Easy Meal Ideas

Let's face it. Sometimes we get in food ruts. Sometimes we just need a break from cooking. That's why I was so excited to get this string of emails last week about getting out of a recipe slump. I loved this so much I thought I’d share their words with you & ask…Got any good easy meal ideas? (Hope you ladies don’t mind my sharing. I’ve cleverly encrypted your names for anonymity! :) )

My Easy Meal? Bertolli's Italian Sausage & Rigatoni. Yummy. You'd never know it was frozen.

LJ’s Manicotti - 2 lbs ground beef, 1 (32) oz jar spaghetti sauce, 1 ½ cups water, 1 (12 oz) package frozen spinach soufflé, thawed, 12 oz shredded mozzarella, 8 oz uncooked manicotti noodles
Brown the ground beef. Drain. Heat the spaghetti sauce in large saucepan. Add the ground beef and water and mix well. Spoon some of the ground beef mixture into a 9X13 baking dish. Mix the spinach soufflé and cheese in a bowl. Stuff into the uncooked manicotti. Place the stuffed manicotti into the prepared dish. Cover with the remaining ground beef mixture. Cover tightly with foil. Bake at 350 for 1 hour. Let stand for 15 mins before serving.

LP’s Hamburger and Black-eyed Pea Casserole – This is the traditional New Year’s Day meal in our family, but because its so easy and inexpensive to make we have it monthly. I usually make it the night before we plan to eat it, so all I have to do is heat it up. Suggested side dishes: mashed potatoes and cornbread.
1 lb. hamburger, 1 green pepper, diced, 1 can of black-eyed peas, drained, 2 cans of Hunt’s diced tomatoes, Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté hamburger and green pepper until meat is fully cooked and the pepper is tender. Drain the grease. Put the meat mixture back in the pan and add peas, tomatoes, salt and pepper. Let simmer, covered, for approximately 1 hr.

JY’s Beans and Cornbread...for the beans, I heat up two cans of Hormel veggie-chili-with-beans (I know it probably sounds gross, but it ain't!). The cornbread recipe is 2 pkgs of cornbread muffin mix (I use Jiffy), 1 egg and 1 can creamstyle corn...combine ingredients in pan and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

AW’s swiss chicken: Add chicken breasts to baking dish, top each breast with a slice of swiss cheese, add cream of chicken soup to cover chicken. Mix up some stovetop (water and melted butter until moist), cover the chicken mixture, bake at 350 for 45 mins or so....however long it takes for the chicken to get done.

AW’s Easy beef and noodles: Cook thinly sliced sirloin steak in skillet. Once done, cover with water and add 3-4 beef bullion (sp?) cubes (the more water, the more cubes....just be careful, too many will make it really salty). Cook some egg noodles on the side. Add some starch to the beef mixture to thicken it, add egg noodles. At this point, you should have enough of the liquid/gravy mixture to kind of coat the noodles). This is also really good with a salad and some biscuits.

KM’s Baked Ziti - cook penne or tri-wheat-noodles, cook burger meat and spaghetti sauce, stir together, spray casserole, pour in, top with shred mozerella, and bake until cheese melts- long enough to cook bread, too

KM’s Paprika chicken- put chicken breasts/tenders in sprayed casserole, sprinkle paprika, smear sour cream over, then top with crushed cheese nips with melted butter and bake