Thursday, September 04, 2008

Menu Ideas - Dinner

I've loved reading up on all of the menu ideas that have been posted. We have tried "mixing up" our normal breakfast and lunch routine with several of your suggestions. Thank you all for your suggestions.

My most thought out meal of the day is dinner. I always make my "dinner menu" before I head out to the grocery store. I have found that this saves time and money when shopping for a family of five. I find that I probably fix the same thing a couple of times a month. There are weeks where our dinners are more Italian or Mexican (when I am trying to get more than one meal's worth out of the french bread or the tortillas). I love cooking dinner for my family and friends!

I want to break this "Menu Ideas - Dinners" into several posts over the next few weeks. Please share some of your favorite meals. I'm sure that WE all love having something new to try!

Dinner - Main Dish
*Here is one of our favorites.

Spaghetti Casserole
(from my Mimi)

1# ground chuck
green bell pepper - diced
onion - diced
whole tomatoes (15 oz. can)
sharp cheddar cheese
spaghetti
salt/pepper
Tbsp. sugar

1. Brown meat, onion, pepper and drain. Cook spaghetti according to package directions.
2. Chop tomato and add (with the tomato juice) to meat mixture.
3. Add salt/pepper (to taste) and sugar.
4. Pour cooked spaghetti into the meat and stir.
5. Pour spaghetti and meat into a casserole dish.
6. Top with cheese and bake at 350 until the cheese is melted.

*I always get all of my ingredients chopped before I start to cook. I just work better this way. This is a great meal to "half" and freeze (just save the cheese for later). Or you could "half" this meal and take to someone that just had a baby or is sick.

Now it's your time to share one of your family's favorite "main dishes"!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yea!!! I am so excited that you are doing this! Our family favorite is a recipe from Corey's mom.

Chicken Casserole:
4-5 Chicken breasts (I use 2 cans of chicken)
3 cups of chicken broth (I use 3/4 can of broth)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of celery soup
1 pkg. (plain) cornbread stuffing mix

Boil chicken until tender and reserve 3 cups of broth. (Or do like I do and drain 2 cans of chicken.) Put chicken in greased 9x13 casserole dish. Put can of mushroom soup and celery soup on top. Then put cornbread stuffing mix on top of that. Pour 3 cups of broth or about 3/4 can of chicken broth (like I do) on top and then bake at 400 for 35-40 min. or until bubbly.

**I take the shortcut of using canned chicken and broth because I don't have time to cook the chicken and pull it all apart. I know that it is not as good for you but oh well.

Sunny: We tried your baked spaghetti and it was so yummy! Thanks for the recipe!

TARA said...

MeMa's Swiss Steak

1 pound round steak cut into 3-4" strips. Flour meat, put in frying pan that has about 1/4 cup hot oil. Lightly brown meat on both sides. Add 1/2 stick butter, 1 chopped onion. Pour 1 large can crushed or diced tomatoes over meat. Add 1 can cream of mushroom soup. Add a can of sliced mushrooms if you prefer or can omit if they make you gag. Add 1 T worchestershire, salt and pepper to taste.

Cover skillet and simmer on low until meat is tender (about 45 min's) The tomatoes tenderize the meat and makes a good gravy when it cooks down with the soup.

We serve this with creamed potatoes or over rice. Peas and biscuits finished our meal last night.

Ashley @ pure and lovely said...

peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches. just kidding. i dont know any off the top of my head. ill have to get this sleeping baby off me and come back and post later. ;)