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Ever since we moved to the mountains, I have struggled with meal time. You see, we have a very small grocery store. It’s a gas station store with very high prices and a limited selection. The nearest decent store is 40 minutes away and when it snows the road closes to that store so I have to drive even further to shop!

I had an appointment in the next town in a couple days so I was trying to make do with what I had in the kitchen until then. You know how it is though; frozen burgers, no buns; rice, no chicken; canned tomatoes, no pasta; you are left with nothing that really goes together! lol!

Easy Cheesy Mexican Rice Skillet Meal

So I combined everything I had, added some spices, and VOILA, Cheesy Mexican Rice was born! It’s so yummy and versatile that I make it all the time now. It’s easy enough that my daughters can practically make it on their own.

Just cook your ground meet (I only had a couple frozen burgers, but that worked!), add canned tomatoes (my kids like the tomatoes with bell peppers and onions), rice, broth and cook until the rice is done (about 15 minutes)! Then add your cheese and you have a full meal in just 20 minutes!

Now, when I actually plan to make it, I like to add some Mexican seasonings and serve it with beans and tortillas! This Mexican rice great in quesadillas too!

I’m not always lucky enough to come up with a great recipe on the fly so I knew I really needed to get my stuff together and start planning my meals. Luckily, I found Plan to Eat, a drag and drop meal planner that builds my grocery list at the same time!

5 Ingredient Cheesy Mexican Rice Skillet Meal

 

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Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

20 mins

 

5 Ingredients, one skillet, a full meal in just 15-20 minutes! It's like homemade hamburger helper!

Author: True Aim

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: Mexican

Serves: 4-6 servings

Ingredients

• ½ lb ground meat (beef or turkey)
• 1 can tomatoes with green chilies (or with bell peppers and onions for less spice)
• 2 cups rice
• 3½ cups chicken broth
• 1 cup grated cheese

Instructions

1. Brown your meat in a large skillet on medium heat. Drain fat if you want to. I don't usually.
2. Add canned tomatoes, stir and cook for 1 minute.
3. Add rice and broth and heat to a boil.
4. Cover and reduce heat to low. Cook until rice is tender. You may need to add more broth depending on what kind of rice you use.
5. Add cheese and stir until well combined.
6. Season with salt, pepper, and any Mexican spices you like. I put cumin, chili powder, garlic, cayenne pepper in mine, but it tastes good without it too.
7. Garnish with cilantro and serve with beans and tortillas (optional)

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If you’d like to start eating healthier and getting organized in the New Year, join Plan to Eat’s Easy Meal Challenge and get 30 Easy Meal recipes to put on your calendar! Don’t forget to add this Mexican rice too!

You might also like this recipe for Easy Stuffed Pasta Shells!

The post 5 Ingredient Cheesy Mexican Rice Skillet Meal first appeared on True Aim.

The best meal I ever had was after coming home from working at a tradeshow. I didn’t want to buy anything because I had plenty of food at home. The show took longer than I expected so I waited too long to grab something on the way home. I fed the baby before I fed myself. I was ravished by the time I opened the refrigerator. Leftover lasagna was all I could find that wouldn’t take less than 10 minutes to put together, but it tasted better than the freshly cooked stuff. Any other day, I would have hated leftover lasagna.

Pasta with Garlic Cream Sauce

1 in 5 children in America live in households without consistent access to adequate food. You can help simply by feeding your family with foods from stores like Safeway and Albertsons who are participating in the Hunger Is Campaign. I’m sure you can relate to the amazing feeling of a good meal after having to go without. Why not offer children in need the opportunity to enjoy the best tasting meal they’ve ever had?

Just like my go to pasta recipe! I went to my local Albertson’s store in Meridian and found that when I purchase everything I need for this recipe, a portion of the proceeds go to help feed children in need – Look for tags on participating items in store.

Purchase of these items in September 2016 will trigger at least $0.10 donation up to $1 million! Then you can whip up a simple and delicious meal for your family!

I love making this easy pasta with garlic cream sauce because it is really quick and tastes like you went out to eat. You can use chicken sausage to make a more substantial meal, or just do kid-friendly sauce and noodles.

I make this pasta for lunch without the sausage sometimes because it is so easy!

If you have a budding little chef, your young children can help you put the finishing touches on the sauce with the parmesan, salt and pepper at the end.

Easy Pasta with Garlic Cream Sauce

 

Print

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

25 mins

 

Easy Creamy Garlic Sauce with Penne

Author: True Aim

Recipe type: Entree

Cuisine: Italian

Serves: 6-8 servings

Ingredients

• Chicken Sausage (optional)
• 8oz Penne Pasta
• 3 tbs Butter
• 3-4 Cloves Garlic Minced
• 3 tbs Flour
• 1½ Cups Chicken Broth
• 1¼ Cups Cream
• ½ Cup Parmesan Cheese
• Salt and Pepper to Taste

Instructions

1. Cook pasta according to directions on the box. Meanwhile, brown your meat in a large pan that has a lid. Remove from pan and set aside.
2. Add butter and garlic to the pan and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add flour and whisk for 1 minute. Add chicken broth and whisk. Bring to a boil.
3. Add cream and whisk constantly until the sauce starts to thicken.
4. Turn off the heat and add the parmesan cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Put the sausage back in the pan if you are using.
5. Add the cooked pasta to the pan and stir to combine. Garnish with italian parsley or basil if you like.

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I made sure to point out to my children how this meal meant more than just something to fill our bellies. Because we bought certain items, we were also helping other children who do not have as much.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Albertsons Companies & Hunger Is. The opinions and text are all mine.

The post Easy Pasta with Garlic Cream Sauce – Hunger Is first appeared on True Aim.

My oven broke! First, everything was out the stove and oven. I went a day without it and had to get really creative with what I cooked. Good thing we have a microwave!

The first thing that came to my mind when thinking about things to cook without an oven was the New Pace® and Prego® Ready Meals I had on hand. These were so easy to prepare and ready in just one minute. 

My husband tried the Marinara & Italian Sausage and I had the Cheesy Chicken Quesadilla. Both were delicious and very satisfying, especially after delaying dinner when trying to get the oven to work. Just to have something quick, I’ll definitely get more of these convenient food pouches. Click here to find all the different flavors and more of Campbell’s new products.

After going without my oven and stove for a little while, here are some more creative meals I came up with to cook in the microwave: 

• Microwave Baked Potatoes (prick with fork and cook 4-5 minutes on each side)
• Salmon (Top with butter and herbs, cover, cook for 3-4 minutes or until flaky)
• Scrambled Eggs (cook in 30 second intervals, stirring between each)
• Lasagna (Make sure you use no-cook noodles! Cover with double thick plastic wrap and cook for 30-35 minutes at 50% power, venting one corner after 20 minutes. Let it sit in the microwave for 5 min. before serving)
• Meatloaf (Use your regular meatloaf recipe, cook on high for 10-15 minutes and then drain any grease. Let sit uncovered for 10 min. before serving)
• No Bake Cookies

After having a bite to eat and trying several things on our oven’s control panel, we switched the breaker off for 10 minutes and then back on. Luckily the stove started working again, but still no oven. What a relief! I could survive with at least a stove until we got a new one. 

For more easy meal ideas for your family check out these delicious Campbell’s recipes! 

What kind of creative meals do you make without your oven?

The post What to Cook When Your Oven Breaks first appeared on True Aim.

My family loves pot pie, but it can be a lot of work to make. Chopping all those potatoes and cooking them, plus adding the correct amount of spices and seasonings takes a lot of time. That’s why I love this inexpensive and easy take on the traditional recipe.

Mini Chicken Bacon Pot Pie.

Making these pies is easy with Campbell’s® new Homestyle light soup.

It has no preservatives so it tastes like homemade! I used Potato Bacon soup and the flavor was outstanding! You could try more of Campbell’s new products in this recipe too!

I added a 1/2 cup of leftover cooked chicken and a 1/2 cup of frozen peas to give it a little more substance and fill all 12 of my mini pies. This way, I can feed my whole family of 6 with just 1 can of soup!

The first step is to make the shells of the pies with store bought pie dough. You can use homemade if you want, but that just takes longer. I roll the dough out a little more so there will be enough to fill a 12 cup muffin tin with mini pie shells.

Next I sprayed the cups with cooking spray. Then I cut circles a little wider than the opening of a muffin tin cup and pressed the dough on the bottom of each cup.

My daughter helped me fill the mini pies with the @Campbells soup filling, topping them with some green onion to bring out the bacon flavor. We used the rest of the pie dough to cut flowers out and cover the top of the filling. 

I baked them at 350 degrees and checked them at 20 minutes. They needed 5 more minutes to get a little more golden on top.

The result was flakey little pies bursting with bacon flavor! SO yummy. My children gobbled them up and the only thing I didn’t like was that there wasn’t any left overs. For just $5 it was an awesome meal that I will definitely make again.

How about you? What delicious Campbell’s recipes have you tried with a can of soup?

The post $5 Dinner: Mini Chicken Bacon Pot Pies first appeared on True Aim.

If you want a hearty meal that costs just $5, you HAVE to try BBQ Pork Smothered Mashed Potatoes. It’s like a loaded baked potato that’s easy to eat so it’s perfect for the kids.

It is getting harder to cook for my family of 6 without breaking the bank. Their appetites are growing and so I’ve been getting creative with potatoes which are very inexpensive. Just by adding a can of @CampbellsChunky soup I can make potatoes really stretch at dinner time.

$5 BBQ Pork Smothered Mashed Potatoes

The first step in making these is to make the perfect creamy mashed potatoes. My recipe is SO good and easy, you’ll never do it another way.

Of course I always enlist my little chefs to help. They love beating the potatoes until they’re light and fluffy.

I used a can of Campbells Seasoned BBQ Pork Soup and warmed it on the stove before topping the potatoes with it. The kiddos love stirring the soup while it heats up. Makes them feel all grown up I guess

Once my potatoes are ready to go, I scooped them into our bowls with an ice cream scooper for easy serving, making a well in the middle of them for the soup. Then I topped the potatoes with lots of goodies like cheese, chives and sour cream.

It was a hit especially with dad! Being it just costs $5 for the whole family to be satisfied, we’ll definitely be having this again. It would also be great served with some green beans or other warm vegetable.

With the new Campbell’s ChunkyTM soups exciting new flavors, there are so many different combinations you could try! Plus lots of other delicious Campbell’s recipes you can make on the cheap.

What kind of soup would you try on top of your Mashed Potatoes?

The post $5 Dinner: BBQ Pork Smothered Mashed Potatoes first appeared on True Aim.

Sometimes we have to motivate our children to eat their salads. They’re not big fans. But serving it this way made it really fun and they ate it up even without any dressing! So my kids ate tons of extra veggies and I didn’t have to cook!

Salad Buffet Dinner

It’s all about presentation. Really! My kids thought this looked so cool, they didn’t even fret about eating a bunch of salad. You could use a bunch of separate bowls, but I used a platter that hid the lettuce (not my kids favorite) underneath all the yummy toppings. The base I used was romaine lettuce and baby spinach.

My daughter Audrey prepared all the toppings, so I didn’t really have to do anything. Just washed and dried the veggies and gave them to her to chop. Her favorite thing to use is the peeler.

When my kids help in the kitchen, they are a lot more likely to eat what they make than what I put in front of them, especially if they get to choose what goes into their food.

I asked Audrey what veggies she would like and then put a few more in there. She was really excited about this dinner!

Funny what a little fancy platter and a variety of toppings will do to make kids eat their salad. What do you cook when you don’t feel like cooking?

The post Cooking with Kids When you Don’t want to Cook: Salad Buffet Dinner first appeared on True Aim.

My kids love chicken, fruit, and pasta. Veggies are another story. They are getting pickier when it comes to what kind of veggies they eat. I found that if I add fruit to veggies, they’ll eat a lot more of them just to get to the fruit.

What makes this recipe even better is the veggies I can hide in their pasta thanks to Ronzoni’s new Garden Delight. There is 1 whole serving of vegetables for each 4 oz. portion and they add lots of pretty colors too.

Raspberry Chicken Pasta Salad with Homemade Poppy Seed Dressing

Another reason I love this recipe; the only cooking involved is the pasta for just 9 short minutes. My eldest daughter knows what to do, and gets the pasta cooking for me.

After the timer goes off, I run the pasta under cool water to stop the cooking and cool off the noodles so I can add my veggies.

I like to put very thing in this salad, but for my kids I keep it to lettuce, cucumbers, raspberries and chicken. Sometimes we add some cubes of mozzarella or goat cheese when we have it. If I’m making this just for myself, I’ll add spinach and avocado too.

You can use whatever kind of cooked chicken you like. It tastes great with this salad when seasoned with garlic salt or you could even get a rotisserie chicken from the store.

Raspberry Chicken Pasta Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

 

Print

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

20 mins

 

Cool, fresh, sweet, sour and salty.

Author: True Aim

Cuisine: American

Serves: 6-8

Ingredients

• 12 oz Ronzoni Garden Delight Pasta
• 2 cups cooked chicken chopped
• ½ cucumber
• 1 cup Raspberries
• ½ head of Ice Berg Lettuce
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 3 tbs apple cider vinegar
• 2 tsp poppy seeds
• ¼ cup sugar
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Cook pasta according to directions. Drain under cold running water to stop the cooking and set aside.
2. Make the poppy seed dressing by whisking the yogurt, olive oil, vinegar, poppy seeds, and sugar together in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper and refrigerate until ready to use.
3. Combine Pasta, chicken, cucumber, lettuce and raspberries in a large bowl and serve with dressing and any salad toppings like nuts, croutons, bacon or shredded cheese.

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You can find Ronzoni Garden Delight pasta at your local Walmart. There you can find an in store coupon for $0.55 off starting 6/22/15; offer expires 8/2/15.  Find a $1.00 off coupon on any two Garden Delight items in most newspapers on 6/28/15 (while supplies last).

Serve this amazing salad as a side or a complete meal, either way, your children will be happy and you’ll be happy to know that they got a good dose of veggies in their diets.

The post Raspberry Chicken Pasta Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing first appeared on True Aim.

Welcome to Mom’s Library

This post is filled with parenting tips, activities for young children, crafts, devotionals, recipes, and more!

Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next Library!

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This Week’s Giveaway!

Entertain Your Kids with eSpectacular!

eSpecatacular Kids is an online video library teaching kids about magic, storytelling, and theater. They are offering one of our readers a 3-month subscription to their video library!  To learn more go to Castle View Academy. To enter your name for a chance to win, just use the Rafflecopter widget below.  Good luck!

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This Week’s Featured Posts…

Crock Pot Lasagna 

Easy to cook and transport.

Baked Cheesy Chicken Nuggets

Guess what kind of crust these have? It’s yummy by itself!

The BEST Slow Cooker Ham

Tastes like candy and melts in your mouth.

Chicken Pot Pie Puffs

My favorite filling in hand-sized puffs.

Bacon Wrapped Water Chestnuts

Addicting! You can never make enough of these little bites of salty sweet goodness!

Snickers Poke Cake

’nuff said.

Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

My aunt always makes these at Christmas time, but anytime is a good time for these!

Oreo & Coke Dump Cake

The title is the how-to. How awesome is that!

No-Bake Eclair Cake

No body better be on a diet at your next potluck because you’ll ruin it by bringing this! They won’t be able to resist.

Cookies and Cream Bars

These are my downfall.

Grain-free Banana Nut Butter Donuts

These look amazing and it is nice to have something for everyone at a potluck.

Easy Strawberry No-Bake Pie 

Skinny Strawberry Lemonade Cake

Would you like to participate?

    Please follow me and support your fellow bloggers by visiting some links!   Grab a button if you were featured!  

The post Everyone Will Thank You for Bringing Over One of These Recipes! first appeared on True Aim.

This Brown Rice Stir Fry recipe is versatile, too! You can substitute many of the items to add variety while still keeping dinner cheap. The very best part is that my family loves it! Who can argue with cheap, healthy, and smiles on top of it all? Certainly not me!

This dinner takes about 35 minutes to cook. All prep work is done while the rice is cooking, so there is no added time there. The yield is 4 generous servings. You can use whatever oil and vegetables you have in the house, so I used sunflower oil and frozen stir-fry veggies. Enjoy!

Cheap Family Dinner Recipe

First things first – Get that rice cooking! It takes the longest, so get it going according to the directions for whatever rice you have. If you have minute rice, then this cooking time will be cut much shorter, but you can still get it started first.

For my brown rice, I boiled 2 cups of water and then added the rice. I turned the heat down, covered it, and put the timer on for 30 minutes. (A good trick for knowing when rice is done cooking is watching for those tunnels that escaping air creates, but not removing it from heat until there is only a tiny bit of water on the bottom when you stir it.)

Then, it’s time to trim, cut up and cook the chicken or whatever protein you decide to add. Steak or shrimp would be good too.

While the chicken is cooking, make your sweet and sour sauce in a separate bowl. I take my chicken out of the pan without draining it and then cook my veggies until tender. This took 5-6 minutes for me because I used a frozen sugar snap stir-fry veggie mix. Covering them while cooking will keep them from burning or drying out.

Add the sweet and sour sauce and the chicken to the vegetables in the pan. The rice should be almost done, so just stir for a few minutes to reduce the sauce and get the flavor cooked into the chicken and veggies a bit.

Then, add the rice and stir for just a minute or two more before serving. And there you have it! A yummy, healthy dinner for the family in about a half hour for a little over $4! Not too shabby.

Brown Rice Sweet and Sour Stir Fry

 

Print

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

30 mins

 

This delicious stir fry with brown rice and sweet and sour sauce is healthy, balanced, and costs less than $1 per serving!

Author: True Aim

Recipe type: Dinner

Serves: 4 servings

Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 1 cup brown rice
• 1 tbsp oil of your choice
• 1-2 chicken breasts (or whatever protein you would like to add)
• 1 lb vegetables of your choice
• ½ cup chicken broth
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• ½ tsp red pepper flakes

Instructions

1. Get your brown rice cooking. Boil the water and then add your rice. Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.
2. Cut the chicken breast into bite-sized pieces. Add 1 tbsp of oil to a pan on medium heat and add the chicken. Stir occasionally until fully cooked. Do not drain. Put aside.
3. While the chicken is cooking, make the sweet and sour sauce by mixing the chicken broth, soy sauce, cider vinegar, brown sugar, and pepper flakes in a small bowl.
4. Add 1 lb of vegetables to the pan, cover, and stir occasionally until tender.
5. Add the chicken and sweet and sour sauce to the pan and stir until thoroughly mixed and heated through.
6. Add the cooked rice to the pan, stir for a minute or two, and serve.

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If you really want to save money, you can use eggs instead of meat. Or you could try flank steak or pork tenderloin and maybe some zucchini and summer squash with a honey teriyaki stir-fry sauce. Yum! Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Leave a comment below explaining how you made this your own, or let us know if you have any creative ideas for other cheap, healthy dinner recipes!

The post $5 Dinner: Healthy Sweet and Sour Stir Fry first appeared on True Aim.

I’ve done it before. I’ve reasoned with myself as to why I don’t need to help anyone else. “I have a priority to take care of my own family first and there isn’t enough time in the day to do that.” or “I already help people through donations, that’s enough.”

While those excuses make me feel better at the time, I’m actually taking away a genuine need that my family and I have; the need to serve.

All humans have an inherent need to help others. When we only dwell on our own problems and selfish desires, it isolates us and destroys our enthusiasm for life. Giving to others helps heal our character and makes us sensitive to the human condition outside of ourselves. That’s why I’m so excited to participate in the #ShareaMeal Unilever Project Sunlight.

Unilever Project Sunlight is an initiative focused on encouraging people to create a brighter future for children – by taking small steps to live sustainably, use less and share even more.

While you may think that it couldn’t happen in America, 1 in 5 children are unaware where their next meal is coming from. Right here in America, there are 16 million children struggling with hunger.

The people who need help the most don’t want to share that they are struggling. That’s why it is so important to watch the video below and #ShareaMeal with friends and family that you think might need a little help. If we all share a little of what we have, the world is a better place for us all.

Easy Stuffed Pasta Shells

This meal is easy to make and great to freeze. Even if I don’t have a lot of time, I can make a double batch of these and I’ll have one meal for my family and one to share.

It doesn’t really take any extra time to make 2 dishes because everything cooks at the same time. I just need a bigger pot to boil the pasta shells in.

Stuffing the shells might take a little extra time, but my daughter helps me do it. It makes her feel needed and connected to the people we share with.

To make this into a freezer meal, I spray a disposable pan with baking spray, put the stuffed shells in, top with sauce and cheese, and wrap with foil. I write the directions right on the pan; preheat 375 degrees, cook for 30-45 minutes. Remove foil; cook for 5-10 minutes more.

Easy Stuffed Pasta Shells

 

Print

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

45 mins

Total time

1 hour 5 mins

 

Easy and delicious stuffed pasta shells make a great freezer meal.

Author: True Aim

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: Italian

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 1 Box Large Pasta Shells
• 11/2 cup Pasta Sauce (about 1 can)
• 16 oz Ricotta Cheese
• 1 cup Baby Spinach chopped
• ½ cup Fresh Basil
• ½ cup Grape Tomatoes chopped
• 1 cup Mozzarella
• 1 tsp Italian Seasoning
• Salt and Pepper
• ½ cup Parmesan

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 and prepare a baking dish with nonstick baking spray.
2. Boil a large pot of water for the pasta shells and cook them al dente, about 7-8 minutes. Drain them and lay them on wax or parchment paper to cool long enough so you can handle them.
3. Meanwhile, spread ¾ cup pasta sauce in the baking dish and set the other pasta sauce aside. Set the Parmesan cheese aside for the top of the pasta. Then, combine the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl.
4. Fill the pasta shells with 11/2-2 tbls of the ricotta mixture and place them on top of the sauce in the baking pan.
5. Top with reserved sauce and Parmesan. Cover with foil and cook for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and cook for 5-10 minutes more to crisp up the edges of the pasta if desired.

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How do you make an effort to share a meal with your community? Want to help? Start by sharing this post, then #ShareaMeal!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Unilever. The opinions and text are all mine.

The post Frozen Dinners to Share: Easy Stuffed Pasta Shells first appeared on True Aim.