This post would have likely been more helpful at the beginning of the summer but here in Summer, we all know that the start of school does NOT always correlate with the beginning of Fall. Oh sure, we are about to embark on Football Season but the temps are likely to stay warm for a few more months and by now, you may be looking for some new ways to feed your family without heating up your kitchen so… maybe my timing is perfect.
This week also marks the halfway point in Mommy-palooza. For those that don’t know, I don’t consider myself a single mom. I co-parent with the boys’ dad and most of the time it’s fairly equitable. When he travels however, I’m on full-time mom duty and loving every second. But that also means I have two hungry teenage boys that want dinner the second we get home. Our days start at 5:00 am to get to swim and work and whatnot… we get home around 5:30 pm if we don’t have errands to run… And of course I don’t go to bed early enough to be smart. So we’re all running on empty and I need quick, fast and filling dinners for my babies. Because besides being growing kiddos, they also swim and workout at the gym at least 5 days a week.
So usually, I toss a cheese stick at them from a safe distance and then need to get dinner going ASAP.
Dear Pinterest – I love you.
Here are some of the meals that have had RAVE reviews from my babies. Some are on the agenda for next week. All have the added benefit of not needing to fire up the oven so you can keep your kitchen cool and get dinner on the table quickly.
I’m going to start with my favorite thus far. For those who do not like the ingredients, this will not be appealing whatsoever and I can live with that but for us? This was AMAZEBALLS. Seriously. It was delish day one, but the leftovers that I’ve had over the last few days for lunches got better and better as the flavors melded together.
This next offering was so filling that a little went a long way for me and the boys begged for seconds:
Here are 8 other fantastic oven free dinners that we’ve either already enjoyed or are coming up
Mediterranean Pasta Salad combines some amazingly deep and complex flavors and the pasta helps to fill the hungry tummies.
When in the mood for hot wings, but not interested in the volume of burpees needed to work off those calories, how about buffalo chicken salad sandwiches?
I love the crispness of romaine in a salad and the addition of bacon elevates a standard Caesar salad to new levels. Beautiful beautiful levels…
Greek Chicken Salad transforms a normal chicken salad to something new and complex
And in keeping with a Greek theme… is there anything more refreshing than cucumber salad? Pick up a spiralizer and Kaboom! Cucumber noodles!
But seriously? Back to Bacon. It just makes everything better amirite?
Basil is another of my favorite things and this chicken salad uses it beautifully… Plus you get to take advantage of the awesome tip on cutting grapes that the intergoogles have taught us. You have seen that, right? I’ll share the video below…
As promised, here’s the video for how to cut grapes… or cherry tomatoes…
And last but certainly not least, coming in from my friend Helen over at Life in Random Bits is an AMAZING Tuna Corn Salad.
So there you have it… 10 meals that don’t require you to turn on your oven…
What are you making for dinner?
The grape cutting trick—GENIUS!!
It is brilliant isn’t it?
Ooh, those salads look good. Thanks for sharing the tuna corn salad… I definitely need to make that again.
That’s coming up next week and I can’t wait!