It’s what we all want for our families, isn’t it?  Healthy meals that are quick and simple to make?  Meals that don’t require funky ingredients or gourmet cooking lessons?

It would seem though that meals that are quick and simple tend to come out of a box or package.  Food that comes out of a box isn’t always the most nutritious.  Do we have to sacrifice health for convenience?

Absolutely not!  I’m a BIG fan of convenience foods made healthy!  I’m an even BIGGER fan of healthy convenience food that doesn’t make me think hard at the end of a long day.  Oh, and if it’s all those things AND my kids will eat it?  That’s huge in my book!

I’ll begin sharing some of my favorite kid friendly, healthy, simple, fast meal ideas here at Deal Moon.  Today I’ll start with a one dish meal:  Simple Spanish Rice

This dish uses brown rice, which is much healthier than plain white rice.  Do you find it hard to get your family to eat brown rice?  Not that I’m a betting kind of gal…but my bet is that if you add all these other yummy ingredients to the rice, your family may not even know they’re eating a healthy dish!  I’m not one to be tricky…but hey…if they don’t ask…

Simple Spanish Rice

1 pound ground beef
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups brown rice
1/2 - 3/4 cups of your favorite salsa or picante sauce
Sea salt to taste
1 1/2 cups frozen corn

Begin by boiling the water in a large pot.  Once the water is boiling, pour in the rice, give it a stir, cover the pot and turn down the heat to simmer.  Set a timer for 45 minutes and leave the rice completely alone until the timer goes off.  Tada!  Rice is cooked!

In the meantime, you’ll be able to go start some laundry, read a book, throw away junk mail, clean the goo out from under the high chair…whatever you feel like doing with your 45 minutes of time. 

Oh, and if you want to, you could get the ground beef all browned up and ready to go.  Yes, that’s the next step.  Brown the meat.

Once the rice and meat are cooked, stir them together with your salsa, salt and corn.  Heat on low until corn is cooked through.

All done!  You can serve this Simple Spanish Rice with some chilled fruit or a tossed salad and you have a complete meal!

Now, if you happen to have some leftover cooked chicken on hand, you could substitute that for the ground beef.  Or, if you think your family might like a creamy version of Spanish Rice even better, you can stir in about a cup of sour cream after you have all the other ingredients mixed together (just remove it from the heat first).  Shucks, top the dish with shredded cheese if it tickles your fancy.

This dish is very versitle and well, if I do say so myself…oh so yummy!

Laura Coppinger and her husband have four boys ages 5-13.  She blogs at Heavenly Homemakers, a site dedicated to inspiring women daily with healthy recipes, homemaking tips, spiritual encouragement and good ol’ clean fun.
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This post is linked to Frugal Friday.