Simple dinner recipes

Most Americans aren’t gourmet cooks.  That’s right, they live full lives.  Often they don’t have time to think about home cooking.  Often it’s not a matter of cooking itself, but rather of coming up with dinner ideas for quick, healthy, inexpensive meals for the whole family.  This can be easier than people make it out to be.  With the Internet, cooking shows, and food demonstrations daily at supermarkets, it’s easier than ever to plan a whole week of meals.  Now for some excellent dinner ideas.

An American favorite is the corn dog.  While a little on the unhealthy side, it’s quick and good to eat.  Coat the hot dogs with batter made of flour, corn meal, milk, salt, sugar and baking powder, then fry them until golden.  Put the dog on a stick for an authentic feel.

In colonial times, dinner was an afternoon meal, followed by a later light meal called supper. Over time this was adjusted according to the needs of social class and work type. Physical laborers needed an afternoon dinner to keep up their strength throughout the grueling day. As times change and we move away from regular meals at home, dinner has become the anchor that keeps families together and signals the end of the out of the home portion of the day and the beginning of at home leisure time.  But supper and dinner have become intertwined, often interchanged in meaning this big meal.  The evening meal doesn’t have to be huge, though.  Try a roast chicken salad.

Try crock pot cooking.  Add the ingredients, set it on low in the morning, so by dinner time the food is ready to eat.  The crock pot can handle the entire meal.  Try pot roast and potatoes.  Pick up some salad and a fresh loaf of bread at the store.  Or, skip the bread to avoid the extra calories.

It’s not that hard to cook well, for example grilled steak and baked potatoes.  For more dinner ideas, Google the term.  There are tons on line.