Fast Pizza.....preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a couple of individual-size, Kontos-brand, hand-stretched pizza crusts on a cookie sheet. Spread a few spoonfuls of pizza sauce on top of each crust and then top with your favorites including some sliced, shredded or grated Italian-style cheeses. Bake for 5 minutes. One of our pizza sauces on hand at the store contains ground pepperoni, so you really do not even need to add meat. (If you prefer a crisper crust, slide the pizzas right onto the oven rack instead of placing the cookie sheet in the oven.)
Salad - while the pizza is baking, toss some pre-washed 80-20 blend of romaine and spring-mix salad greens in a bowl with some chopped tomatoes and other veggies of your choice. I like a handful of sliced onion and some black olives. Dress with your favorite dressing or vinegar and oil. I like Garlic Expressions salad dressing.
Have a little more time and feeling adventurous? How about stuffing some poblano peppers and baking those? I like to blanch the peppers in boiling water for a couple of minutes to soften them so they do not need to bake so long to become tender. You can make a stuffing out of finely-ground beef mixed with finely chopped veggies such as onions, garlic, and celery, and some bread crumbs or cooked rice to help hold it all together. Adding a beaten egg to the mixture also helps the stuffing combine like a meatball inside the pepper. Prepare a light tomato sauce and spoon it over the tops of the peppers in a casserole dish. You could add about a half cup of water to the casserole before placing it in a 350 degree oven uncovered for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on how cold your ingredients were and how large the stuffed peppers are. For safety, test with a cooking thermometer for beef doneness (recommended 160 degrees for ground beef). These are good with any style potatoes--mashed, baked, fried, or hash browns.
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