Help! in Need of Meal Recipes for My Family

My favorite is savingdinner.com Costs $29.95 a year. She gives you the recipes, grocery list, and side suggestions. I absolutely LOVE it. Been doing it for 3 years now. I still go back and pull old weeks from the archive. Plus, you get all of the nutritional info for each recipe. She has a trial week you can try before you actually sign up.

I'm a big fan of www.menus4moms.com It's a free menu planning site. Basically, you download the menu for the week (FREE) and the grocery list (Free) modify it as you deem necessary and voila. Minimal thinking required. Now, granted all the dishes aren't the healthiest... they vary from chicken and rice (pretty healthy) to tatertot casserole (not so healthy... but a big hit with the kids). My husband and I would shop on Friday and then every Sunday night, we would cook all the meals for the week and pop them in the freezer. It was a bonding experience for us and less stress during the week.

This site helped me just get a routine under my belt and it planned meals already around what was in season and the bill was always under 100$.

Currently, a friend and I plan our families meals together and grocery shop together. We have a system where every monday we have some sort of pasta dish, tuesdays is beef, wed. chicken, thurs sandwhiches, and Friday is pizza. This also gives us some structure so when we are looking for recipes it helps narrow it down to a specific kind. But, when I get in a bind, I always puruse the archives at Menus4moms.com as my back up :)

I have three kids (7, 3, 11months) and she has two kids (5, 3) so structure for us is mandatory in our crazy lives and this has helped us a lot.

Good luck

Here is a tip that I do and it saves me a lot of time during the week!
- Once you find several dishes and casseroles that you like, get enough to double or triple the recipe.
- Take a block of time (like nap time) and cook all of it at once and multi-task. It sounds horrible but if you're organized it gets faster and faster each time.
- Then I divvy up the dishes into small casserole dishes that are enough to feed my family for one meal.
- I use the square cake-sized foil pans, put a layer of foil and write what it is and the baking temp on it, stick it in a large freezer bag, and then stack them on top of each other in the freezer.

This will give us enough meals for a month or more, combined with the few times I cook something fresh, go out, have sandwiches, etc. While the cooking day isn't that fun I love it b/c I don't have to worry about dinner at night. Just pull something out and steam some veggies for the side. Another time saver is to buy the onion seasoning mix that is frozen and already chopped up! :)

Good luck!! :)

Taco Mac n Cheese is a hit at my house:

Cook 1 lb of Ground Beef - Drain
Add 2 Cups of water and noodles from Kraft Mac N Cheese box
Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer with lid for 7 minutes (or until water absorbed and noodles done).
Stir in 1/3 cup of sour cream and cheese pack from the mac n cheese.

I add chopped lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and little sour cream on top for the adults (your kids might be into that too) and serve with some tortilla chips! Yummy!!!

I got this off of the http://www.kraftfoods.com website.

My family enjoys Chicken Broccli casserole. I have a 13 yr old and hubby.

It is bite sized cooked chicken breast (a do ahead) steamed broccli, and a sauce made with mayo, cream of chicken soup and curry. If that sounds interesting, let me know and I will get the recipe. I kindof just do it to our taste but I do have a recipe.

We also like Shake and Bake pork loin and chicken.

City Chicken (little pork/veal kabobs)

I don't do a lot of crock pot stuff. I have a great pot roast but I make it in my cast iron pot on the stove and simmer it all day, then throw the veggies in about an hour before we eat.

We have a lot of pasta. I make homemade marinara.

I love the cookbook Everyday Italian. I have made a lot from that book. The salmon in foil if great (I hate salmon and I will eat this) the seared ribeye is very good too. Yum.

Good luck. Email me if you want any more detail on these.

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Take some time and sit down and write out some ideas of what you would like to make. Then plan them for casseroles or crock pot. These take the least amount of time to cook because you make them and then cook them. Prepare larger portions that you can make into another meal in the work week. Soups, stews, chili, spaghetti sauce are good from the crock pot. Check out the check out counter at the local grocery store for some recipes you can make. Good luck. The other S.

Here is a modified WW recipe - huge hit in my house. Easy to make and reheats really well!

Spray pan with cooking spray
Saute 2 minced garlic cloves until lightly brown.
Add 1 lb ground turkey (or ground 93% beef)and cook until brown (about 5 minutes)
Add one can of black beans, two cans (14.5 oz) diced tomatos, 1 tsp of chili powder and 1 tsp cinnamon (yes, cinnamon!); combine with meat.
Let simmer for about 45 minutes until thickened and meat is cooked through. (stir every 10-15 minutes to keep from sticking to bottom of pan)
Can serve with chips, sour cream and/or avocado!

Very yummy and easy. Enjoy!

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/

Here is a good one...

http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/mini-cannellon...

This isn't a recipe suggestion, but we've gone to Super Suppers and it was great! They have a menu of 12 meals that you put together yourself with fresh ingredients, take home, and freeze, then cook when you're ready. It works out to about $3/serving or less, and it's a fun thing to do with your family. Takes a couple of hours to make 6 servings of 6 meals. It might be worth looking into - I loved the fact that I didn't have to think about cooking all the time. www.supersuppers.com

Hi K., I like www.allrecipes.com
Good luck, and congrats on becoming a SAHM!