"QuickDinner" news and stories

We've talked before about meals that require minimal cooking to go from kitchen to table. How about a couple of dishes that only require a bit of chopping and a single pot of boiling water for the pasta? The first recipe comes from Nigella Lawson. She appeared on NPR's morning edition last week, and offered up a no-cook pasta sauce that marinates sliced mushrooms in a vinaigrette of lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and thyme until they wilt. Then she tosses them with just-cooked linguine, some grated parmesan cheese and chopped parsley for an easy meal. You can get the recipe on the NPR website, but I recommend listening to the segment as well, as Nigella is always so nice to listen to.

The second no-cook recipe is my take on a recipe I've seen all over this summer. It's so easy that there's hardly even an actual recipe to share at all. Chop up two big summer tomatoes (it's really gorgeous if you use a combination of red and yellow tomatoes). Drizzle the tomatoes with olive oil and add a pinch of salt and a couple of grinds of black pepper. Stir it up and push it to the back of the counter for half an hour. In the mean time, put a large pot of water on to boil. When the water is boiling, add some salt and pasta (any kind you like, I'm a fan of cappellini). While the pasta cooks, chop some basil and pull a ball of mozzarella cheese apart into shreds. Add the cheese and basil to the tomatoes. When the pasta is done, loosely drain it and add it to the tomato bowl. Toss and eat. The heat of the pasta melts the cheese a bit and gives the sauce a creamy, blushing color. It is so delicious.

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I have two different speeds when it comes to working in the kitchen. I either want to get in and out as quickly as possible or I want to wander, meandering over herbs and flavor combinations. You can probably guess that the first way is typically reserved for weeknights and the second is more a weekend attitude. However, I am always looking for ways to make my time in the kitchen more efficient and useful (because who has any time to waste these days?) and that's where a recent post at Lifehacker comes in.

Last week they posted a nice, long feature by Kevin Purdy called Kitchen Timesavers That Speed Up Dinner that details nine very useful ways to make your meals more rapidly. His suggestions include picking shorter, simpler recipes, keeping cheat sheets on the insides of your cabinet doors and blanching veggies by pouring a little boiling water over them from your kettle instead of dirtying another pot.

What are your secret tricks and tips to making meals quickly?

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