Last night I decreed it was eggs for dinner. I was tired. It was Thursday night. If we didn’t live 40 minutes each way from the pizza shop, it would have been pizza night.
My plan was to boil 10 eggs, hand everyone a spoon and some toast and call it dinner. The kids promptly announced they didn’t like boiled eggs this week, and requested omelets with cheese, chives, ham, and tomato. In varying combination’s of course. Country Boy suggested poached eggs, and could I whip up some hollandaise to go with it? Figuring that it was all eggs, I (stupidly) agreed that so long as there were eggs, I would make what they wanted (with the exception of the hollandaise).
By the time I had made three omelets to their specifications and poached an egg, Meg was back for seconds.
Finally I started boiling myself some eggs, when Toby requested another omelet. I whipped another up, and in the process, over boiled my eggs. I finally sat down to eat my over cooked eggs, and Toby (who is a bottomless pit) announced he wanted a boiled egg too. I just gave him my second one.
What was meant to be an easy dinner, suddenly wasn’t. Instead, I spent the better part of 30 minutes running an egg station like I was working at the breakfast buffet in a Fijian resort.
Which brings me to the point of this post. What do you do for an easy dinner? What do you cook when you just don’t want to, but pizza isn’t an option? I’m wanting some super quick, super easy, super yummy ideas.
Go!
cheese toasties or stir fry for us but I do love a boiled goog xx
Oh Jo, is there ever such a thing as an easy dinner with kids? Spag Bol iMacs the day before is the closest I get! x
Porridge or pasta with generous amounts of parmesan, pepper & salt.
Loaded potatos – ham/bacon, shallots, corn, leftover mince, cheese, sour cream, mushrooms. They all seem to work. I know exactly what you mean, we are an hour (round trip) from takeaway and every now and then I actually contemplate the trip. For 10 seconds 🙂 Emma
Open toasted sandwiches – toast the bread, in a saucepan add butter, and lots of little cut up capsicum, mushrooms, tomatoes, zuchinni and diced onion. Spread avocado or butter on bread, spread over cooked stuff, top with cheese and melt. Or do the same vegies, add baked beans or any tinned beans into the saucepan, put on top of jacket potatoes and again add cheese and melt. Potato option very filling for a teenage boy.
Or omelettes with grated zuchinni, choppped mushrooms, ham or chicken, capsicum and cheese. Or stir frys.
Or I can whip a quiche with either packet shortcrust pastry or homemade really quickly. Just bake blind then add sliced zuc, broc, capsicum, mushrooms, lots of grated cheese and pour over about 6 beaten eggs with a dash of milk. Done in about 25 mins with a salad.
Or even quicker, egg, bacon and potatoe pie. Peel pots, cook for about 5 mins, cut up into small chunks, put packet puff pastry on bottom of pie dish, add chop pots, about 4 rashers of bacon and about 6 eggs beaten, stick puff pastry on top – bake about 25 mins. Steamed vegies or salad. If don't have bacon, ham works or cold cooked sausages or cold cooked chicken – even tinned salmon or tuna would work too.
I go to the local noodle shop….but that won't work for you! Also, potatoes with cheese on top or variations on that (potatoes with cheese and white sauce in the wok is pretty good too).
French toast or pancakes are our naughty lazy dinners. But I find if I get something in to the slow cooker in the morning I can avoid having to cook when I'm exhausted altogether!
French toast for dinner. Pure genius!
stir fries for us xx
I only live 5 minutes from a pizza shop, but even so, I make sure I always have homemade pasta sauce on hand in the freezer. I make a big batch of bolognese (using a kilo of mince) and also a big white sauce (using a litre of milk) and some cheese. Mix these together and you can either feed a crowd of 12+ or divide up into at least 4 containers to freeze. It takes not much longer to defrost than it takes to cook up the pasta to go with it. My even quicker option (dinner on the table in under 10 minutes) is to cook a large packet of spinach and ricotta ravioli (from fridge section of supermarket – I keep it in the freezer and cook from frozen) and then add generous dollops of butter and sour cream and serve with parmesan. Salad on the side if I'm feeling good!
Egg station at a breakfast buffet, that made me laugh! Although no doubt you didn't think it particularly funny at the time. What is it with boys and their endless capacity for food? A poached egg is my fall back position when I am just cooking for myself (which is pretty rare!) but for the family, toasted sandwiches filled with whatever is lurking in the fridge/pantry; ham, eggs, baked beans, tomato, leftovers (it is a genius way to use leftovers) all with cheese because cheese makes everything better. I try to do a weekly meal plan and the weeks where that doesn't happen ensures chaos rules. Although if I forget to take the planned meal out of the freezer, chaos rules then too…….
Love a toasted sandwich. It transforms a bit of bread into a meal!
Last night I did a quick batch of sausage rolls – frozen pastry, sausage mince with seasonings (onion,oregano etc). Very easy! Another fav is chicken curry and rice; I can have that on the table in 20 mins (as long as chicken is thawed). I use my thermomix also for lots of meals and it is sooo quick and easy!
I have my eye on a thermomix… One day
My quick easy go to meal is stirfry. I have some beef or chicken already cut into strips in the freezer, I have a bag of frozen stirfry veggies in there too. I either use a packet/jar sauce or make my own with garlic, ginger, oyster sauce or honey and soy. Then I whip that in the pan, and then toss thru some hokkien noddles or have boiled brown rice. Yum!!!! Break out the chop sticks and it feels like takeout!
I think I need to get a bit more organised with having stuff in the freezer ready to go. I kind of dropped the ball over the summer holidays and never picked them back up.
That has happened to me more then once. I am trying my hardest to stay on top of it all…and yes organisation is the key.