Fast, low/no cooking meals??

[SASM]

Hi there,

We are going on vacation tomorrow (last week before school starts). We REALLY do not want to go out to eat every night...it's great for convenience but a total budget-buster. Our condo has a full kitchen so I am hoping to find a fair amount of meals that I can make that do not require a lot of time or heat (I do not want to be in a hot kitchen). Rachael Ray meals still take me an hour and even though they are "easy" they still are too intensive for vacation. We are planning on grilling at least 3 dinners. I am probably bringing my crockpot for one meal of pulled chicken or pork BBQ sandwiches. I've already made a cole slaw that I can easily transport. Any other ideas??

TIA!!! Wow...I just realized that I am 10 posts away from 2000!! It only took me 7 years!! :) HA!

[brittone2]

When we do our week at the beach on a budget, we plan on a certain number of dinners out.

We are costco members and there is a costco near where we stay, so we do things like pick up:
-2 rotisserie chickens at $5 each and a big tub of organic salad mix (can do at most grocery stores these days if you can't access costco)
-hamburgers (in my area costco is now selling 2 lbs of already cooked grassfed beef burgers for 11.xx or so. Super easy for dinner w/ a side dish or two.
-coleman hotdogs for the grill
-bratwurst or some of the nitrate/nitrite free sausages that are super easy...just reheat. These can be grilled or thrown in the crockpot
-chipped steak/Steakums/Minute steaks (not from costco) with onions, peppers, mushrooms and cheese. Super fast.

[Jen841]

This is the current crockpot fav in our house.

Ingredients:
uncooked turkey or chicken sausages
1 onion - sliced
2-3 peppers sliced (or 1/2 a bag of TJ's frozen peppers)
1 small can of tomatoe sauce

Cook on low all day.

Serve on hot dog buns, or you could get fancy with hoagie buns

Serve with a fresh veggie and of course dessert since you are on vacation.

[truly scrumptious]

I don't have any quick meal ideas, but here are a couple of quick, healthy veggie dishes that have served me in a pinch:

- Green Beans
Prepare the green beans by de-stringing them (snapping off the ends). Don't bother cutting them.
Steam green beans (about 5-7 minutes) until you can pierce them with a fork. (We like them a little crunchy!)
Hold them under cold running water for a minute
Toss them with 2-3 Tbsp soy sauce, 1 Tbsp sesame oil (optional) and sprinkle on some sesame seeds.
Enjoy!

Because they're still crunchy you can even use your fingers, so they make a great side to grilled burgers!

- Carrots
Chop the carrots into medallions. Sprinkle some rosemary and saute in 2 tbsp butter (or oil) until you can pierce them easily with a fork
Enjoy!

Sorry neither of these is a complete meal, but they make great sides if you want to combine them with something simple like mac and cheese, or burgers.

Hope these help!

[Veronica's Mommy]

I was about to post a recipe, but it takes like 20 (mostly canned) ingredients, kind of a lot to pack or spend time shopping for. Who wants to spend vacation time shopping?

I suggest doing a search for "one-pot meals".

[hillview]

Eggs -- require heat but like 3 mins.
Cut up cheese, fruit and veggies with dip.
Stir fry is fast.
Large salad with canned tuna
Tuna melts in oven (fast/easy)
Pasta is so fast and low heat.

Maybe not what you were looking for ...
/hillary

[KrisM]

What about tacos or chicken rollups? Taco meat is easy and fast to brown, but you do have to warm the shells.

I make chicken roll ups:
precooked grilled chicken strips - heat in a fry pan with a bit of oil
soft tortillas
chopped onions
chopped green pepper
salsa

serve with refried beans from a can.

spaghetti with jarred sauce is fast and easy. Serve with garlic bread and salad.

[kransden]

Is there a Trader Joe's nearby or on the way? You can buy pre-cooked roast beef, lamb and chicken strips. Frozen rice and pasta are there. Hummus, pita, chicken salad in the fresh food area.

[happymom]

Heroes are easy and require no cooking. What about making a baked mac n cheese beforehand that just needs to be heated up quickly when you get there? Or lasagna? You could bring ready-made pizza dough and just throw on sauce and cheese (and toppings if you have time) and stick it in the oven.

[wellyes]

Boil a pot of pasta or tortellini. Mix with a jar of pesto and a little cheese. Mix in chicken and/or grape tomatoes if you have them. Serve with mixed greens, crusty bread and red wine. DELICIOUS!

[vludmilla]

Chicken salad (made with rotisserie chicken or canned chicken)

[SASM]

Thank you so much for the fast, low ingredient recipes!! AWESOME!! We are actually stopping at a TJ's en route to pick up 2 cases of wine and a TON on pancake mix!! :) Adding a few more things to the list is a cinch! Gosh...we miss that place!! Thank you!!

[Melaine]

You probably have enough ideas already, but this is a great "travel" meal:

Taco Soup

1 large can chicken (13oz)
1 can diced tomatoes and chilis 11 oz
1 can diced tomatoes 28 oz
1 can kidney beans 15 oz
1 can black beans 15 oz
1 can whole corn (drained)
1 pkg taco seasoning mix
1 pkg ranch dressing mix

Bring ingredients to a boil and then simmer for a few minutes. Great with shredded cheese, sour cream, chives and tortilla chips.

[srhs]

egoldber posted awhile back about chicken and bbq sauce in the crockpot for a few hours. YUM!!! If you'll have a crockpot, this is so good and so easy!

[KrisM]

Quesadillas (how do you spell that??)
caned chunk chicken
shredded cheese
chopped onions
tortillas

mix the first 3 until it looks good :). Put a bit of oil on a skillet and put one tortilla down. Spread mixture and top with another tortilla. Cook on medium high. Flip after a few mintues.

[justlearning]

If you have your crockpot, you could put in a roast and serve that one night with instant mashed potatoes (we like garlic flavored ones), frozen green beans steamed in the microwave, and rolls. You can then use the leftover meat for sandwiches, stew, quesadillas, etc. For the stew, it's SUPER easy when you buy the bag of soup starter mix that has everything in it. You just add water and add the meat--that's it and takes less than 30 minutes. Serve with crackers, cornbread, grilled cheese, and/or salad and you're set.

We just got back from vacation in a hotel with a microwave but nothing else. I made the roast in a crockpot at home, took meat for sandwiches in an ice chest, and made the stew as described above while I was cleaning up the kitchen. That lasted us for two meals (we ate the stew the second night) and it worked great.

[bnme]

Quick crockpot chili -dump browned ground beef or turkey into the crockpot. Cover with 1 can diced tomato, 1 can tomato sauce, 1 can kidney beans, packet of ortega taco seasoning, few teaspoons ground cloves. Stir and cook on low. Serve with rice and fixings like grated cheddar, salsa, sour cream, shredded lettuce etc. You can add sauted veggies like pepper & onion if you want but it tastes great without it and it is so simple for travel.

[kijip]

Vacation condo dinners that make minimal mess:

Nearly all of these draw from use of a big bag of grilled chicken strips at costco...not how we normally eat, but fast and easy and cheap for vacations.

-Instant mashed potato flakes, chicken strips, frozen veggies

-Annies shells and cheese/white sauce, chicken stripes and frozen broccoli

-Dal out of RTE packets, chicken and minute type rice.

We were able to do all this without a full kitchen even. We had breakfast at the hotel (free), ate lunch out and then had dinner in each night (last night ordered pizza and salads cause we were all packed up to go the next afternoon).

[MontrealMum]

We have just gotten back from our vacation, and as you probably know, we stopped at TJs before we got to our cottage :jammin: What really worked for us:
-bought whole wheat pizza crust, pre-made sauce and various toppings at TJs and did homemade pizza. Not "no-cook", but certainly mindless and easy :)
-bought a rotisserie chicken one night and it saw 2 of the adults (there were 3 adults, 1 child) through 1 dinner and 2 lunches
-did a cold tuna pasta salad which lasted for a bit: rotini pasta, green onions, red pepper, olives, feta and a mayo/vineagar/lemon juice sauce
-we did homemade fettucine one night too; store bought fettucine w/homemade white sauce w/cheese + some veggies
-tacos!!!
-grilled both burgers and steaks
-bought the frozen TJ's salmon and added veggies and rice
-Applegate? hot dogs were a bit of a bust w/DS, but the rest of us enjoyed them
-occasional sandwiches and green salads, though I think dinner salads go better for adults than kids
-got one of those famed simmer sauces and did that w/rice one night
-had TJs orange chicken 2X

I guess that's not no-cook, but it's certainly no-cook in that a lot of it was pre-made and it wasn't *me* doing the big cooking IYKWIM. If you don't want to turn the oven on at all due to heat issues, that's another story (I'd lean towards stove-top dishes and sandwiches), but if you just want to save time - wow, how do I live w/o TJs???? Although we did have a full kitchen, we were able to do all of the above w/minimal mess and clean-up.

[MCsMom]

Kielbasa and sauerkraut?

Just heat both up and serve with mustard...

[MelissaTC]

When we go to the beach, we bring some frozen meals with frozen sides. We transported them in a cooler and since the place had a kitchen, we put them in the fridge and cooked as needed. It was nice to enjoy some "bigger" meals that we never would have considered had we had to prepare them and cook them, like a lasagna like casserole, some Greek inspired salmon, scones that just needed to be baked, etc... It saved us money and frankly, we enjoyed the good food!

ETA that when I say frozen meals, I mean food that I had already prepared or cooked and then froze. Lasagna, chili, some casseroles, marinated meat, etc... travel well.

[gatorsmom]

When we go camping, i bring meat to cook and veggie salads that I"ve already mixed up ahead of time. So, our meals are often hotdogs with pasta salad and a fruit, bratwursts with sourkraut with some sort of fruit or yogurt for dessert, hamburgers or steaks with another salad and fruit for dessert. Those are usually favorites with kids and adults. These are the salads I make. Adults like them for being tasty and kids like to pull the parts out of them that they like (as kids will often do). Fruit makes a good dessert because plums, peaches grapes don't need to be refrigerated. Grapes are the least messy and my favorite to bring. These salads purpose don't have mayo in them so that I don't have to worry about spoilage or food poisoning:


Italian salad- super easy and beautiful

several ripe hothouse or good quality tomatoes sliced
a couple balls of fresh mozzarella or buffalo mozzarella sliced
enough basil leaves to layer between the tomatoes and mozzarella slices
dressing- equal parts vinegar and oil with pesto mixed in to taste
Just slice up the tomatoes and cheese and then layer tomato/basil/cheese/tomato/basil/cheese in a ring around a plate or platter. Drizzle the dressing over the top. yummmmmm

Memory's Pasta Salad


rotini pasta
penne pasta
fresh carrot coins- lightly sauteed
lightly steamed broccoli- lightly sauteed
freshly grated parmesan
pepperonis, like the ones you use on pizzas
cherry tomatoes

mix this all together with Newman's Italian Dressing

**For breakfast I leave out a container of muffins for the kids to help themselves to when they wake up. I find that the kids wake up much earlier when they are sleeping in unfamiliar places so leaving breakfast out for them buys me a little time to wake up in the morning!

HTH. Have fun!

[SASM]

Thank you, ladies!! I printed out the thread and will have quite the variety to choose from. THANK YOU...all of the ideas sound so wonderful!! I just might have to use some for the upcoming insanity, once school and extracurricular activites start messing with our dinner schedule. :)