13 Easy Meals
I am a little domestically challenged. I was a slightly chagrined when all the working women showed up for Stitch ‘n’ Bitch the other day with home-made goodies. I had opened a bag of Decadent Chocolate Chip cookies. I can’t sew; I suck at knitting. I can’t remember the last time I used the iron. I do keep a pretty clean house, but only because I feel kind of anxious when it gets messy. I am not a good cook. When I do try to make something from scratch, I have to follow the recipe religiously and sometimes have to call my mother or MIL when the recipe uses a term I don’t understand, like blanch for example.
Lucky for us, BP does most of our cooking. On the rare occasion he does not, I do have a few easy meals I can get on the table with a minimum of fuss. Warning! These are not all nutritious or economical, but I like them and they sure are easy:
1. A roasted chicken with pre-washed organic mixed greens on the side. Slice up a tomato and it’s a salad. Add avocado if you have it. Try to save enough chicken to have wraps for lunch the next day.
2. Fresh pasta with pesto, pine nuts and parmesan. If you still have chicken left, throw it in there too.
3. Presidents Choice butter chicken and nan (they make it fresh in the bakery now!)4. Grilled salmon or tuna. Slice a zucchini in half and throw it on the grill too. Enjoy with a nice crusty loaf of Ace bread and tapenade.
5. Presidents Choice Vegetable Lasagne. We get the club pack size and have it for lunch all week too.
6. Gourmet pizza. Buy whole-wheat shells. I like prosciutto, red pepper, mushroom, and mozzarella; or smoked salmon, capers, onion, and goat cheese. Yummy.
7. Burgers--beef, lamb, chicken, veg. Whatevs. Gourmet them up with a nice cheese.
8. For a special occasion, the packaged New Zealand rack of lamb. It’s already marinated; you just need to throw it on the grill, and it is delish. Serve with green beans and grilled new potatoes: cut potatoes in half, toss with rosemary, olive oil, salt and pepper and grill for 20 minutes.9. Buy kabobs at St. Lawrence Market (lamb, chicken, or beef). Serve with greek salad and tzatziki.
10. A nice omelette with whatever you have in the fridge (make sure you put lots of cheese in it).
11. Tostadas: spread refried beans on a tortilla. Top with chopped tomato, fresh cilantro, avocado, green pepper, green onion, cheddar and sour cream. Serve with cold beer.
12. A nice grilled steak, portabella mushroom and baked potato with fresh chives.
13. My favourite: Thai take-out.
There! Now you’re all set for two weeks (unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case you’re set for about two days). No need to thank me.
Care to share your secrets?
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Labels: flotsam and jetsam
posted by metro mama @ 8:30 AM
20 Comments:
You say you're no wizard in the kitchen and then describe 13 mouth watering dishes. Good thing all I want right now is a bucket of coffee.
My idea of an easy meal is BBQ'd meat served with a Lipton side dish and some frozen veggies. Then I don't want to eat supper as I'd rather fill up on a big bowl of air popped popcorn.
see, everything but the takeout is still oo hard for me. :)
um, yeah, so i did indeed make fudge and sweet potato muffins and roasted pumpkin seeds on the weekend, but we have also eaten a roasted chicken (not bee, she's still shunning what little meat makes it into our house), couscous and veggies in one combo or another pretty well every single day this week.
balance, baby.
Oh, this is good!
Thanks for sharing.
O.M.G. butter chicken! When I lived in Japan, I tried that at a restaurant called Moti...and fell in LOVE! Dip the nan in the sauce and oooh, heaven! Didn't need the chicken LOL!
take-out.
that's definitely the BEST quick meal!
You are totally a cook! Now, this President's Choice brand...where do you get it? I LOVE butter chicken at the restaurants, if I could make it at home, my husband would be ecstatic!
Sally: You get PC at Loblaws in Canada. I'm not sure about the U.S. Does anyone know?
Hey, we Domestic Goddesses excell in different areas. I am all for nice and easy cooking. Left overs are fabulous.
Lasagna. That's my favourite easy meal right now. I just take out all the leftover veggies that I haven't used during the week and throw them it. I never knew it was so easy! And, we have it for the whole week! I freeze portions, etc.. It's a new habit I've formed. Great list! Very mouth-watering! ;)
im hard core into cooking these days, unfortunately im a little obsessed with over the top dishes that take me 2 hours to make and involve a trip to the grocery store mid cooking. however, i have never eaten so well in my life. mother's cooking included. I will def. be using these quick fixes in the future... i like.. i like...
mmmm.. sorry let me wipe my drool! Great list!
mmmmm hungry now!!
Those all sound so good, but I'm not sure about easy.
I'm up for number 13.
Happy TT!
PC Butter chicken rocks and the Naan is wonderful (I just had that last night - it's one of my easy-peasy recipes). I've often passed that PC Lasanga and thought "is that any good?" - now I'm gonna try it for sure. What a wonderful list for the culinary challenged (c'est moi!).
For someone who says they aren't "domestic", you sure do put on an impressive spread!
We LOVE the butter chicken by PC as well! There is a blue menu one now too! They also sell the sauce in a jar to make your own--we haven't tried that yet.
Sounds like you're a pretty good cook to me!
(Totally with you on the Thai food!)
Presidents Choice Vegetable Lasagna- yum.
Secrets? Hmmm. Roast chicken comes out so moist when you cut up whatever citrus fruit you have lying around and stuff it in the cavity. I like to throw some prechopped garlic in there too (lots of it) and then "massage" (LOL) the chicken with olive oil and whatever spices strike my fancy that day. Make sure to get up under the skin too.
Kristen: I don't roast the chicken myself. It comes that way!
sounds like some good eatin'.
You've gotta love those rotisserie chickens!
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