6 Easy Dinners to Deliver

Happy Friday!!  Hope you've had a nice weekend and have a 3 day weekend ahead.  We're excited for a long weekend and hoping to do some fun stuff around town.  See you back here on Tuesday.

If you've been around here for very long, you know that I really enjoy delivering dinner to families in need.  Sometimes I take meals to friends, neighbors, church members, classmates of Olive's, etc. I'm always listening for needs to be mentioned and then taking the initiative to offer to deliver dinner.

I'm not a gourmet cook that feels super confident making new recipes.  I am just a regular home cook that loves cooking for other people.  Have you ever listened to Amy Hannon (@eunamaes on instagram) talk about her mission of Love, Welcome, Serve and biblical hospitality?  She's very inspiring when it comes to sharing your love of cooking with others.

I wanted to round up 6 meals ideas today to give you some easy, approachable recipes that you can make for your own family and are really portable recipes to share.  Oftentimes I make double the recipe so my family has the same meal that I am delivering to a friend.  Makes my life easier to just double the recipes and not meal prep two separate meals.

I try to deliver the following things: main dish, bread/sides, veggies, fruits and a dessert.

1. Charcuterie Board To Go
It's no surprise that I combined my love of charcuterie boards with delivering dinner.  This was such an easy meal to put together.  The meats required no chopping.  I did chop two blocks of cheese.  The fruit and veggies were really quick.  I opted for baking some frozen Sister Shubert rolls vs homemade because I am not a bread baker. 

meat & cheese
salty crackers/chex mix
Sister Shubert rolls
veggies & fruits
pumpkin cookies

2. Teriyaki Chicken Casserole
Remember when I shared this recipe earlier this month??  It was a big hit at my house and with my friends.  She said her family said it was just as good as their favorite Tokyo restaurant in town :)  I loved this no bake, healthy-ish casserole.  It's so portable, colorful and delicious.

3. BBQ Chicken Quesadillas
This meal came together so quickly!  I picked up everything I needed at Aldi - cherries, sweet potato chips, pulled chicken bbq, tortilla shells and shredded cheddar.  I heated the chicken on the stove, made the quesadillas on the stove and delivered everything else right from the store.  I did a mix of cheese and bbq chicken quesadillas so there was something for everyone.  This meal was delicious.  I"ll be repeating it for our family and to deliver to friends.

4. Pasta Dishes
Pasta dishes always rank high on my list when I am looking for a meal to take to others.  I've made baked spaghetti, stuffed pasta shells, mostacelli, pizza spaghetti, regular spaghetti, alfredo, etc.  There are tons of options.  The pasta dishes travel well and reheat well for leftovers.  I added steamed veggies, bananas, french bread and cookies.  Everything was fully cooked and I left instructions for reheating it all in the oven.  I didn't have time to cut up fruit so I sent bananas along with this meal.

5. Take Out
Text your friends when you hear that they are sick or their kids are sick or that they could use a meal and ask them to give you their order for a take out place in town.  I've done this for Panda Express, Pizzas and Chick-Fil-A.  It was so easy for me to swing through a drive through and order them exactly what their family wants.  My friends appreciated this just as much as meals I spent time preparing in my own kitchen.  So if you're not a cook or don't have time to fix a dinner, just remember you can still take care of others and bring them a drive through or take out dinner.

6. BBQ Chicken/Cheese Pizzas
Remember how I've mentioned loving those naan flatbreads from Aldi??  They make the best pizza crusts.  I delivered this meal to a friend with mac & cheese, oranges and Snickerdoodles. I made cheese pizzas for the kids and BBQ Chicken Pizzas for the kids.  This is my BBQ chicken pizza recipe.  I made the toppings the same and just subbed out the raw pizza crust for the naan flatbread pizza crusts.

Hope you found a new meal idea or two that you could share with friends this Fall!

What meals do you like to make when you take dinner to someone??

It's time to link up with my favorite blogging buddies for High Five for Friday.  Join us with a few different blog posts and be sure to look around to find some new blog friends

Becky @  By BMG Blog
Della @ Della Devoted
Tif @ Bright on a Budget
Whitney P @ Come Home for Comfort

This link party is powered by Link Party Animal

10 School Lunch Ideas: Yumboxes

I get asked regularly if we are still liking our Yumbox lunch boxes.

Without hesitation, my answer is always YES!  They're wonderful.

They cost around $25-29 each, but they hold up great for YEARS.  Yes, YEARS!  You'll save money on ziplocs and all the other food wrappers because you don't have to individually wrap anything.  Every item goes in its own compartment.  It's quick to fill the compartments and they are leak proof (as long as you don't over fill them).  You can find links to all our favorite Yumboxes + supplies in this post Everything You Need for Packing School Lunches

Now that we're almost a month into our school year, I thought it would be fun to do a little lunch box inspiration post.

We've figured out a winning lunch formula:
fresh fruit
crunchy veggies
salty snack
half sandwich/pasta
meat & cheese
tiny treat
food picks/tiny forks/glitter silverware
reusable water bottle
Yumbox Original

These are10 of our favorite lunch ideas:

Mini Oreos, fresh pineapple and glitter silverware (from Walmart)

Cookie cutter shaped sandwiches

White Cheddar Cheese or Sharp Cheddar cheese cubes

Breakfast for dinner.  Thomas mini bagles are so soft!  I just split them in half and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on them.  More glitter silverware.  We save it for lunchboxes.

Fritos, Food picks and Nerds.

Matchstick carrots, half sandwich cut in half, mini M&Ms, turkey pepperoni & turkey sausage

Gardettos, grapes and olives

Chex mix, English cucumbers peeled, Honey Crisp apple slices.  The apples don't brown once they've been sealed in their compartment.  If you're worried about it, just rinse them in a tiny bit of salt water and it'll keep them from browning.

Cold pasta, carrot circles and fresh peaches.  We love the unicorn Kraft mac & cheese.  I just make the noodles and toss the cheese powder pouch.  Olive loves them in her lunch.  You could easily add butter, cheese, salt and pepper to the noodles.

Mini Reeses cup, mini pb crackers, half sandwich no crust, Cheese Chex, a mix of cheese cubes and melon.  Fletcher's lunch favorites are different than Olive's :)

Hope this gives you some new ideas and inspiration to pack yummy lunches for your family!

Our Aldi Favorites

Are you an Aldi shopper yet??

The goal of my post today is to convince you that you need to shop at Aldi. 

I guarantee that you will save money on your grocery budget every month by shopping there.  The prices are amazing and the store really isn't that complicated to figure out - bring your own quarter to use a cart, bring your own shopping bags and be prepared to get some great deals!!  The prices on meat, cheese and produce are hard to beat.

I thought I'd do a little round up of all our favorite Aldi products to help convince you to shop there.  These are must have items when I make an Aldi run.  I don't go every week, but I make it to Aldi to stock up on great deals probably twice a month.  The deals are just too good to pass up.

I always start by filling up my cart with produce.  The end cap always features their sales for the week and I try to start there.  I never remember to look at the Aldi app or the Aldi add before I go to the store.  These green grapes were amazing!  Great prices on strawberries, spinach, cucumbers, nectarines and blueberries.

This naan bread is a staple at my house.  It makes the best pizza crust.  I always have it in our freezer.  It thaws perfectly and I regularly find it marked down to $1 or $2 off.  I love to stock up when it's marked down and freeze it.  We do regular pizza, bbq chicken pizza and cheesey breadsticks out of these.

These gourmet cupcakes are so good!  $3.49 for 4 is a wonderful deal.

These cookie thins are all the rage!

My whole family loves these tortilla chips.  They're salty and delicious just like Tostitos.  They just happen to be $2-3 less than the name brand.  The salsa is so good!  We buy both the milk and medium.  Neither are super spicy and approved by all the people at my house.

We love all their salami varieties for charcuterie boards.  They're super fresh and really well priced.  I picked up the snack trays for an easy lunch for Kevin one day.

The Aldi cheese selection is AMAZING.  They've got everything from fancy cheese, smoked cheese, white cheddar, shredded, blocks, sliced, cheese sticks, fresh cheese, etc.  The prices are so good!

 My Mom said this hard salami by the pretzels (not refrigerated) is really good.

We love Aldi ketchup and mustard.

 These Aldi chocolates are AMAZING.  They make great snacks or teacher gifts.

 We love all the Aldi pasta.  This is a giant box of angel hair pasta for $1.69.

All the taco making supplies are delicious.  We love the beans, the taco seasoning packets and the soft taco shells.

These fruit pouches are so yummy!  They're $1.49 for four and I love them.  Fletcher and I pack them for snacks regularly.  The apple peach is our favorite.

The canned cinnamon rolls go on sale regularly and my kids think they're better than homemade.  They're our favorite canned cinnamon roll and are only $1.69 each.

We save juice boxes for special occasions and these are kid approved!  I was excited to see them on sale for $1.49 so I stocked up for us and for Olive's class.  We also like the Aldi Capri Suns.  I think they're both $1.99 and kid approved.

My Aldi always has these fun snack size cookie bags.  My kids like the Nutter Butters and Oreos and they're usually $1.99.  They fit perfectly in lunch boxes.

We love the Aldi vanilla yogurt and this Milville Whole Grain Granola Oats Honey Almond.  My whole family enjoys it.  It's only $2.19 and it's in the cereal aisle.

What are you most excited to try from Aldi??
Do we have any of the same favorites??