Easy Kids Meals

Another different topping pizza tonight; Sloppy Joe.

The recipe was interesting called salsa and grape jelly.  That combination seemed off, so in my usual fashion I substituted my homemade spaghetti sauce for the salsa and used the grape jelly.

• Pizza Dough (I promise I will post my recipe one of these days)

• 1 lb of ground beef

• 1 medium onion chopped

• 1 cup spaghetti sauce

• ½ cup grape Jelly

• ½ cup ketchup

• Mozzarella Cheese

1. Brown the ground beef

2. Add the onion cook till tender

3. Add the spaghetti sauce, grape Jelly

4. Season with garlic powder, salt

5. Cook beef mixture till thickened (about 6 minutes)

6. Heat oven to 450 F

7. Spread out Pizza dough

8. Cover with ground beef mixture

9. Top with Cheese

10. (I wish I had fresh tomatoes, I think they would have a made a nice addition to the pizza giving it some color)

My kids love chutney, we normally have it with rice but I saw a chef making turkey burgers on the Today show on NBC and I thought I would give it a try. Chutney is truly the secret ingredient in this easy dinner.

• 3 lbs turkey

• ½ cup finely chopped onion

• ½ cup chopped fresh parsley

• olive oil

• Worcestershire sauce

• Salt

• Black pepper

• Lettuce leaves

• Baked ham

• Mango chutney

• Slices of Swiss cheese

1. Mix the turkey, onion parsley, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper gently in a large bowl

2. Make 8 patties or in my case 6 larger and 4 smaller ones

3. Preheat grill (I have a George foreman Grill)

4. Cook burgers 8 minutes a side or till done

5. Add Swiss cheese till it melts

6. Assemble burger by placing the lettuce on the bottom, followed by the ham, burger then 1 tablespoon of chutney

Enjoy!

Today we were daring and decided to make homemade pasta.  It seems like an awful amount of work and I thought it would take forever.  The whole process lasted an hour and it lasted that long because of mishaps on my part.  But the fresh pasta was delicious, it didn’t need a heavy sauce, we tossed it in butter and garlic and it was perfect.

• 3 ½ cup flour

• 3 eggs

• 2 tablespoons of water

• water

Put all the ingredients into the mixer and made a hard dough

I have a kitchen aid pasta roller which I used.

Tips – don’t make dough too tough

This seems to be the week of leftovers, so it’s important to disguise the foods so the kids do not realize that they are eating leftovers. I added simple dumplings to our after thanksgiving turkey soup. The original turkey is brothy and has a lot of meat in it. Adding dumplings to it turns it into a richer and completely different tasting soup.   

• 1 cup of flour

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• ½ diced onion

• milk

• 1 tablespoon parsley flakes dried

• 1 egg

1. Break the egg in a half-cup measuring cup

2. Add milk to bring the milk/egg mixture to ½ cup

3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients

4. The mixture will be stiff.

5. Drop the dumplings into your heated soup a teaspoon at a time

6. Bring the soup to simmer for 5 minutes with the lid on.

Those bags of frozen chicken wings make an easy main dinner dish. One of those “fix it and forget it” meals.  The bags used to contain 5 lbs but they dropped the amount to 4 lbs and left the price the same. I always wondered why we no longer had chicken leftover.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F

2. Line a baking pan with foil for easy clean up.

3. Spread the frozen chicken on layer deep on the pan

4. Cover with another piece of foil and bake for 1 hour

5. Remove the foil and season the chicken ( I use salt and pepper)

6. Bake the chicken uncovered till all liquid is evaporated, might take another 45 minutes.

7. Serve the chicken with your choice of favorite sauce.  My kids like bbq sauce.

I serve the chicken with vegetable fried rice.

Not tired of leftover turkey yet? This pizza is sure to disguise the taste of turkey to any turkey-ed out palate.  Since we are always experimenting with pizza topping, I thought we’d give topping a try. 

• ·        Pizza Dough

• ·        2 cups of diced turkey

• ·        2 cups diced tomato

• ·        ½ lb bacon cooked till barely crisp and chopped up

• ·        2 tablespoons of Mayonnaise

• ·        Shredded lettuce about 2 cups

• ·        Olive oil

• ·        2 cups Mozzarella cheese

1.      Stretch pizza dough over pizza stone

2.      Brush olive oil over dough

3.      Spread mozzarella cheese over crust

4.      Sprinkle tomatoes, turkey, and bacon over cheese

5.      Bake till cheese is melted

6.      While crust is baking, toss lettuce with mayonnaise and seasoning

7.      Put the lettuce over cooked pizza serve immediately.

Another recipe for left over turkey; this is a favorite in our family.  This uses left over turkey, left over celery, turkey gravy.

·        1 chopped onion

·        1 chopped bell pepper

·        1 cup chopped celery

·        4 tablespoons butter

·        2 cups cooked turkey

·        6 medium sized potatoes

·        Worcestershire sauce

·        Steak sauce

1.      Cube the potatoes and deep fry

2.      Melt the butter and caramelize the onions, and peppers

3.      Add turkey and sauté till dry

4.      Add potatoes, and sauces to taste.

5.      Salt and pepper to taste

6.      Serve the hash with gravy if desired

This makes a great breakfast, lunch or dinner.

After stuffing yourself with turkey and all the fixings the last thing you are thinking about is cooking another meal. The after thanksgiving turkey sandwich is our favorite sandwich. The dinner rolls I make are large enough to make a small sandwich. Split the roll in half. Layer on the sandwich turkey, stuffing/dressing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato soufflé, collard greens (I cook my thanksgiving green in orange juice and butter – so they are slightly sweet).  My sandwich is usually the largest of the bunch, the kids prefer different combinations. If your rolls aren’t large enough, you can use regular bread. If your leftover aren’t conducive to making a sandwich, plan you next thanksgiving dinner accordingly.

I modified a recipe because I was missing some key ingredients – I didn’t have cucumbers, but had celery instead, so I threw those in there.  It is cooking as we speak.  The kids have always loved corn relish but I was looking for an easy side dish that would look colorful on the dinner table.  This is perfect.

2 cups of frozen corn

I large onion chopped

1 cup of sugar

1 cup cider vinegar

1.5 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 cup chopped celery

1 red bell pepper chopped

½ teaspoon turmeric

Put all the ingredients in a pot, bring to boil and simmer for 30 minutes.  This relish can store in the refrigerator for 3 weeks.

This is the season for slow cookers. Easy kid friendly meals that are tasty and cook all day with minimum fuss. Adults should try horseradish on this sandwich for a surprisingly tasty mixture.  This sandwich goes well with a creamy coleslaw.

Slow cooker bbq beef sandwiches

·        3lb boneless chuck roast

·        1 cup bbq sauce

·        ½ peach preserves

·        1 red bell pepper

·        1 tablespoon mustard

·        2 teaspoon brown sugar

·        1 chopped medium onion

·        12 rolls

1. place roast trimmed into slow cooker
2. mix the rest of the ingredients and pour onto roast
3. cook on low for 7 hours
4. remove roast from cooker and cut into slices and
5. return into cooker for 30 minutes