Need easy dinner ideas

[Fuzzi Fannies Creations]

as some of you know my dh is a firefighter.. so he is only home around 20 days a month..haha ok.. thats alot.. ANYWAY.. I need to come up with some easy recipies that I can throw together for the nights when its just me and the kids.. mac n cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches are getting soo old.. I am a terrible cook... I just hate spending more than 30 min in the kitchen... HELP ME!!!!

[newmommy]

Do you have a crockpot? If so, here is what we are having tonight. I do so many things with this sauce - serve it over spagetti noodles, use it as pizza sauce, mix with noodles and top with cheese then bake, or serve over cheese ravioli

Easy Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 small can tomato paste
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 lb Italian sausage, cooked (or ground beef)
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp each of thyme, basil, and oregano
1 bay leaf

Cook on low for 4-5 hours.

This comes from www.menusformoms.com (although I modified it a bit), which is a great place to find easy recipes. She puts out a weekly menu each Thursday.

[MommyMommyMommy]

I have come to love, love, love my crock pot!

My favorite is to put a package of chicken in there and cover it with a jar of anything and let it cook on low for at least 6 hours.

Use a jar of salsa and you've got great chicken for tacos, burritos, nachos, etc...

Use a jar of spaghetti sauce and you've got great italian chicken to serve over just about any kind of noodles.

My new favorite is this Ragu sauce called 'parmesean and mozzerella' (or something like that, it's a white sauce). We did this yesterday and served it over rice and it was SO delicious!

Also,
Grilled cheese are easy to dress up if you put some grilled ham in the middle and sprinkle parmesean cheese on the buttered side of the bread before you grill it. You can grill each side seperately and then add tomato when they're done.

Good luck!

[MamaMegan]

Use frozen bread dough to make pizzas. Huge favorite around here. I let DS pick toppins for his half, and I do mine.

We also make bread bowls out of frozen bread dough, makes boring soup yummy.

Hmmmm. Quesedillas (cheese and tortillas, chicken if we have any leftover) with different things to dip.

[beckers1111]

http://www.kraftfoods.com/main.aspx?...e_byingredient

heres a recipe search, at the bottom there is a button to click for 30 min or less recipes!

[kimb96]

Here is one of my favorite recipes. It's a chicken and rice casserole type dish.

1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of celery soup
1 soup can of water
1 envelope of dry onion soup mix
1 cup rice
1 can mushrooms drained (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbs parsley flakes

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Pour into a 9x13 casserole pan. You need to spray with pam or other non stick spray. Place your favorite chicken pieces in the casserole. You can use chicken on the bone or boneless chicken breasts. Cover with foil and bake for 2 1/2 hours on 350.

This only takes about 15-20 minutes to prepare. I love one pan dishes like this where you get a whole meal in one pan. Sometimes I will serve green beans or a salad with this.

We love bbq chicken in the crockpot. Just place chicken in the crockpot, dump in some bbq sauce and cook on low 8 hours. If you use boneless chicken breasts, they shred up real nice for sandwiches.

[cowmommy]

I'm fixin one of my all time faves tonight.

Chicken Casserole

Cook chicken ( i usually use boneless skinless chicken breasts amt will vary with size of family)

Dump 2 boxes of stuffing in casserole dish. Add Broth from cooked chicken to the stuffing mix. We always use Double the broth that the mix calls for to make it softer and juicy

Cube chicken and mix with either 2 cans of Cream of chicken soup or one can cream of chicken on can of cream of mushroom

Pour over stuffing and bake on 350 in oven till heated through.

[rowynne]

tater tot casserole is great too

1# gr beef or turkey
1 can cream mushroom soup
1 bag frozen tater tots
1 cup cheddar cheese

brown gr beef, put in casserole dish as bottom layer, add frz tater tots on top, spread soup over tater tots & sprinkle with cheese. Cook as long as instructions say on tater tot bag


"italian chicken"
brown 1# chicken
add to casserole dish
pour 1/2 bottle of italian dressing over chicken
bake 400 for 30-45min (depending on thickness of chicken, we use breasts cut into pieces)
serve with rice, egg noodles, any type of pasta really, i just butter it & add some parmesan cheese!
(we had this last night!)

[sesa70]

Bbq chicken pita pizza~!

Shredded mozzeralla cheese
pita bread
bbq sauce
cooked chicken (in a pinch I have even used canned chicken.. .honestly its not as bad as it sounds! LOL!)

cover pita with bbq sauce
add chopped chicken
cover with lots of shredded mozzerella cheese

bake in toaster or regular oven until all melted.

Easy and tasty!

[Blackbirdlane]

one of my favorites is pork chops.

Put pork chops in slow cooker. Pour in a bottle of italian salad dressing. cook on low for 6-8 hours. serve over rice (you can cook this in the morning if need to) and a veggie. they are so tender and so good!!