Need very very quick & easy recipes

princess*daisy

Chilli con carne - mince, tinned chopped toms, chopped fresh or dried chilli (or use cayenne pepper if you like it a bit hotter), tinned kidney beans, peppers

Fajitas - Mexican/fajita spice seasoning, peppers, chicken, onions, tortilla wraps

Tacos - minced beef, taco seasoning, lettuce, soured cream, taco shells.

Coke or diet coke chicken (or ham) - http://www.slimmingeats.com/blog/diet-coke-chicken - serve with potatoes and veg, or chips

Chicken breast, cut a hole down the side to make a pouch, fill with soft cheese, garlic and herbs, wrap it in bacon and bung it in the oven til cooked

Stir fry - noodles, veg, stir fry sauce.

Whole peppers hollowed out stuffed with cous cous

Chicken and veg kebab skewers - fresh chicken, courgettes, chunky peppers, mushrooms on a skewer and cooked in oven

Pitta filled with hoummous and chunky homemade chips

Cook some tagliatelle, drain and stir in cream cheese and cooked strips of bacon

Omelettes

Pink.

Hi mmummy21,

I agree with rosie, if you prep the ingredients for the slow cooker the night before and just switch it on in the morning. These threads should give you some ideas for meals:

super quick family meal ideas

What's your 'can't be bothered' dinner/tea?

And the advice on this thread may help too:

Can you do OS and work full time too?

I'll add your thread to the first link later to keep the meal ideas together.

Pink

bupster

Also, you don't need to add jarred sauces to a pasta bake. Chopped tomatoes and a quick shake of mixed herbs and boom, there's your sauce. Chilli's dead easy too. I think the trick will be batch cooking - doing enough for two or three meals at a time. If you don't want to eat out of the freezer, you can leave it in the fridge and reheat later in the week. I work full time, I'm a part time councillor, and I'm doing a PhD. I have NO TIME at all to myself but I never eat processed food; there's always an hour or two somewhere over the week to do enough for more than one meal.

And yes, do the slow cooking overnight! I never get stuff ready in time for the evening meal either, but it can sit in the slow cooker all night and if I haven't time to put it in the fridge it's safe enough for a few hours in the slow cooker cooling down.

jeanniebeanie_2

princess*daisy wrote: »

http://www.slimmingeats.com/blog/diet-coke-chicken -

Thanks for the pointer to that site- it's just what i have been looking for!

goingsenile

princess*daisy wrote: »

Coke or diet coke chicken (or ham) - http://www.slimmingeats.com/blog/diet-coke-chicken - serve with potatoes and veg, or chips

Thanks for this link- will give this a try.

I also use coke or iru Bru to boil at piece of Ham in- gives it great flavour-(full sugar version makes it sweeter but diet works as well). Boil it the day before (or in the slow cooker) and then pop some honey or mustard on the top and roast with some pots and veg and you have a scrummy dinner in half an hour.

Also enough left over ham for with salad the next day or in a pasta bake.

AJ

sonastin

Don't forget the boring options too - spuds in to boil, veg in to boil/steam, pieces of meat/fish (pork chop, salmon fillet, chicken breast etc) under the grill (or even better in the george-foreman-type-grill so you don't even need to turn them), maybe a bit of instant gravy depending on the meat you choose.

Doesn't exactly need a lot of supervision and once in a while the traditional meat-and-two-veg dinner makes a change. I am queen of the one-pot style cooking and OH complains that its boring when every mouthful tastes the same!

Knonie

Hi Mmummy21!

Your day sounds like mine!! When you say that you don't like frozen food - do you mean at all or that you just don't like buying frozen foods? Only batch cooking really helps me out - especially with my two little ones.. (dd 7yrs ds 15mths)...

The S/c is definitely a good route and the others are right you don't need to do a lot of prep with some of the recipes - for instance with cottage pie, I just bung everything in raw at 9am and leave it all day, then take it out about 4pm and pour it into a oven dish to cool while I put the potatoes on, mash them, add to the oven dish and then either put in the oven 1/2hr before eating or put in the fridge for the next day, then freeze any leftovers for those days when I've less time than normal..

HTH
K
x

Idiophreak

Cold meals are a good option now the weather's getting warmer. I do a bunch of stuff where you just open the packets and put it on a plate:
Smoked mackerel salad.
Prawn cocktail salad.
Ploughman's.

Also lighter pasta dishes:
Smoked salmon + cream cheese
Carbonara

Also make a fair few curries, spag bols, etc - all in the "chuck it in and let it cook" style of cooking

ragz_2

I rarely spend an hour cooking each night and I am a SAHM. Things like bolognese only take half an hour, macaroni cheese etc the same. Most pasta meals can be served within half an hour. Any meat grilled, boiled new potatoes or mash, veg. Stir fry takes minutes. Ditto fajitas (and I make my own seasoning)

There's really no reason to assume home cooking takes an hour. It can if you want it to...

You could always batch cook and freeze too.

Jamie's 30 minute meals is meant to be a good recipe book, maybe look in the library for it?

mmummy21

I think I need practise at making things quicker as even a homemade bolognese takes me an hour!

I've gotten some great ideas from those links. I am going to write out a few every night and keep them in a folder in some sort of order so I can flick through and pick something depending on the time/ingredients I have!

I forgot to mention that those days are my days off! Work days are worse. I get up at 6.30am ish to get myself ready while OH gets the little one ready and then we have to be out the door by 7.10am. Then I'm home with the little one at 6.10pm ish and I like to spend half an hour playing then while the little one's bath is ready I'm running around like a loon tidying while OH cooks us something (usually something processed and frozen which I hate and barely eat) and getting the little's one PJs etc. ready and feeding her some supper. Then by the time she's in bed and bathed it's 7.30pm, we eat our dinner and then take turns to shower/bath, do the dishes, get our work stuff ready for the next day and the little one's bag, meals etc. ready and it's usually 9pm and I just cannot be bothered to prepare for the next day! I'm in bed by 9.30/10ish!

The little one is quite happy playing and reading her books just now and I really should be batch cooking or something but I haven't sat down since we got up at 7am, we've had to go and collect the car from MOT, do a food shop, visit my sister and now all I want to do is relax for an hour before we go out for some fresh air and then I have to start dinner (which is using up old ingredients as the car MOT went over budget and I have no shopping money - quick cook pasta, hot dogs and a pasta sauce and cheese) and do everything else. I will try to put something in the slow cooker for tomorrow!

I do batch cook sometimes but it always gets eaten! I can make a huge portion of bolognese which should serve 6 (i.e 500g mince, a pepper, an onion, a family size dolmio jar, a tin of chopped tomatoes and herbs) but OH helps himself to seconds and then we take some for lunch the next day and put a little freezer away for the little one's meals while I'm working and it's all used up!

I need to practise practise practise and I can get there!