Your favorte quick/easy dinners for busy testing times?

[OpenRoot]

It seems like a fair number of folks here have kids to feed every night in addition to studying and working, so I thought it might be interesting to share our favore quick and easy recipes for the busy nights. My skills in the kitchen put me firmly in the "microwave chef" category, but I do try to keep things balanced and nutritious for the 2 growing boys who eat like linebackers. Its just so hard with so little time!

I'll go first with a cottage pie recipe. Takes about 20 minutes and the kids eat it with no fuss.

Grab a pie plate and fill it with 1 layer cooked ground turkey seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic. Next layer is a layer of whatever veggies are on hand, and a top layer of mashed potatoes. Heat in the oven until warm and serve with gravy.

[sanantone]

Hamburger Helper and Wanchai Ferry.

[ryoder]

Perdue Simply Smart low carb lightly breaded all natural chicken. Put two breast cutlets in the toaster oven and you have 60g of protein in 18 minutes with no prep and no cleanup. I use low calorie barbeque sauce or toss the Simply Smart nuggets in low calorie buffalo wing sauce.
You can get a bag of frozen veggies with butter sauce and steam that in the microwave as a side.

[mrs.b]

Baked potatoes can be cooked in the microwave if stabbed with a fork and nuked for five minutes each (microwave separately, cook time gets weird when cooking multiples). They come out soft and ready to be topped with leftover broccoli or whatever is on-hand for loaded baked potatoes.

Homemade pizza is quick and easy if you buy unsliced pita bread, jarred pizza sauce, shredded cheese, and whatever toppings you like. Everyone gets their own to pick and choose toppings, and much cheaper than delivery. Meat and veggies should be prepared in advance. I sautee onions, mushrooms, and green peppers each weekend and keep a bunch in a tupperware to have through the week for quick Egg Beater omelettes so we just use some of that, and we use presliced pepperoni.
- Preheat oven to 350
- Smooth sauce on pita
- Add toppings and cheese (if you use pepperoni, put a little cheese under each slice or they tend to slide off)
- Sprinkle a bit of oregano
- Bake until cheese is melted (about 10 minutes)

Those are two of our favorite go-to quick work night meals, if we're not including spaghetti or take-out.

[Lyanne]

My poor kids had to learn to cook. P F Chang's, Stouffer's are my friend. Personally, I like to ask the kids to go to Pizza Hut online.

[Westerner]

Cut up potatoes, chicken breasts and carrots into roughly equal-sized pieces and toss in a baking pan with salt and spices; drizzle with olive oil. Bake, stirring once or twice, until meat is no longer pick inside and potatoes are soft through (about an hour). Can add canned vegetables after baking (not before because theyll burn). Easy to put together, there's pretty much no measuring—add as much of each thing as you want—and tastes great

[ryoder]

You can also make low carb pizza with high fiber, low carb tortillas. Just spread sauce on the tortillas, add low fat cheese, turkey pepperoni and store-diced onions. Then bake at 425 on a cookie sheet for about 15 minutes. It is a thin crust, low carb, low fat, high protein meal with 8 grams of fiber and it takes about 2 minutes to prepare.

[OE800_85]

I always cook stir fry, but that's probably not the quickest/easiest dinner...cooking makes for a great study break, all the chopping, and visual/olfactory stimulation. Whatever you do, don't start eating unhealthy on account of studying.

[mrs.b]

If you're adventurous and looking for quick, healthy alternatives, get a couple bags of vegetarian meat crumbles and use them in anything you would use browned and crumbled ground beef. It saves all the time of thawing and browning ground beef because they should be tossed into the recipe frozen, taste just like ground beef, and have very high protein and fiber contents without all the fat. For spaghetti, we prepare the sauce, then toss a bag of meat crumbles in about five minutes before ready to eat because they're done and just need to be heated. We're not vegetarian but they are a very fast substitute when needing something quick.

One of our weekend meals - only because the homemade salsa takes a little longer to make - is tacos. Put taco seasoning in a pan (or make your own if really kitchen savvy and wanting to save sodium), add water and meat crumbles, and let simmer. Blend the following in a food processor, noting that measurements are very rough and should be added a bit at a time by taste. When using fresh veggies in any recipe, measurements should be rough because flavor will vary depending on ripeness, season, and so on.
- about 3 to 5 large tomatoes (buy cheap...cheap breeds tend to taste better in the finished salsa)
- about one medium onion (cheap yellow, not sweet)
- about 3+ tbsp cilantro (dried or fresh but use more if fresh, I prefer dried due to price and coloring in the end)
- about 2-5 jalapeno OR 1-3 jalapeno and 1 habenero
- about 1 tbsp minced garlic
- about 1 squeezed lime (most recipes use lemon and you can...I prefer lime)
- about 2-4 tbsp salt
Mix a bit at a time, season along the way; if using dried cilantro, add, mix, and let sit for a few minutes for seasoning to hydrate and flavor. If onions are very flavorful and potent, use more tomatoes, lime, and salt. If tomatoes are strong, use more onion, cilantro, garlic. If jalapeno is overly strong, add more of everything to balance, but if too weak, add lime and garlic (carefully).

I've been paid $20 a jar for the stuff by coworkers, it comes out so tasty when mixed right, and it's something like 10-15 calories for a whole cup which is at least two servings of veggies and a ton of fiber and vitamins, with no fat or preservatives (stores about one week refrigerated, I don't like it frozen or canned but others I've made it for have frozen and canned and said it's okay). Some ground beef, black beans, tortilla, lettuce, maybe a little shredded cheese, then a ton of salsa is very filling. If you make the salsa over the weekend, you can have QUICK weeknight meals of tacos or tostadas (for tostada, heat oven to 375, put corn tortilla on baking pan and bake for ~10 minutes until crispy, then layer on refried beans and cheese, nuke for ~1-2 minutes until cheese melts, top with veggies and salsa for a very quick, tasty, filling meal).

[ShotoJuku]

How's this for quick and easy!