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Everyday Food for Busy People

side dish

Easy Peachy Fruit Salad – Quick Side Dish Idea

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I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I’m fixing dinner I forget about the side dishes.  I’m so focused on getting our main dish ready, that the sides get neglected.

Not to mention, that I just don’t like making elaborate sides very often. I like to keep it simple and quick.  But sometimes it’s hard to come up with quick side dish ideas that aren’t the same thing all the time.

This is one of those ideas that you can pull together in less than 5 minutes.  And it’s a bit different than your normal fruit salad.

Easy Peachy Fruit Salad

 

This isn’t my original idea, but I have no idea where I heard about it.  Basically, you use a can of peach pie filling and any other type of fruit you want.

Here’s what I used:

easypeachyfruitsaladingr

 

You can see that I really needed to use that banana quick!

I think this would be great with other types of pie filling too.  I may try apple sometime soon.

I don’t always have pie filling in my pantry, but I often buy “inspiration ingredients”.  These are things that look good to me when I go through the store, but I don’t have an immediate idea for using.  If it’s a pantry item that will keep well, I’ll purchase it. Eventually, an idea will hit or I’ll find a recipe for it.  This is how many of the recipes on this site get created.

This fruit salad hardly needs a written recipe, because it’s so adaptable.  But here it is for you anyway.

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Easy Peachy Fruit Salad – Quick Side Dish Idea

Servings: 6 -8 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 can peach pie filling
  • 3-5 other fruits - canned drained or fresh

Instructions

  • Stir together and chill.
  • Or eat room temperature if you're out of time to chill it.

Simple Lettuce Wedge Salad – a salad for people who hate to make salad

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Simple Lettuce Wedge Salad

 

I’ve seen lettuce wedge salads around recently on blogs and restaurant menus.  Honestly, I wondered what the big deal was or why anyone would want one.  I mean, it’s just iceberg lettuce.

Then a friend ordered a lettuce wedge salad when we went out to eat for book club.  I was sitting next to her and I really wanted to ask for a bite.  It looked amazing!  I refrained from asking for a taste.  Elizabeth might have thought I was a bit nutty if I’d made that request.

Then one day, I decided to make one at home.  And I discovered that this is the perfect salad for me to make.  I hate cleaning and tearing romaine lettuce.  And I’m not a fan of the stems on spinach so I end up tearing all of those off.

But with a lettuce wedge, you just rinse the head, tear off the weird and wilted outer leaves and chop.  Two or three cuts with a sharp knife and the lettuce is ready to go!

I like to add chopped tomatoes, bacon bits and a drizzle of ranch dressing.  If I’ve got croutons, I’ll add those too.

And for reasons I can’t explain, these salads taste like so much more than the sum of their parts.  It really is better than if I served it as a tossed salad.  Maybe it stays crisper?

Whatever the reason, these are good!  Give them a try with a meal soon.

Easy Mashed Sweet Potatoes

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easy smashed sweet potatoes

 

I love sweet potatoes.  I usually just serve them baked as a side dish.  If I’ve got more time, I like to make Sweet Potato Fries.

But this time, I decided to make them mashed.  Or rather, smashed.

This is such an easy side dish to fix.  And it’s a nice change from serving the potatoes baked.

It starts with baking the sweet spuds.  I scrubbed them and put them in a foil lined pan, covering the whole pan with foil.  This was faster than wrapping them individually.  It made the final step easier too.  Just whip the foil off the pan, instead of having to unwrap individual potatoes.

smashedsweetpotatoesingr

 

This is more method than recipe.  Easy to fix.  Easy to remember.

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5 from 1 vote

Easy Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

  • 1/2 - 1 sweet potato per person
  • 2-3 Tbs. brown sugar
  • 1/4 - 1/2 stick butter
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Scrub the sweet potatoes.
  • Place in foil lined baking pan and stick potatoes with a fork several times each.
  • Cover with more foil.
  • Bake 350 for 1 1/2 hours or until very tender.
  • Or line crockpot with foil and place potatoes. Cook on high 5-6 hours or low 7-8 hours.
  • Remove from oven or crockpot.
  • Slice potatoes in half and scoop out the middles.
  • Place in a bowl with brown sugar and butter.
  • Smash and stir with a spoon until well combined.

You’ll also need butter and brown sugar in addition to the sweet potatoes.

 

Slow Cooked Apples and Butternut Squash – Easy Side Dish

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I made this a while back to go with Slow Cooked Breakfast Casserole.  It was a great combination.  Since you’re just dumping two ingredients into a slow cooker, it couldn’t be simpler.

Admittedly, it isn’t the most photogenic of recipes.  Don’t let that stop you though.  I’m not sure what it is about orange veggies, like butternut squash, pumpkin, acorn squash and sweet potatoes, but I could eat and eat and eat them.  They are so good!

You can find diced butternut squash in the produce section or the freezer section of the grocery.  I like skipping the step of peeling and chopping a fresh squash, but it would cut down on cost to do your own prep.

Here’s what you’ll need for this easy side dish:   [Read more…] about Slow Cooked Apples and Butternut Squash – Easy Side Dish

Spaghetti with Kale and Lemon

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I used to be strictly a red sauce and spaghetti noodle kinda girl. However, I would like to think my taste buds have matured over the years. (Maybe matured is not the right word, since I still prefer to hide my veggies in other foods so I don’t really taste them.)  However, this dish helped me realize that kale really can taste good! Granted it gets a little help from olive oil, garlic, lemon and my favorite, cheese, but this was really good! It even made me give kale chips another try. I still say they taste like broccoli potato chips, but with some ranch, I’ve even learned to enjoy eat those too.  If you are really a lover of greens, you could try this with collards, like they did in the December 2012 edition of Whole Living magazine, but…I’ll stick with kale!

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4.67 from 3 votes

Spaghetti with Kale and Lemon

Ingredients

  • 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • 1/4-1/2 tsp red pepper flakes depends on the level of heat you prefer
  • 1/2-1 bunch of kale stems removed and chopped
  • 1/4 cup walnuts toasted (or nut/seed of choice, sesame would be good)
  • Zest of 1 lemon
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice
  • Sea salt and pepper to taste
  • 12 oz spaghetti noodles
  • 1/4-1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan Asiago or Romano

Instructions

  • Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
  • Cook garlic and pepper flakes until fragrant, stirring frequently, approx. 30-45 seconds.
  • Add kale, and stir until slightly wilted.
  • Remove from heat and stir in walnuts, lemon zest and juice.
  • Season with salt and pepper.
  • Meanwhile, cook pasta in well-salted water according to package directions.
  • Once done, reserve 1/2 cup pasta water and drain.
  • Add pasta to skillet, tossing to coat.
  • Add reserved water as needed to reach desired consistency
  • Sprinkle with cheese before serving.

My kids wouldn’t eat this since it contained a green vegetable other than lettuce or cucumbers, but I thought this was delicious! Light, yet filling, and healthy. The red pepper gives it a nice little kick too, but the amounts can be adjusted to suit your taste buds.  It comes together quickly, and my kids just eat plain noodles with Parmesan (they don’t care for sauce) while I enjoy my greens like a big girl!

KimM is a contributing writer for Eat at Home. See more from her at her blog Makin’ it Mo’Betta, and follow along on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter!