What I do when I'm in a hurry!

I've had fun having Emma and her fiance, Travis stay with us while Travis rotates between working as a sub on Erick's crew and washing windows. I've tried to make easy meals that can feed all seven of us and feed us cheap! I've also tried to make meals that Emma and Travis will be able to make easily after they are married. Emma said I should write them down for her, so I thought it would be a good blog post. So here are some of my favorite EASY meals to make. I do enjoy cooking all types of food, some of my favorites are more involved, but these are some easy ones! And when I say easy, I mean easy. I don't mean the recipe that says it's a 30 minute recipe and then it takes an hour. I mean these things are seriously easy and cheap to make. And can get you out of trouble if it's 5:30 and you haven't come close to starting dinner! Also, there is one thing I will NOT do any more. I rarely ever use short cuts like "cream of whatever" soup. I probably use less than four cans of that kind of stuff a year. I stopped using it when Cora was diagnosed with her soy allergy, and now I almost never use them. There are a few recipes that I feel like taste really great using those, but they are the exception. I also think they generally are just not very good for us, and that you can make fast, delicious meals using stuff that isn't so....canned. Most of the recipes started out as something more complicated and I simplified them into something easy to make. So here you go:

Veggie Stir Fry:

1 onion

1-2 Green Peppers

1 8 oz container mushrooms

water

italian dressing

Basically, you just cut the onion and bell pepper into strips and if the mushrooms are not already sliced, you slice them. You can then add a little seasoning salt over the top of the veggies, and then I just stir fry them in the water and then pour a little of the italian dressing over top for flavor and stir fry them until they are crisp and seared on the edges. I serve it over hot rice and it's delicious!

Kitchen Sink potatoes:

Any kind of potatoes (enough to feed your family or fit on a 10x15 cookie sheet)

Any leftover cheeses you have ( a lot of times if I have just a little of a lot of different cheeses left, I just use all of them)

butter (you decide how much)

salt

garlic powder

italian seasoning

Peel them or not, your choice. Then either slice them with a food processor or by hand, just get them thin. Spray your cookie sheet with pam. Preheat oven to 400. Put potatoes in a bowl and mix in your desired amount of melted butter (you can also try olive oil. I have, but I just like the butter better). Sprinkle in some seasoning salt, or plain salt, olive oil, and italian seasoning and mix it up until all of the potatoes are covered. I have found that when you smell a faint aroma of garlic you know that it is seasoned the proper amount. Then you spread the potatoes in a single layer (or as close as you can get) on your cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes. Take out and stir, then sprinkle your various cheeses (our favorites are feta, cheddar, and Parmesan) over the top. Bake until the potatoes are thoroughly cooked. I usually serve these with other veggies or a salad.

Road Kill

hamburger patties

mushrooms

onions

cheese

hot cooked rice

This was served at the restaurant I used to waitress at. You cook the hamburger. You sautee the onions and mushrooms. Place patty on a bed of rice then top with mushrooms, onions and cheese. Melt the cheese over top with a microwave if it doesn't melt on it's own. It's actually pretty tasty.

Beans and Rice

Black Beans

Rice

Can of tomatoes (or fresh)

garlic

cumin

chicken broth paste

For this recipe I put my rice in the rice cooker and then I add a little garlic (minced or powder), cumin and some bulion cubes or the bulion paste (the paste actually does not really dissolve very well for some reason, so if you use it you have to stir it half way through). When the rice is finished I like to add a little lemon juice and if you have any orange or apricot jam or marmelade I like to add a couple of tablespoons of that as well along with some chopped cilantro.

For the beans you need enough cooked black beans to serve your family. For ours it's about three or four cups. You add a can of tomatoes or two cups chopped up fresh. I add cumin, garlic, and some broth paste. warm it up, simmer it, and it'll be done before the rice! Top with cilantro. I like to serve this meal with salad.

Rosemary Chicken

Enough pieces of chicken for your family

enough potatoes for your family (I like to cut them in the shape of french fries)

Olive oil

garlic

rosemary

salt

You peel your potatoes or not and then cut them into chunks and then put them in a large bowl with your chicken. Pour olive oil over top. It's probably around three or four tablespoons. Add garlic, some dried rosemary and salt. To tell if you've added the right amount you should be able to smell your spices (just a hint, not overwhelming). Then spread on a cookie sheet and bake in your oven at 400 for 20 minutes or until done.

That's all for now!