Spaghetti sauce is just about the best way to make fast home-cooked meals for the work week.
Posts with tag QuickDinners
A Week of Meals with Tomato Sauce - Tip of the Day
Continue reading A Week of Meals with Tomato Sauce - Tip of the Day
Knowing how to poach chicken can save your life
Last night, I taught my friend Shay how to poach chicken breasts. She's going through a tough time at work, is coming down with the newest cold on the market, and couldn't bear the idea of cooking for herself. Food is harder for her than it is for most, as she's got some food allergies that preclude simply calling out for some Egg Drop soup from the local Chinese place. But she can eat chicken and so we poached.
We brought a pot of water to a boil and added salt, pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice, a bit of olive oil and a few herbs from the small patch in the yard (if you don't have any fresh herbs, that's okay. A cracked clove of garlic is also be a nice addition to the poaching liquid). When the water was rolling, we dropped the chicken breasts in. I looked at her and said, "Now we wait about ten minutes." She said with surprise, "That's it?" I replied, "Yep, that's it."
There is so much you can do with some poached chicken. You can shred it and, with the addition of a little mayo and spices, turn it into a simple chicken salad. You can cool it down, slice it, and eat it on toast. You can dice it, flavor up the poaching liquid a bit, add it back and have a simple little soup. Or, as my mom likes to you, you can also boil up a potato and eat it with the chicken, salting each bite as you go. The thing to remember about poached chicken is that once you've got the water boiling, most of the work is already done. After a long day, when all you need is a comforting, protein-packed meal before you tumble into bed, remember poached chicken.
Meals that improve in the fridge overnight
For years now, I've been a huge fan of the fact that there are some foods that just get better over time. I remember that as a kid, my mom's spaghetti sauce was always better the second day (and she always made enough for at least two nights worth of meals). These days, when I make ratatouille (which I've been doing on a near-weekly basis in an attempt to use us all the tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and zucchini from my farm share), I try to do it the day before I plan on serving it, so that it can mellow and get silky during the resting time.
The team at YumSugar has put together a slide show of five dinners that improve with time that could be a new source of cooking inspiration. In these days, where we're all pressed for time, it's great to have a selection of meals in the arsenal that can be prepped during a spare moment and then stashed in the fridge, ready to be eaten at your convenience.
What's your favorite make now, eat later dish?
Sometimes 'quick' dinners just means lazy dinners
It wasn't until I started cooking meals from scratch on a regular basis that I discovered just how much of a fallacy this whole pre-made foods business is. I'm not talking about one of those tasty, pre-roasted chickens or fresh meals you can buy at the supermarket, but rather canned and frozen foods. They are great in a pinch, but they are not a big time saver, and they're certainly not a decent substitute for fresh foods.
So, reading Astin Cubed's post on "Simple Food" today was like reading a rant of my own, without the obsession with snap peas. How can so many of us have forgotten the simplicity of fresh? Or heck, even balancing the two? If you have zero time to make dinner, throw the fish sticks in the oven, boil/microwave/shred and fry some potatoes, or maybe throw some Caesar dressing on some romaine. If you have enough time to go out, wait to be served, eat, wait to pay, and come home, you certainly have enough time to cook up some pasta, fry up some chicken, make a salad, steak, or even stir-fry. Or, even take a day with some free time, make up a lasagna, and eat it during the week, month, or year.
My favorite frozen food: Using those Thanksgiving leftovers to make REAL roasted, carved turkey meals that I can eat all year.
My favorite "fast" food: Leftover fried potatoes with a fried egg on a toasted baguette.
What's yours?
So, reading Astin Cubed's post on "Simple Food" today was like reading a rant of my own, without the obsession with snap peas. How can so many of us have forgotten the simplicity of fresh? Or heck, even balancing the two? If you have zero time to make dinner, throw the fish sticks in the oven, boil/microwave/shred and fry some potatoes, or maybe throw some Caesar dressing on some romaine. If you have enough time to go out, wait to be served, eat, wait to pay, and come home, you certainly have enough time to cook up some pasta, fry up some chicken, make a salad, steak, or even stir-fry. Or, even take a day with some free time, make up a lasagna, and eat it during the week, month, or year.
My favorite frozen food: Using those Thanksgiving leftovers to make REAL roasted, carved turkey meals that I can eat all year.
My favorite "fast" food: Leftover fried potatoes with a fried egg on a toasted baguette.
What's yours?
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