Need help- any cooks out there?

Ashley's mommy wrote in
m:

Hi,

I have a 2 year old daughter and a husband. I am a SAHM. The only
problem is I'm not good at it (meals, that is). It's not that I don't
cook well, I just don't have any creativity to even come up with meal
ideas. This may be hard to believe, but I literally stress over what to
cook for dinner, because I can never think of anything. I have bought
countless cookbooks, even the "easy meals" books and everything is too
extravangant. I am looking to see samples of what you all are cooking

If you've bought "countless cookbooks", no wonder you can never work out
what to cook: you have far too much choice. Anyway, most cookbooks don't
tell you about the basics, which in the UK might be sausages one day,
mince and carrots, and grilled pork chops the next.

[snip]
just repeat it over and over again. My meals are so boring. Tonight I
am making boneless chicken breasts (shake n bake) with frozen broccoi
and mixed veggies. BORING! Please help!

FWIW, I get really bored with food every so often.

I don't know what shake'n'bake is, but I guess it is some kind of seasoning
mix. If you can work out roughly what is in it, then you could start to
make your own version, varying the herbs/spices.

FWIW, some of the meals we have had recently:
- stir-fried pork strips, with stir-fried vegetables and rice
- chicken tikka and rice (mix indian spices with yoghurt, add cubed chicken
for a while. Cook in the oven for 25 minutes.)
- pasta with ham and peas
- spaghetti with breadcrumbs and bacon bits
- sausages
- baked fish

HTH

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

"Sophie" wrote in message ...
, You
can cook frozen chicken breasts in the crockpot - just mix sour cream and
cream of chicken soup, pour on top, cook 10 hrs.

Sophie --

is this just a 'see how it looks' recipe, or do you measure the sour
cream? I just tried something with sour cream in it for the first
time this summer and loved it, and I'm sure my husband would like
this, too. I'm a big crockpot advocate, too. Let me know if you
measure it, if you get a chance.

Tina.

"Tina" wrote in message
m...
"Sophie" wrote in message
...
, You
can cook frozen chicken breasts in the crockpot - just mix sour cream
and
cream of chicken soup, pour on top, cook 10 hrs.

Sophie --

is this just a 'see how it looks' recipe, or do you measure the sour
cream? I just tried something with sour cream in it for the first
time this summer and loved it, and I'm sure my husband would like
this, too. I'm a big crockpot advocate, too. Let me know if you
measure it, if you get a chance.

Tina.

Oh no, I follow recipes to the T, so much so it drives my husband nuts -
lol. It's one can of soup and one pint of sour cream. I think I got that
recipe from about.com. They have TONS of crockpot recipes.

Enjoy

Ashley's mommy wrote in message ws.com...
Hi,

I have a 2 year old daughter and a husband. I am a SAHM. The only
problem is I'm not good at it (meals, that is). It's not that I don't
cook well, I just don't have any creativity to even come up with meal
ideas. This may be hard to believe, but I literally stress over what to
cook for dinner, because I can never think of anything. I have bought
countless cookbooks, even the "easy meals" books and everything is too
extravangant. I am looking to see samples of what you all are cooking
on a daily basis. Lunch and dinner ideas. I think one of the problems
is we only want to eat healthy in our house due to fighting weight
problems. We try to stay slim, so we don't want to cook things like
fish sticks and tater tots. Could I trouble some of you to give me a
weekly example of what you are making for dinner? This may seem
extremely silly but I need help. If any of you want to offer the
recipes to some of your easy but healthy meals, I would greatly
appreciate it. I am really stressing over this, and I want to get a
good rotation of meals going. Once I have a good week's menu, I can
just repeat it over and over again. My meals are so boring. Tonight I
am making boneless chicken breasts (shake n bake) with frozen broccoi
and mixed veggies. BORING! Please help!


I don't know how healthy, overall, our meal choices are, but I try to
keep things balanced, and for the last year I've been cooking
everything from scratch while we adjusted to my daughter's food
allergies and a move that changed all our grocery options!

One of the absolute easiest meals I make is roasted pork loin, I think
it's called. My store sells it plain or seasoned already, and I like
to get it plain and season it myself, so it's possible that one of the
three steps would be eliminated here for you. It's a long skinny
boneless piece of pork, they sell them in about 1.25 pound sizes here.
All you have to do it 1 - season it and 2 - put it in a 9x13 glass
(pyrex) pan. Then, 3 - cook it at 350 for about 45 minutes per pound.
I use an electronic meat thermometer, and when it goes off (meaning I
have about 5 minutes left), I take the meat out, turn the veggies on,
and set the table. The only seasoning I use is cracked pepper and
garlic, either minced or powder; You just cover the entire thing in
pepper and garlic. It's pretty good.

I always have rice or pasta cooked in the fridge, good for lunches for
the kids and side dishes. I've never done this, but I hear you can
cook rice in a covered dish in the oven at the same time as other
foods -- 2c. water, 1c. rice, 1tsp. margarine/butter, 45 minutes.

Cooking a turkey or turkey breast is really very easy, and you can
make potatoes in the same pan/roaster. Carrots, too, and I hear
Parsnips can be put in there too?

I'm planning a lot of shishkabob dinners after my garden starts
growing.

I sometimes make a shake-n-bake type chicken, but I just use
breadcrumbs, garlic, salt, onion, pepper, maybe some chili
powder...it's very forgiving, and you can alter it however you want.
Also, if you use Japanese breadcrumbs (I don't recall the specific
name of them, but they're in all the stores around here, in the
international section and there's a huge picture of a shrimp on the
package) alone or with regular breadcrumbs, it makes it different,
too.

I definitely depend on a pasta night once a week. Lately, I've been
doing sandwiches maybe 2x/month -- but feeling horrible about it
unless I also make soup. And a lot of times, cutting up things for
sandwiches is tedious, to me.

For a long time I was baking my own bread, too -- time consuming, but
not difficult, I promise! -- that always seems to make sandwiches or
soup (or stew or chili), without sandwiches much nicer. And if you
can't eat a whole recipe in a few days, well, there's your breadcrumbs
for the next shake-n-bake type meal!

Tacos/burritos -- I think they make for a lot to clean up, but they're
easy to fix, and recently I've switched from beef to the frozen
Morningstar farms griller stuff -- much healthier.

I did find at one point, that actually writing a menu out before
making my grocery list and fitting in expected leftovers throughout
the days really helped -- then you can vary the easier/harder meals,
etc...

Good luck!

Tina.

Do you have a Trader Joe's anywhere nearby? If so, pick up some of their
cooking sauces. We especially like the green curry sauce, which is spicy,
but delicious. Cook boneless chicken breasts in it, serve over jasmine rice.
Peas on the side.

Potato cubes in Masala sauce is popular here. I add zucchini at the last
minute, again served with rice.

Another favorite are green chili enchiladas. They take maybe 10 minutes to
make, tops! One can of vegetarian refried beans, grated jack and cheddar
cheese and flour tortillas plus a can of green enchilada sauce. Pour a bit
of the sauce on the bottom of a glass pan. Spread a good spoonful of the
refritos on a flour tortilla, then add grated cheese. Roll and repeat until
pan is full. Pour the green sauce all over the rolled enchiladas, top with
more grated cheese. Serve with a tossed green salad.

Steelhead trout with a lime cilantro butter sauce, asparagus and french
garlic bread is a staple.

My kids LOVE salmon patties, which are also easy to make and very good for
you, even though they are fried. You take a couple of large cans of pink
salmon (red is more expensive) and debone them. Place in large bowl. Add 3-4
eggs, matzoh meal or Panko for filler, garlic salt and crab boil seasoning.
Mix well and form into patties, the size of a big hamburger. Heat vegetable
oil in a heavy saucepan, fry the salmon patties until dark golden brown on
both sides. Serve with fresh peas and a caesar salad.

Hope these family favorites give you some different ideas.

Marjorie

Penny Gaines wrote:

Ashley's mommy wrote in
m:

Hi,

I have a 2 year old daughter and a husband. I am a SAHM. The only
problem is I'm not good at it (meals, that is). It's not that I don't
cook well, I just don't have any creativity to even come up with meal
ideas. This may be hard to believe, but I literally stress over what to
cook for dinner, because I can never think of anything. I have bought
countless cookbooks, even the "easy meals" books and everything is too
extravangant. I am looking to see samples of what you all are cooking

If you've bought "countless cookbooks", no wonder you can never work out
what to cook: you have far too much choice. Anyway, most cookbooks don't
tell you about the basics, which in the UK might be sausages one day,
mince and carrots, and grilled pork chops the next.


Yep. What I do is serve the same dinner on Tuesday nights so that for
one day a week I know what I'm doing. The rest of the week, I serve
those "boring" dinners following the same formula as another poster:
1 starch, usually rice or pasta;
1 protein, beef, pork, chicken, fish
2 veggies, usually some frozen veggie and salad

We don't have dessert everyday.

If I had to buy a cookbook, I would get Mark Bittman's Minimalist
Cook(ing?). I borrowed it from the library and found myself using it
fairly often.

While this formula seems boring, it keeps me sane.


Jeanne

Do you have a Trader Joe's anywhere nearby? If so, pick up some of their
cooking sauces. We especially like the green curry sauce, which is spicy,
but delicious.

Here we don't have TJ's, (so I don't know specifically what they have), but I
do the same thing quite often with a variety of other commercial sauces. Curry
sauces, salsa (not just the standard tomato ones, but black bean, corn or
whatever, chow-chows (I used to be able to buy a fantastic chow-chow -- a few
tablespoons perked up a pot of beans or a pasta salad instantly -- if anyone
knows where to find Stubbs Chow Chow anymore, let me know!), ajtvar (a balkan
sauce with eggplant and peppers and spices), caponata, tapanade, jerk
seasonings ... anything at all.
Works great to vary what would otherwise be very simple and retative meals.
(Can add them to almost any meat or vegetarian meal!).

Naomi

Ashley's mommy wrote in message ws.com...
Hi,

I have a 2 year old daughter and a husband. I am a SAHM. BORING! Please help!

You can do simple, fast, easy and flavorful. I feed 7 people for
dinner every night (plus entertain a breastfeeding infant).
Homemade pizza: crust: is 3-2-1. 3 cups flour, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 cup
warm water. (1 package active dry yeast). Activate the yeast in the
warm water with a tbsp sugar. After is starts foaming mix it with the
flour and add the oil (and other seasonings like garlic powder, basil,
onion powder, salt and pepper, if you like). Add enough flour to make
a soft dough and knead it ten times. Let it rise to double (about an
hour) punch it down. Rise again if desired (or you have time to kill).
I don't have a round pan so I take a cookie sheet line it with foil,
lightly grease it (I don't keep corn meal in my pantry or I'd use
that) and roll out the dough on that, add sauce and cheese and
toppings and bake for 15-20 minutes on bottom rack of oven at 375 or
so.

Homemade hamburger helper: brown 1 lb of ground beef or ground turkey,
add small chopped onion if desired. Season with pepper, few dashes of
thyme and a couple splashes of Worcheshire sauce. Add one small jar or
can of beef gravy (i pick whatever has the least amount of salt). Add
a cup or two of peas (or other vegetable) and half bag of cooked egg
noodles. Mix and heat through and add salt if necessary.

Herbed pork chops: brown pork chops in a little oil/butter, cook
almost completely. Remove to plate. In drippings add 1-2 tbsp basil,
thyme OR tarragon, 1/2 of a beef or chicken buillion cube and 1/2 cup
water or white wine. Use whisk or spoon to scrape up drippings and
simmer this until bouillion cube is dissolved. Mix 1 tbsp of flour and
1 cup milk, mix well. Add to sauce in pan. Mix well over low heat. Add
accumulated juice from plate with chops on it. Mix this all well until
it starts to thicken. put chops back in, finish cooking for a few
minutes. This tastes fancy but is so easy.

My best advice would be not to be afraid of spices and seasonings. A
little marinade, or some herbs can make what was a bland meal a really
yummy meal.

Karen

In article , Bruce and Jeanne says...

Penny Gaines wrote:

Ashley's mommy wrote in
m:

Hi,

I have a 2 year old daughter and a husband. I am a SAHM. The only
problem is I'm not good at it (meals, that is). It's not that I don't
cook well, I just don't have any creativity to even come up with meal
ideas. This may be hard to believe, but I literally stress over what to
cook for dinner, because I can never think of anything. I have bought
countless cookbooks, even the "easy meals" books and everything is too
extravangant. I am looking to see samples of what you all are cooking

If you've bought "countless cookbooks", no wonder you can never work out
what to cook: you have far too much choice. Anyway, most cookbooks don't
tell you about the basics, which in the UK might be sausages one day,
mince and carrots, and grilled pork chops the next.


Yep. What I do is serve the same dinner on Tuesday nights so that for
one day a week I know what I'm doing. The rest of the week, I serve
those "boring" dinners following the same formula as another poster:
1 starch, usually rice or pasta;
1 protein, beef, pork, chicken, fish
2 veggies, usually some frozen veggie and salad

We don't have dessert everyday.

If I had to buy a cookbook, I would get Mark Bittman's Minimalist
Cook(ing?). I borrowed it from the library and found myself using it
fairly often.

While this formula seems boring, it keeps me sane.

It also works better for families with kids who are fussy and want plain,
predicatable foods. Like my son. Honest - I was very different as a child; my
mom cooked up a storm, and I served all kinds of things to him as a baby and a
toddler, but at about 2 1/2 - bam! It was plain chicken or plain fish and bread
and fries. And nothing mixed together.

So we eat a lot of fishes (one of his first words "foish", he's always loved it
so much, and it's healthy), fresh bread (one of his other first words "bwe"),
pasta, steamed veggies. I roast chickens and turkey breasts and freeze portions
for the future.

But all these ideas about interesting sauces and crock-pot stews - forget it for
us. Unless I want to short-order cook something different for myself. But I'm
also a practitioner of the Keep It Simple principle.

Banty (whose cooking skills have atrophied the past 10 years....)

Easy is key for me. Healthy? yes. but not necessarily low fat.

For example,

coat boneless chicken breasts with bread crumbs mixed with parmesan
cheese. Saute in olive oil/butter mixture. In separate pan, saute
chopped fresh tomatoes, garlic, basil, and a squeezed lemon in some
olive oil. When chicken's done, serve with sauce on top or on side (I
have older kids who like PLAIN food). This sauce is delicious. Serve
with saute'd broccoli (steam if worried about fat) and some sort of
rice or potato (my DH cannot do without his starches). The chicken is
also quite good cooked this way even without the sauce -- what could
be easier?

Saute a chopped onion and a couple of chopped garlic cloves in olive
oil. Add some cumin and cayenne pepper. Saute. Add some chopped fresh
red pepper. Saute until veggies are soft. (can also add chopped
zucchini or some frozen corn) Add a (19 oz) can of black beans and a
can of red kidney beans, mostly drained, but with some of the juice
still there. Add about half a can of canned whole tomatoes, which you
crush up with your hands as you add them in. Plus about half the
tomato juice from the can. Cook, stirring frequently, until the liquid
is mostly cooked off and the beans are mushy (30 to 45 mins). Plop
into warmed-up hard taco shells or soft tortilla wraps. Add, to taste,
sour cream, hot sauce, chopped jalapenos, etc. Serve with salad?

Saute pork in a bit of oil until brown on both sides. Cover with white
wine, canned veggie broth, or a combo of the two. Cook until done (20
mins?). In separate pot, mix light cream, mustard, and a teaspoon of
corn starch. Stir over heat until it thickens. Maybe some tarragon?
Serve pork without the cooking liquid, with the sauce. Serve with
baked beets tossed with red wine vinegar and/or orange or lemon juice
plus butter and a starch of some sort (rice, potato).

To bake beets, cut off the greens and stems. Leave skins on and wash
well. Cover with foil in a baking dish and cook in 400 degree oven for
about 1.5 or 2 hours. Pierce with fork to ensure doneness to taste (I
like beets very well cooked). When cooled somewhat, pull the skins
off, slice the beets, and toss with whatever you like. They taste
great with some kind of citrus plus vinegar plus a bit of butter. Or,
serve on top of greens with your favorite vinaigrette and some goat
cheese.

Other nice veggies: sute the broccoli in olive oil. At end, add
chopped kalamata olives and garlic. Makes them taste so "special".

For mashed potatoes: in separate pan, saute some garlic in butter and
add that when mashing. Use half-and-half or light cream instead of
milk when mashing. Again, makes 'em taste more special. Also, use a
good potato like a yukon gold. Makes a big difference in the flavor of
the mashed potatoes.

Just some ideas...