Your best minimal-preparation supper recipe?

[franch]

Trying to start cooking again after 6 weeks of horrendous 24-hour 'morning' sickness - still feeling sick and tired so looking for decent recipes for DH, DD and me that involve as little time in the kitchen as possible ....

Actual recipes or links would be great as I'm not a great improviser

Cook pasta, add tuna, cover with tomato sauce (a half decent one) and cheese, bake in oven til cheese melted.

We regularly have pasta, tin of tuna, sweetcorn all mixed in with some mayonnaise. Dead simple and cheap and healthy too. We also eat quick meals like spaghetti bolognaise (using a jar of ragu)or fishcakes, mash and beans.

boiled egg and soldiers.

can't get easier than that.

beans on toast with grated cheese and a mug of tea!

Cauliflower cheese and broccoli, using packet sauce mix (or services of dh) if cheesy makes you queasy.
Serve with pasta, or toast.

If you have the time, baked potatoes or sweet potatoes, filled with beans, soft cheese, tuna etc. Just bung em in the oven and leave em till done.

If you've got a breadmaker - homemade pizza. Do the dough in the machine then just roll it out and top it with yummy stuff. Takes a while for the dough to mix but at least you don't have to stand over it.

Buy some tortilla wraps, but some ready cooked chicken in, add chopped pepper/salsa, bit of creme fraiche, cover with jar tomato sauce (again), grated cheese on top and bake in oven until cheese melted.

...or get yourself a DH that cooks!!

prawns with chopped garlic, parsley, in an oven dish filled with olive oil and fresh lemon juice. cook for 10 mins on 200c. Serve with rice and stir in some chopped coriander. If feeling indulgent mop up the juices with some crusty bread. fabulous

lamb chops and a ready made salad

Add pesto sauce to pasta and grate some cheese?

If you can stand raw diced chicken, stick it in a casserole dish, add chopped onion, optional garlic, tinned tomatoes and leftover red wine cook for a few hours or in slow cooker makes 'chicken cacciatore' really yummy and goes well with rice or baked potatoes (you could make a big one and freeze the leftovers). Honestly doesn't take long in the kitchen, but obviously long time cooking.

Wrap chicken breasts in foil, add lemon juice and bake in the oven?
Really sympathise, went right off cooking (and eating).

Put dry pasta, tuna and jar of Lloyd Grossman pasta sauce in casserole dish - mix it all up and put in oven at 180c for 1/2 hour - the pasta cooks in the sauce and is delish and there is absolutely no mess to clear up.

I try to spend about one afternoon a month to fill the freezer with basics - nothing major - big batches of chilli, bolognese and chicken curry. Freeze them in portions to suit your family. They're great 'cause you can defrost them quickly and just need to boil pasta/rice etc - got to be feeling up to doing it in the first place though!

Omelettes? Eggy bread? They're fast. Or shoving a fish, pretty much any fish, in a foil pouch each, with lemon slices and herbs and a bit of olive oil and in the oven for half an hour is easy, serve with a bag of salad. Or a roast is, imo, also fairly easy, especially if you don't peel the potatoes and shove a tray of roasted veg in the oven. Once you've stuck the chicken in there isn't much else to do.

mix together pesto, which ever flavour you like, with philadelphia. Smother it over chicken breasts, top with sliced toms and cover with grated cheese and bake in the oven till chicken is cooked. Medim oven, its dlicious, serve with salad or microwaved jacket spuds, crisped up in the oven at same time as chicken. I sometimes put a slice in middle of schicken breast and fill with fresh basil or sweet peppers.

Stir fry veg (frozen onion/pepper/tinned tom) - have in a toastie

Add chicken and serve with rice/noodles

Grill chicken goujon make sandwich with above stir fry or raw onion/tom & mayo

How do you feel about ready(-ish) meals? Sainsburys various chicken breast + mushroomy sauce dishes (from the meat cabinets) are dead easy and really nice. You can stick some frozen chips or potato wedges in the oven with them and do frozen peas in the microwave - fairly effortless and v good (and not much washing up)!

Alternatively, one of those Schwartz packet mixes for chicken breasts or pork chops or whatever? Not as nice as proper recipes but easy and tasty. (Schwartz chicken casserole mix, but with red pepper and tomatoes instead of mushrooms - as suggested in Provencale alternative - is delish. My family love it!)

fry an onion, throw in some spices like cumin, coriander for a few minutes, if you don't have these anything that you fancy. Add chicken, lamb in cubes and cook until browned. Add a tin of plum tomatoes, cook for 10-20 mins, add some greenery, lettuce/spinach...whatever you have about...then finish it off with cream/creme fraiche...a ggod dolop...sounds fiddley, but very quick and easy and can be served with microwaved baked potatoes and sprinkled with salt and pepper...serve with warm glass of cianti or anything you have....

The schwartz tuna bake is really nice too but I use prawns instead of tuna.

Franch - when I was like this I decided that cooking itself was part of the problem - the smells of cooking made me heave.

DH was doing most of the cooking but I couldn't bear to eat by the time it was served as the smell had already set me off!

We moved onto 'no cook' food - avocado and cold chicken salad was a favorite - get some cooked chicken and slice and add sliced tomatoes and avocado on a bed of rocket. Add a handful of chopped coriander and squeeze over juice of one lime. Mix altogether and serve with some nice bread.

Nice sandwiches were also on the menu - humous, grated carrot and rocket. Cheese and pickle etc etc

Wow, thanks everyone. Great response.

collision, I must defend my DH! Last time round he did all the cooking while I was sick - this time he's been very self-sufficient surviving on ready meals etc and bringing me Complan or whatever - would cook if he possibly could but is working crazy hours for the NHS plus when he gets home he's having to work solidly on his application for the job opportunity of a lifetime - his first consultant post and THE job he's been working towards for years - so I can hardly chain him to the stove!

weeboagie, I've always been a batch-cooker and luckily had enough stuff crammed in the freezer for DD to see her through the past month or so but it's now empty! Will get back to cooking proper stuff asap but need to keep it simple in this 'transition' period - I did a big internet shop at the weekend when I was having a good day and now realise I was far too optimistic about my ability to mess about in the kitchen - hence the plea for inspiration, which has been amply responded to

Wow, thanks everyone. Great response.

collision, I must defend my DH! Last time round he did all the cooking while I was sick - this time he's been very self-sufficient surviving on ready meals etc and bringing me Complan or whatever - would cook if he possibly could but is working crazy hours for the NHS plus when he gets home he's having to work solidly on his application for the job opportunity of a lifetime - his first consultant post and THE job he's been working towards for years - so I can hardly chain him to the stove!

weeboagie, I've always been a batch-cooker and luckily had enough stuff crammed in the freezer for DD to see her through the past month or so but it's now empty! Will get back to cooking proper stuff asap but need to keep it simple in this 'transition' period - I did a big internet shop at the weekend when I was having a good day and now realise I was far too optimistic about my ability to mess about in the kitchen - hence the plea for inspiration, which has been amply responded to

oops

I tried this for the first time last night and it's GREAT! Butternut squash and bacon risotto. Chop and fry one small butternut, one onion and one pkt of bacon (it's supposed to be pancetta but we used bacon). Fry for at least 5 mins. Add 300g rice and keep adding stock until the rice is cooked. Very easy and really really yummy.

make a curry (with veg, meat or fish, whatever you have) by adding a tin of tomatoes, a good tablespoon of curry paste (we use patak's), a tin of coconut milk, simmer if you can bear the smell!

Pasta Carbonara - takes about 10 minutes (the time to cook the pasta), and the you know what you are putting in it.

Cook your pasta of choice.

Chop up some bacon, or better and easier, use a packet of lardons. Cook, and add some cream (about a cup).

Mix some (lots) parmesan cheese into a couple of eggs.

Add the bacon mixture followed by the egg mixture to the hot, drained pasta and put the lid on the pan to let the eggs cook for a couple of minutes.

Serve with a green salad and garlic bread.

One of our favourites - a chop some smoked salmon and put into a bowl with a small carton of double cream - leave for a couple of hours if you can to marinate (not essential). While you cook your pasta (tagliatelle is good, or penne), gently heat the salmon and cream - add plenty of ground black pepper and some fresh thyme if you have it, then stir into the cooked pasta with a good handful of freshly grated parmesan. Quick, easy and delicious!