Every since I started meal planning, I have been coming up with really easy, budget friendly recipes like these creamy chicken enchiladas.  I have only been cooking one big meal a day, the 5 O’Clock meal, these days, the only meal that we are all together for. And remember, it’s proven that having a meal at the table with your family makes for better relationships with your kids!

These enchiladas are definitely some of the better ones I’ve made and are perfect for parents who still have to cook something up for supper after working hard all day! What makes this so easy is that I used Swanson Premium Chicken.  This is actually one of my favorite things to use whether it be for enchiladas or in my salads.  It’s budget friendly, quick, 98% fat free, and backed by the American Heart Association, which makes up for some of the other ingredients I’m using in this recipe! HAHA!!

Serve these up with some rice & beans and you’ll likely be crawling to the sofa!  We opted to just eat the enchiladas without he sides and found it plenty filling!  My husband’s only request was my homemade hot sauce!!

Disclosure: I was paid for my time & efforts, by Swanson, to create this post.  I have always used and recommended Swanson Chicken. Opinions are my own, always have been, always will be. 

Quick and easy; that seems to be our food motto these days.  With Church & school functions, work, and sports, making a ham and cheese calzone is just one of the easy recipes I’ve been cooking up lately.    It’s a meal that to grab and go which we frequently do with basketball season in full bloom.  Concession stands have drained me this school year so I try to get most of us full before we ever get to the game. Know what I mean?

I honestly had no plan for the dough when making this so bare with me.  The neat thing about this meal idea, is that you can put anything you want inside the calzone.  I did simple ingredients for us because we are on a budget but you could definitely go all out!  I bought crescent roll dough and ended up mushing it all together and separating into 3 dough balls for 3 calzones.  Hey, it ain’t fancy but it worked!

Slow Cooked Ribs…mmmmm, sounds heavenly huh?  Well, my guys thought so!  I watched them devour these ‘fattier than I’d like ribs’ that took 14 hours to cook, while I happily savored every moment of my taters.

I’m making every effort to make my crockpot feel loved.  I’ve always used it for the basics like beans but have never really ventured too far beyond that.  I’m way too comfortable with the same type of cooking and thought it was time to take a risk!!!  I know, watch out right?!

This was one of the easiest recipes that took 5 minutes to prep and 14 hours to cook.  They could definitely be cooked faster but I wanted them to be done so that when my kids came home from school, they’d have a hot, home cooked meal to fill their belly.   These were also a fattier cut of ribs. I’d much prefer a leaner cut but my fellas didn’t seem to mind at all.  Once done with their meal, I heard lots of moaning and watched them lay around, trying hard not to fall asleep.  Around here that means they were a hit!  I’ll post my tiny secret to my homestyle taters a little later.

I’m not a big fan of chopping garlic so I’m thankful that my sweet mama got me this handy chopper.  It made it a breeze and I didn’t have to deal with all the stickiness and smell on my fingers.

I had never tried this French Onion Condensed Soup from Campbell’s but it gave the ribs a lot of flavor!

Of course, being married to a cowboy, we always have a few beers on hand. My husband actually cooks a lot with beer………

Other rib recipes of interest:

With basketball season in full bloom, dinner starts to become much later in the evening, and that means finding easy meal solutions to get the family fed before it’s already time to hit the hay.  We often look for recipes via the Internet, cookbooks, and our friends but don’t forget about the back of products too!

Have you seen the new French’s French Cheddar Fried Onions?  On the back of the container it has a recipe for Crunchy Onion Chicken and the entire dish was gone in minutes, eaten by 3 teenagers tonight after a basketball game.  They said it was awesome. I didn’t get a bite so I wouldn’t know but it smelled delicious and it cooked in 20 minutes!  That’s my kind of meal you know?!

I love finding new ways to use chicken and I think I’ll add this to our regular menu.  What’s the last recipe you made from the back of a food product?

Thanks Ollie for sharing your food with us!!

In honor of National Hispanic Month, I decided to make Barbacoa.   When I googled some Barbacoa recipes, I noticed that almost of them used butt roast but that isn’t how we make it.   We use Cacheta de Res, aka, Beef Cheeks and this is the only way I’ve known how to make it.  And in actuality, we make Barbacoa de Cabeza (a cow head) and make barbacoa out of that but for this, we are just using the beef cheeks.

Before I get to the very easy barbacoa recipe, I thought I’d share with you a tidbit about us.  My real dad’s side of the family is Mexican, which makes me half.   My husband and his family is Spanish.  They all speak Spanish, sing Spanish, and often talk in Spanish when together.  My kids who very much look white, call themselves Hispanic because that’s what they are and how we live.   I’ve always considered myself Mexican because 1) you’re supposed to go by your Dad and 2) I just feel it.

We cook Mexican food all the time with homemade tortillas being a staple around here.  We haven’t had homemade barbacoa in a long time so I thought the timing was perfect for it.  One of the things I love about our Walmart is that I can find those unique cuts that I need, in this case, cacheta de res (beef cheeks).  They also carry other parts of the beef head like tongue which we would have also put in this but they were sold out.

Barbacoa is probably one of the easiest foods to make.  While many might dress it up, we prefer an original, plain version.

So if you want to be truly Authentic with this, buy a cow head and cook it in the ground, shred all the cheeks, tongue, eyes, etc and you’ll have barbacoa.  We think is easier and for me, slightly more appealing than the other…….

Have you ever tried Barbacoa? 

Disclosure: I am an official Walmart Mom. Follow me and my fellow Walmart Moms as we share our experiences and ideas! Walmart has provided me with compensation in return for my time & efforts to create this post. My participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.

A while back Walmart flew me to Bentonville (their headquarters) to create some easy meal solutions.  They filmed a few of us Walmart Moms buying ingredients and making our recipes and today, I have both the recipe and video for you; Grilled Flank Steak with Lime.

Warning: I’m terrible on video. I need a new hairstyle clearly and should remind myself to smile a bit reckon?  Anyways, hope you enjoy!

This recipe was submitted by Rachel S for May’s Food Challenge. If you have a recipe with eggs in it, you can enter too! Check it out ’cause there’s a great prize! Thanks Rachel for entering!

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 Eggs
• Shredding Mozzarella Cheese
• Asparagus
• Onions
• Butter
• Salt/Pepper

(I followed a recipe I found here: http://www.musingsofahousewife.com/2011/05/asparagus-frittata.html – with a few of my own tweaks and changes)

DIRECTIONS

1. Chop onion and put it into frying pan with butter, until soft
2. Clean/cut asparagus and add it to pan. Allow to cook for 5-7 minutes.
3. While veggies are in the pan, make egg mixture – 8 eggs, 1 cup of cheese, salt/pepper to liking – and mix together.
4. Add the veggies to a quiche or pie pan. Pour egg mixture on top. Put in oven (at 350) until the egg has solidified. Add more cheese on top (I used the same mozzarella cheese on top, but have also make it with goat cheese) and put under the broiler for about 5 minutes – or until it is golden brown and delicious!

(photo credit goes to http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/asparagus_frittata/)

Republishing from May 1, 2008. Thought I’d bring back a few old ones…..

Just because we get our beef free doesn’t mean we don’t splurge on some shrimp scampi every now and then!  My family (except me) LOVES, LOVES shrimp.  This is a super FAST meal to make, in fact, I would put it in the 30-minute category, if I had one.

FUN FACT: Amercians use 5 times the amount of water that Europeans use.  Can you believe that druing a 5-minute shower, we use 25 to 50 gallons of water!  HOLY COW!  Okay, recipe time…

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley –I had to use dried..it’s all I had.
• 6 ounces or so of Linguine  (My mom uses Angel Hair pasta, so use what you have.)
• 1 pound medium shrimp, peeled, deveined

I actually doubled everything because I made 2lbs of shrimp so always adjust measurements according to your family size.

DIRECTIONS:

Prepare Linguine according to package directions, drain.  Place butter, garlic, lemon juice, and parslet in a medium skillet.  Cook uncovered over medium-high heat about 4 minutes, or until butter is melted.  Add shrimp; stir to coat well.  May season with Cajun seasoning to taste, if desired.  Cook until shrimp turn pink and crul slightly.  Don’t overcook.  Remove from heat and let sit.  You can either add the linguine into the shrimp mixture or you can serve seperately.  I mixed it.

Ooops, I forgot to put the linguine in the picture…sorry ’bout that!

Go ahead and prepare the linguine and set aside.

GARLIC TIME: It’s recommended that while mincing, add a bit of salt to keep the garlic from sticking to you.

Now it’s saute time with the garlic, butter, and parsley!  It really didn’t look as green as it does  in the picture.  Sorry, my kitchen lighting is terrible!

ADD SHRIMP:)

VIOLA!  It’s all done folks.  Now serve:)

I needed a filler so I served with so yummy mash potatoes….that link won’t work until tomorrow;)

Another round of Meal Solutions! This week’s ingredient list was very budget friendly and tasted delicious!  I have to admit, I have rarely used Fettuccine so I was excited to for this week.  If you are needing a fast meal, holy cow is this fast y’all!!!  All it takes is boiling the pasta and the meal is pretty much done.  I used everything below except the garlic bread because I couldn’t find it.  I also didn’t use the cookie mix as we already had some dessert from a birthday.

This week’s meal solutions food products are:

• GV Alfredo Pasta Sauce 16oz
• GV Fettuccine 160z
• GV Chunky Breast of Chicken 12.5oz
• GV Grated Parmesan 80z
• Sara Lee SD Garlic Bread 10oz
• GV Diced Tomatoes 14.5oz
• BC Chocolate chip Cookie 17.5oz

Doesn’t this look yummy?  My boys loved it and it’s a great filler with those noodles!  Enjoy!

Disclosure: Compensation has been provided by Walmart for my time and efforts to create this post. All opinions are my own, always have been, always will be. Check out more meal solutions from my fellow Walmart Moms and from the Walmart website.

Meal Solutions time!  These week, we had Minestrone soup and it was delicious!  This is very easy to prepare and takes under 30 minutes!  There are still some cool days left before the hot summer gets here so get you some warm soup while you can!

This weeks Meal Solution food items from Walmart are:

• GV Chicken Broth 14.5oz
• GV Diced Tomatoes 14.5oz
• GV DK Red Kidney Beanss 15.5
• GV Elbow Macaroni 16oz
• Kraft Zesty Italian 16
• GV Grated Parmesan 80z

Ingredients

• 2 cans (14.5 oz. each) chicken broth
• 1 can  (15.5 oz.) kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 cups  Frozen Italian-style vegetable blend
• 1/2 cup Elbow macaroni, uncooked
• 1/4 cup  Zesty Italian Dressing
• 1/4 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
• I also lots of peas but it’s optional

Directions:

MIX all ingredients except cheese in large saucepan.

BRING to a boil on medium-high heat. Reduce to medium; simmer 6 to 8 min. or until macaroni is tender.

SPRINKLE each serving with cheese.

What would your meal solution be with the above ingredients?

Disclosure: Compensation has been provided by Walmart for my time and efforts to create this post. All opinions are my own, always have been, always will be. Check out more meal solutions from my fellow Walmart Moms and from the Walmart website.