Hello my friends of Great Food 4U! So if you're parents, you know that 6 pm dilemma when everyone is home from work and school and starved. And well, darn, you forgot to thaw anything and are now at a loss for what to feed everyone. And you don't want to go out to eat or grab fast food because it's expensive. How about some quick, easy, cheap nutritious kid-friendly recipes for meals in minutes?
Diana's PBJ French Toast. This kid-friendly recipe goes back to the dark ages when I was 6, living over a diner in Alaska. My friend Diana and I would eat pancakes and she's always have them with peanut butter. I morphed them into French toast to add high protein power. Spread bread (any kind, use up leftover bread) with peanut butter and jam. Or almond, cashew or sunflower butter if your family eats peanut-free. Use low sugar jam like Aldi fruit preserves. Dip sandwiches in beaten eggs with a little vanilla and cinnamon added. Fry in ghee, butter or margarine. Add a drizzle of maple syrup or powdered sugar if desired.
Rainbow Chicken Supper salad. Mix one can chicken, shredded coleslaw (with carrots, green and purple cabbage) mix, dried cranberries, mayo, mustard, celery seed. . If you have time, chop a yellow bell pepper, red onion and cucumber. If you don't have cranberries, use red grapes or raisins. Add cilantro leaves or fresh chopped dill. Serve with croissants, bagels or English muffins. Or just toast. You can get all the ingredients at Aldi for about $15 and it will make enough to feed six people. You can mix and match with colored fruits and vegetables, whatever you have on hand and need to use up.
Mucho nachos grande. Just in time for Cinco de Mayo, here's a quick, easy cheap recipe to fill up kids and use up leftovers. Melt cheese on tortilla chips and add Herdez salsa cremosa or avocado salsa. Use any cheese you have on hand: shredded, brick or sliced. Or make a quick guacamole from chopped onions, garlic and tomatoes, mashed avocado, lime juice, cumin powder and cilantro.
Sieta Layer bean dip. This leftover useup recipe is cheap because it uses up all the bits and pieces floating around in the fridge and cupboard. If you're like me, you have, at any given time,, a lot of partially used containers and bags of these on hand. Collect up onions, tomatoes, cilantro, lettuce, shredded cheese, taco meat, crushed tortilla chips, broken taco shells or tostadas, lime juice, salsa verde, taco sauce, salsa, refried beans or just beans, sour cream, ranch dip or salad dressing, in any combination you wish. Chop up the vegetables and layer with chips on the bottom and sauces in between layers. This is great meatless or if you like meat, season some canned chicken with cumin, garlic, onion powder and smokey paprika. Make this with any combination you wish. If you don't have an ingredient on hand, skip, it's fine.
Ten Minute Taco Salad. So in this version, you mix any combination or all the above ingredients with a base sauce or salsa.
Speedy Veggie Schpaghet, Schpaget: That's what my MIL (God rest her soul) called spaghetti. Cook any kind of pasta you have on hand. Right now, I'm making mine with Barilla Protein Plus elbow noodles. Make a smaller batch to cook pasta faster. Next, add that half jar of pasta sauce and partially used bag of shredded cheese we ALL have lurking in the fridge. You can jazz it up with fresh sliced mushrooms, pepperoni, chopped onions and or green peppers if you like. Or if you don't have pasta sauce, used diced canned tomatoes. Or even salsa. Add green, black olives, canned mushrooms or capers, if you wish. This is perfect for meatless Lenten fast days. And this leftover useup recipe actually saved money as it used up the spaghetti sauce and cheese that were threatening to grow fur.
Free up time Frittata. Here's the recipe from another post. Frittatas can be made meatless or with breakfast sausage, bacon or as a leftover use up recipe to use leftover ham, chopped onions and peppers, cheese. Serve with a microwave baked potato or toasted stale bread. Or bake the bread right in for a "toad in the hole" type meal. You can have it ready in 20 minutes.
Soupcon supper: This is from my Grandma Langerak and is a wash day meal you made when you had no time to cook. Press going-stale pieces of bread into muffin tin cups and toast till they turn to bread cups. Heat one can broth soup (chicken noodle), one can of cream soup and one can vegetables. Any kind. Add canned meat like tuna or chicken if available. This is a war time rationing recipe so you used what was on hand. Pour heated soup into bread bowls. Serve with shredded cheese or grated parmesan cheese if you wish. My favorite version is French onion broth, cream of chicken with canned mushrooms and green beans topped with Greek yogurt. Soupcon is French for "just a little" and it fits. Though it's only a few cheap canned goods bread, it feels like a feast.
My speedy salsa schpaget was done in 8 minutes. One serving is only about 250 calories, has 15 grams of protein, and cost me about $.40. Not bad. As I had to work late tonight, it was nice to have a hot meatless meal in minutes.
