Ideas for a large, simple side dish?
 

A sweet potato casserole perhaps? There are several good recipes out there that are delicious, pretty easy and inexpensive.

What about a pan of baked pineapple? Its kind of like a desert but with fruit!

How about pasta salad? Boil up some pasta, cut up green peppers and onions and toss with Italian dressing.

You can't beat homemade mac-n-cheese. Very easy.

Three words:

Chili
cheese
fries.

And Jello. Lotsa JellO.

That's the beauty of it.

Bake the fries.
Buy some canned chili and shredded cheese. Let the guys choose to mix it or keep it seperate.

And JellO is cheap and super easy. Keep in mind these kids aren't looking for "healthy". Hopefully they'll appreciate a meal from a wonderful woman.;)

I've made this quite a bit for potlucks & everyone seems to enjoy it. It serves roughly 10 so you'd want to double it.

Fruit & Yogurt Pasta Salad

4 oz (1 cup) uncooked small shells
1 (11 oz) can mandarin orange segments, drained
1 (8 oz) can pineapple chunks or tidbits, drained
1 cup halved seedless green grapes
1 (6 oz) container low-fat yogurt (I use tropical, lemon is good too)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup halved strawberries

Cook pasta & drain. Rinse with cold water to cool.
Combine cooked pasta & all remaining ingredients except strawberries, mix gently to coat. Cover, refrigerate to blend flavors. Just before serving, stir in strawberries.

5 Cans and Eat
{my version}

Crockpot, microwave, stove top or oven.

can of chili con carne
can of kidney beans
can of black beans
can of corn
can of pitted olives

adjust for portions with more cans or larger cans
add all together, stir gently and heat thoroughly

serve in bowls with salsa, grated cheese, sour cream or with tortilla chips, tortillas, taco shells etc .

Faith, my son had school gathering last year, all boys deal, I made spaghetti salad as a side dish and he didn`t bring any home.

1 pound spaghetti
1/8 cup diced green pepper
1/8 cup diced onions,(red for color)
1/8 cup diced black olives
1/8 cup diced pepper cheese
1/8 cup diced pepperoni
1/2 cup Kraft zesty Italian dressing or to taste
Chill before serving

I tripled this like 25 16 to 17 year olds.

Have you tried googling "cold side dishes"?

Everyone's ideas here sounded good to me - kids of all ages love jello - it's easy and inexpensive and like Moose said - I don't think they're worried about "empty calories"!!! :D

Jello Jigglers are easy to make - and they travel well. They are a little "thicker" than standard jello and you can cut them into squares.

What about the old standard layered salad -

Lettuce
Green pepper
Onions
Peas (I've also had it with cauliflower)
Ice with miracle whip or mayo
Shredded cheddar cheese
Crumbled bacon

BeckyD,

Did you see there was a recipe sharing thread up at the stickies???

This is so FUN!!!

FYI

the sticky for recipe sharing here :p

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread22361.html

I'm loving this board the more I find on it - we get to have fun again - yea!!!!

Platter of veggies and/or fruit might work. I always have some sort of healthy stuff. Even if they just eat 2 baby carrots, just might be the only nutrious thing they had all day.


BOL!;)

faith, you can buy already cooked bacon. not those fake bacon bits, but real bacon. in strips or crumbled. heck..you can buy hard boiled eggs already peeled too. :D

makes these type of salads really quick.

i have made big dinners for my son's soccer team many times.

big hit has always been meat balls. i use an ice cream scoop and bake them in muffin tins. they love it when i put either mashed potatoe's (from a box) or a chunk of cheddar cheese in the middle.

broccoli, rice and cheese casserole. add a big can of chunk chicken meat if it's the main casserole.

i am super bad about not cooking from recipes. but i do have them if you are interested. i'm a dash of this...a smidge of that..toss in a handful...:)

Faith - Re: the spaghetti salad. I was going to recommend the same thing as Sleeper - it is a cold dish and super easy. Don't have to worry about it sitting out for awhile either because it doesn't really have anything that's going to cause food poisoning if it sits at room temp.

Broccoli salad is also really easy and yummy, but I bet hungry boys would rather have a pasta salad. If you need a broccoli salad recipe, let me know.

I'll be over. When is a good time for you? :winky:

Come on over, I'll put the coffee on! How bout some chocolate chip cookies? On second thought, it's absolutely frigid out today, maybe I'll make hot buttered rum instead!

Here is the recipe you need! It always goes over well, and everyone loves it, and it is cold. It is called "Cookie Salad".

Mix a small box of vanilla pudding with 1 1/2 c. buttermilk. Add 8 oz. of cool whip. Mix in one can of pineapple chunks (drained) and mandarin oranges (drained). Crush Fudge stripe cookies and mix in. That is it.

For 20 boys I'd triple this amount. You could probably get by with just 2 pkg. of cookies for triple everything else. You could also put in 12 oz. of cool whip for every batch and that makes it go farther.

Hi Brenda,

This sounds really good. I don't like buttermilk but I'm assuming you can't taste it....

What if I also added some mini marshmallows - do you think that would make it too thick?

Thanks,

Kelly

You could put mini-marshmallows in, but it doesn't really need it. You don't taste the buttermilk as such, it just gives it a great flavor.

I know some people have put other fruit than pineapple and mandarin oranges in, such as apples. But I always make it the traditional way. I don't add the cookies until just ready to serve, because they will go soft. I'd say it is still good the next day, but I don't usually have any leftover.

Thanks, everybody! I knew I could count on you.
 

Thanks, Greta. This is still on my list of maybe's. I also have a good broccoli salad recipe, but I agree. I think hungry boys wuold prefer a pasta salad.


Ya know. I like this idea better than brownies, because it's got some good healthy fruit in it. It is also now on my list of maybe's.

And Moose -- if you're still reading, jello is officially off my list. Cookie salad has fruit; even brownies are at least in the bread group (with added sugar). Jello has few redeeming factors, other than easy and cheap.

:Thanx:[
~ Faith

OK. Might work w/ pre-cooked bacon.


Hmmm. good idea, Curious -- biuomg the pre-cooked bacon. That's a possibility. And I'll file away the other ideas too.

BTW, I'm not really a recipe-kind-of-cook either. Also a throw together type of person.


So do I (that's why I've got green beans and tomato soup in the casserole), but my son would nix this idea in a hurry.

~ Faith

Curious and 4boysmom. Also, Becky.
 

oh shoot faith...guess i didn't read ans just skimmed what recipes you were looking for. :o

but..if you make the meatballs...they are fast. if you have a big electric mixer..like a kitchen aid..just toss all the ingredients in it and let IT do the hard work. then just scoop and bake.

lol..i love cupcake pans. i use them all the time. great for baking dressing at holidays. makes serving a snap too. :wink:

My favorite thing in the world:

Pistachio Salad (aka Watergate Salad aka "The Green Stuff")

1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
1 (3 ounce) package instant pistachio pudding mix
1 (8 ounce) container cool whip, thawed
2 cups miniature marshmallows
1/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Mix dry pudding mix in a bowl with everything else, put in fridge and you're done. Prep time is ~5 minutes, can chill for ~30minutes.

Serves: 8-10

You could make 2-3 batches of it for around $10.00.

nah ellie..you're supposed to make that, put it in a bowl with wrinkled tin foil on top, so everyone thinks it's green cuz it's old.

then when it's chilled and no one's home..grab a big spoon and dig in! sheesh...share that?...nope. :D