Snow, ice storms, children home from school, Covid lock downs but you have a family to feed. Tired of the same old? Eating out is expensive and if you have it delivered, tack on a few more dollars! Our children are grown now and no longer live with us, but we still keep eating out to just one or two times per week. We like to prepare something on Sundays that we can eat off for at least half of the week. We have tried many but we have several favorites for the this time of the year.
They are winter friendly, taste good, simple to make and use very common household ingredients.
I could go into so many meal options, but the following is our top 3. The first one is a nice twist on the traditional spaghetti.
- Chickenetti is one of those satisfying meals that is filling but at the same time is not unhealthy. My wife is gluten-free so we use GF pasta and cream of mushroom soup. If you are trying to watch your sodium intake just opt for a lower or no sodium chicken broth. Oh, speaking of chicken broth, this recipe calls for 1/2 cup, but we have learned that it’s much better to use at least 1 full cup keep it from getting to dry. Play around with it, that is one of the best things about this dish, it’s hard to really mess it up! We snagged this one from an Amish cookbook (no, we are not Amish, not that there’s anything wrong with it ;-)). For best results, we buy a whole chicken from the store, cook it and freeze what we don’t use for the next time. You can also use canned chicken but it’s not as good, in our opinion.
2. Laura’s Casserole is another one from an Amish cookbook. Pretty easy to prepare and great for the family. If you are on your own or just two of you, this one can last you several days. We substitute GF cream of chicken soup and pasta for this one as well. A small side salad is great with this dish, if you just desire something else with it. Most of the time, we don’t even have a side with this one.
3. Hamburger Soup is an awesome cold weather meal! We make this one the most and is not difficult to make. Best thing about this one is tastes BETTER the day after you make it. All of the ingredients have had time to blend. SO good! So with this one, just brown the ground beef, celery and onion in a large skillet. We put that in a crock pot and throw the rest of the ingredients in all together and let it cook for about 4 hours. We usually make some GF cornbread with this meal. Enjoy!
Well, I hope you try one or all of these suggestions. Please let me know if you do and share your feedback! Let me know if you have questions as well.
