, 2010 at 9:41 am
If you are looking for recipes to freeze ahead of time, start here:
http://www.30mealsinoneday.com/recipes.php
And you can look here for 5-ingredient meals, which are typically easier to fix than something with more elaborate ingredient lists:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/5-ingredient-fix/index.html
October 26th, 2010 at 9:48 am
We do big pots of chili, freeze some and store some in the fridge in individual tupperwares to eat throughout the week.
Basic recipe:
1 lb or so of some kind of ground meat
1 medium onion
2-3 cloves of garlic
2 cans of beans- I like to do one black, one kidney
1 big can of tomatoes (28 oz)- the roasted or basil kind are good- extra level of flavor for no more work
1 small can of tomato paste
vegetables- I like to add a bag of frozen sweet corn, chopped kale is good too (easier to get your veg servings this way!). Really whatever veg you like will work- bell peppers, squash etc.
salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder
All the ingredient amounts are approximate- you can double the recipe if you have a big enough pot.
Directions:
Chop up the onion and cook it in the bottom of a big pot with some olive oil until translucent. Add chopped garlic and scoot around for a minute or so.
Add the meat and brown, adding some salt, pepper, chili powder and cumin while it’s still pink. Once it’s cooked through, taste and adjust the spices.
Dump in cans of beans and tomatoes, draining the liquids into a bowl to use later if you need more liquid. Stir around and taste, adjust spices again. (Hint: if your canned goods have a good amount of salt, you won’t need to add much). Dump in the tomato paste and stir in.
Let the whole pot simmer on low for a while (you can really eat it as soon as everything’s in the pot, but it’s tasty when it’s had a while for the ingredients to really flavor each other). Add more liquid if needed, and adjust spices to taste. Add the veg towards the end so it doesn’t turn to slimy goo- it only really needs to be heated through and stirred in with all the rest of the tasty stuff.
I like to serve with some corn bread (make it ahead straight from the little blue box and add some jalepenos or corn to make it special). Reheats great.
October 26th, 2010 at 10:25 am
baked chicken
here r a couple of the easiest but best recipes my family just LOVES.
pre-heat over to 350
put chicken in baking pan and smother with italian dressing for extra flavor sprinkle parmesan cheese on top. YUMMY cover tightly with foil,
throw it in oven for about 2 1/2 hours and u have your self a delicious meal the chicken just falls apart when u touch it with a fork. enjoy
now if u want the same delicious meal that falls apart when u touch it with the fork do all the same steps above but instead of smothering in italian smother with a bottle of bar b que sauce. cover and cook 2 1/2 hours and tah dah dinner is served and your family will be happy
October 26th, 2010 at 10:47 am
You can plan ahead for a day to prepare your meals for the week. YOu can fix spaghetti and then put it into individual containers for meals, You can fix tuna salad, chicken salad for lunches. I make what I call hamburger/potato stew.
1-2 lbs ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 chopped garlic cloves
6 lg potatos
1 tablespoon seasoning salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
1/2 can tomato sauce
brown the ground beef and add onion and garlic and spices. Drain excess fats and put back in pot and add potatoes and tomato sauce and water to cover potatoes and boil til potatoes are tender.
This cooks alot and there is plenty to put away for other meals. My family loves this and it’s simple and easy to make.
baked chicken
6-8 legs
6 potatos
1 jalapeno pepper (if desired)
1/2 onion chopped
1 clove garlic chopped
butter
salt and pepper
seasoning salt (Lowery’s)
Cut potatoes in half and place in bottom of 9×13 pan place chicken on top of potatoes add spices. Place garlic and onion and slice up the jalapeno and place over the chicen and potatoes. Put small slices of butter on top of potatoes and bake for like 40 minutes on 350 degree oven.
I can’t think of any more right now but if you google quic and easy meals they can help you and it only take 30 minutes to fix a good dinner if you know what you like to eat. I could give you more recipes if I knew wht type of things you like to eat. Good luck.
October 26th, 2010 at 11:28 am
You might want to check out Dream Dinners. We used them before we went vegetarian. They will put together the ingredients and packaging, you show up and assemble the meals following their suggestions, but omitting that which you don’t like and adding more of what you do. Then you take it home and freeze. Each morning take out your meal to thaw and cook when you get home. Little to no prep at home, you don’t have to buy big bottles or jars of spice for one recipe and they have a pretty good variety. We would split each meal (meant for 6) in to two and then have some leftover for lunch.
We also prep a ton of food on the weekends. I chop onions and other veggies, make carrot sticks and precook some things to make life easier for the week. Having a list of planned meals helps, too. No arguing over what to make and ending up going out because it is too late. 😀
October 26th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Try using MyFridgeFood – it has a lot of easy recipes using what’s already in your kitchen – It really helped me get through college, plus you can sort the recipes by the nutritional info. Helped my Diet too 🙂 Hope it helps!