Cheap & Cheerful Suppers -- or How to have a lazy cooking week

cheese dog taquitos

Friday
Although today was a holiday, I had a lot on my plate for the day. For a couple of weeks, I've been thinking about possible meals I could throw together in about 10 minutes. And what I had come up with was The Canned Food Buffet. It wasn't all canned food, but surprisingly enough, I was able to have everything on the counter and ready for self-serve in 10 minutes. It was quite enough food, and in an odd way, balanced.

• microwaved, baked potatoes, with
• shredded cheese and butter to top them
• canned green beans
• canned peas
• canned olives
• boiled eggs (I made these early in the day)
• leftover chocolate chip cookies

Saturday

• turkey from the freezer, simmered with onions, chili powder, garlic powder, salt and chutney, for a sweet and spicy dish
• pasta-vegetable salad, using last of the garden tomatoes, green peppers and parsley, plus some olives, garbanzo beans, garden herbs, oil and vinegar (I made enough for several lunches during the week, and still had some to add to a pot of soup, on Wednesday.)
• carrot sticks

Sunday

I need to prepare another large main dish. I had thought it would be a turkey-vegetable soup, only to discover that we'd eaten all of the frozen turkey in stock.

So, it's back to the drawing board. I micro-thawed 2 pounds of ground beef and opened a #10 can of tomato paste. I also used some of the canned, whole tomatoes and fresh beet greens from the garden, to make enough Bolognese for 4 nights. Here's night #1:

• spaghetti with Bolognese sauce
• canned green beans
• rhubarb-blackberry sauce from the freezer

Monday

Night #2 on the Bolognese. I cooked a large pot of rice in the afternoon. In a medium casserole dish, I tossed together some of this rice with bolognese sauce, some very wilted, garden greens and a bunch of sliced olives. With a handful of shredded mozzarella on top, the casserole was ready for the oven. Throwing together this dish took about 7 or 8 minutes, once the rice was cooked.

With the bottom of the saucepan of rice, I made some more rice pudding, this time, for me, using vanilla almond milk. While the rice pudding was cooking on the stove, I baked 2 large acorn squash and 5 potatoes. I toasted a couple of cups of almonds for snacking, and some chopped almonds for mixing into my rice pudding. Once the squash and potatoes came out of the oven, the rice-bolognese dish went in for 30 minutes. I was able to take care of a surprising amount of cooking, in about 30 minutes of hands-on work.

• rice, greens and Bolognese casserole
• baked squash (an odd dish to go along with this casserole, but it is what I had, and made a substantial side dish)

Tuesday

I'm low on bread today, so I'll be serving today's Bolognese with a fresh bread product. I think I'll make a triple batch of French bread dough and use a third of it for a deep dish pizza, and the remaining two-thirds of dough for sandwich and toasting bread. Since I baked 2 large squash yesterday, our side dish tonight will be more squash, just heat and eat. Change of plans -- I opened a can of peas and heated them in the microwave.

• deep dish pizza, using Bolognese sauce, French bread dough, mozzarella and sliced olives
• canned peas

Wednesday

Last day of the Bolognese sauce. Today, it becomes soup, when thinned with various leftover liquids in the fridge plus some canned tomatoes.

• tomato beef and vegetable soup (the Bolognese, with canned veggie liquid, black olive liquid, a can of peas plus its liquid, and the last of Saturday's pasta salad), all topped with cheese
• acorn squash muffins

Thursday

I have a busy day, topped off with a meeting tonight. Easy dinner in the plans.

• cheese-dog taquitos
• leftover baked squash
• cole slaw made from some of the last of the garden cabbage

The most of this week's dinners, were made with one very large pot of spaghetti meat sauce, Bolognese. I was occupied with a lot of details and work for the week, and what I needed was something along the lines of easy. This worked. 

What were your meals like this past week? We're using a lot of canned vegetables, these days, primarily for cost, but also, ease. Do you usually use fresh, frozen or canned vegetables in winter?

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!