Seeking Simple, SIMPLE Recipes.. but REALLY Good!!!

Hi S.!
Try www.kraftfoods.com for easy (and plenty of kid-and adult friendly) recipies, my family has been trying them out and have found a lot of new favorites!

Best of luck!
--H.

Here is one of our family favs- and it is super simple-

Chicken Tater Tot Casserole

Boil 3 large boneless skinless chicken breasts and shred. Steam some Broccoli and Cauliflower (they sell bags in the frozen section that you can steam in the microwave-get 2 of those). Line a large baking dish with frozen seasoned tater tots. Layer on the shredded chicken and veggies. Pour a family sized can of Cream of Chicken Soup on top. Poke 3 holes thru mixture and add 1 TBS of milk in each hole. Finally cover with shredded cheddar cheese and bake at 375 for about 1/2 hour, or until the cheese is bubbly and slightly brown. Enjoy! This feeds a lot of people and is one of those food that is better the second day!!

The most simple, but tasty one I can offer has only a few ingredients:

Chicken breast (one breast per person)
Cream of chicken soup (one can per 3 breasts unless you like a lot of sauce, than make it one can to 2 breasts)
milk
bow tie pasta
salt
pepper

Brown the chicken in a skillet, enough to cook it MOSTLY through. After it's browned, shread it up (we like it shredded better than cut, gives it some variety) and turn the heat off.

Pour the cans of cream of chicken and the shreaded chicken in a soup pot (I make it with milk to make it nice and creamy) and stir in enough milk to create the desired consistency (I like it a little thick, almost like a nice cheese sauce) turn it to simmer, stiring occasionally so that it doesn't brown on the bottom of the pot.

Start cooking the noodles (salt the water to flavor the pasta while it cooks)

When the noodles are done cooking, drain, do NOT rinse.

Check to make sure the chicken is now thourouly (sp?) cooked through.

Salt and pepper to taste (is does NOT need a lot of seasoning to taste wonderful).

Pour the chicken sauce over pasta and side it with a nice green veggie like green beans (they tend to go very well with it).

YUMMY YUMMY and SOOO EASY! Good luck, looks like you've gotten some yummy looking suggestions on your plate (hahaha, punn intended)

S.,

Have you tried cream of chicken, or mushroom soup? All you do is sear the chicken or if you want to go healthy, boil it in chicken broth. Then in a cast iron skillet add chicken any veg., cream soup and one or two cans of milk. Make sure to cover the chicken. Cover skillet with tin foil or lid. Heat your stove to 325 deg. Cook in oven for 1 1/2 hours or until chicken is tender, less time if you boil the chicken first.

Another alternative to that is pork chops done the same way they will never know it's not chicken.

If they like tomatoes, you can sear the chicken, add a can of tomatoe paste and a can of tomatoes, oregano, sage, basil, garlic, salt and pepper, veggies, and water. Let simmer for aprox. 1 hour, cook a side of spagetti noodles. Remove chicken from sauce, place a piece of mozzarella cheese on top of the chix and broil until cheese is melted. Serve the chicken on the side with spagetti add the left over sauce to the spagetti.

Not knowing exactly what your kids like and don't like, here is a chicken recipe that I came up with one night. It's for the crockpot but I am sure that you can do it in the oven also.

one whole chicken cut up into pieces
one can cream of mushroom soup
one can diced tomatoes
one packet Campbell's onion soup dry mix

Place chicken pieces in the crockpot. Mix together the rest of the ingredients and pour over chicken. Make sure chicken is coated with mixture. Cook on high for one hour. Turn to low for 4-6 hours or until chicken is cooked through.

A great website for recipes is www.allrecipes.com. I love it because they have a spot for each recipe to get reviewed by people who have used it. HTH.

C.

www.cambellkitchen.com has some wonderful, simple, but flavorful recipes. I know dinner preparation time is limited with children and have also found some of the Cambells box dinners (herd chicken and rice is our family favorite) to be great. Also the Betty Crocker Cookbook Favorites box dinners are wonderful. All are just add chicken, everything else is provided. Rice A Roni combined with either beef or chicken is also good. My son is picky too, but likes all of the above.
Hope that helps.

Hi S. ~ Have you tried a baked pasta? My girls love baked ravioli. You can buy the frozen ones at Costco or any grocery store so you get whatever kind you like. Boil the pasta; make a red sauce (or store bought sauce if you don't want to make one); heat your sauce while your pasta is cooking; drain pasta; mix pasta and red sauce and pour into a baking dish; add cheese and bake at 375 until the cheese is browned and serve. you can do the same thing with a bow tie pasta or a zitti and include a ricotta/mozzarella mix (I can be more specific with ingredients if you think you want to make this - just shoot me an email.)stir it all up; add to baking dish; sprinkle with cheese and again bake at 375 until cheese is browned. You can add ground chicken or ground turkey to your red sauce and it is really tasty as well.

Also, I am a big fam of marthastewart.com as well as the food network.

You can also do a parmesan chicken - dip your chicken pieces into melted butter (or butter substitute) in a separate bowl add bread crumbs and a few pinches of parmesan cheese (you can buy the bread crumbs already seasoned in a variety of seasonings in the baking section of the grocery store) after dipping chicken in butter, roll in the bread crumbs, put in a baking dish; cover with foil and cook at 375 until chicken is cooked (not sure how big your pieces will be which will determine the amount of time you cook) take the foil off and cook 5 minutes longer and serve. Kids and adults love this. My girls' friends love it and will come to eat when I've made it, even if they've just eaten at home.

Hope you get a lot of good ideas. Again, let me know if you need me to be more specific with measurements, etc., it may take me a couple days to get back to you, but I will. I don't usually measure when cooking, it's just kind of a judgment call, but if your interested I'll see what I can do.

Please excuse my typos, I've only had one cup of coffee this morning.

If you want to give them so variety then go to either www.kraftfoods.com or www.campbellssoup.com You will find a lot of recipes where they use spices and seasonings and even veggies. I go there all the time to try some new stuff on my husband and roommate and every once in a while our 13 month old son does try it.
Hope that this works for ya.

I take skinless boneless breasts and cook them in the oven with Italian dressing to moisten and season. Then I cook up some pasta shapes like bow ties and dice up the chicken and toss with some of the dressing. I also do the chicken ina an Asian dressing and do rice with veggies.

Saute two tablespoons butter, a medium onion diced and chopped garlic in a frying pan, Cube some (about one lb to lb and a half depending on the number of people) boneless chicken and toss it in the butter cook throughly, then add two cans of mushrooms with juice, one can of water, 2 tablespoons of sweet basil and one tablespoon of oregano, a little salt and pepper, simmer until juice is boiled down and slightly thicker. About 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, Boil half to one lb tri color rotini pasta (spiral noodles) and dice a large fresh tomato. Drain pasta, Spoon chicken over cooked pasta and garnish with tomatoes and grated Parmesan cheese. If you try this let me know what you and your kids think. My kids are picky too and they love it. I also cut up extra chicken (while Im at it) and toss it into the crockpot with onion, celery, garlic powder, a little pepper and those chicken bullion cubes, and let it cook all day then just before it is time to eat I boil some flat noodles and toss them in for a few minutes. Viola homemade chicken noodle soup. I am a chicken fanatic so if you want more ideas message me. I would be happy to share.

Betty Crocker makes "The Four Ingredient Cook Book" and a lot of the recipes are pretty good.

Also, to help get them eatting have each of them plan a meal for the week. You can also make the pasta dishes healthier by using whole wheat pasta and shredding a Zucchini into the sauce.

I also have another very yummy Chicken and Pasta dish that has veggies too. Here it is:

Chicken and Bowtie Pasta Recipe

4 chicken breasts (cooked and shredded)
1 16oz bag of bowtie pasta (use only about 3/4)
2 containers of onion and chive cream cheese
1 14oz can chicken broth
1 head of broccoli
1 red bell pepper
2 garlic cloves chopped
1/2 container of fresh parmesan cheese

In a large skillet combine chicken broth, bell peppers, garlic, and broccoli. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer 15 minutes or until vegetables are soft. Add cream cheese and cook until melted smooth. (You could add shredded zucchini and/or carrots at the same time as cream cheese if you want a few extra veggies.) Add chicken to sauce. In a large bowl mix with cooked pasta. Add parmesan cheese. ENJOY!

Take care, ~J

Check out this website http://wholesomebabyfood.com

There are a range of foods from infant to older kids,they have a bunch of great ideas, recipes, everything really on there. Check it out don't be afraid to click on everything because there are so much great recipes! From vegetarian, different kinds of meats, rice, pastas, well you get the point.

Hope this helps, Good Luck
M.

My husband is the same way... I make a crockpot dish that he loves, I serve it over rice (white rice made in a rice cooker), but I'm sure it would be fine over any kind of pasta!
Just use 4 chicken breasts (the frozen ones work fine, or I use the frozen tenderloins). Put a layer of cream of chicken soup and a can of chedder cheese soup, add the chicken, then do another layer of cream of chicken and chedder cheese. A couple of pinches of sage, oregano and garlic and 6 hours later it's done! Stir occasionally but gently because the chicken gets so tender it falls apart :) It's one of my favorites, but I haven't had it in 8 months... I'm nursing a baby who is allergic to dairy!