I Need Dinner Help For Next Week...A Challenge

[pickyprincess]

Here is my favorite budget buster recipe:

Here is how I cook dried beans in my crockpot without pre-soaking.
Combine the following in a 6 qt. crock pot:
3 pounds of dried beans - I use 2 lbs. black beans and 1 lb. pinto
1 tsp. cumin
3 TBS kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp black pepper
3 TBS olive oil
6 TBS minced, dried onion
Water to within 1 inch of the top of the crock

Set to cook on low. Cook 8-10 hours.

These make enough for 3 meals for my family of 8. We have them with rice one night (You could make rice night before and just microwave to re-heat), with cornbread one night (again, you could make this night before), and one night as meat-free nachos. We put the beans for that night through the blender and call them re-fried beans. I serve them with cheese, micro-cooked frozen corn, and tortilla chips.

Add a salad to any (or all) of these meals and they get very healthy. Even better, fill up on salad as an appetizer and then just have smaller meal portions.

HTH!

And... make enough so you can get two nights out of it. You could also do a big pot of spaghetti with whole grain pasta two night meal as well. Another quickie we like to do is low sodium tomato soup, provolone grilled cheese on whole grain bread with steamed broccoli.

 

[RadioFanatic]

My fave low fat crockpot recipe:

put 3-4 chicken breasts (can even be frozen)
one jar salsa
one jar chunked pineapple

or in place of the pineapple, you can do a can of corn and/or chickpeas and/or black beans - rinse each of these though.

after it's in the crockpot for 4 hours, I break up the chicken and then use if on rice or in tortillas or taco shells. I've even used it to make taco salad.

 

[Suz D]

These are all excellent sounding meal ideas.... but doesn't your family go a little nutty having chicken 5 or 6 days in a row?? ........P

Each meal is pretty different so it doesn't get boring. We eat mostly chicken (obviously) so we're used to it. Also, things like the fried rice are practically meat free because I use very little chicken and dice it really small. Same with the wraps.

It really is a time and $$ saver for us. We're big on eating out and it really does help to have something ready for dinner so we don't cave in to the temptation to eat out.

I also have an excellent cookbook that I bought for $1.99 on Amazon that is all recipes for what to do with a rotisserie chicken. It's one of my favorite cookbooks. Another good cookbook is Desperation Dinners.