Super Fast Meals for Busy Families

As much as I regale the marvels of fresh, non-processed foods, I do serve them. A little TOO frequently, in my opinion. Oh, we’ve made some advances, but no way do we eat salads and fruit slices all day. Wow, that’s actually a TON of work, time I wish I had, lol! So we do eat “ready made” meals sometimes. Because school has begun and tis’ the season for winter preparation and the onset of the holidays, I thought I’d share a few of my “Quicky Meals,” as I call them. They are great for throwing together in a hurry when you suddendly realize dinner has to be on the table in an hour and you have nothing thawed!!!

1. Pasta with frozen meatballs.

Sometimes I skip the meatballs and throw leftover cubed chicken (when we have it) and pesto sauce. Pesto sauce is SOOO good and a little jar goes a long way.

2. Chicken with shrimp and pasta.

I wrote about this recipe here; I call it Easy Shrimp & Chicken Garlic Pasta. It does require some preparation, but not much!

3. Greek Salad with flat bread.

We love this one. It requires almost no cooking (if you serve shrimp, you have to cook it or thaw the pre-cooked stuff). It does require a lot of table setting (a zillion jars of stuff). I wrote a post about some of our favorite salad ingredients here.

4. Tuna Casserole Sans Peas

I hate peas! So my tuna casserole has nary a one. I love tuna casserole because it can be on the table in about 90 minutes. The hardest thing about it pre-cooking the pasta and trying to shake the gravity-sealed cream of celery soup out of the cans. Here’s our favorite recipe for Easy Non-Peas-y Tuna Casserole.

5. Crockpot Manhattan Clam Chowder

This is a great one if you have 15 minutes to spare in the morning. Pre-cook the sausage or crumble the breakfast bacon leftovers into the crockpot, and throw in a bunch of ingredients. Allow it to simmer all day. By dinnertime, the house will smell delicious. Clean up is SO easy, too. My personal favorite is my own recipe, Manhattan Clam and Fish Chowder.

6. Tortellini with Edamame and Kielbasa

I love this, but the kids have grown out of it. I don’t know WHAT it is about edamame, it makes me feel like superwoman after eating it. It’s just so good. The kielbasa is a little salty and too flabby for me, though. I think the edamame with the tortellini or just the edamame is good enough. I have the recipe here: Tortellini with Edamame and Kielbasa.

7. Leftover Turkey Pasta Primavera

This is an AMAZING dish, perfect for after the holidays when your fridge is stuffed with leftover turkey. I love it because it is so easy and so delicious. Check out my recipe here.

These are the few recipes in my repertoire that I use for those moments of OHMYGOSHIFORGOTTOSTARTDINNER. Which, incidentally, are occurring a LITTLE too often for my tastes. But I’ve been clobbered with writing assignments with such technical topics like Technical Recruiter Consultant Jobs and electric wiring!

Hey, if you have any Quicky Meals that you want to share, please do! I think the family is starting to tire of my repertoire, lol.

Crockpot Recipe: Beef and Barley Stew

This is one of my old tried and true recipes. I’ve been making variations of it for years. We love it, and it is SO good on a cold night! Pardon my ad hoc measuring units– I rarely use measuring cups so the units here are good guesses. Use your own creativity a little, and adjust the recipe as you wish

Beef and Barley Stew
2 lbs beef cubes
2 Tablespoons flour
Ground pepper
1 cup dried barley
2 cans beef broth or stock OR 1 can beef gravy with 1 can water added
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (optional)
1 teaspoon prepared mustard (optional)
1 cup chopped or shredded carrots
1 white onion, diced
1 teaspoon paprika

In a separate bowl, mix the flour and ground pepper. Toss in the beef cubes and coat the cubes thoroughly. Place them in the crockpot.

Toss the rest of the ingredients into the crockpot. Stir everything. You can add other vegetables in there if you wish, such as leftover green beans, etc (just make sure the pieces are small). Turn on LOW for 8 to 10 hours. Stir the stew from time to time. Add a little bit of warm water if the stew needs it.

Tip: remember to sift through the barley before you toss it in the crockpot. You should also do this with dried beans. I commonly find stones in the bags, as big as stepping stones! Well, OK, they are not THAT big, but they sure feel like it when your teeth hits them!

I also make this in a Dutch oven on the stovetop, too. I usually cook that all day on low. You’ll know it’s done when the barley is very tender and the beef melts in your mouth.

Worst Crockpot Recipe Ever: Three Cheese Penne

I’ve been in the process of trying out and reviewing some new recipes here. I downloaded an iPhone app, iPhone Crockpot Recipe Finder. The app is nice because it automatically generates a shopping list when you save recipes. I’ve already tried a few recipes, the very tasty Cranberry Brisket and the mediocre Beef Stroganoff. Oddly enough, the best recipe so far (Cranberry Brisket) got a low rating on the Crockpot app, only 2 out of 5 stars. Huh.

Well, I spotted another easy recipe, Penne with Three Cheeses that rates a whopping 4 out of 5 stars. The recipe was awful! I had to force myself to down it. It was pasty and sticky and WAY too cheesy. I thought about giving the leftovers to the dogs, but I didn’t think they’d even eat it, despite all the dog training we’re giving them to eat the scraps. This stuff was awful.

I mention it here because it goes to show you that the ratings mean next to nothing (to me, anyway). In case you are curious, here’s the Penne with Three Cheeses recipe:

10 ounces refrigerated Alfredo sauce
1 cup milk
12 ounces evaporated milk
4 cups shredded Italian 3-cheese blend
1 pound uncooked penne pasta
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

I couldn’t even bear to snap a photo. The stuff was like glue, and the milks and cheeses melted before the pasta was done, so on top of the glue-y cheese, the pasta was chewy.

I guzzled about 5 cups of cold water after having some.

Manhattan Clam & Fish Chowder

As is my custom, I took a “basic” clam chowder recipe and tinkered with it somewhat. The original recipe calls for bacon, green peppers, and minced clams. I replaced the bacon with sausage, the green peppers with red peppers, and added minced clams but also added some leftover whiting fillets. The additions made for a rich, rich luxurious chowder (see photo, although that’s before the stuff was cooked). Serve with freshly baked garlic bread for the WOW factor. Oh, be sure to wash your feet before serving, so that your family can kiss them after dinner. This is THAT good.

Manhattan Clam & Fish Chowder
Serves 8– leftover soup tastes even better
2 cans petite diced tomatoes
1 8 ounce can tomato paste
3 cans (undrained) minced clams
1 pound ground sausage, cooked and drained of fat
1 white onion
1/2 red pepper, diced
3 potatoes, diced
1/2 cup carrots, cut into very small circle or matchsticks
4-5 fillets of fish (cooked) (Optional)
1 Tablespoon dried basil
1/2 Tablespoon dried oregano

Add all the ingredients into a very large crockpot or Dutch oven. Stir well.

If using the crockpot, set on LOW for 8-10 hours, or on HIGH for 4-5 hours.
If using the Dutch oven, turn on medium. Get the chowder simmering, then, cover the pot and turn down to medium-low. Stir frequently and adjust burner as needed so that the chowder does not burn.

Like many chowders and stews, this one gets better the longer it is allowed to sit. You can always make this ahead of time, store it in the refrigerator for a day or two while you go about your merry way buying cheap eyeglasses or whatever…. then reheat and serve. It’s very good. I suppose you could add kielbasa or shrimp to make it into a “gumbo” type of stew, too.

Enjoi!
Allow to cool SLIGHTLY, then serve with hot bread.

Crock-Pot iPhone App

Oh, it’s winter– comfort food season! Unfortunately, I have been so busy with work that I have not been cooking very often. My poor kids have been forced to scrounge for meals these days. I just don’t have as much time as I used to, searching for recipes, tabulating the ingredients, writing a grocery list, cooking all day… yow, cooking a meal is very labor-intensive!

I found this really neat iPhone app, though, and I love it! It’s the Crock-Pot Slow Cooker Recipe Finder app (whew, THAT’S a mouthful). It’s a really neat little tool. Since I don’t have a whole lot of time to spend, creating menu plans and all, I use this app on the fly while I shop. You can quickly search the app by cuisine, ingredient, course, etc; choose a recipe and click “Add to Shopping List” (the little + at the top). So everything is added to my list.

What makes this app SO Perfect is that if you add two or more recipes to your Shopping List tab, the app will generate a list combining ingredients for all recipes you’ve selected. YAY! I love that feature!!! To see the combined shopping list, choose some recipes, then go to Shopping List, and click the “List” tab. There you will see a checklist of things you need to buy. It has little checkboxes, too, so you can cross off what you have purchased. YAY YAY! I love this.

I do think it needs more recipes, however. It has a lot already, true, but after I use them all up, I’d love to see more. I’ve only been using the app for a short time, so maybe the app people add more recipes after awhile, I don’t know.

Anyway, crockpots are MARVELOUS things. They make it SO easy to cook. The foods tend to be a little heavy, though, so you may wind up searching lipo 6 reviews after seeing some of the ingredients. But it’s a good app. Thumbs up!

I’ll have more reviews on food apps in future posts. Thanks for reading

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