Dinner Default: Skillet Meal

Today I bring to you yet another food post. Lately when I have been preparing these meals, I've been wondering if we will eat the same way once we have kids. For example, when we do skillet meals, I try to add all the vegetables we have in the fridge into the skillet, plus frozen bell peppers and onions.  Everything else gets chopped fresh.  It doesn't take a ton of time, but just something I think about from time to time. (NO, NOT PREGNANT.)  Like, "will I have time to make this from scratch?" Anyhow.

Skillet meals are our go-to meal.  We used to buy the frozen bags and add a veggie or two to the sauce to make it more homemade. Now I really prefer to make the whole thing from scratch, but it takes up more dishes that way.

For instance here we have 1 pot for pasta.  Cooked al dente a little ahead of the rest of the meal and then rinsed in cold water to stop them from cooking more. I do NOT pour oil on them at this point because I read somewhere that doing so makes the pasta not stick to your sauce.  I also have a second pan where I previously cooked up some sausages and am now cooking up the initial vegetables. (PS: Splurge on the baby bella mushrooms from Costco. They have so much flavor.)

Here are the rest of the items I am planning to add to the skillet meal. I didn't use all the broccoli but my main goal was to fill up this meal with mostly vegetables.  Notice the heavy cream - I didn't promise it was a super healthy meal! Anyhow I used just enough to pull it all together. (cough, must leave some for whipped cream on pie later.)  Plus cheese and sun dried tomatoes. YUM.  (Side note: Speaking of Costco, I only buy my sun dried tomatoes there. So much cheaper. But I do transfer a small amount into the smaller jar so it can stay on my fridge door instead of hauling out the giant jar from the back of the fridge every use. Same for minced garlic. I know, how bad is it to not use fresh garlic? I'm lazy.  Yeah, I canned applesauce but I don't buy fresh garlic. Go figure.)

 ANYHOW. So I added the cream to the cooked vegatables and let it simmer for a while. At the same time, I put the broccoli into my 2 cup pyrex and half-cooked them. Then I added the noodles to my sauce, mixed in the broccoli, put the lid on, and let it all finish warming up/cooking for 15 minutes until Zach came home.

This kind of meal freezes GREAT and it has tons of veggies in it. (Although, there appear to be a lot of noodles in this picture. Oh well, I did my best.)  Anyhow, I freeze these in individual meal sizes (yay portion control!) and Zach has them when I'm travelling, or I eat them when I'm too lazy to make lunch.
This is pretty much how we roll for skillet meals around here - we don't measure anything and try to keep it fitting all in the skillet.  Do you have any go-to meals -- and will you share them with me so I can try something new?