Mums – if you’re sick and tired of being stuck at home and desperately need some fresh food ideas to save your happy home from mealtime mutiny then you’ll just love these 3 simple, easy-to-make, super-yummy dishes!
If you’re stuck at home with limited options for fun and entertainment to help keep the peace, then there’s nothing worse than having to dish up the same old meals night after night.
Everyone needs some variety to break up the monotony, and mealtimes are no exception. Without something new on the menu to brighten up the day, if you haven’t already you’ll soon all be going stir-crazy!
But after a day of home-schooling or indoor holiday craft activities, spending hours slaving away in the kitchen is probably the last thing on your mind (even if it does involve a supportive glass of red wine to soothe your nerves!). And who wants to have to endure endless supermarket queues and depressing aisles of empty shelves as you hunt down a list of exotic ingredients that probably aren’t even going to be available anyway? That’s not anybody’s idea of a good time, no matter how miserable the current menu situation may be.
If that sounds like you, then here’s the good news you’ve been waiting for – we’ve put together this package of three totally delicious recipes that are so easy to make, that you’ll have to pinch yourself to believe that it’s true! Even more than that, not only are they quick to put together and simple to cook, for every single one of these 3 fantastic recipes, all that you’re going to need are basic, everyday ingredients that you’ll already have in your fridge or pantry at home or are easy to get your hands on.
Which means that you can forget all about restrictions, shortages and limitations for a while and get back to enjoying some family fun time as you create these 3 amazing taste sensations so delicious that everyone will be clamoring for more!
Since, like they say, variety is the spice of life, we’ve made sure that you’ve got all your bases covered with one savory, one dual-purpose and one sweet taste-bud tantalizer – it doesn’t get better than that! Oh, except to say that there’s not much washing up either! Enjoy!
#1 Dual purpose – Skillet Bread
This little gem of a recipe is what the Americans call skillet bread. Basically, it’s bread that you cook in a frypan. So no oven required and, even better, no yeast!!! None of that dreaded panic about waiting for dough to rise, just pour your lovely little mix straight into a frypan and put a lid on the top. How good is that?
Plus this just keeps on getting better because, all you need to create this mouth-watering freshly-made bread sensation is flour, water and a bit of salt. Plus oil or butter to cook it in – hallelujah! Told you it was easy!!!
Smell the mouth-watering aroma and then, as soon as it’s ready, cut it into slices or pull of pieces and savor the flavor of warm, freshly-baked bread straight out of your frypan – and did we mention that it only takes about 5 minutes to make your mix?
Let’s start with the first of our easy delicious stuck at home recipes.
Ingredients
- 1½ cups self-raising flour (or plain flour + baking powder)
- 1 cup water (yep, plain old H2O)
- Pinch of salt
Other than some oil/butter for cooking it in, this is where the ingredients truly end – it is not a misprint!
Instructions
Put your flour into a mixing bowl (you can sift it if you feel like doing that).
Add your pinch of salt.
Mix in the water – it’s quite a good idea to do this like you would with scones using a knife to cut it through and then get your spoon and mix it once all the water is in.
The batter/dough (whatever you want to call it) is thicker than a cake or pikelet batter but not a dough that you can roll around.
Heat some oil/butter in a frypan and then tip in your batter/dough. It’s quite thick and sort of blobby, so be ready to spread it out with a spoon once it’s in the pan. Put it on a low to medium heat. Cover the frypan, ideally if you’ve got a lid use that, otherwise just find something else that fits over the top. Only about 4-5 minutes then flip it over like you do with pancakes, and then another 5 minutes for the second side.
We promise you this smells, looks and tastes delicious! You can have it with jam, honey etc. You can have it with just butter. You can dip it into things. If you want to get fancy, grate some cheese (cheddar or parmesan) into your batter/dough for a more savory snack.
This heats up well the next day in the microwave, but you’ll be lucky if there’s any left!
#2 Savory – Cheese and Spinach Pie
It’s almost impossible to believe how easy this Cheese and Spinach Pie is to make. I promise this is guaranteed an easy delicious stuck at home recipe.
This serves 4 people very nicely and only takes about 15 minutes to prepare + 30 minutes in the oven. Too easy.
Ingredients
- 2 sheets puff pasty
- 1 decent-sized bunch of silverbeet/spinach
- 1 small-medium onion
- 1 egg
- 1 x 200g pack feta cheese
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
Heat oven 200oC (fan forced)
Grease your pie dish well (olive oil or butter, whatever you fancy).
Following a mum’s tip, put one sheet of puff pastry in the bottom and then put in the oven for about 10 minutes so that it starts getting puffy. Then take it out.
While that’s cooking, here’s what to do with the other ingredients.
Get a reasonable size mixing bowl, break in the egg and beat it in there. Crumble in your feta cheese (the whole packet) and add salt and pepper to taste.
Chop up the onion quite finely then put it in as well.
Finally, chop off the stalks of your silverbeet/spinach (leave a bit of them on – a couple of centimetres) then mix it in with your other ingredients – good news here – you don’t have to cook it first and mess around squeezing out the water. Just chop it and put it in with the other ingredients and give it a good mix.
Tip the lot into your pie dish and put the other piece of puff pastry on top. If you’ve got a square sheet of pastry and a round dish, just fold the corners in over the top of the pie.
Cook for 30 minutes until it looks all nice and puffy-pie golden brown on the top and that’s it! Done and dusted.
#3 Sweet – Banana Breadcake
And finally the third of our easy delicious stuck at home recipes.
Is it a cake? Is it bread? Who can decide? So let’s stick with Banana Breadcake!
This sweety is extra versatile because you can slice it up as a cake – if you wanted to you could put icing on it. But, as well, it’s such a good consistency that it slices like banana bread so that you can put in the toaster! And that means spreading butter on thick, warm, toasted slices to be enjoyed with a cup of freshly brewed coffee or tea …
And super-easy to make because you get to melt the butter and sugar in a saucepan instead of having to do the creaming thing.
Ingredients
- About 3 ripe bananas (depending on the size)
- 125g butter
- ¾ cup caster sugar
- 1 tspn vanilla essence
- 1½ -2 cups self-raising flour (or plain flour + baking powder)(depending on how big the bananas are)
- 1 egg
- ¼ cup milk
Instructions
Grease a loaf tin very well, because you need to leave the Banana Breadcake in there to cool once it’s cooked and you want it to be easy to get out.
Oven 170oC (fan forced)
Melt butter, sugar in saucepan and add vanilla.
While that’s melting, mash your bananas.
Mix in some of the flour.
Beat the egg, add the milk then tip in with your bananas & flour.
Add most of the flour and mix well.
Pour in the butter/sugar blend.
Add flour until you think it is the right consistency – you should be able to pour it but not like a liquid water, just a normal cake batter but a bit thinner.
Then pour into the loaf tin and cook for about 50 minutes – 1 hour. Turn it around after about 30 minutes if you’re that way inclined, and start keeping an eye on it from about the 40 minute mark. It should look brown, and you can tap it on the top if it’s ready, and maybe use a skewer to check that it has cooked through.
Let it cool in the tin, then tip it out onto a wire rack to complete the process before you start slicing your way into a little piece of banana heaven.
By the way, if you wanted to boost anyone’s veggie intake, you could grate in a carrot or two –colour, flavour and vitamins and no-one will suspect a thing … happy days!
Find more delicious recipes from Cammylee on Recipesnobs.com
