Easy Grab-and-go Food ideas

Cafe Society
21

Breakfast burritos are easy to make, freeze great and zap quick.

I use a dozen eggs, pound of sausage, green peppers, onions, green chilis and salsa. Cook the sausage green peppers and onions, scramble the eggs, mix it all up in a bowl with a bunch of salsa and wrap it in a tortilla. Throw in the freezer.

Salsafied Chicken & Rice - My husband adored this, it freezes well into portion sizes and is dirt cheap.
Baked Tilapia Parmesan -Fantastic, easy and super, super quick.
Combining good shopping techniques (www.thegrocerygame.com) Once-A-Month Cooking/Feed the freezer, etc can make a significant difference in your budget and health.

Check out some recipe sites, my favorite is www.allrecipes.com What I like best about them is that the reviews are filled with substitutions, modifications as well as opinions on the recipes. Just reading the reviews of the recipes has helped me to be a better cook.

22

I’m gonna give a thumbs-down to this idea. Egg salad scares me. I won’t eat it unless it’s fresh to 1 day old.

Mac ‘n’ cheese is good for a few days if stored properly.

Enchilada casserole. Same as enchiladas, but layered rather than rolled up. Nuke it and you’re in heaven. You can make a large baking dish full and it should be enough for 2-3 days.

23

I made Egg and Sausage Turnovers the other day. A bit of a pain, but worth it!

Get some puff pastry dough. Thaw one sheet for 40 minutes. (One sheet will make 4 turnovers.)

Saute 1/2 chopped onion in some butter for a minute or two, then add 4 oz italian sausage, or breakfast sausage, breaking up with a spoon. Whisk 7 eggs, and add to the pan, scrambling it all together, just until eggs are cooked but still wet. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside to cool a little, then add in 4 oz cream cheese, cubed. Or any kind of cheese, really.

Take your pastry dough and roll it out on a floured surface to twice it’s size, 16 x 16. Cut into 4 squares. Fill each square with the eggs, and brush edges with an egg wash to seal. (Beat one egg with a tablespoon of water.) Press down the edges well with a fork.

Bake on a nonstick baking sheet for (I forget - I think about 25 minutes at 400°) - look on the pastry box. I served them with salsa, but they’re great plain, too. They should keep a few days. You can mix up the ingredients, too. Hamburger, peppers, different cheeses, green onions, pepperoni, ham…

ETA: (I’ll check the recipe when I get home for time and temp.)

24

Grow food. Even with very little space, you can grow things like tomatoes, squash, or green beans. The investment is minimal and the rewards are to-die-for. Squash are especially versatile and easy. You can cut them in half long-ways and nuke them for a couple minutes. Delicious. You also can slice and fry them in butter (or substitute) on a pancake griddle. Mmm…

ETA:

For the tomatoes, grow cherry or grape tomatoes and you can just pop them off the plants and eat them. They’re great to snack on just as they are or eat with salad dressing.

25

Hmm, that sounds like it might be the answer to my prayers. I don’t really know what sorts of things that I’d be filling it with, because broccoli/cheese and cheese pizza Hot Pockets already exist, and I think that some things that might be tasty would be disgusting once cooked (Garden Vegetable flavor?) I’ll have to try it out on Thursday when I get paid and can afford to go buy supplies.

Filling ideas:
Asian vegetable
Beans and rice (hopefully not woefully boring)
Hummus and tomato (I assume that they don’t take so long to bake that they’d destroy the hummus)
Spinach and… something? Cheese? Egg?

26

Alton Brown had a show on homemade Cornish pasties…it’s a good way to handle leftovers.

27

I used to use chicken fried rice as my cheap bowl-of-food-for-a-week meal.

Two chicken breasts (or thighs, if you don’t mind the greasy)
“Enough” (call it between 2 and 4 cups of uncooked) rice, boiled up
Frozen peas and carrots and various vege, whatever you like
Two eggs, scrambled and cooked thin and crumbled up
Soy sauce

Cut up chicken very very small, cook with a little soy sauce. Set aside.
Cook frozen vege in a little soy sauce. Add chicken. Add egg. Add rice. Add more soy sauce. Stir up. Make everything hot.

Pour into bowl.

Authentic? Not hardly. Tasty and convenient? You betcha.

28

(bolding mine)

By frying in a little vegetable oil.

29

Awake again :). How about spreading with some cream cheese, adding sliced jalapenos and some cheddar cheese? Before baking, dip the bottoms in some cornmeal. You could take some salsa for dipping…
So, we know what I’M having for lunch!

Or this: mix a goodly amount of feta with some cream cheese, add olives and sundried tomatoes and bake. You could throw some spinach in, too.

30

I like to go to the grocery and look at their prepared foods section and try to duplicate some of their salads - not lettuce based, but the others. Right now I am eating a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion, dill and a red wine vinagrette. It costs $4 something a pound prepared, but I can make it at home for about $1 a pound.

My grocery has a good selection to look at, but if you have a Whole Foods, even better. You can buy a pint first, and all the ingredients are listed on the label.

31

Do you have a good recipe for enchilada casserole? I’ve made a few casseroles with Tex-Mex ingredients, but I’ve never used enchilada sauce in them. We love making a big dish of something and eating it for the next several days, and I’m looking for some new ideas.

32

I’m didn’t read every post, but kind of skimmed, so some of my ideas may be repeats.
Breakfast bake, egg & sausage, egg & bacon, egg & ham/Canadian bacon, etc.
Breakfast burritos
English Muffin with heat & serve sausage patty, egg, and cheese
Oatmeal
Runzas (I remember these growing up, they were like hot pockets but Ma made them with Ham & Cheese, or whatever she had at home. In googling for a recipe, all I could find were ground beef and cabbage, but other than that they sounded right.) These froze really well.
Shredded BBQ Pork or Beef. Made in a crockpot, actually have this cooking at home right now.
Chili I also make this in a crockpot
Homemade Soup
Lasagna, or really any casserole. We usually make two pans of lasagna at a time and freeze one of them for later.
Chicken cooked in a crockpot
Tuna Pasta salad is a favorite of mine
Salad, can mix this up with different dressings/toppings. I usually toss chicken, turkey, ham, tuna, or whatever meat I seem to have leftover on it.
Homemade pizza. I make a huge pan of this and leftovers are quick and easy and filling. (more filling than store bought pizza)
Wraps, tortilla, cheese, meat, veggies. I like Hummus in my wraps too. I need to add that to my grocery list now.
Chicken-grill up some chicken, with basic seasoning. You could also use it for quesadilla’s, soup, salads, etc.
Enchiladas
Tacos

Basically what I would suggest is cooking double some of the meals that you typically cook, and freeze some or just it for lunches the next week. That’s what we do, and both my husband and I rarely eat out for lunch, we typically take leftovers.

One time saving tip that I have is with my veggies for salads/scrambled eggs in the morning, I was and cut them up right away and put them in containers so it’s faster in the mornings. Same with the head of lettuce, I wash and shred that. It seems like if I don’t do this as soon as I get home from the store, I put it off way too long.

Good luck, and if you need any recipes, let me know. :slight_smile:

33

As a person who can barely tolerate leftovers, it’s hard for me to make stuff ahead and then eat on it all week. I can do it with Italian type stuff (pizza, pasta) but most everything else is right out. Since I don’t eat breakfast, I don’t have to worry about that meal. I usually eat lunch out. It does get expensive, but a lot of times I don’t eat supper either. I found that if I go to the grocery and get a bunch of fresh stuff to make healthy meals with, it rots in the fridge before I want to or (have time to) do anything with it. For me, it comes out better to have my lunch out and have some frozen prepared meals in the freezer for when I want something. I’ve recently discovered Bertolli’s line of bagged Italian meals. They taste good and are very quick and easy. Dump the bag in a skillet and heat for 10 minutes on medium. One bag serves 2 people. They are a little pricey but you can usually find a coupon or on sale. Target has them at a good price. There are lots of varieties too. BTW Target’s brand Archer Farms also has some very good bagged meals like this. Still comes out to less than $3.00 per serving.

34

Something that I have done, as a remedy to the egg salad getting soggy or old-and-scary, is boil the dozen eggs, leave them in the fridge, then the morning that you want to have some, chop/slice 2 (or however many you use for one sandwich) into a Ziplock-style baggie, with a dolop of mayo/mustard/whatever else you put in egg salad. Keep it in you lunchbag with a cold pack, then squish it around to mix it and cut a corner off the baggie to put it on your bread (like you were frosting the bread from a pastry bag. Did I mention that you brought bread?). Baggie gets thrown away, sandwich is fresh made, no soggy, no scary.

35

Sure! My husband loves this:

One can enchilada sauce
Package of soft corn tortillas (I use El Milagro brand)
1 lb. or so of ground sirloin
1/2 package of Potatoes O’Brian
Grated cheese (however much you like)
Tomato
Avacado
Green Onion

Now, depending on how much you want to make, increase everything if you’re going larger than a 9" x 9" baking dish.

Brown the ground beef. When it’s nearly browned, add the Potatoes O’Brian. They act as a filler but they’re tasty as all get-out.

That’s your filler. Cut the tortillas in half so you can place them flat side to the side of the baking dish.

Pour a little enchilada sauce in the bottom of the dish and spread it with a basting brush.

Add a layer of tortillas, being sure to cover the areas that don’t get covered by the halved tortillas. I just tear a half into a couple pieces to fill in the holes.

Spoon in the meat/potato mixture.

Add another layer of tortillas. Pour more enchilada sauce on them and spread it out evenly.

Continue until you end up with tortillas on top. Pour the final bit of enchilada sauce on it. Sprinkle with cheese and bake until the cheese is melted. Garnish with green onion, tomato and avacado. Everyone can use salsa to taste.

YOU’LL LOVE IT!

You can do this with chicken, too. Just stir some enchilada sauce into the cooked, pulled chicken before you fill the casserole.

36

For the occasional treat, buy a flank steak. Grill it up for dinner one night, seasoned with garlic, dried rosemary, sage, & thyme, and of course salt & pepper (make a little wet rub, with the herbs and some olive oil). Eat some for dinner with whatever sides you want. Slice the leftovers very thinly, and you have great meat for wraps – just wrap it up in a tortilla with some lettuce/other greens, some crumbled blue cheese (or blue cheese dressing), and there’s lunch! Yummy.

37

OK. Crockpots are your friend. Tonight I put on a whole pork tenderloin (on sale at Kroger for $1.99/lb., 5 pounds), plus one large can of Foster’s lager, tons of fresh minced garlic, garlic salt, one sliced onion and 3/4 bunch of cilantro. So total food cost was $10 + $1.89 + $1 + 99 cents. Will feed two for an entire week. I make it this way for carnitas. So tomorrow night I will shred the pork, fry up some onions and bell peppers fajita style, make homemade guac, homemade queso and wrap everything up in flour tortillas. I also take a can of refried beans (81 cents) and throw in the leftover cilantro and some tabasco and some shredded cheese (bought on sale and frozen). Can also be served bbq style as someone else suggested.

But my FAVORITE is:
1 large pork tenderloin (always bought on sale at Kroger for $1.99/lb)
2 Cans Campbell’s Cream of Onion Soup
2 Cans Cream of (your choice - mushroom, celery, etc.)
3 Cans water
lots of garlic salt
enough black pepper to cover the top of the dish

Cook all day in your friendly crockpot on high. At night, shred the pork, discarding the miniscule amounts of fat. Put meat back in sauce. Serve over egg noodles (99 cents for a large bag) or sticky rice (cheap). This reheats awesome and freezes well. It’s SOOOO good. :smiley:

38

Thanks, Kalhoun. Sounds both good and easy!

39

Fried rice is excellent if you add just a tiny bit of sesame oil (it’s potent stuff!) with the soy sauce. It’s delicious - add some hot sauce too.

40

I have to point out that this is genius.
And I want to thank you all. I have written down most of these recipes/ideas and intend to use them in the coming months. I estimate about $150 in savings every month.