Hey friends! Tosha here! One thing that Meagan and I keep coming back to in every meeting is how busy we are. We start doubting that we are making the right choices because we are going in 100 different directions. It’s crazy, but one of the things we worry about the most is dinner. Not only are we spending time planning all the activities for the week, but we are also planning our work schedules, our husband’s appointments, and our kids shenanigans too. When is there time to feed these folks a decent meal??? So, we meal plan. We meal plan for what fits our schedule for that week.
I want to share with you what some of our go to meals are currently. These are simple, quick meal ideas or recipes that you are welcome to use. Also, feel free to share some of your meal ideas and recipes with us!! Lord knows my family wouldn’t mind a change from time to time.
If you follow recipes to a T, then I have included recipes on the couple of dishes that I have a recipe for.
The first meal we go to the most is Poppy Seed Chicken! This recipe is SO easy and quick! Let’s be honest, my mood determines the chicken I use! If I have time, then I will boil my chicken and shred it myself. If I don’t have time, but someone is eating dinner with us, I grab a rotisserie chicken from Kroger. If I just need to get everyone a meal prepped but I have a million tasks between my three jobs, then canned chicken is my savior!
The next thing we have discovered recently is Beef Ravioli. That is kind of deceiving because I am not making the ravioli or the spaghetti sauce. But I say homemade because it didn’t come from a can. I love the Ragu Simply Garden Vegetable sauce. I am sure there are a million other healthy options out there, but this is good for us and in my budget. Don’t tell my family, but this is where I sneak in the 1lb of ground turkey! Then I use the Great Value brand of Cheese Ravioli in the freezer section. I brown the ground turkey and then add the spaghetti sauce. I boil the ravioli per the instructions on the bag. Mix it all together! Throw some garlic bread in the oven! Then serve!
DORITOS CASSEROLE!!!!!! Ya’ll. There are never any leftovers for this. I honestly make it different every single time. I don’t even use the name brand Doritos; we prefer the Great Value brand for this as well. So I take a bag of the Great Value Nacho Cheese chips and crush them up. I brown about 1.5 lbs of ground beef and I do sneak in ground turkey from time to time. After browning the meat and draining the fat, I add a can of original Rotel, 1 ½ cup of salsa, and a can of enchilada sauce to the meat and heat up. Then I layer chips and meat mixture and shredded fiesta cheese. Pop that bad boy in the oven for 35 minutes at 350 degrees. As you can see below, the recipe has you put foil on the dish and yada yada.
When we have a whole whopping hour and we want to spend some time together and have that family time feel, I whip out the Shake and Bake chicken! I usually pair it with either roasted potatoes or mashed potatoes. I do some “fancy” green beans too! By “fancy”, I mean that I drain the green beans from the can. I heat some olive oil up in a pan and then add the green beans to the pan. I shake some Montreal Steak Seasoning from McCormick on them. I toss that around to get them nice and brown. My crew likes them darn near burnt! And WAH-LAH!
When we want to veg-out, I literally throw a Totino’s Party Pizza in the oven for the girls. They prefer that $1.50 pizza over any other one out there! But I get a little healthier on the hubs and mine. A couple of years ago, I went to a little pizza in Olive Branch, MS and had a charcuterie pizza. This thing was delicious!! So I set out to try to mimic the pizza and here is where I am at. I use a cauliflower pizza crust and brush on balsamic vinaigrette and sprinkle with garlic powder. I top that with mozzarella cheese and then salami/prosciutto/and capocollo meat. (Wal-Mart has a variety meat pack that has calabrese, prosciutto, and coppa by Del Duca!) Top it off with mozzarella cheese and some banana peppers if that tickles your fancy! Throw that bad boy in the oven at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes!
I hope this helps some of you out with new ideas or even letting some of you know you are not alone in your busy schedules. We get it! We take short-cuts where we can and these are some of my go to dinner ideas to help with those short-cuts!
XOXO,
Tosha