10 Menu Ideas for When You’re Short on Time

Most of us don’t want to serve convenience food to our families on a regular basis, but once in a while, it can’t be helped.  The schedule is tight or energy is low but we still want to put a decent meal on the table instead of going through a drive-thru.  When you have one of those nights, here are some meal ideas for semi-homemade meals (thank you Food Network’s Sandra Lee for that term).  Here are 10 meals that aren’t quite homemade but not pure convenience food either.

1. Sloppy joes (Manwich sloppy joe sauce is awesome).  Serve with baked fries (Ore Ida has a brand that cookes in 12 to 14 minutes and are really good) and green beans.
2. BLT’s served with hash browns and fruit salad (drain cans of fruit and mix together).
3. Spaghetti w/meat sauce (brown a pound of lean ground beef, drain, add jar of spaghetti sauce).  Serve with garlic bread and salad.
4. Pizza (the best frozen pizza I’ve ever had is Palermos – we especially like the pepperoni and the Greek).  Add a salad and you’re set.
5. Southwest Chicken & Vegetables.  You can find this recipe at http://homemakersdaily.com/?p=219.
6. Chicken Rice Bowl.  You can find this recipe at http://homemakersdaily.com/?p=36.
7. Breakfast Burritoes (scramble eggs with cheese and bacon bits, fill burrito shell and roll up tightly).  Serve with fruit salad.
8. Stir fry (you can buy stir fry meat already cut at the meat counter at the grocery store and purchase stir fry vegetables in the frozen food section).  Serve over instant rice.
9. Pizza Rolls Ups (using refrigerated pizza dough, roll dough into rectangle, sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and other toppings of your choice, roll up jelly-roll style, slice in 1 inch slices, place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 400 for about 10 to 12 minutes).  Serve with heated spaghetti sauce for dipping and a lettuce salad.
10. Grilled cheese with tomato soup.

There you go.  Now you never need to go through the drive-thru again.  Okay.  I know you will but at least you have some options if you’d rather eat at home.

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