I made a cookbook recipe called –  American Chop Suey, ground chuck, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, onion, celery, bell pepper, and garlic with elbow macaroni that cooks in the pot.  I didn’t have elbows, so substituted shells.  Looking at the recipe, I didn’t think it was “tomatoey” enough so, added a can of tomato paste.  I thought it came out good, sort of like a homemade version of hamburger helper, but something was off a little, so the next time I used the same recipe still using the paste, but added a little sugar.  The sauce part of it did fine, but I substituted spaghetti noodles, which I added too much, and while it tasted good, it was very dry.  It makes a lot, but I will try again, maybe the next round with Italian seasoning?  I like that the pasta cooks directly in the pot and it seems to freeze well without the pasta getting mushy. 

Hamburger Helper and Tuna Helper do not qualify as food! Disgusting!

However, a Sardine sandwich on whole wheat with Tomato & Mayo will suffice.

A sardine sandwich?  Now THAT is absoultely disgusting!  [:0]

These ideas sound great. I can use all the recipes you all can think of like this. I love to eat, but have very little kitchen space or storage, don’t cook very well and have even less inclination to cook. Your ‘throw togethers’ are my idea of every day meals so bring on those recipes, as far as I’m concerned. I am definitely not a foodie. By the way, I look at the pictures on ‘Whats for lunch’, etc., and absolutely drool but most I could never produce, myself. I really admire people who can cook.

I don’t know if anything in here will help you, but I put together a collection of my throw-together meal recipes posted on another site. Most of them rely on either something I had that was about to go bad, or things I normally keep on-hand, so it’ll depend on what you have. Cooking really isn’t as hard as it looks, especially things like stir-fry or quiche. Throw a bunch of stuff in a pan and add some seasonings. [:)]

# http://www.recipezazz.com/recipes/book/3437

Well, put she who controls 51% of the vote on a plane to Calif to see friends yesterday.  Came home for the 2 week bachelorhood and eat what I want vacation.  In a lazy mode/use up leftovers last night.  For dinner, took some frozen cooked shrimp from the freezer (big ones! 16/20, I think.  Cut off the tails, spread a lil sricacha on them and wrapped each one in a half slice of thick cut bacon.  Put them in a cold oven turned to 425.  By the time the oven dinged to reach temp, they were almost done.  Maybe 3-4 mins under the broiler to crisp the bacon.  Served over leftover rice and the last of the peapods and onions we had. Perfect! The bacon was lightly crisp and the precooked shrimp were defrosted and hot w/o drying out.

Since none of the shrimp/hot sauce/bacon is preferred by the other half, it will have to be a lonely repeat or maybe some night for friends, but it was darn good and easy

Not sure why this ended up a dble post

Well, put she who controls 51% of the vote on a plane to Calif to see friends yesterday.  Came home for the 2 week bachelorhood and eat what I want vacation.  In a lazy mode/use up leftovers last night.  For dinner, took some frozen cooked shrimp from the freezer (big ones! 16/20, I think.  Cut off the tails, spread a lil sricacha on them and wrapped each one in a half slice of thick cut bacon.  Put them in a cold oven turned to 425.  By the time the oven dinged to reach temp, they were almost done.  Maybe 3-4 mins under the broiler to crisp the bacon.  Served over leftover rice and the last of the peapods and onions we had. Perfect! The bacon was lightly crisp and the precooked shrimp were defrosted and hot w/o drying out.

Since none of the shrimp/hot sauce/bacon is preferred by the other half, it will have to be a lonely repeat or maybe some night for friends, but it was darn good and easy

Hamburger Helper and Tuna Helper do not qualify as food! Disgusting!

However, a Sardine sandwich on whole wheat with Tomato & Mayo will suffice.

These ideas sound great. I can use all the recipes you all can think of like this. I love to eat, but have very little kitchen space or storage, don’t cook very well and have even less inclination to cook. Your ‘throw togethers’ are my idea of every day meals so bring on those recipes, as far as I’m concerned. I am definitely not a foodie. By the way, I look at the pictures on ‘Whats for lunch’, etc., and absolutely drool but most I could never produce, myself. I really admire people who can cook.

Thats why hamburger helper, tuna helper was invented! [lol]

ANYONE can make those! 

I’ll make my own Hamburger Helper. If I have a little leftover meat sauce (generally ground beef, sometimes hot Italian sausage), not enough to make a meal out of, I’ll mix it with mac and cheese. Works with leftover chili too.

These ideas sound great. I can use all the recipes you all can think of like this. I love to eat, but have very little kitchen space or storage, don’t cook very well and have even less inclination to cook. Your ‘throw togethers’ are my idea of every day meals so bring on those recipes, as far as I’m concerned. I am definitely not a foodie. By the way, I look at the pictures on ‘Whats for lunch’, etc., and absolutely drool but most I could never produce, myself. I really admire people who can cook.

At the last minute last night everyone decided they didn’t want to leave the house for dinner.

I was nominated cook.

Not in my own kitchen, no fresh ingredients in the refrigerator I checked the pantry…

I boiled up a pound of penne and while it was cooking I sliced up a half ring of frozen Earl Campbell Smoked Sausage which was a mixture of chicken, pork and beef.  Threw that in a skillet and when it looked like it was cooked through I added a jar of roasted red peppers that I diced up in large pieces and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes and garlic powder.

“They” wanted spaghetti sauce on the pasta so when the pasta was done I added a CAN of Hunt’s pasta sauce that I found in the pantry. 

A pound of penne supposedly served 8 and the can of Hunt’s supposedly served 5.  That’s a sauce ratio that sounded good to me as I don’t like my pasta swimming in sauce.

Added some of the pasta water to the sausage and peppers and stirred the sauce into the pasta.

I served the pasta topped with the sausage and peppers.

I was shocked that everyone liked it and the smoked sausage tasted good with all the other ingredients.

I think I’ll be making this again.

Thats a fairly common dinner here and very tasty but by no means is a pound of penne meant to serve 8!  More like four people IF you are lucky.

The same recipe can also be used with hamburger.

I remember one time when I had dinner with my brother and sister in law. They fixed a pork roast which involved coffee and seasonings. It was delicious but when I asked for the recipe, they already couldn’t remember how they had made it. Growl… After more then 20 years, I still regret not having the recipe. When I cook, I usually start with a recipe but wind up eyeballing a lot of the ingredients rather than measuring precisely. Sometimes I’m sorry because I may wind up with something nasty or really good but am not sure exactly what I did.

That actually sounds pretty good, Mar! If I’m being honest, I’d have to admit easily 95% of my “original” recipes were born exactly that same way. Usually I start with, “Oh, here I have this (whatever) that’s got to be used or thrown out. What d’you suppose would go with that?” [lol]

My favourite one, completely adaptable, I call “Pantry Stew”. Sometimes ground beef, sometimes canned chicken, sometimes smoked sausage, always garlic and some kind of onion. Several cans of beans of different kinds. Sometimes corn (canned or frozen), sometimes bell pepper or other fresh vegetables. Almost always some kind of tomato sauce (or spaghetti sauce, or marinara, or tomato paste with water), sometimes a can of diced tomatoes. Whatever seasonings I happen to feel like using.

Although I stay away from sauces that have too much HFCS like Hunts. For cheap sauces, I find that Francesco Rinaldi has the best quality ingredients (I get it on sale at $1/jar), but you have to look at individual flavors to get the best one (I personally prefer their “Eggplant Parmigiana”, but I like eggplant.

And, to everybody else, I KNOW you can fry up some garlic in olive oil, add some diced tomatoes and a bit of tomato paste. I’m pretty sure the idea here is a “throw together” dinner.

Bart

I once made chicken breasts with a sauce made of jam, balsamic vinegar and several other things. Everyone loved it. Unfortunately, it was one of those add as you go dishes and I didn’t keep track of what I put in it. By the time I knew I had a winner, I couldn’t remember all the ingredients. I’ve never been able to duplicate it since.

Sara Moulton (of http://saramoulton.com/shows Sara’s Weeknight Meals) would approve!

Too bad you didn’t have some mushrooms to add.