Our easy dinner idea of the week is our slow-cooker recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup and Zesty Polenta Cakes. By placing all of our ingredients in the slow cooker in the morning, dinner is ready at the end of our hectic day. And, served alongside crunchy seasoned polenta cakes, this soup had my husband saying, “this is the most delicious soup you’ve ever made.”
Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup with Zesty Polenta Cakes
Check out our past Easy Dinner Idea of the Week recipes here:
Spring Penne Recipe
Greek Pita Pockets with Mediterannean Potatoes
Sauteed Steak with Spinach, Tomatoes & Avocado
Berry-Good Pork Tenderloin with Herb Roasted Potatoes
A Stitch In Time Saves Nine. A Penny Saved Is A Penny Earned. Waste Not, Want Not.
Probably one of the most versatile, frugal and efficacious dishes is the mashed potato. Gracing our Thanksgiving dinner table each year, mashed potatoes are wildly overlooked for the remaining 364 days of the year.
At just pennies per serving, Homemade Mashed Potatoes are not only inexpensive, they’re one of the most versatile side dishes. By adding a few cloves of fresh garlic during boiling and then mashing with the potato, the gourmet Garlic Mashed Potatoes are created. By substituting milk with buttermilk, you have Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes. And, Herb Mashed Potatoes can be made by adding some fresh or dried herbs like rosemary, thyme and parsley.
Herb Mashed Potatoes
Five Recipes To Make with Leftover Mashed Potatoes
Homemade mashed potatoes can be cooked in bulk to freeze for future use, or stored for use in other recipes- or, like I call “Reincarnate The Leftover”. Here are some of my favorite recipes using leftover mashed potatoes.
Festive Potato Cakes Recipe
Bangers and Mash with New Castle Gravy
Twice-Baked Cheesy Potatoes Recipe
Cottage Pie Recipe, is allegedly a favorite dish of Prince Williams- a tasty version of the Shepherd’s Pie.
Shepherd’s Pie Recipe
A Stitch In Time
Homemade mashed potatoes freeze and reheat well, so I like making extra and storing for a busy day’s side dish. I recommend using glass storage containers like Rubbermaid’s Glass Food Storage or Ziploc’s Versaglass that go from the freezer and into the oven or microwave to reheat.
If you have leftover Skittles from Halloween, this is the perfect recipe for you. Made with a sauce of red Skittles reduction, this is one “spooktacular” recipe!
salsa- 1 cup or 7oz. (like Herdez mild 7oz. salsa)
sour cream
STAPLES:
dijon mustard- ½ cup (approximately)
olive oil- ½ cup (approximately)
chicken stock- 1 cup (1 cup water with 1 chicken bouillion cube)
cumin- ½ teaspoon
Instructions
Soup
In blender combine beans (drained), broth, salsa and cumin; blend until smooth but do not overblend
Transfer to a soup pot and heat until bubbly
Serve with sour cream
Panini
Mix together olive oil and Dijon mustard (there’s no need to measure ingredients exactly, just “eyeball” it).
Spread mustard mixture onto the outside of each slice of bread
Place bread, mustard side down, onto Panini press or griddle, then top with pork, tomato and pickle; place second slice of bread on top with mustard-side up
Family meals are important. Iʼll show you easy ways to spend less time and money at the grocery store, less time in the kitchen and more time with your family.
Three months of our most popular menus from The Organized Cook™ Weekly Meal Plan System including grocery shopping lists, cooking instructions and lots of time and money saving tips in one book that's easy to fit in your purse.
Start saving now! Save time and money at the grocery store and in the kitchen. Order Now.