I know - I'm asking the impossible. :)

We're eating out WAY too much these days because of walk-throughs. They always seem to want to see the house in the after-school time slot, which means we're not home for dinner time prep. OR - we know that people could call at any moment, and don't want to spend that precious hour trying to scramble to clean the kitchen. Plus, 90% of my cooking stuff is packed. I have my rice maker, a big crock pot, two sheet pans, a pasta/stock pot, and a big knife/cutting board. Oh - and a skillet.

I need some frugal meal ideas and lunch ideas for stuff I can prep ahead of time with little or no mess in the kitchen. I did use the crock pot one day when we had a late walk-through, and that worked well. Even if they're obvious, guys - I'm fried.

Thanks!

(I went to Costco and got some premade dinner entrees for the next three days - stuff I can just pop in the oven, but this wekeend I want to prep a week's worth of meals and freeze them or refrigerate them).

I was going to say make a weeks worth and freeze, but you already got that covered. lol

Also, going raw a few days a week would be good and easy. Chop up a bunch of fresh fruits and veggies and pack them in the fridge.....pull them out whenever. We do that a lot........pita chips and hummus (we get these both from Costco), raw veggies and fruit.....on of my favorite meals! :)

You could pre marinate things in ziplocks before you freeze take out to thaw night before throw on grill. Veggie kabobs on grill, and a salad.

Your grill is your friend it is outside and so is the mess.

You could stick to a lot of sandwich type stuff and make a big pot of soup once a week.

So true... I was just going to mention the grill. Do you have one Sandra? You can make an entire meal on there pretty easily. Also there is always breakfast for dinner. Pancakes, scrambled eggs, omlettes, etc, are easy, fast and the clean up is pretty easy. Nothing that needs to soak anyway... and remember, you can always throw EVERYTHING in the dishwasher and put it on "heavy clean" and "no dry" and then at the worst you will have a couple things you need to wash and bonus: your kitchen will smell like whatever soap you use in your dishwasher. ;)

Val

Buy deli turkey and tortillas, a head of lettuce, tomato if you like, and make turkey wraps ahead of time - expensive yes, but cheaper than take out! If you dip the wraps in some dressing or spread that on the just-before-the-outside layer just before eating, they will last a few days in the fridge.

Another thought - buy canned beans, make rice, shred cheese - nuke the beans to warm them and fill tortillas for a really quick meal.

Pasta and jarred sauce.

I also love the other ideas already mentioned! The grill is great. Breakfast for dinner is quick and easy.

Pasta Salads too... they can be kept in the fridge and nearly everybody likes them.

Big fat salads... chef salads with eggs and ham, or turkey and dried cranberry with feta cheese (these are some of my favorites).

One pot soups. Crock pot stuff. Beef stew in a crock pot is a wonderful meal, add bread, leftovers you can put right into the fridge in the interior of the pot, and all you have to clean up is the eating dishes and the cutting board crumbs.

Wraps is a GREAT idea! You can do all sorts of things with wraps. The $6 chickens from the store are good too... just add baked potatoes (also easy to clean up, just wrap in tinfoil and put in the over at 350* an hour before you want to eat (or on the grill... even better!)) and then you can make the left over chicken into a wrap the next day (I have one of those featured in my blog a while back).

Baked potatoes in a crockpot, grilled cheese and tomato soup. Pasta with prepared pesto sauce from Costco is low mess, right? And yummy.