With both Christmas and Hanukkah approaching, kids out of school, parents off of work and family visiting figuring out lunch and dinner meals can get hectic.
What recipe ideas do you employ to help make serving meals a little easier and less reliant on dining out?
Throughout the past year, Lunch It Punch It has shared recipe ideas that can be made ahead of time and packed in a lunch, which means they work well for this time of year. The Mini Meat Loaf recipe allows you to customize with for Italian, BBQ or Mexican tastes. Lin’s Little Chicken Pot Pies are perfect serving sizes for kids and adults and they can be frozen so you can make a batch and save for later.
My Baked Spaghetti is not just my favorite it was fan approved by two Lunch It Punch It fans and it can also go in the freezer for use later in the week. When you’re running short on time and haven’t made any meals ahead, try this Fast Creamy Chicken Pesto Pasta. When you need a feed a group, choosing Italian or Mexican-based meals helps because you can size up the recipes and these Taco Burritos are a nice twist on the usual. Don’t forget to pair it with Mexican Rice a nice guest post from fan, Emmy!
If you’re looking for an easy breakfast casserole that can be made ahead of time and baked in the oven while people are getting ready in the morning, try this Sausage Egg Casserole. The Easy Fruit Crostata works well at breakfast or as a dessert.
There’s always a need for snacks like granola and fruit dippers.
And if you want to get festive, you can make a shrimp tree like I did for my family Christmas party!
Lunch It Punch It (@lunchitpunchit)
December 20, 2011 at 4:12 pm{New Post}: Recipe Ideas for the Holidays http://t.co/svDw6BiC #recipe
trashmaster46
December 20, 2011 at 6:41 pmIt helps that I’m usually off work the last two weeks of December (yay for working the school calendars!). We aren’t a whole lot better about planning around the holidays than we are any other time of year, but winter foods in general seem to lend themselves to large batches a little more easily than summer foods. It’s just as easy to fill a giant crockpot with stew as it is to make a smaller batch. Meatloaf bakes pretty much the same whether you do it in two batches or one. Endless pots of soup (chicken tortellini, clam chowder, tomato rice soup, ad nauseum). Fried rice to deal with leftover rice and whatever else.
Dessert around this time of year is ridiculously simple – I often receive candy and cookies from co-workers and work families. If that doesn’t do the trick, then we just dip marshmallows in nutella then roll them in chopped peanuts!
Andi
December 20, 2011 at 7:28 pmI totally agree that this time of year is great for big batch making, sounds like you’ve got it under control at your house!
I just always find myself running ragged this time of year so it is nice to know there are meal waiting at home if I just plan a little ahead.
trashmaster46
December 24, 2011 at 11:00 pmJust got my giveaway prize today – thank you! I love the punch cards tucked inside too. I will probably give them to co-workers who mostly go out for lunch or bring packaged frozen meals to work. Happy ChristmaHannuKwanzSolstice to Yule.
Andi
December 25, 2011 at 2:40 pmThanks for letting me know you received your prize and so happy to hear you’ll pass along the punch cards to coworkers 🙂 Merry Happy to you too!