School is right around the corner for us which means the pace of life is going to pick up. School all day, then violin or soccer or tae kwon do, birthday parties, homework and on and on and on. One thing that is super important to us is that we all sit down together to have dinner. It doesn’t happen every single day of the year, but most days we make it happen. Sometimes that means we don’t eat until late…like really late…but at least we’re eating together.
One of my time-saving tricks on these nights is to have the kids shower while I am making dinner and they just eat dinner in their pajamas…that way we’re getting two things done at once and they’re all dressed for bed before dinner even begins.
Another timesaver is making sure that everyone is helping out. Someone can get out the plates while someone else gets the silverware out. Someone can get the drinks ready while someone else gets out the napkins…divide and conquer.
I have gathered a lot of super quick recipes to share with you, but instead of giving them out all at once, I thought I would start us off with a sampling and give you some new ones as the year progresses. That way you’ll have some new ideas under your belt throughout the year without having to try and remember all of these recipes from all the way back in August when you’re trying to find a quick dinner in February.
First of all, we have a couple of “go to” quick dinners at our house. No recipe necessary, but I thought I would put them on this list anyways.
1. Breakfast for dinner: Eggs, bacon/sausage, some fruit and maybe some toast
2. Pasta: pasta with some salad on the side…super fast. We usually have some fruit with it too.
3. Hamburgers: we usually have hamburgers with chips (we LOVE Kettle chips) and some fresh fruit
The rest of the dinners on this post are Crock Pot/slow cooker dinners:
4. Tacos are a super duper fast dinner. We keep ours pretty simple with some taco meat, salsa, cheese and these refried beans.
5. Our kids love this CrockPot Lasagna. Serve it with some salad and some fruit and call it a meal.
6. CrockPot BBQ Brisket Sandwiches: serve these with some fruit and this make ahead cole slaw and dinner will be ready when you walk in the door.
7. CrockPot Ravioli Lasagna with some fruit and a salad and…voila…dinner.
8. Slow Roasted Crock Pot Chicken…this cooks the chicken and the veggies all at the same time. Serve with some bread and butter and dinner is done.
9. West Caribbean Crock Pot Chicken…this might be a little too adventurous for the eaters as your house. It’s really, really good though.
10. This recipe for CrockPot Hawaiian Pulled Pork is seriously one of my favorite recipes on this whole blog. Have it with some Kettle chips and some pineapple…so good! Seriously.