Quick recipes?
I am continually struggling with time... My husband and I work full time, so we get home without quite enough time to cook a full meal every night. However, I'd like to provide healthy meals with good quality ingredients, so I end up prepping meals in the evenings and then heating them for dinner the next day.
Do any of you have quick 15-20 min recipes that can be prepared quickly after getting home?
Thanks!
3 Answers
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Ah, the evening scramble. Ugh. When we get home, my husband generally takes the kids outside for a bit while I cook. They get time to bond with him and I can cook faster without "help." He cleans up while I take them back outside or bathe them or just read stories.
Grandma's Desert Chicken
Coat chicken with mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Cook 20-25 minutes at 375. (Note: This takes about 1 minute to get in the oven, but still 20+ minutes to bake. However, if you use smaller pieces of chicken rather than chicken breasts, you can cut the baking time.) We serve it with rice or potatoes and a vegetable which can be cooked while this is cooking.
Risotto
1-2 cups Arborto rice, depending on the number of people eating. Dump in a large pan with some water and boullion cube (or real broth if you want to be fancy). Add water about 1 cup at a time. Use ~3 cups of water for each cup of rice and 1-2 bullion cubes. Stir fairly regularly. While you are waiting for this to cook, cut up some asperagus in 1-2 inch long pieces (use the stem after trimming the bottom bit). Don't forget to keep stirring and adding water. In a separate pan, cook up some sliced mushrooms in a little olive oil. (Or don't be fancy and just toss the sliced mushrooms in the with rice and they'll cook there.) Keep stirring and adding water. After about 20 minutes, it is all done. Add maybe 0.25 - 0.5 cups of Parmesan cheese.
Tacos
Seriously, if you have the ingredients, it is totally easy and maybe the fastest meal so far. Get pre-made taco shells. I actually like these better than the ones I made myself. Cook up some hamburger meat (if you eat it), heat up refried beans, cut up lettuce, tomatoes, black olives. Put out some grated cheddar cheese. Serve. Note: for my little kids, we generally skip the taco shells entirely and just put the innards straight on their plates.
Beans and Corn
One of my favorite meals and you can make it all from cans! So it's great if you're just coming back from a trip. Plus, the quantity of ingredients is fairly flexible. It is a bonus if you can start with half an onion that you fry in olive oil but you can skip it if you don't have an onion. Add 3 cans of black beans (12 oz each), 1 can tomato paste (8 oz), 1 small can green chili peppers (4 oz). Cook on stove for 10ish minutes. Add 1-2 cans of corn and cook for another 5ish minutes. (Frozen corn also works.) Serve. You can also serve over rice.
Pasta Salad
As soon as you walk in the door, put on a big pot of water and add corkscrew pasta when it is boiling. As that is cooking, cut up various things to put in your pasta salad -- tomatoes, black olives, ham, peppers, mushrooms, shredded carrots. When th pasta is cooked, drain it and run it under cold water. To cool it quickly, I generally fill the pot I cooked in with cold water and let it sit for a minute, drain, refill, repeat. Takes a few minutes. When you drain for good, add all the yummy stuff you cut up and some salad dressing.
Super-Yummy Chicken
This takes a bit more than 20 minutes but you can use it for several meals. In a pot, cook some chicken breasts with salsa and taco seasoning (maybe 12 oz of salsa and 1/2 packet of taco seasoning per 2 chicken breasts). Really you should let it sit for several hours beforehand but who has time for that? It works fine like this. Shred the chicken as you are cooking it (or when you are done cooking it, but I do it as I go along to speed up the process). This is the part that is the biggest pain, but the shredded chicken tastes so much better than if it is cut up. When the chicken is all cooked, take it out of the pot and add to the pot 0.5 - 1 cup sour cream. Stir it up then mix the chicken back in. The chicken is super-yummy (thus the name :-). We use it as meat in tacos or over rice or over tortilla chips (with tomatoes, etc.).
Tofu
Not fancy, but really fast. Cube some firm or extra-firm tofu. Toss it in a pan with some olive oil. After about 5 minutes salt to taste. While you are cooking this, microwave some rice (or if you have a big pot of it in your fridge, warm that up). Make broccoli in the microwave too. Lightly coat with olive oil then salt to taste too. Oddly, a very kid-friendly meal.
Omelets are fast and easy. Salmon. Stir-fry.
I do something similar with tofu, but I simmer it. Put a block of tofu in boiling water for about a minute, and take it straight out. Poke it full of holes (with a fork, chopsticks, or whatever). Then you mix soy sauce and sesame oil in a jar and shake (just like a vinagrete) and pour it over the tofu. Slice it and serve with rice and steamed veggies.
- Jeremy, May 20, 2010
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Crock pots and rice cookers are good here; crock pots in particular. With a crock pot you can set something going in the morning before leaving for work and it will be ready when you get home. Rice cookers are nice just because they're so easy, and they cook the rice so well: add the rice and water, press start, and that's it. With some of them you can even set a timer to have the rice done at a particular time.
Yes! I've been meaning to start some crockpot recipes in the morning. But we have to find a location that will be inaccessible for our dog. He's quite creative when he wants to be!
- Evelyn, May 21, 2010
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Kristie - thanks so much for all of the yummy recipe suggestions. A few of them will definitely be hitting our table!
One cheap substitution for the risotto recipe would be using orzo instead of arborio rice. Large pot of water or broth, little bit of salt, cook the orzo for about 8 minutes (a little less than the box says for bite). Only need to stir occasionally. When the orzo is done, drain it and add your other ingredients. I've made it with only adding parmesan which is really good.
Thanks much, Kristie! I will give these a shot. Always challenging in the evenings, especially on days when husband gets home just in time for dinner.....
- Evelyn, May 20, 2010