Five Quick and Easy Dinner Ideas (Inexpensive Too!)

No ambition to whip up a huge meal after working all day? Want to spend more time with your kids than cooking dinner? I know in our house neither my husband nor I want to do any major cooking after working at least 8 hours. Plus many times we need to be somewhat creative with minimum grocery supply until the next shopping trip. I also like to try to make dinners that are fairly easy to clean up afterward. Here's a few quick and easy main dish dinner ideas that take around 15-20 minutes to create. I will usually add canned veggies and fruit (either fresh or canned) to round out the meal. Feel free to add to these ideas to make them your own.

Spaghetti Dinner: This is probably one of our favorite quickie meals ever. The noodles take around 10 minutes to cook and you can have the sauce simmering at the same time. Generally I purchase a sauce that has chunks of vegetables in it so I know my family is getting a good serving of veggies. Noodles and sauce is obviously the base of the dinner. I try to always have a garlic bread in the freezer just for these nights. Frozen bread usually only takes 5-10 minutes to cook. If you don't happen to have frozen, garlic bread can also be made. Butter some bread then sprinkle garlic salt on it to taste. Add on a can of veggies or some fruit (fresh or canned) and your meal is good to go.

Macaroni and Cheese: Now you can go the super quick way and simply pull out a box of Kraft or for just a little more effort you can create home-made Mac n Cheese. The recipe I tend to use includes items you will normally have around the kitchen and doesn't take any longer than a boxed mix.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp flour

2 Cups Milk

2 Cups elbow macaroni

2-3 cups cheese (depending on your taste)

Salt to taste

1. Cook macaroni according to package directions.

2. Meanwhile, for cheese sauce, in a medium saucepan melt butter then stir in flour (this will be paste like. Add milk all at once. Cook and stir over medium heat until slightly thickened and bubbly. Add cheese, stirring until melted. Stir in cooked macaroni. Transfer mixture to a 2-quart casserole.

3. Saucepan Macaroni and Cheese: Prepare as above, except reduce milk to 2 cups. After draining macaroni, immediately return macaroni to the saucepan. Pour cheese sauce over macaroni; stir to coat macaroni with sauce. Cook over low heat for 2 to 3 minutes or until heated through, stirring frequently. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

(recipe taken from Better Homes and Gardens)

Crock Pot Meals: Making a meal in the crock pot does require advance planning, but it could definitely be worth it. Say next Wednesday you know is going to be a hectic day at work, then coming home to kids everywhere. The answer: Tuesday night, make up a crock of dinner that you can set cooking in the morning. When dinner time rolls around, voila it's already done. Examples of meals you can make in advance fairly simply include: Chili, Goulash, Pot Roast and even Chicken. All of these will also be meals you will more than likely have leftovers from, which are great for lunches, or using in a few nights for another meal.

Our tastiest Crock Pot Dinner: Pot Roast

Place a pot roast (or just a large piece of meat like a roast) in the crock, slice up potatoes, carrots, pepper and onions to taste. Our secret ingredient is using Italian Dressing instead of using water. This makes the roast and other ingredients extra yummy. Pour in about 1/2 to 3/4 of a bottle of Italian dressing to cover the meat and veggies (add a little water if necessary). Allow to cook all day and you are ready to eat.

Quick Tuna Noodle Casserole: Most of the time when I think of Tuna casserole, I think of the long amounts of time it takes to make. Frankly I don't usually have that much time or patients. My husband has enlightened me as to how to create a quick and easy Tuna Noodle Casserole as I will now share with you.

Ingredients:

1 can tuna (water based)

1 can cream of ___ soup (fill in your favorite)

1/2 can of milk

2 cups Noodles (I find I like shells)

Shredded cheese (we prefer pepper jack)

1. Prepare noodles as directed on box.

2. Mix the soup, milk and tuna together with the noodles.

3. Stir in cheese to taste. As I noted I prefer pepper jack cheese since it gives the mix a little zip. Not too spicy but just enough to not be bland.

4. Let simmer on the stove top for 5-10 minutes on medium, making sure to stir often.

5. Frozen or Prepared Pizza: For those nights we really don't want to cook, I keep a stock of Tortino's frozen pizzas in my freezer. Take two out throw them in the oven and in 15 minutes dinner is done. Now you could also have pizza mixes available and design your own pizza which should also be fairly quick - most take about 5 minutes prep and less than 10 minutes to cook.

Hopefully these can help you plan out your meals as it does us. Dinner does not have to be an event or stressful time, just everyone coming together to share a good meal. Get creative and start throwing different ingredients together.