To ask for your easy dinner ideas?

[Iceache]

I’ll go first:

lentil & smoked bacon soup with bread

slow roasted tomato & garlic pasta with parmesan (literally chuck tomatoes & garlic in the oven for an hour, boil pasta, throw into tomatoes, add copious amounts of cheese)

Don't read them then!

Don't eat uncooked rice!

Get a rice cooker.
Buy sushi rice.
???
Profit.

Sushi rice is best rice.
In a rice cooker you can just kind of set it and forget it.
So I often pop supermarket around yellow sticker time. Grab a meat of some sort. Any cut of steak works well, pork medallions, burgers, venison grill steaks or even meat balls.
Chuck the rice in the rice cooker and let it do it's thing. Cook the meat. Fry an egg. Veg optional.

Loads of them. Drizzle with good oil and add maybe 3 cloves of garlic (cloves not bulbs), salt & pepper. You can add rosemary or chilli or anything you fancy. Slow roast for at least 45 minutes (until they’re a bit charred and broken down). Watch your garlic as you want it soft so it might need to come out sooner. Take garlic out skin, put into tomatoes, throw cooked pasta in with some of its water and more cheese than anyone needs. More black pepper. Mix

Loving some of these!!

I’m pretty good with easy pasta dishes tbh. Another we like is nduja sauce with pasta thrown through. Or just a simple cacio e Pepe pasta maybe!

Salmon parcels was a good one, but unfortunately my kids moan at salmon (unless it’s smoked salmon for breakfast). I could substitute with a different fish I suppose. Anything with new potatoes as a side is out because my youngest hates potatoes 🤣 I love the mayonnaise with lemon & capers idea though so will adapt!!

Anyone saying frozen pizza etc - we do eat this, but I’m more after quick, easy, healthy dinners!

Gnocchi- stir through Boursin and Spinach.

Penne with prawns, chilli pesto and rocket.

Tin of consommé - sachet of miso. Rice noodles, spinach, beansprouts, sesame
oil and chilli flakes.

Asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, griddled. Poached egg on top.

A bag of ready chopped stir fry veg
Ready cooked chicken or prawns or tofu
Microwave rice or 3min soak rice noodles
splash of soy sauce & some chilli flakes

Just watched that in horror! Sorry, but that looks utterly vile. Unbrowned mince? No herbs? Not even a bit of tomato to lift the unrelenting blandness of those ingredients? Surely you wouldn’t really eat that when there are actually nice tasting easy meals out there!

This sounds amazing. I'm a bit surprised how hot the oven is though? Do you do that temp? I'd have expected a lower temp?

Yes, I did do that temp. It's a bit higher than recipes that have you bake a camembert alone (180C vs 200C), but the oil acts a bit like a bain marie so I guess the extra temperature is to compensate.

My "no cook" pasta sauce is a good one I do occasionally when I literally have no time as I don't even have to do anything while the pasta is cooking....

Cook pasta - needs to be a chunkier shape like penne or rigatoni.

Shortly before it's ready, mix a tub of ricotta with zest of one lemon and some of the juice, garlic oil (or chop garlic and add olive oil), grated parmesan, salt and pepper and stir together. Throw a large bag of baby spinach leaves into the pasta water when it's all just about ready then drain the pasta and spinach, reserving some of the cooking water. Toss the pasta/spinach mix with the ricotta mix, adding some of the cooking water to create a sauce. Top with some more grated parmesan.

I sometimes add smoked salmon to this as well, especially for DS.

My other go to for quick and easy is some kind of steak baguette - which I can make as elaborate or as basic depending on time. I almost always have par-cooked baguettes or ciabattas in the house so I toss those in the air fryer, fry the steak and while it's resting if I have some mushrooms or greens I cook those in the pan I made the steak. Toss it all onto the bread, top with some lettuce and pickles (if I've got time I make red onion pickle with lime juice but that is not convenient if you're in a mad rush) and some garlic sauce from the fridge.

Baked feta pasta that was all over tiktok a few years ago. I always look for things that can go in the oven or be left for a bit or I feel like I spend all evening in the kitchen straight after work then it's little ones bedtime and I've hardly seen them

Various pasta dishes

Tinned tomatoes, tomato paste, olive oil, mascarpone shallots, garlic black, pepper, parmesan, dried parsley

Garlic prawn spaghetti
Aldi do a bag of garlic king prawns I add chilli, extra garlic, some pasta water and olive oil, spaghetti, black pepper and dried parsley, Parmesan

Everyone has done this right? Feta pasta, place some feta in an oven dish with cherry tomatoes or tinned cherry tomatoes, garlic and seasoning put in the oven add cooked pasta

salmon parcels adding spinach and tender stem broccoli. Microwave wild rice

if I’m home alone I will have a batchelors pasta n sauce mac and cheese and add loads of hot sauce and extra cheese.

Pasta, everytime.

Fry off some crushed garlic with butter, add some good tomato paste, mix with some pasta water, keep stirring, add blk pepper, sliced black olives, a big blob of cream cream then add the pasta ( rigatoni is a family fave) toss it around in the pan, add some basil then some grated cheese of choice at the end.

Oh my goodness me that bachelors guilty pleasure dish sounds amazing 🤣

One of my favourites is: instant ramen, stir fried veg (I like brocolli & beansprouts in it), mix with sesame oil, Chinese chilli oil, garlic powder, five spice & soy sauce. Top with a fried egg

Orzo with tomatoes - really easy, one pot job, takes about 10 mins to prep and 20 mins to cook. I sometimes put some cheese - goats or feta - on top too. Really nice!