Season chicken breasts, throw on grill. When cooked, through, cut up and add to a big bowl of baby spinach from the ready-to-eat bag, top with shredded carrots, Bacos, packaged croutons, shredded cheese. Add whatever salad dressing you like. Yum.
Pita Pizza:
Lay whole wheat pitas on a pizza pan. Top them with whatever pizza/spaghetti sauce is on hand and any of the following: pepperoni, chicken, bacon, baby spinach, olives, mushrooms, various cheeses. Bake in 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is melty and slightly browned.
Bowl of Cereal:
Pour cereal and milk into a bowl. Eat. If very hungry, repeat.
Two cans of chili, one can of corn (drained). Put in large bowl, microwave to heat.
Add about 10 oz cooked pasta. Mix in.
Sprinke with shredded cheese.
The whole meal takes as long to make as it takes to cook the pasta.
To make it healthy you could used turkey chili or veggie chili and reduced fat cheese.
Pasta Puttanesca (so named because Italian hookers liked to cook it after a long night, or so I’m told):
Put linguine on to boil.
Meanwhile, heat some olive oil and saute garlic, capers, chopped black olives, chopped anchovies, and canned or fresh chopped tomatoes. Toss in some basiland oregano. When the pasta is done, so’s the sauce. Toss it all together and top with shredded parmesan (not that horrid stuff in the green can). You’ll think you died and gone to heaven.
This one requires a bit of effort, but at least I don’t have to think or read a recipe, and it’s both filling and good for you:
Pasta Primavera
Put some bowties and broken spaghetti on to boil, about 1 lb or a little more.
Meanwhile in your wok:
Olive oil, minced garlic, green onions, celery, carrots. Saute for a bit.
Then add cooked frozen peas, frozen corn, chopped zucchini and yellow squash. Cook some more.
Add a generous pat of butter and some basil.
Then add 1 small can sliced black olive and a few chopped Roma tomatoes.
By now your pasta is done. Toss with (REAL!) shredded Parmesan and a little more olive oil. DELISH! You can vary the veggies however you like. The original recipe called for onions and shrooms, but I don’t care for either so I left them out.
Cook half a cup of flour and half a cup of butter together on medium until it’s all blended and soft. I give it about three minutes after it starts to sizzle a bit. Pour two cups milk over it. Cook on medium low until it gets thick. Add one cup grated sharp cheddar. Open jar of roasted peppers, and cut big slices off a loaf of bread. Open package of sliced ham, if you like. When the cheese has melted, put the pot, bread, and peppers on the table.
You can ladle cheese sauce onto your plate, or dip. If you feel ambitious, make a salad.
I make a big batch of cheese sauce, and then pour it on baked potatoes or broccoli or whatever. It freezes well, too.
Low fat:
Open two cans of black beans, and one can of of diced tomatoes. Drain the beans. Cook over medium for about ten minutes, adding some garlic and a couple teaspoons chili powder. Eat over rice. Put cheese or leftover chicken on top if you like.
1 inch of water in pan, plus two bouillon cubes. I prefer chicken.
1 pound bag frozen California mix veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, carrot) into a pan with 1/2 to 1 inch of water. Cook gently until veggies are hot but not smooshy. They should be bright in color.
Add a half a brick of any sort of cream cheese. Stir over the heat until the cheese melts into the broth.
Eat.
You can add chicken or shrimp if you like. Onions, garlic, mushrooms are all good additions. Basically, if you can imagine it in a cream soup, toss it in!
Let’s see. I work fulltime. Am a caretaker for mny mother and brother, and am the chief cook in the family here. Most of my meals are “on the fly” due to my odd work schedule, but here is an easy, tasty, versatile favorite:
Italian Marinated Chicken
Boneless skinless chicken breast
Your favorite Italian dressing
Marinate the chicken breast for at least an hour in the fridge, then either saute until brown and the juices run clear, or bake at 350 degrees for @ 45 minutes.
Your can serve this hot or cold, with whatever side dishes available. I like it with a nice crisp green salad.
1 brick chicken ramen
1 boneless skinless chicken thigh cut in smallish dice
1 large carrot, peeled or well scrubbed and sliced thinly
1 large stalk of celery, washed and sliced thinly
1 small onion diced fairly small
2 cups chicken broth [or just use the packet from the ramen]
in a pot, bring the 2 cups of cooking liquid to a good simmer, with the meat and veggies already in it. When the chicken is cooked through, about 7 minutes or so, add the ramen either broken to pieces or unbroken. Turn hea down and simmer until ramen is cooked, about 3 minutes.
Huge serving for one person, and relatively cheap but complete. Is very good to have a small tossed salad, or fruit with it, or both if you have the money to spare.
I pretty much lived on this for a few months when I was seriously broke, 2 makings a day - I was working as a security guard for minimum wage, and as I worked 11 - 730, I had it for breakfast at about 10 pm, and dinner at about 8 am. IIRC, my typical grocery bill for a week ran about 20$US. My one luxury was heavy cream and decent coffee, 2 cups of coffee a day of ‘name brand’ coffee - otherwise it was the cheap arsed crap that the breakroom at work provided free.
And this works ok with turkey, or shrimp, but not beef or pork. Never tried it with ham, but then again a good split pea with ham soup is also easy and filling, and pretty cheap.
Scrub and slice some potatoes, place them in a 9x13 casserole dish.
Put chicken pieces on top (I usually use the Pick-0-the-Chic assortment, or just the breasts)
Sprinkle with Lawry’s Season Salt.
Dab of margarine or butter on each piece.
Bake at 350’ for about an hour.
Find some sort of green vegetable to serve with.
So easy even my daughter can make it.
I love it. There are the temporarily lazy and the truly lazy. For the former, the meal involves at least 3 steps and usually at least one item not always in the fridge. For those of us in the latter group, our “fallback meal” is like two things smashed together. One of which is usually cheese.
If I were in human resources, I would ask this question of potential employees. It says a lot about a person.
I hate cooking. When I cook, I make enough for several days.
Super-easy cheesy pasta surprise:
1 x bag pasta (cooked al dente)
4 x sachets instant cheese sauce (prepared)
Wholegrain mustard
Pasta sauce (optional)
Add to the instant cheese sauce:
A hell of a lot* of **wholegrain ** (not the smeary yellow stuff) mustard, and
A generous serve of either a good quality tomato sauce with herbs, or a small jar of pasta sauce, and
A solid dose of cracked or freshly ground pepper
(Note: It’s actually also very good just with the wholegrain-mustard cheese sauce, without the tomato stuff, but looks less appetising.)
Throw pasta back into the pot you cooked it in.
Mix sauce ingredients well, pour over pasta.
If you’re feeling really excited about the cooking extravaganza, throw in half a container of cream cheese into the sauce mix and/or add shredded cheese to the final result.
I know the ingredients sound revolting (particularly the mustard with sauce combo - I’m not kidding when I say it has to be wholegrain, and it has to be a *good * quality sauce, not generic ketchup) but it’s actually *really * tasty. My husband absolutely loves this dish.
Mustard-free alternative
1 x jar pasta sauce
1/2 tub or more of cream cheese (I like Philadelphia spreadable)
dash of red wine (optional)
heaps of cracked or freshly ground pepper. (I love pepper!)
Heat sauce ingredients in the pan you just drained the pasta out of, mixing well, throw pasta back in when the sauce is hot.
Did I mention I hate cooking? I also hate clean-up. One-pot meals are my specialty.
I’m not kidding. Heaps. I use about half a 175g jar. I heartily recommend the Masterfoods brand.
1 Jar of curry sauce of your choice
500g (approximately 1 pound, I think) of chicken - thigh is best, it’s cheaper and doesn’t dry out like breast tends to
1 small can of coconut cream
4 naan breads
Brown chicken briefly. Cube if you must, but we usually don’t. When tasty and brown, put in the jar of sauce and enough coconut cream to thin it out and make it a bit more soupy. Leave to simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, or until you remember after watching TV for a while. When chicken is tender enough to be pulled apart with a fork, heat the naan breads and serve out the curry. Tasty.
Ah, being of Chinese descent, I have to say that my grandmothers (both of them) made the best fried rice, and it adapted well for college.
1 serving leftover cold long-grain rice
1 egg, beaten
2 green onions, chopped
Some soy sauce and salt to taste
Whatever random crap you want to use (I like Chinese sausages and some vegetables, chopped up)
Put a little bit of oil in a wok or skillet; heat and add beaten egg when hot. Scramble briefly until just cooked. Put back in bowl.
Put some more oil (clean wok or skillet if necessary). Add the onions and whatever random crap you have. Stir-fry until fragrant.
Add the rice and stir-fry until hot and mixed well with onions. Add in some salt to taste and then add the soy sauce. You don’t want too much, just enough to give the rice some color. Keep stir-frying until all the rice is brown.
Add the eggs again, and mix well with rice. Put in a bowl and enjoy!
Some pork
Some potatoes
Some salt
Some canola oil (you can substitute an oil of your choice, but I can’t guarantee it’ll taste any good)
Method
Put ingredients into wok. Stir-fry. Goes well with rice or pasta.
Sorry about lack of precision; I don’t really think about quantities when I make this. It’s simple enough to figure out on your own though. And it’s very tasty!
Heat sesame oil in a pan.
Add aromatics (ginger, garlic, scallions, lemongrass, chilli or whatever you have)
Add meat or poultry, cut into bite-sized pieces (or shrimp or tofu)
Add veggies (pepper, onion, spinach, courgette, carrot, peas or whatever you have to hand)
Add a bit of soy sauce (light and dark)
Add a bit of Nam Pla
Add some black pepper
Add a little water or stock
Add a few coriander leaves
Make sure everything is cooked and keep stirring while it’s cooking.
Serve on a bed of rice or noodles.
It can be made without meat, or without veggies, with or without most of the flavourings. Adapt to taste.
Pasta Quercus
1 head broccoli
2 tomatoes
1 can cannelini beans (italian white beans)
3-4 cloves garlic
olive oil (extra virgin makes it taste better)
bowtie, rotini, elbows or other kind of pasta (best if it’s not long noodles, but that’s OK, too)
Mince the garlic, chop the broccoli heads into 1" pieces (and discard the stems), dice tomatoes into 1" pieces, and rinse and drain the beans.
Heat oil and saute the broccoli, just before it’s done, add the garlic and saute for 15-30 seconds, until the garlic is barely cooked. Add the tomatoes and beans and turn off the heat. Salt to taste, add more olive oil to taste.
Serve over pasta, with optional grated cheese.
Or if there’s even less cooking mojo, fry some garlic, add a cup of crushed tomatoes and some basil, and after 30 seconds, pour it over frozen manicotti, then microwave. (Remember to cover the dish so you don’t get tomato spatters all over the inside of your microwave).
Macaroni and Hot Dogs. Kraft Macaroni and cheese- deluxe of course - and Ballpark hot dogs boiled or fried. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
The other “easy” thing I make is
Husband Food So named because my husband asks me to make it at least once a week
1 pound sirloin, cut in 1/2" or so chunks
1 jar Heinz Savory Beef Gravy
2 T Soy Sauce
1/2 C Green Onions sliced
1 Green Bell Pepper, julienned
1 Red Bell Pepper, julienned
1 T or so butter
OR skip the peppers and use carrots.
Melt butter in the skillet, and brown sirloin. Brown it good - it will taste better this way. Add the gravy, and soy sauce, and simmer covered till meat is tender. Add the vegetables, and simmer an additional 10 or so minutes. Serve over rice.
This one’s gonna make me seriously fat if I keep it up. I keep around some angel hair pasta, good butter, and shredded fancy cheeses in little tubs they sell at the Fresh Market.
Boil water for pasta
When water is boiling, throw in pasta and melt some butter. Ideally you would brown it but let’s be honest here.
Dump pasta in bowl, put a crapload of cheese on top of pasta (shredded asiago, parmesan, whatever) and dump butter on top. Stir to evenly distribute cheesy goodness.
