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Supper time is dragging me down. I need fast stuff that tastes good and doesn't cost a fortune. But I will pay more for fast!! Can you guys share with me your favorite FAST recipes that will work for supper?

Crock Pot too!

We often do grocery shopping in the afternoon at Costco, so I often pick up one of their rotisserie chickens. Then I just serve that for dinner with a salad (we buy the big container of mix greens, and I normally offer some cheese and tomatoes as garnish).
Crock pot meals are nice. We are trying cream chicken and broccoli served over rice tonight. Chili and stew are great options as well - again just throw everything into the pot or crock pot and let it cook. Serve with salad and bread if necessary.

Crockpot meals are always great. Pop them in early in the morning and later on you have a tasty meal. No rushing around!

Slow Cooked Italian-Style Sirloin With Yellow Peppers

Ingredients:

4 pounds chuck roast or other beef roast, cut in half
2 envelopes dry Italian salad dressing mix
2 cups water
1 (16 ounce) Jar of yellow pepper rings, juice included.

Directions:

Place meat in slow cooker. In a bowl or large measuring cup, combine water and Italian dressing mix. Pour over meat. Cook on low for 8 hours. After 8 hours, remove meat from slow cooker and shred it with a fork. Add shredded meat back to slow cooker, add the jar of yellow peppers – juice and all – to the meat, cover, and reheat for a few minutes. Serve over toasted rolls with a little side of “Au Jus”.

This is really yummy. We serve on rolls with Havarti or some other mild cheese. Some of my kids like the peppers, some just pick them off.

I also wanted to add that wraps are easy, quick and versatile.

Examples:

Tortilla with deli meat, lettuce, cheese, mustard or ranch eaten cold.
Tortilla with mozzeralla, pepperoni, pizza sauce warmed in the oven to melt the cheese.
Tortilla with cooked ground beef, cheese, mustard, ketchup and pickle slices similar to a cheeseburger.

I will often cook a large pot of rice, a ton of bite sized chicken breast/thighs or ground beef seasoned "mexican" style and keep them in the fridge for quick meals as burritos or "taco" salads throughout the week. Also a beef roast today might be quick chili tomorrow with black beans, green chile sauce and a pinch of cumin...served with rice and salad. Roast chicken one night gets deboned and bone broth made overnight in the crockpot to become chicken soup another day. I also keep sausages on hand for quick meals with fried potatoes and veggies or with pasta and veggies. Frozen veggies can be a real time saver as well. We have many food allergies, but these are all adaptable ideas.

Are you meaning quick to put together or quick as in "Oh I forgot we have to eat supper again tonight! What can I have on the table in 15 minutes?" Also, I don't know your opinion on health but I have some meals that are not so healthy but I can throw them together really fast. PM me if you want any of the recipes (it's amazing when you are trying to think of things how they just disappear from your mind)

MEALS I ALWAYS KEEP STUFF ON HAND TO MAKE:
Chicken Spaghetti (15 minutes start to finish)
Spaghetti with meat sauce (15 minutes start to finish)
Sloppy Joes (15 minutes)
Frozen casserole type meals (stouffers type - these take an hour or two to cook, but all I have to do is put the thing in the oven and set a timer)

CROCK POT (All these are about 5 minutes to put together, 10 at most):
cranberry meatballs - serve with mashed potatoes
roast
chili
sloppy cheeseburgers
Any kind of chicken (put frozen chicken breasts in crock pot and cover with whatever kind of dressing you want to try)
Hawaiian chicken

Freezer cooking has saved my sanity during this busy season of my life. It is exhausting to be busy doing school and household tasks until 3:00 and then need to start dinner at 4:00. Plus it cuts down on time with my kids or options to do anything else other than school.

But I am not one who can spend a whole Saturday doing freezer cooking to fill up my freezer for a month. I do MORE cooking on Saturday but I also feel I am losing precious time with my family by spending the whole day in the kitchen. And we have commitments on Saturdays as well.

I plan for days where I will cook and days where I will take something out of the freezer. Generally it's 4 days cooking and 3 days "coasting" on my freezer food. At least 2-3 of the cooking days I make enough to put some in the freezer. This definitely cuts down on leftovers, which is fine. My kids won't eat leftovers for lunch very well anyway except in a few cases (pizza, chicken, sausage, things they really like). I do cook lunches too but always quick and easy things and the kids help.

My favorite freezer meal cookbook is called "Fix Freeze Feast." It is set up for batch meal cooking so the recipes are for 3-4 family-size meal portions but I have found them pretty easy to cut down or adapt to any size you want. What I like is it's often just making a sauce, trimming your meat, and freezing it that way. I think meat in sauce keeps better in the freezer anyway, and then when I want it I just thaw and grill, bake, or fry. I also like that cookbook because she doesn't use canned cream-of soups or anything like that, just simple ingredients and that's how we have to eat anyway.

For freezer meals I love: soups, casseroles with pasta (I have several I use, lasagna, spaghetti pie, rotini with spinach), chicken pot pie, honey glazed chicken (from above mentioned cookbook), chili, spaghetti sauce, meatloaf, marinated chicken breasts, burritos, taco fixin's (just freeze the meat and refried beans made in a crock pot and add all the other ingredients on taco day), oven baked chicken - bread (bone-in) chicken and freeze then just take out and bake. Again, I will often make a really big batch, so we end up eating some on the day I cook it and then there are 2-3 going into the freezer for a later time. I love the variety this provides.

For sides I often saute up a bunch of vegetables that we like with our favorite rice side dish - mushrooms, onions, green peppers, carrots - and freeze portions of those in little baggies so I can have that part out of the way and then it becomes like the "rice in a box" mixes. I pour in the veggies, rice, and canned chicken broth, bring to a boil and simmer covered for 15 minutes to make rice and veggies. Or with burgers or marinated chicken breasts or chicken tenders just some frozen fries - no shame in that. Fresh broccoli, canned green beans are frequent go-to side dishes I use. Or the cornbread recipe from Beyond Little Hearts, ha we have used that so much I copied it and put it in my cookbook. It goes so great with chili or any tomato based soup.

I've been experimenting with freezer-to-crockpot which is SO easy on the day you cook it but a lot more work on the day you prep it. Cut up all soup ingredients or trim meat and create sauce and then freeze, and on cooking day all you have to do is empty into the crock pot and turn on at the proper time. I am not a huge crock pot fan as I find it often overcooks things or I'm just not super happy with how they turn out. But things that can handle a little overcooking, like chicken thighs or beef stew type stuff seem to work out well.

Then there's always the quick and easy stuff that's just quick and easy no matter what. Sausage and peppers, spaghetti (again I like to make my own meat sauce and freeze it, but there's no shame in browning hamburger and adding a jar of sauce), pancakes and eggs or waffles and eggs, my kids are recently really into "toasted sandwiches" which are just the usual sandwiches I make but in the toaster oven so they are browned and toasty. Salads if your family will eat those as a meal. Homemade pizza, if you can find a quick and easy crust you like. My favorite is the canned refrigerated ones. But I make my own crust in my bread machine, it takes longer but we like it so much and I use whole wheat.

I buy meat fresh most weeks because defrosting takes time. However I try to buy what is on sale and we don't eat meat with every dinner.

For meat, monthly I try to buy at least 1 roast and 1 tenderloin per month. These are super easy to make, bake and leave it. Minimal prep. I will get pork chops, fish and chicken most week as well. These take a little bit more time but are fine. We make baked potatoes once a week because they are easy and minimal prep. I will make a larger batch of rolls or corn bread each week and we eat that for a few days. For veggies, we eat a lot of canned stuff I had or fresh. I buy whatever is in season at the store every week and stock the house. This is great for snacks and meals. And we make rice at least once a week as well. I have a rice cooker so I can set this in the morning and mess with it at dinner. Eggs and rice with beans and/or veggies is the best We don't do crock pot meals that often but I do make chili once a month over the cold months. My dad hunts and we get a lot of venison. I will turn the roasts in to pulled meat so that we can much on that for a week. That is awesome! He grinds up a lot of it too and I will cook that up and use it for casseroles, lasagna and soups.

For lunches and stuff, we eat a lot easy, fast stuff. Fruits and veggies accompany nuts, cheeses, or things like peanut butter on a rice cake. My kids love salsa, last summer year was a good for tomatoes so I was able to can almost 50 jars of salsa! We also like to roast things like edumame and chic peas in the oven with a little bit of olive oil and creole seasoning. We are making chic peas now and my mouth is watering Lunch is very simple and quick. We don't eat a lot of hot dogs but I will make them once in a while, only the turkey ones. And we occasionally make premade freezer things but rarely do it because of the volume of salt and simple carbs. My oldest has borderline high cholesterol so I have to make most stuff from scratch for her - low sugar, complex carbs and low sodium. Oh well - that is a bummer. So as long as I can make it quick and easy, it is fine. And I will also make homemade pizza for the kids too and they love that.

For us, it helps that my kids help. For every meal, someone is helping! That is great. My kids have helped me so much they are at a point where I could probably trust them for the most part to complete the meal too. I would say, if you are struggling to get meals made, try and involve the kids if you can. It's hard when your kids are younger. But my kids have been helping me since they were 3 or so. They learned how to ice cakes, roll out dough, cut up veggies (within reason), mix and stir, basically anything they can help with, they do. It has been a life saver. We garden and can a lot over the summer and this year was the first year I could actually trust my kids to go out to the garden, pick things well, and get it prepped for canning. That was really fun! But I think because they have been involved with this for year, they are now getting to a point they just know what to do if that makes sense. Also - I work from home. So I must admit that I would struggle without my family's contribution to the meals.