oven beef stew:
beef stew meat
2 cans of cream of onion soup (can use any cream of soup, I like onion)
2 cups of milk
mix together in oven safe pot, bake at 350F for 2.5 hours, add stew veggies, continue to bake another .5 to 1 hour (until veggies are done) soup will brown in cooking. Take 5 minutes to throw together, only uses 1 pot
One of the things I most often do is put some chicken breasts or tenderloins in a baking pan, pour on a store-bought sauce of some kind, and stick them in the oven for 30 minutes or so at 350 degrees. I get several meals out of it, and there’s an endless variety of sauces to be found at the supermarket, from barbecue to thai peanut to buffalo to you name it.
Some of my favorite recipes come from The Four Ingredient Cookbooks, but I probably shouldn’t post them here because of copyright issues.
If you’re looking for inspiration, another cookbook you might want to check out is French Cooking in Ten Minutes.
Zepher bread (named after the original place I tasted it, then came home and figured out how to make it myself).
1 loaf of italian bread, slice in half or in slices. Mix together some mayo (or Miracle whip if you prefer), some garlic powder (more if you like things garlicky), and some parmesan cheese. It should be a bit thicker than chunky (because of the parmesan cheese) cake batter. Spread it on the bread and top with shredded motzerella cheese. Bake until the cheese on top melts. (Or you could broil it–I’ve done both and it turns out great.)
This is my family’s favorite bread, but it’s full of fat. Ultimate yummy though.
Make instant pudding in blender according to directions. Add a cup of nuts and blend. Top with Cool Whip.
Take sweet potato. Peel. Cut into rounds. Slap onto cookie sheet, drizzle olive oil, shake Cajun seasoning on 'em. You can throw it in the oven at any temp anything else needs, although hotter is better. Fairly healthy, too.
Take a whole chicken. Dry rub it with any rub you like on the skin and under it where you can get to it. Open a can of beer, pour a little off or drink a bit, and stick the beer can up the chicken’s ass. Stick it on a hot grill, cover, and grill until done - maybe 45 minutes. Awesome chicken and makes great leftovers.
I do this with broccoli, too. Also mixed root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, parsnips are a good combination).
Violin?
Anyway, a very simple treat is to put a dollop of vanilla ice cream on a piece of chess pie. You’d be amazed how delicious it is.
I was wondering how many posts it would be until someone asked about that. It’s a joke.
Should I use the Rooks or the Pawns for the pie?
Oh, wow. Looks like I got whooshed on about three levels.
I call this “Redneck Chinese.” It’s actually a “throw-together” of stuff my Mom was clearing out of the 'fridge one time, and became a quick & easy family staple.
Brown a pound of ground beef, drain. Chop/Slice 1/2 head of cabbage. Stir into meat, cook over medium heat until done. Salt/pepper/season to taste. Serve over rice for filler.
More complex:
change ground beef to spicy ground sausage, or add it “half & half” with beef;
add veggies (mushrooms, onion, sliced carrot, etc., whatever you like)
I’m assuming you have a crock-pot. If not, get one. They are perfect for lazy cooks.
Take any cut of boneless pork. 1.5 - 3 lbs. Cut to fit pot. Rub with a mixture of salt, pepper, garlic, chili powder and just enough olive oil to make it pasty. Pour a bottle of BBQ sauce over the meat. Cook on low 6-8 hours.
The Fun Part:
When it’s done and cool enough to handle, pull the meat apart into a deep dish. Take two forks, (one in each hand), and shred the meat. Or you can leave it chunky. Use the sauce from the pot to pour over the meat or mix in if it’s shredded.
Pile onto buns and eat.
Here’s a great easy side dish-Corn casserole
Mix together the following:
2 boxes Jiffy corn muffin mix
2 cans corn-drained
2 cans cream corn (not drained)
1 small tub sour cream
Put it in a baking dish that has a stick of melted butter in it (I put the butter in the dish and put it in the oven while it’s preheating)
WHen butter is melted pour the mixture into the dish and bake for 1hr at 350. Heavenly.
Easy appetizer:
Get some sushi grade tuna and slice into 1x1 inch pats
Slice a cucumber
Take each cucumber slice and top with tuna slice-add wasabi and drizzle with soy sauce.
You can do this with beef, too. Just put a pot roast into the crock pot, pour a bunch of barbecue sauce over it, add some salt, pepper, garlic and liquid smoke. Cook until it falls apart (8-10 hours on low). Pull apart with two forks. Serve with more barbecue sauce on soft rolls.
Below is what we had for dinner last night. Total prep time was about 10 minutes.
Chicken and 40 cloves. Put any type of chicken (we used frozen thighs and breasts straight out of the freezer yesterday) in the crock pot. Add salt, pepper, italian seasoning (or rosemary and thyme) and 40 whole, unpeeled cloves of garlic. You can buy peeled cloves in a big jar or just break open the heads. Getting the cloves off the heads is really simple. Cook until done. Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins on to crusty bread. Yum.
Green Bean Casserole. Mix two cans of green beans, one can of cream of mushroom soup and a cup of milk (or so) with some french fried onions in a casserole dish. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Put more onions on top and broil until brown.
Whipped yams. Clean a couple of largish yams. Stick them on a cookie sheet in a 450 degree oven for an hour. Skins will slide right off when they’re cooked. Whip them in an electric mixer (or smash 'em with a fork) add some brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Delish.
I like to do this with eggplant, asparagus, and cherry tomatoes. It’s one of my favorite summertime quick-and-easy dishes.
Another favorite at the Nightingale household is Moroccan Roast
Get a medium sized pork or beef roast and rub it all over with chili powder. In a crockpot combine one jar of picante sauce, 1/4 cup soy sauce, and 1/3 cup brown sugar. Put the roast in on top of it and cook on low heat all day. Serve with couscous.
You will need: spaghetti, cooked king/tiger prawns (the pink ones, not the grey ones!), olive oil, dried chilli flakes and a clove of garlic (or a teaspoonsish of ready-crushed garlic).
Cook the pasta, drain, stir in the prawns, a glug of oil, a teaspoonish of chilli flakes and the garlic (crush the clove in a garlic press, or finely chop it, if not using the pre-prepared stuff). Leave for a moment to allow the heat of the pasta to warm the prawns et al. Eat, adding black pepper and parmesan if you wish.
That’s my go-to meal whenever I need something fast and delicious.
Whenever I used to make stuffed chicken breasts, I would put the raw chicken breast between two sheets of wax paper, and pound them until they were thin, then roll the filling into them then bread them and bake them. I’ve found a MUCH easier and better way to do it.
Take a regular boneless, skinless breast and cut a slit into the thickest part of it. Waggle the knife around so there is a pocket inside the breast, but the slit is still small. Stuff it with whatever you want- I like garlic, feta and chopped artichoke hearts, the hubby likes pepperoni and mozzarella, and the kid likes just cheese. Lots of cheese.
After you get them stuffed, close the slit with a wooden toothpick, then dredge the breast in flour, then beaten egg, then bread crumbs (if you can get Panko, AKA Japanese bread crumbs, they are the best). Put in a buttered baking dish and bake for 40 minutes.
I know this took more than two sentences, but it really is simpler than it sounds, and you can really get creative with this.
4 kieklbasa sliced to bite size
1 can of cherry pie filling.
slow cook for 2 hours.
YUM!
Ritz crackers, Spreadable cream cheese, Costco Sun Dried tomatoes.
Yummy.
Burrito’s are my favorite when I am feeling lazy. Much easier than the ingrediant list will make it seem. Trust me, the whole thing will take less than 5 minutes to put together.
You will need (things I always keep in my kitchen anyway)
1/2 lb of ground beef.
1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 chopped onion (you can get it pre-chopped if you like. They sell it that way. OR you can buy onion and bell pepper frozen meddley for an even tastier and lazier option.)
1 can of diced tomatoes with garlic.
1 can ortega chili (optional)
1 can jalepeno peppers chopped (optional)
1/2 cup cooked rice (optional)
1 can of whole kernal corn (optional)
1 bottle mexican beer. (optional, if you are not going to use the rice don’t add it)
5-6 cloves of garlic OR 2 tsp garlic powder or granulated garlic.
2 packets of taco seasoning.
1tsp-1 tbs of cumin. (to taste really, but you will need at least 1 tsp.)
One large pot.
Grated cheese of some sort (mexican blend is a good option)
tortillas. Large is best.
Put the pot on the stove and turn on high throw in a bit of olive oil. Drop in the ground beef and cook till it starts to color (stir it a bit. It will take about 3-4 minutes, it does not have to be “done” yet, it just needs to start to get some color.) Meanwhile open the cans for everything else you plan to add. When the meat is browned dump in the cans of stuff and give it a couple of really good stirs. Turn down the heat to medium and let cook (more or less unattended) for about 20 minutes.
When you are ready to eat pop a tortilla in the micorwave on high for 30 second then put on a layer of cheese and a later of the stuff in the pot. Wrap it up with some fresh salsa and you have a tastey burrito. The above makes about 30 of these, burritos, but the keep in the fridge for…a long time. So dump the leftovers into some tupperware.
In the morning take a big spoonfull of the burrito innards and throw them in a pan. Crack two eggs on top of them and scramble until eggs are cooked and innards are hot. Nuke another tortilla and add cheese and your favorite hot sauce and you have an awesome breakfast burrito.
Throw it in a taco bowl with some lettuce sour cream and guacamole and you have a tostada salad that kills.
Eat it cold with tortilla chips and fresh salsa and sour cream and you have a kick as dip.
You cook once and you eat for a week.