Easy and Inexpensive Casseroles For Picnics, Potlucks, Reunions, and Your Own Dinner Table

One of the most inexpensive ways to feed a family is to serve a casserole as the main dish. Casseroles are also easy to prepare as they don't take long to put together and you are free to continue with the other parts of the meal while they bake. But one of the best things is how tasty and nourishing they are. So whether you are looking for some quick, simple, and inexpensive meals for your family table or whether you need a dish for a potluck, family reunion, etc. go back to basics with these delicious casserole recipes.

The Green Bean and Burger Bake is sure to please the kids with it's sloppy Joe flavoring. You have meat, vegetables, and dairy in the form of cheese, all in this one dish. Add a salad, a favorite bread and just that easily you have a complete meal. For another, but different, easy casserole that should please the kids as well as your spouse. try the Simple Hamburger Hot Dish. Again, the meat ingredient is ground beef. With noodles, cheese, cream of mushroom soup, onion, etc., you can quickly have a tasty meal on the table that is both nutritious and pleasing. Add a green vegetable or carrots for color and extra vitamins, and you have another simple but delicious meal.

GREEN BEAN AND BURGER BAKE

1 lb ground beef
1 1/2 oz pkg sloppy Joe seasoning mix
1 cup water
6 oz can tomato paste
2 cans (16-oz each) French-style green beans, drained
1 jar (2 1/2-oz) sliced mushrooms, drained
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Brown ground beef in a large skillet; drain off all fat. Stir in the seasoning mix and water and cook until thickened. Add tomato paste. Cover the skillet, lower the heat to simmer and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in the beans and mushrooms. Pour mixture into a lightly greased 2-quart casserole dish and top with the cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 30 minutes until bubbly and heated through.

Yield: 6 servings

SIMPLE HAMBURGER HOT DISH

This recipe is from a very old community cookbook.

1 pkg (8-oz) egg noodles
2 lbs ground beef
2 cans cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
1 med onion
8 slices cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Cook noodles in salted boiling water, drain and rinse. Brown ground beef and onion together, season with salt and pepper. Mix noodles, meat, and soup together and put in a 9x13 lightly greased baking pan or dish. Lay the cheese over the top. Cover the pan with foil and bake 30 minutes at 300 degrees or until the cheese melts and the casserole is bubbly.

Serves 8 to 10.

Enjoy!

Easy Fast Dinner Recipes - Inexpensive and Quick Recipes

Have you just arrived home from a long work day and want to prepare something simple? You look in the refrigerator and the only thing that looks easy is the not-so-tasty frozen dinners, so instead you hop in the car and it's off to the fast food restaurant.

Here are some quick and easy to prepare delicious recipes:

1. A Quick Dessert

Ingredients:

- 4 Pieces toast
- 4 sl Cheese Nutmeg
- 1 1/2 c Applesauce
- 1/4 c Sugar

Direction:

- Add sugar and nutmeg to applesauce.
- Put applesauce on toast, about 3 tablespoons on each piece of toast.
- Lay a slice of cheese over the sauce.
- Bake in a moderate oven until the cheese melts. Serve hot.

2. A Quick Way To Decorate Cake

Ingredients:

- 1 pk Marshmallows
- Vanilla to taste
- Green food coloring
- 1 pk Red hots
- Box of cornflakes (4 1/2 c)
- White angel food cake

Directions:

- Melt marshmallows, add food coloring and vanilla.
- Add the cornflakes, stir until well coated.
- Spread this onto a cookie sheet, shaping into holly leaves.
- Place a red hot in middle.
- Let dry about 5 hours.
- Then top a white frosted angel cake with the holly leaves.
- Makes a very pretty cake.

3. A Real Easy Cookie

Ingredients:

- Graham crackers
- Pecan halves
- 1/2 c Sugar
- 2 Sticks cutter

Directions:

- Melt butter and sugar.
- Bring to a boil.
- Boil for two minutes ONLY.
- Place graham crackers on foil lined sheet.
- Place nuts on cracker center.
- Spoon butter and sugar mix over graham crackers.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes on top rack.
- Cool completely before breaking apart.

4. Baked Mac and Cheese

Ingredients:

- 1 cn (10 3/4 ounces) Condensed Cheddar Cheese Soup
- 1/2 cn Milk
- 1 ts Prepared Mustard
- 1/8 ts Pepper
- 2 c Hot cooked Elbow or medium shell Macaroni (1 1/2 c dry)
- 2 ts Margarine or Butter, melted
- 1 tb Dry Bread Crumbs

Directions:

- In 1-quart casserole, combine soup, milk, mustard and pepper.
- Stir in macaroni.
- In a cup, combine margarine and bread crumbs.
- Sprinkle over casserole.
- Bake at 400 degrees F.
- 20 minutes or until hot and bubbling.
- Makes 2 1/2 Cups = 2 main dish servings or 4 side dish servings.

5. Beef and Rice Crisp

Ingredients:

- 1 lb Lean ground beef
- 1 c Coarsely-chopped onion
- 1/2 c Coarsely-chopped green pepper
- 2 tb Ketchup
- 1/4 ts Salt
- 1/2 ts Dry mustard
- 1 1/2 c Cooked rice
- 1 c Milk
- 1 (10 oz) can cream of Mushroom soup
- 1 1/2 c Shredded Cheddar cheese
- 1 ts Worcestershire sauce
- 2 c Corn flakes, coarsely crushed
- 3 tb Butter, melted

Directions:

- Saute beef, onion and green pepper in a large frypan until meat is browned; drain off any fat.
- Blend in ketchup, salt and dry mustard.
- Turn meat mixture into a 2 quart round casserole; spread rice on top.
- Gradually stir milk into mushroom soup.
- Stir in cheese and Worcestershire sauce.
- Pour over meat and rice layers.
- Combine crushed corn flakes and butter; sprinkle evenly over casserole.
- Bake in preheated 375 degree F oven 35 to 40 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

Makes 6 servings.

Eating Cheap: A Week's Worth of Inexpensive Meals

Short on cash? Are you a starving student? Or maybe you're saving up for that next tank of gas!

Whatever the case, sometimes we all need to cut corners until the next paycheck rolls in.

These meals will fill you up without emptying your wallet. They should feed four hungry mouths.

While prices vary widely depending on your part of the country and your grocery store, you'll still find these dinners will stretch your food dollar to the max.


Lentil stew. One package of lentils, a couple of carrots, a couple of potatoes, water. Place the package of lentils in a large soup pot and add the appropriate amount of water (1-1/2 cups water to one cup of lentils works best). Peel the potatoes and carrots, and slice to bite size. Add to soup pot. Season to taste. If you have it: Add a ham bone, a bit of leftover beef, bacon bits, bay leaf, or favorite herbs.


Baked potatoes. Nothing complicated here. Buy large baking potatoes or just get a bag of potatoes on sale. If small, bake more of them per serving. Choose your favorite toppings: Simply butter, salt and pepper, cheese, broccoli, sour cream, bacon bits, or whatever is on hand.


Cheese quesadillas. Make these with flour tortillas. Heat two tortillas in a skillet and remove one to a plate. Top the remaining tortilla with shredded cheese. When melted, about 1-2 minutes, place the other tortilla on top. Allow to cook for a minute or so, flip the whole thing over and cook the other side for another minute. Dump onto a plate, slice with a pizza cutter. If you have it: Add shredded cooked chicken to the cheese. Serve with salsa.


Scrambled eggs. Get a dozen for less than one dollar. Crack eggs into a bowl and whisk. Add milk, salt, and pepper. Cook eggs in a skillet. If you have it: Add your choice of mushrooms, cheese, green pepper, or onion.


Spaghetti and sauce. Here again, not too creative, but you can pick up a package of spaghetti and a can of sauce for less than two dollars. Add parmesan cheese on top.


Tuna sandwiches. Frequently on sale, tuna provides a meaty dinner this week. For four filling sandwiches, use four of the smaller cans. Dump all of the cans into a bowl, add mayonnaise or salad dressing, along with some relish if you've got it. Stir, spread onto bread. I like to use ranch dressing.


Grilled cheese sandwiches. Butter bread on both sides and place on a medium-heat grill. Add a slice of cheese. Splurge on an extra slice of cheese per sandwich!

Accompaniments:

Watch for sales on frozen vegetables. You can frequently pick up a one-pound bag for less than a dollar.
Slice a fresh tomato into wedges or a cucumber into slices to go with a sandwich. Any fresh vegetable will do.
Slice a piece of fruit for a healthy dessert.
Stop by Walgreen's and see what's on sale in their food aisle. They frequently have good deals on canned mandarin oranges which make a tasty dessert. Add a bit of coconut or a few marshmallows if you have them.
Walgreen's frequently carries canned mushrooms on sale, too.
How about lunch for a quarter? Check Walgreen's for ramen noodles.
Cake mixes and canned frosting are often priced under a dollar, especially the store brands. Your only additions will be a bit of oil (or applesauce if you're counting calories) and a couple of eggs (save from the meal above). For a couple dollars, you can have dessert for a couple of nights or snacks for a few days.

Even if you're on a tight budget, you can still create a tasty meal. Not gourmet dining, but you won't be hungry!

Inexpensive Cobb Pizza Oven With Multiple Other Uses

If you decide to buy a pizza oven for the home it will probably be electric and only capable of cooking pizza, nothing else. Since these ovens have such restricted use they tend to be used a couple of times, and then forgotten.

Instead of wasting money this way you may wish to consider a viable and inexpensive alternative, the Cobb Grill.

For those who are not familiar with the Cobb it is a compact multifunction cooker that makes an excellent pizza oven, but does much more as well. The fuel of choice for the Cobb is the humble charcoal briquette. 6 - 9 briquettes is sufficient for up to 3 hours cooking time.

For use in the home the Cobb is ideally sited close to the main kitchen cookers extraction hood. Unless your extraction can cope the Cobb should be lit outside and left for 15 minutes for the coals to turn grey. The design of the Cobb is such that the sides of the cooker remain cool, so when the Cobb is ready it can be picked up and brought inside. You are now ready to to use the Cobb as a pizza oven.

You will soon realise that the Cobb makes an excellent emergency cooker for the home in times of power cuts. It comes with its own carrying bag and is compact enough to take camping or use on a boat.

If you've ever watched the 'Hairy Bikers' on TV you'll recognise the Cobb they feature regularly. These two British Chefs have travelled the world cooking many different cuisines using the Cobb as their cooker of choice.

Whether at home or away the Cobb will cook everything from a full family breakfast to a roast dinner with all the trimmings. We've already mentioned its capabilities as a pizza oven, but it will do so much more. You can bake bread in it, smoke meat or fish, use it as a wok, cook stew and dumplings and it makes an excellent BBQ.

When we think of BBQ we're bound to think of the smoke and occasional flare ups. With the Cobb its not a problem. Meat juices are directed into a moat arrangement in the bottom, so never come into direct contact with the heat source and hence produces little or no smoke. For this same reason the Cobb doesn't flare up.

The moat serves several purposes. As well as collecting meat juices it can be part filled with water or wine etc. As the stove heats, the steam from the moat keeps the cooking meat above moist and helps prevent shrinkage. In addition, if you wrap vegetables in foil they can be cooked in the moat and not absorb the meat juices. The liquor left at the end of cooking makes an excellent base for gravy or a sauce.

As I said, the Cobb is much more than a pizza oven.

Inexpensive Outdoor Programs For Troubled Teens

Outdoor activities are considered therapeutic for troubled teens. Teens become troubled when they feel they are worthless. Outdoor activities give them a sense of self worth that starts the process of turning their life around.

Outdoor activities with family will help a withdrawn teenager come back to his or her family fold. Hiking, biking and gardening are some of the inexpensive outdoor activities that families can do together and help their teen get over his or her problems. Volunteering for charity sponsored outdoor activities as a family can help the teenager focus on something more than negative thoughts.

When families are unable to manage the teen on their own, inexpensive wilderness and other outdoor camps specially tailored for troubled teens will help them change for the better. These camps have experience field instructors who teach troubled teens new skills while weaning them away from negative habits. The number of teens recruited for these camps are few and the instructor can deal with specific problems on a one to one basis. Troubled teens work as a team with other troubled teens. They help themselves and others to change their ways for the better. The camps involve outdoor activities work and discipline that are proven therapeutic methods to help troubled teens. Some camps are sponsored by grants and charge a low fee or help teenagers for free.

Troubled teens are argumentative, defiant, disobedient, and unmanageable and lack motivation. Outdoor programs like wilderness camps teach them to work against the elements with others who have the same issues. They are cut off from society and learn to fend for themselves with other teens. They learn new skills and this increases their self confidence. Wilderness camps include many activities like hiking, mountain climbing and river rafting. These camps sometimes offer a troubled teen an outdoor interest that endures for life. Some camps address specific issues that trouble teens like ADD/ADHD or weight loss.

Troubled teens turn their life around while participating in group physical activities. They learn responsibility, cooperation, participation and to deal with consequences of their actions. They learn to take responsibility for their actions, to overcome hurdles and to solve problems. The instructors are usually experienced counselors. They help the teen find goals and values at the camp. They organize workshops to increase the communication skills of the troubled teen. The group setting helps teens understand that they are not alone and they have peers who want to change their ways just as badly as they do.

Before sending their teens to these wilderness camps, parents need to check the credentials of the organizers and the qualifications of the counselors. The organizers should have a reputation of helping teenagers. They should not be a vehicle of abuse. Parents should check the testimonials of those who have attended the camps. Parents should also check if there are any complaints about the treatment of troubled teens at the camp. The object of camps should be to help teenagers and not demoralize them.

Parents should encourage troubled teens to participate in outdoor activities to help them focus on activities that have a positive effect on their behavior.