Usually my wife and I will eat the leftovers from the supper from the night before for lunch, reheating in the microwave is easy and generally the food is good. There are times though when they're are no leftovers, and we don't feel like making a meal so we look for easy alternatives. We do keep a small quantity of frozen meals that we purchase in the grocery store to fill in. Stouffer's is one of the companies we enjoy there frozen meals. I was wondering if there was any frozen meal company or frozen meal that you consider good and would be worthwhile trying. Any suggestions for easy meals to make other than P&J sandwiches?
I like to keep a couple of Marie Callender's pot pies in the freezer, and some Gorton's crunchy fish fillets. You will probably be horrified, but we also like Rao's jarred vodka sauce on pasta . An easy meal to throw together is taco salad, or pick up a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.
OK, a few more... grilled cheese sandwiches, easy soups, eggs (omelet or any way), bagged salads. Take a page from @John Brunner 's book and cook in larger batches and freeze several days of leftovers.
Thanks, I forgot we actually have a half a bag of Frozen Gordon fish fillets and tartare sauce left from a couple of weeks ago I could have had a sandwich to day. We were scratching our heads trying to figure out what to have for lunch today.
All good suggestions. I'm going to make a list so the next time we're pondering what to eat I can just refer to it. I'm the problem I don't like a lot of things I won't eat pot pies my wife and daughter love them. Rao's is a very good jar source we've used it, however we've had tomato sauce the last 3 days between pasta and pizza and chicken parmesan. Grilled cheese would have been a great lunch unfortunately I didn't have cheese in the refrigerator. One of the problems is I haven't grocery shopped in a while, my daughter's car is in a body shop being repaired so she's using my car she had a fender bender a couple of weeks ago, by the time she gets home from work, I'm just not in the mood to go shopping, if I don't shop early I usually don't shop. I should have shopped this past weekend but she needed the car when she was done with it I was too tired. We figured if we can get a few frozen meals they're all self-contained just pop them in the microwave or oven. As far as making larger batches we don't really have space to store a lot the mobile home doesn't have large refrigerator freezer section.
-Beef goulash is a good thing to make ahead and freeze. (I just uploaded my recipe here.) -I'll roast a chicken, bone it, make gravy, then freeze Chicken & Gravy in individual servings. You can serve it as a main dish, have it for an open faced sandwich, even use it with mixed veggies to stretch a frozen pot pie into 2 real meals (because most pot pies are all crust.) You can do this with a rotisserie chicken by simmering the carcass, bones & boning scraps in canned broth for a while and thickening that to make the gravy. -Make a batch of hard boiled eggs...they keep for a week in the fridge. I write their Expiry Date with a Sharpie right on the shell. My dinner tonight was a salad with a chopped egg and thawed rotisserie chicken on it. -I'll keep shredded beef, shredded pork and shredded chicken in vacuum seal or Ziploc bags so I can just break off a serving or two for meals. It's pretty versatile. You can roll it in a tortilla, make a sandwich, heat it in gravy made from a dry packaged mix for a main course, etc. (I keep a selection of packaged gravy on hand.) -Make a batch of taco filling and freeze it in a Ziploc bag. You can bust off however many servings you need, and make tacos or roll them into burritos or just mix in with Spanish rice. -I'll freeze sides that go with lots of stuff in individual servings, like Spanish rice, curry rice, fried potatoes. -Instant mashed potatoes are your friend, and can be a flavorful way to thicken soups & gravies. The ones where you add your own milk & butter keep longer (the kind that already contains dairy goes rancid quickly.) -I use canned & frozen veggies because I can always have a variety on hand, and most data shows that canned & frozen have more nutrition that fresh because they are processed so quickly after being picked. -Here's a recipe for Creamy Bow Tie Pasta With Sausage and Peppers that is simple, delicious and freezes well. It looks weird, but it's very good. (I know, it's not authentic paisan.) -I stopped freezing soups because canned is "good enough," and soup takes up a lot of freezer room. I could probably come up with more if I dig through my recipes. edit to add: While I was typing this, you commented you have a lack of fridge/freezer space. Some of the above still makes a decent meal. Rotisserie chickens are very versatile and about the same cost as cooking your own. Regarding frozen dinners: Stouffer's is my favorite brand, too. If space is limited right now, get your salads at the salad bar at the grocery store. It's still cheaper (and better for you) than fast food. If you're cooking, get your chopped veggies there as well until you get back in a house. Get a large cooler with ice to stretch your fridge space. I don't know if there's a place you can keep it outside in the cold air that's critter-proof.
Do that Bow Tie Pasta. It's fast without a ton of ingredients. The Hungarian Goulash is gonna be too much for your current situation. Maybe we need to post some CrockPot recipes, since they are one-appliance dishes. @Beth Gallagher does some Crock Pot roasts that make for a nice main dish and then sandwiches for the next couple of days. You can set it up the night before to make oatmeal. Perhaps you could pick up an Instant Pot. Doesn't @John West use his a lot?
Since we got the Crock-Pot we've been using it often it's one of my favorite kitchen appliances. Last time we did the chicken with the cream of chicken soup it was really good. We had a book of all handwritten hand-me-down recipes and printouts of recipes from online that we really liked we haven't been able to find it yet. A few weeks back I was in the thrift store and I picked up a slow cooker cookbook, my wife said there's a few recipes she wants to try. We had problems with the stove in both mobile homes we were very fortunate we told the mobile home people about it and a week later they came and installed two new flat top Electric stoves.
I freeze a lot of food to make "fast food" meals. Grilled or fried hamburgers is a good one to freeze. Make a pork roast in the crock pot for one meal and shred the rest for BBQ sandwiches.
Because of the amount of sodium in frozen meals (pot pies/tv dinners) we don't buy much. But, our fast meals generally are: grilled cheese, Campbells soup or leftovers from previous night.
Yup. I'll buy a 5# package of ground beef on sale/markdown, get home, start the grill on my way in, make patties, grill them, then throw them in the freezer for a bunch of fast burgers. I do the same thing with hot dogs.
Check out the sodium difference between regular Campbell's soup and their Healthy Request, if you've not already.
When we first got married being we both worked Sunday was our prep day for food. We cook enough for meals during the week. When we made pasta we made it four times the normal amount of sauce this way we could freeze some. Since we retired we don't do it as much because time is not tight.