I’m excited about this week’s Works for Me Wednesday category – What do I Fix Edition – because I am the worst meal planner ever! I LIVE in that place of constantly wondering, always at the last minute, what we will eat for dinner. I plan to plunder all the blogs linked to the site for fabulous ideas and never have to worry about coming up with a last minute, easy meal. Assist my poor family and leave a comment with your favorite easy-to-fix meal.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
My younger children thank you.
My (perpetually hungry) teenage son thanks you.
My (please tell me you’ve started dinner) husband thanks you.
This homeschooling mother of five, too busy teaching the little darlings to feed them, thanks you.
I try to have the children work with me in the kitchen but it’s so hard to find good help these days.
Super Easy Family Meals:
Italian Chicken – Frozen chicken breasts in a baking pan, top with Italian salad dressing and fresh parmesan cheese. Bake.
Biscuit Pizzas – Pillsbury biscuits topped with spaghetti sauce and cheese. Bake.
Noodle Casserole – Cook package of noodles, mix in spaghetti sauce and quartered (Costco) meat balls (microwaved), top with cheese. Bake.
Champagne Chicken – Frozen chicken breasts in a baking pan, top with Champagne salad dressing and fresh parmesan cheese. Bake
Any resemblance to Italian Chicken is entirely coincidental.
Red Wine Vinegar Chicken – do you see where I’m going with this? Easy chicken dishes and quite varied for the family with discerning tastes.
That pretty much exhausts my list of easy meals (that don’t involve frozen pizza, chicken nugggets or salad dressings). You can see why we need help.
Kathy
Hey ya, Honey…
Ha! Happy cooking!! 
I’ll send you my Chili Mac recipe. It’s great and easy and the older kids could make it! Although, not as easy as tossing frozen chicken and salad dressing into a pan…but I’ll keep looking.
I will be watching your comments closely as I could have written this blog myself. A popular saying that I hear ALL THE TIME from my kids is, “Not chicken, rice, and salad again.” It is our family joke. HHHMM how many ways are there to make chicken?
Ok, I know this is a chicken dish, but it’s pretty easy. As Rachael Ray would say, this is a STOUP. Somewhere between a soup and a stew.
At Costco in the frozen food section they sell bags of pre-grilled frozed chicken strips. I ALWAYS have a bag in my freezer!
Here is what else you will need:
1 Can Black Beans (drained)
2 Cans Diced tomatoes with green chilis
1 Can Chicken Broth
Salt & Pepper
Ground Cumin
Throw the frozen chicken strips (about half the bag) in a saute pan with some olive oil. Season with salt, pepper & cumin. When they are nearly heated all the way through add in the diced tomatoes. Simmer those together for a couple minutes and then add the black bean and the chicken broth. Simmer altogether until hot.
You could stop there, or you could treat it kind of like a tortilla soup and add black olives, crushed tortilla chips and cheese on top of each bowl full.
The other option is to stop after adding the diced tomatoes. Don’t add the broth. Heat the black beans up in the microwave and serve the chicken/tomato mixture atop the black beans. I do this often for myself for lunch. For one person I do 4 oz of chicken/half the can of tomatoes/one third can of black beans.
Quick and yummy!
Good ideas. I love you kids. Aunt Kate
Another good soup option is Taco Soup… you can make it with either ground beef or ground turkey. It can be ready in about 20 – 30 minutes, but can sit on the stove and simmer longer, too.
Since Luke is from Texas, chili is always a good bet at our house, served with cornbread muffins and a green salad.
We also have lots of grilled meat (chicken or otherwise) year round, usually accompanied by grilled veggies tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper and some kind of a quick starch.
Hope this helps, Kathy!
Looking forward to reading all the great quick easy meals!
Hi Useful Blog!
I’ll send you some ideas but a question about that first chicken recipe — looks good — do you use powered parmesan or fresh? Do you put the breasts in the oven while they are frozen? Or defrost them first?
THANKS!
ARC
Ahh, my personal favorite quickie meal – the rotissiere chicken from Kroger or Wallyworld….open up a can of green beans, make some homemade mashed potatoes, bake a pan of biscuits and toss a green salad!! Gotta love that chicken!!! Or I debone the chicken (rotiss. again!) and buy the frozen dumplings to make chicken and dumplings!!!! Yummy!!! Rotissiere chicken is best…..
homemade mac & cheese is great, too! After you make your roux, you add whatever kind of cheese you have on hand! Never any leftovers with this!!!
Food on the grill all year round is great, too! anything can be grilled – meat, veggies, fruit, ,etc….
Hmm. No great ideas here–my easy meals are plain old spaghetti (no topping with cheese and baking), tacos (with ground beef), and anything breakfast for dinner (waffles, pancakes, french toast, eggs). Pitiful.
Oh, another chicken thing is just plopping an entire chicken ($3.50 at our grocery store) into the oven for 1.5-2 hours. First, I pour a little olive oil over it and sprinkle rosemary and oregano on top. It smells delicious, looks difficult, costs so little, and requires almost zilch effort (except the cleanup, when I frequently feel required to remake it as chicken noodle soup or something but then just leave it in the fridge to go bad with a good smattering of other friendly containers in the same condition–sigh). But then, with teenagers in the house, maybe there’d be no leftovers.;-)
I made cookies with the dids same pose my daughter did. Too funny!
Emily’s Tortilla Soup and Greek Soup are fast (you’ll definitely want to double them). And breakfast for dinner around here is popular.
http://emilys5blessings.blogspot.com/2007/03/tortilla-soup.html
http://emilys5blessings.blogspot.com/2007/01/wonderful-wednesday.html
And we like “big burritos”:
http://kristine-jewelsofmyown.blogspot.com/2007/10/big-burritos.html
When we’re in a hurry, it’s Minute Rice w/out any of the fancy seasonings, and packaged guacamole from the deli case.
You motivated me to try WWFMW – here it is Saturday and I’ve not signed up. LOL Maybe those organized bloggy things aren’t for me. ::snort::