Need easy dinner recipes!!

I'm running out of ideas on what to make for dinner. I need ideas for quick and easy dishes for 2 and I've tried looking through the online recipe collections but they give me a ton of choices but everything is so complicated and calls for ingredients I've never even heard of before!!

I'm not really picky but Brian is. I've been trying to make healthier things too but he picks the vegtables out...

Any ideas?

How's this for real easy.

Get a small crock pot.
Pour in about 3/4 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce.
Add about 1/4 cup salsa.
Stir
Add 4 frozen chicken tenders or two thawed boneless chicken breasts.
Spoon BBQ sauce/salsa mixture over chicken.

Cook while at work.

Serve over white rice.

This is quick, easy, yummy, and very healthy.

I found a great quick meal. Boston Market frozen meals are really good. They make 1 that is just turkey medallions and gravy. This makes great hot open face sandwiches. I throw some frozen fries under the broiler and it's all done in under 20 minutes. Tyson foods has a fully cooked, marinated whole chicken that is DELICIOUS! 9 minutes in the microwave and it's hot. Wal-Mart has them in the deli. I make grilled cheese sandwiches and soup one day a week. The new Campbell's chunky soups are pretty good. Not only is all this stuff quick and easy, but it's also inexpensive. Hope this helps.

Ask Airprincess about recipes for the crock pot. She's got a million ideas. Here's mine. Get in car. Go out for dinner.

Unfortunatly, I don't have a crock pot but if I come across one I'll have to try idea lotsocats.

As for eating out.... Out of the question. I hate having someone else prepare my food and it's so expensive. Not to mention I can't peel Brian off his computer chair to go anywhere.

The Boston market meal is great!! I'll have to pick some up next time I go food shopping. TV dinners have come a long way haven't they?

A great and quick meal is sliced flank steak marinated in soya, honey and garlic or at least 12 hours. Pan fry it and put on a bed of rice. You can also stir fry some vegies with it. It is also good stuffed in pitas or tortilla shells.

One of my favorite quick recipes is turkey (or veal, if you eat veal) picata. Get turkey tenderloins, pound thin. Dredge through flour. Heat butter in frying pan. Brown tenderloins on both sides until just cooked through. Put aside (I put them in the microwave, off, to keep them warm). Add more butter, chicken broth and lemon juice to pan, scraping up browned bits. Cook until reduced, add more lemon juice to taste.

I like to make this with steamed broccoli. In fact, I make lots of extra sauce to put on the broccoli.

Jessica-I'm totally on the same page you are! Its so hard to cook just for 2. I've tried looking up recipes too, but they are all too complicated or else you have to scale the recipes and you have to use ingredients that are weird measurements. One thing that I used to cook alot were chicken breasts with veggies and potatos. I just throw the chix on the George Foreman grill and make the right amount of veggies and potatos. Sometimes I make a full recipe of something and we eat it twice in the same week. Lately we've just been eating out b/c I'm too lazy to try to think of something to make. :LOL: Crock pot recipes are always a lifesaver! I just put everything in and let it cook while I'm at work all day. Campbell's Chunky soups are awesome too, like Krazy Kat2 said. Hubby really likes the chunky chicken one and that is a whole meal in itself for him. I wrote down some recipes awhile ago that I found for 2...if I can find them, I'll pm you with them.

Yesterday I through a pot roast, potatoes & carrots in the crock and we had that for dinner.

I bought hoagie rolls, mozzerella cheese and red onion to make sandwiches with the leftover meat. I'll probably get another 2 or 3 meals out of that.

I don't normally fix pot roast in the summer, but the grocery store had buy one get one free on it, and it was too good of a deal to pass up. 2 huge pot roasts for $12. Easily 6 or 7 meals.

Jessica, you should invest in a crock pot. You can get a cheap one at target or walmart for $20 or $30 and it's SO worth it. There's nothing like throwing in some stuff in the morning and coming home to a homecooked meal.

Since it is just my hubby and I, we don't cook extravagent meals. We use our tiny crock pot almost every day. I think it cost only $15 at Wal Mart. It was well worth the money.

Today I put in a can of rotel tomatoes, half a small can of corn, and four frozen chicken tenders. I will serve over rice.

Last night, hubby crock potted stewed tomatoes with chili powder and some other mysterious spices and chicken tenders. Yummy.

He also uses curry mixes in the crock pot although the recipes call for lots of complex cooking steps on the stove.

We love the crock pot because there is hardly any clean-up and you just dump in the ingredients and do nothing more.

I'll try to remember some of my other non-crockpot recipes tomorrow. (I'm at work.) I have a great, very quick and easy sesame chicken recipe I'll try to remember.

With my rotating shifts, I don't get to cook much. Bill like to cook on the grill so we eat a lot of ribs, chicken, burgers and pork chops. When I buy a roast, it goes in the crock pot with potatoes and carrots. Cooking for two isn't that hard - freeze the leftovers. We, deliberately cook with an eye toward leftovers and pack them in our lunches. For a quick, easy meal: brown a pound of Italian sausage, cook some macaroni, combine sausage, macaroni and a can of cheddar cheese soup. Add a salad and - voila! easy dinner!

Jessica....you have GOT to get a crockpot!!! I just love mine!! We do roasts in it all the time, throw it in frozen, at 6 am, (on low) with some potatoes and carrots, and by 6pm...an awesome meal!

I also use mine for BBQ pork or beef sandwiches, throw the boneless pork or beef ribs in frozen, and right before supper, I take them out,
dump out the grease, put them back in, shred them up with a fork, add some BBQ sauce, let it heat up a little more...and serve on buns.

Another easy meal we like is to buy a box of Rice-a-roni beef flavor rice, then cook it according to the directions, and add a pound of cooked and drained hamburger to it and a little soy sauce....perfect for two people.

Macaroni and cheese is good with a pound of cooked and drained hamburger added, and a can of cream of mushroom soup, then bake in the oven for 25 minutes at 350.

Another twist on hamballs that is easy, is making your favorite meatloaf recipe with ham loaf instead of hamburger, then make them into balls and bake them. It's ham balls, but different, not so sweet. Exept I do cover them with ketchup mixed with brown sugar. Bake 350 for an hour.

I know I have tons of these easy recipes, because alot of nights I am too tired to fix anything fancy...especially lately.... but I am not thinking of anymore at the moment.

Oh wait! Another crockpot recipe we LOVE is just throw in a couple pounds of chuck roast, cut into chunks( I have the meat guy cut it up for me, so that saves alot of time)
Then add 1 can cream of mushroom soup, 1 can cream of celery coup, and one packet of dry onion soup mix. Cook on low all day...then serve over noodles, rice, or potatoes. It looks gross when you first mix it all together, but it looks and tastes awesome several hours later.

Gumbo burgers are fast and easy too....brown a pound of ground beef, drain, stir in one can chicken gumbo soup, 1 trp. mustard, 2 T. ketchup, heat thru and serve on buns.

And (are you sick of me yet...:LOL another one....

Tator-tot casserole... just brown and drain a pound of hamburger, add a can of cream of mushroom soup, and a can of cream of celery soup, and a cup or so of frozen peas, put in casserole dish, cover with 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, and tator-tots. Bake at 350, for about 45 minutes.

Hope this helps. I guess I got a little carried away.

this can be served as a snack or a side dish. mix 1 can or refried beans (old el paso) and 1 packet of cream cheese. I use the blender. spread misture on tortilla, about 1 cm thick. Sprinkle grated cheese. Roll up, cover in tin foil and heat for 10-15 minutes in oven. I'll often make 3 or 4 at once. serve with sour cream, salsa and guacomole. Once you have the mixture blended, it's guaranteed not to take you more than 5 mins. to prepare.

Eggs are always quick, easy and cheap. Last night for supper my hubby and I had a mushroom omelet with cheddar cheese plus some sliced raw veggies (celery, cucumber, tomatoes). It took about 5 minutes. If you have an oven safe pan, you don't even need to flip the omelet, which is always where I mess up. When it's partly cooked on top of the stove, I just sprinkle on the cheese and stick it under the broiler for a minute. It turns out so nice and puffy.

Tuna casserole with cream of mushroom soup sauce is another fave around our place; we usually have some leftover pasta or rice in the fridge, so I use the same oven-safe pan to cook up some broccoli, mushrooms and celery, add the soup, two cans of tuna, a splash of Worcestershire sauce, some thyme, mix and sprinkle with cheese and stick it in the oven until the cheese gets bubbly.

If you like seafood, you can make a really quick full-meal salad with that fake crab made out of Alaskan pollack - it comes already cooked, tastes great warm or cold, and is really filling. It makes your fridge smell though if you don't use the whole pack; I keep mine in 3 Ziploc bags...

Whenever I make chili or pasta sauce, I make lots and stick some in the freezer for making lasagna or burritos, or just for a quick meal for one.

I usually cook recipes for 4 servings even though we are only two in our family; we're both very active people, and my husband is a big guy, so between the two of us we eat 3 servings for supper, then he takes the leftovers for lunch or I stick it in the freezer for a quick meal at another time.

This takes some time to cook in the oven, but preparation time is almost nil:

Chicken in 1-2-3 Sauce

Mix 1 part mustard, 2 parts brown sugar, 3 parts ketchup (e.g. you can use 2 Tbsp mustard, 4 Tbsp brown sugar, 6 Tbsp ketchup, or 3 Tbsp mustard, 6 Tbsp brown sugar, 9 Tbsp ketchup - depending on how much sauce you like.) Add water to get the consistency of pancake batter. Pour over chicken pieces. Cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake at 400 about 1 1/4 hr.. Uncover & bake till deep brown. Add a little water if necessary to pan and scrape up sauce on sides bottom.


This one is just as easy, and almost good enough for company:

Spread 1 1/4 c raw rice on bottom of greased baking pan. Place chicken pieces skin side up on rice. Mix 1 envelope onion soup mix, a can condensed cream of mushroom soup, 1 1/2 cans water, and pour over chicken. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake 1 1/2 hrs. at 400 degrees. Uncover and bake till golden brown. Variant: Use a flavored rice mix (such as Near East brand pilaf), 1 1/2 cups broth instead of the soup, and chopped canned or fresh mushrooms.

Finally: An easy marinade for broiled salmon - Mix soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic, maybe a little white wine if you have it and pour into a ziploc bag. Slip the salmon into the bag and close. Put in the refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes. Broil (approx.) 10 minutes on one side, 5 minutes on the other. (Keep your eye on it.)