Quick and Easy Meal Ideas

In my opinion, one of the hardest things to learn is how to cook for yourself, or for yourself and your partner/housemate, on a daily basis. It is not feasible to try a new recipe every day and old or well-known recipes can get boring. Many recipes call for a lot of preparation and ingredients.

We've found that we like to mix quick cooking with recipes, sometimes across the week, sometimes across one meal. So a multi-step salad can be paired with leftovers or a box mix. Or a pre-cooked chicken can be mixed with canned refried beans for burrito night and then used for chicken salad the next day. Or a complex main dish can be paired with a bowl full of raw baby carrots.

Ham Steaks:

One trick we use is to buy a 4-pack of ham steaks - pre-cooked or smoked slabs about a 1/4 inch thick - for two different quick meals. One night, use two steaks and pan-fry them and top 'em with pan sauce, another night use the other two by chopping them small and throwing them in with a package of VIGO's Red Beans and Rice (just follow the package directions, except you add the ham at the beginning with the rice and beans).

Pre-cooked chicken

One night when you have extra time (Saturday or Sunday maybe) poach 4 chicken breasts in broth. I like to use the 32 oz. boxes of free-range chicken broth. Cut up two breasts for chicken salad one night. Cut up the other two breasts and re-heat by mixing them in with a can of refried beans (in a non-stick pan, you can heat them without butter or oil). Fold them into a warm tortilla (either heat the tortillas individually in a wide, shallow frying pan or microwave the burrito for 20-30 seconds after you've assembled it) with pre-shredded cheddar or jack cheese. Save the broth and use it for a quick soup.

You can also fry the chicken - pound it to a uniform thickness, salt & pepper both sides and fry in butter and/or oil until no longer pink in the middle (3-4 minutes on a side). Or cut it up into bite-sized chunks and then fry it - you could even fry it with minced garlic or a tablespoon or two of basalmic vinegar for more flavor.

Leftover Turkey

This is a good "one-pot meal" for dealing with leftover turkey breast. Probably would work with leftover chicken as well. Get a box of Near East Rice Pilaf and cook it according to package directions EXCEPT cook it in a large, non-stick frying pan. After 20 minutes, mix in a cup of frozen peas and let it go another 5 minutes. Take off the cover, add a 1/2 cup of sour cream, 1-3 cups of leftover turkey cut up into bite-sized chunks, salt, freshly-ground pepper, and as much Worcestershire sauce as you like. Mix it up, cook it on medium (or medium-low - you're just warming everything up) for about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat, top the mess with grated cheddar, put the cover back on, and let it sit for another 3-5 minutes (to melt the cheese - if you're really hungry, by all means just eat it). Serve.

Chili

One important thing about regular cooking that you gradually learn is the trick of having the right ingredients on hand. With my chili recipe, if you keep a bunch of ingredients that are useful for lots of things on-hand, you can make the chili.

So - a tube or two of crumbled pork in the freezer, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of small red beans (or your favorite beans), a 3-pack of Swanson's 1-cup boxes o'broth, a box of Uncle Ben's Instant Rice all in the cabinet, and pick up some dried chiles (chilies?) next time you see them. Most of the rest of the ingredients are standard spice-rack type stuff, although not everyone has "chili powder" in their spice rack. But once you have dried chilies and the chili powder, they'll last you through dozens of iterations of the recipe.

Ingredients

One trick for keeping ingredients on hand is to put them on your shopping list as soon as you use them. So, when I make chili, I put pork and beans and tomatoes on the shopping list. When I use up the instant rice or the last box of broth, I put it up there too. And we shop pretty much every week, even if it's just for a dozen or so things - fresh milk, whatever's accumulated on the list, etc. - it helps keep the pantry stocked.

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