December 14, 2022

Our Favorite Easy and Quick Dinners

So someone asked me for my favorite easy dinner recipes for a blog post today and I made a joke- here’s my secret recipe:

Step 1- Marry a man who likes to do the cooking

Step 2- Pour a drink

I was a joke… but it’s also pretty true. Andrew does cook dinner every night (or order dinner if we’re too busy/lazy, etc.). Since we both work full time jobs, we split our household duties half and half, and he actually likes cooking whereas I am more of a baker,  that job is his. He also gets irrationally angry about how every other human being on earth loads the dishwasher, so he does the dishes as well, simply to avoid conflict ( I KNOW, I’M LUCKY!). We’ve found ourselves SO busy and tired lately though that even quick meals have been hard to prep for and make and we were ordering out way more than we wanted too (Doordash costs a FORTUNE now!). We’ve tried a bunch of meal kit  delivery services and none have floored us (and I think we’ve tried them ALL) so we’ve gotten into either slow cooker meals we can make a lot of and freeze the extras or sheet pan meals. My kids are still heavy into mac and cheese, plain pasta, chicken nuggets and pizza so they rarely share in what we have. Our most used cookbooks with fantastic easy recipes are by Gina Homolka of Skinnytaste. It sounds like a diet cookbook, but it’s just cleaned up, good, simple meals. You don’t need odd ingredients you can only find in some off the beaten path Ayurvedic shop or whatever.  Our faves are her first book , One & Done and Fast and Slow.

Pumpkin, Turkey and White Bean Chili

My winter ride or die meal- even better for lunch the next day. I add some shredded cheddar on top.

Classic Bolognese

Tried recently and was SO good- try over cauliflower rice, pasta or probably anything honestly… also freezes like a champ)

Pasta Fagioli Soup

Another repeat fave- I add an extra can of white beans or red beans in the soup (not pureed) for a heartier soup and more protein.

 

Greek Sheet Pan Chicken

We add kalamata olives towards the end of roasting- this is so easy and good!

Other sheet pans dinners I want to try from her site: Sheet Pan Thanksgiving, One Pan Parmesean Chicken and Broccoli

Another vegetarian dish I’ve been making for years (this is MY speciality) is this Martha Stewart recipe I found YEARS ago- one pan, SO GOOD!!!

One Pan Orecchiette With Chickpeas and Olives

I’ve probably made that one 30 times since I found the recipe!

So there ya have it! Link to any easy, quick recipes you love in comments please!