Looking for quick, cheap dinner ideas/recipes...

one can fancy up grilled cheeses.....

quiches are easy and quick and you can use leftovers for them

learn to make a pie crust and the world is yours
 
Also, really good idea to plan what you can make the next day out of leftover ingredients. Mexican cooking is rooted in repurposing food.

why does the term 'repurposing food' make me think of fecal transplants?

:lol: probably not the most elegant of phrasing regarding food.

Leftover chips are made into soup and days old tortillas are used for enchiladas...nothing goes to waste. And its all amazingly awesome. :cool:
 
Well, as a professional, classically trained chef, I can honestly say i'm thoroughly grossed out by most of the garbage mentioned up here.

lol

Have you been invited to eat any of it?
No way in hell I would accept the damn invites!:razz:

Seriously, RAMEN NOODLES?:lol::lol::lol:

I have some recipes using them that are pretty good, but you will become malnourished if you try to susbsist on them. That is well documented.
 
sweet potatoes are excellent and you can cook them ahead of time and just use them as needed...but you have to get a good sweet potato....i use beaurgards ...always slow cook them in the oven.....
 
one can fancy up grilled cheeses.....

quiches are easy and quick and you can use leftovers for them

learn to make a pie crust and the world is yours

Grilled tuna w/swiss and grilled pb&j are great, love them both.

I sprinkle parmesan on the outside of the bread before I toast them. Makes them crunchy and yummy.

Well I don't do it for the pb&j.
 
sweet potatoes are excellent and you can cook them ahead of time and just use them as needed...but you have to get a good sweet potato....i use beaurgards ...always slow cook them in the oven.....

I love sweet potatoes. Not YAMS! Blech! Real sweet potatoes.
 
Well, as a professional, classically trained chef, I can honestly say i'm thoroughly grossed out by most of the garbage mentioned up here.

lol

Have you been invited to eat any of it?
No way in hell I would accept the damn invites!:razz:

Seriously, RAMEN NOODLES?:lol::lol::lol:

Yes, seriously.

I work long, long days, and the kids eat at school and at their after school programs. Dinner in our house is a formality, not a necessity..but by necessity it must be quick, easy, cheap. I'm not running a restaurant, I'm trying to instill a habit in my family, save some money, and teach the kids how to use a stove.

I'm a cook, too. I know it's essentially cafeteria food we're talking about here, though a little better because I'm making it, and it's in small batches. But when I think of my childhood, where we had spectacular food...but not consistency....and my best friend's childhood, where they had meals like this...EVERY SINGLE NIGHT..I pick my friend's method. All the kids in that family still maintain the tradition of a sit-down dinner every single night. It's the activity, not the slop, that matters.

So I deliberately am choosing a really simple menu that I can stick to, and the kids can help with. I make wonderful bread, gourmet pies, and I can do marvelous things with meat. But I don't want to teach them to eat. I want to teach them to maintain a schedule, plan out the week's meals, and focus on the event, not the chow. Food is what we take in to keep us alive, it doesn't have to be a feast every day of the week.
 
When they (we) master these menus, we'll start adding more complicated recipes as their proficiency increases.

Another reason to keep it really simple and fast is that I have to find time to do laundry, vacuum, pick up dog crap, wash dishes, go to school functions, get the kids bathed and in bed, etc. I get off work at 5:30, don't get home until 6, done with dinner around 7...that gives me 2 hours before I'm done for the night. At 9 p.m. I promise you, I'm exhausted. I'm not interested in cooking from 6-9 to get a gourmet dinner on the table at 9:15 and then clean up until 10. That's the whole point of the menu.
 
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Potato pancakes...one of my favorite meals. Peel and grate potatoes, pat dry, mix with egg, salt, pepper, drop by spoonfulls into hot oil, fry until crisp. Serve with sour cream, applesauce and chopped green onions.

Heaven.
 
dont feel guilty....when i was having a lot of trouble a year and half ago.....my family lived on sticky buns and lemonade....like i told them...people lived on a lot worse....kids are like dogs...they wont starve with food in front of them.....they will eat that green bean when they get hungry enough
 
Have you been invited to eat any of it?
No way in hell I would accept the damn invites!:razz:

Seriously, RAMEN NOODLES?:lol::lol::lol:

Yes, seriously.

I work long, long days, and the kids eat at school and at their after school programs. Dinner in our house is a formality, not a necessity..but by necessity it must be quick, easy, cheap. I'm not running a restaurant, I'm trying to instill a habit in my family, save some money, and teach the kids how to use a stove.

I'm a cook, too. I know it's essentially cafeteria food we're talking about here, though a little better because I'm making it, and it's in small batches. But when I think of my childhood, where we had spectacular food...but not consistency....and my best friend's childhood, where they had meals like this...EVERY SINGLE NIGHT..I pick my friend's method. All the kids in that family still maintain the tradition of a sit-down dinner every single night. It's the activity, not the slop, that matters.

So I deliberately am choosing a really simple menu that I can stick to, and the kids can help with. I make wonderful bread, gourmet pies, and I can do marvelous things with meat. But I don't want to teach them to eat. I want to teach them to maintain a schedule, plan out the week's meals, and focus on the event, not the chow. Food is what we take in to keep us alive, it doesn't have to be a feast every day of the week.

I don't know how she does it, but my daughter can go into the kitchen and 20 minutes later have a wonderful meal including dessert on the table. She cooks with her crock pot a lot, and she makes a lot of salads which are inclusive of meat.

She stayed with me several weeks this summer while I was sick and I was in complete awe of her skills. She cooks with soup, rice, chicken broth, etc. And she makes sandwiches with frozen precooked chicken patties and burgers, but she puts a sensational sauce on them as well as things like sauteed onions and various colors of sweet peppers.
She also has some great veggie dishes which include meat so two birds with one stone there. She uses Stovetop Stuffing as a side, and she mixes it up with a can of mushroom soup. She cooks casseroles and soups and freezes them in individual servings.

It is all tasty and filling.

Chicken Spectacular is one I like and use a lot when I have company coming:

Chicken Spectacular Recipe - Allrecipes.com
 
Lol..exactly. Nobody in my family is going to starve on that menu, and we've hit patches where we eat things like biscuits and gravy (completely homemade and sometimes without milk even) and I filled out the day with a "tea party" to get the kids to eat things like bread and butter, cut up apples, maybe a little cheese or lunchmeat or crackers, and tea because that was all we had to snack on until our one-item dinner meal.

The kids loved it.
 

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