Tag Archives: cooking

One-offs: the glue to hold together a meal plan

Posted on by — 6 Comments ↓

Typically, when we do our meal plan on Saturday (or Sunday morning, right before going grocery shopping), we plan as follows:

  • Sunday – some form of fresh fish
  • Monday – crock pot #1
  • Tuesday – crock pot #2
  • Wednesday – one-off
  • Thursday – crock pot #1 leftovers
  • Friday – crock pot #2 leftovers
  • Saturday – meal to be determined that day

It’s not that we can’t make something on Sunday that lasts into the week; we occasionally do that just to relieve some of the tedium that can set in from keeping to a fairly set routine. Still, this is our most common/standard meal plan template. We then fill in with these “one-off” meals (ones that are designed to fill a single night and are not expected to generate leftovers). DH and I had identified a bunch of these before we had kids, since leftovers were never really as big of a deal in our pre-kiddo days, and our list has had to change substantially in the last few years, to accommodate the toddler/preschooler palate.

Our typical go-to one-off meals these days are those that cost very little to prepare, can be made with items that are easy to stockpile/maintain on hand, and that typically take no more than about 30-40 mins to prepare (often with very little “active” cooking time).

The list includes:

  • Turkey tacos
  • “Brinner” (breakfast for dinner)
  • Fish and chips (where fish can be sticks/squares and chips can include fries or tater tots)
  • Pasta (dried pasta or ravioli/tortellini)
  • Homemade pizza
  • Quesadillas
  • Faux Chinese (assortment of frozen Chinese food items, like dumplings, Gen. Tso’s Chicken, and egg rolls)

I’m curious as to any other one-offs that work for others. Feel free to post any in the comments section. We’re always on the lookout for new ideas, especially those that may be kid-friendly.

The other thing I’d be interested in hearing is any tips on how to get a fast one-off that’s short on active time but that doesn’t lean heavily on prepared foods. I suppose that we could manage to get some of the prepared foods out of our diet (or at least reduce the reliance on them) if I made things in advance and either refrigerated or froze them for later reheating. It’s all a matter of planning. And, since our schedule is still fairly dependent upon meal planning, I’m fine with that.

We do lean on lower-sodium, lower-fat options, when available – but all of these meals rely on some measure of convenience/prepared items. Knowing that we may have no more than 30-40 minutes to prepare a meal, it feels so daunting trying to push these prepared items out of the pantry. Somehow, I doubt that we’re the only ones fighting this battle. Or at least I’d like to hope that we’re not alone out there.

Two Cheese Risotto (aka Super Simple Risotto)

Posted on by — Leave a reply

OK, don’t be scared. I know, I know. You hear risotto and you think of risottos that take a lot of time and effort (like the Acorn Squash one I made a few months back), and you just instinctively shake your head no. But wait! There is an easier way, I PROMISE.

This one started out with the standard Sunday night issue: what’s going on the dinner plates tonight? We had already chosen our meat (grilled scallops) but we didn’t have any sides. Veggies are easy to come by in our house, since we stock the freezer as our default when we don’t want to fuss with fresh; so, that wasn’t an issue either. DH suggested cheesy rice, and I thought that would hit the spot. So, off to the pantry I went to find a box of Rice-a-Roni. (Don’t judge – some of us have embraced boxed items as fallback positions.)

No dice. Or, more specifically, no (cheesy) rice. Drat.

Off to the cookbooks I went, to see if there were any options involving white or brown rice, and none of them quickly pointed to something I liked. BUT, one suggested a risotto, and the pantry did have a large bag of arborio rice. Score!

What I ended up doing was basically preparing a risotto in what I consider to be a less time-consuming fashion. Yes, there’s still effort involved, but it’s miniscule by comparison to some AND it gets you a cheesy rice AND it’s got a limited set of ingredients AND it’s far better for you than the boxed option because it’s not a complete salt lick.

Two Cheese Risotto

My new favorite replacement for a box...

Prep Time: 5 mins

Cooking Time: 30-35 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

1-1/2 Tb olive oil

1 small yellow onion or large shallot

2-1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth

1/2 cup white cooking wine

1 cup arborio rice, uncooked

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 oz finely/”fancy” shredded Cheddar cheese

Make it Happen

1. Peel and mince the onion/shallot.

2. In a large, deep skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat.

3. Add the onion (or shallot), tossing it in the olive oil to coat. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Add the broth and white wine to the pan. Stir well to combine. Cover and cook for 4-6 mins, until the mixture begins to boil.

5. Add the arborio rice to the pan and stir well to combine. Cover and reduce heat to low for 10 minutes, stirring at the 5 min and 10 min marks.

6. Raise the heat to medium-low and cook for another 10 minutes, again stirring at the 5 min and 10 min marks.

7. When the majority of the liquid is gone, reduce heat to low, then add both cheese and stir well to combine. Once the cheese has melted, turn off the heat and serve immediately.

Sweet Sockeye Salmon

Posted on by — Leave a reply

This is one of those weeks where I just didn’t feel like buying meat. Thing is, we stockpile over the course of the year – a buy-one-get-one-free deal (BOGO) here, a trip to BJ’s there, and there’s just MEAT in the freezer. And, when dh started to explain how we’re just overspending on our grocery bill, I couldn’t stomach the thought of putting out money for fresh meat when I knew we had stuff in the freezer that was just in need of a thaw. And that’s where the salmon comes in. Being that we’re on a sustainable seafood kick that we are trying to make a lifestyle choice, we’d purchased a pair of frozen sockeye salmon packages on a BOGO a few months ago. (The price was decent as a BOGO. Under normal circumstances, it would be overpaying – something like $11.99 for 12oz, which works out to $15.99/lb). We’d grilled the first package not long after getting it, and we found it…dry. Something about it just didn’t work and we attributed this to the fact that it was frozen. DH was highly skeptical that we could make it work, so he’d been leery about my trying something else with the frozen salmon, but I promised that I would do something on the stove that I thought might add some more moisture.

Now, layer into this the fact that the kids don’t really get into meat much, unless it’s a fish stick/square (ds) or a chicken nugget (dd). Neither one really is big into salmon, so I had an uphill battle to climb. I’ll give away the ending: they still didn’t like it. BUT, I was able to get out of dd that the issue wasn’t the preparation but the fact that it was salmon. She just isn’t into salmon in any form. DH and I, on the other hand, liked how this turned out. And, he liked it enough that it convinced him I should go back later this week and pick up more (it’s on a BOGO again), not only so we have it for this recipe but also so that he can make this lovely Salmon Stroganoff that’s in the On Rice cookbook we have. (We’ve made it before with fresh salmon, and this preparation showed him that the frozen would work, too.)

We served this salmon on soba noodles, for a change of pace, and I roasted some golden beets to have on the side. That’s the thing about the CSA – before I started that, I don’t think you’d ever hear me exclaim “OMG! These golden beets are *GORGEOUS*!”, and yet I did that very thing this afternoon. Score one for locally produced veggies and an adult willingness to open one’s mind (and palate) to things that, as a kid, seemed oogy from any distance.

Note: the only mod suggested by dh was that the next time we should include shallots, to add even more sweetness. If you want to add shallots, I’d recommend 1 large shallot, peeled and minced, going in the pan at the same time as the salmon (or even just before).

 

Sweet Sockeye Salmon

Sweet Sockeye Salmon on Soba...this dish is brought to you by the letter S

 

Prep Time: 5 mins (assuming thawed salmon)

Cooking Time: 25 mins

Serves: 2

 

Ingredients

12 oz sockeye salmon fillets

1/2 cup white cooking wine (divided)

1-2 Tb olive oil

2 tsp crystallized ginger

1 Tb honey (preferably wildflower)

 

Make it Happen

1. Remove the skin from the salmon and cut the salmon into pieces no more than 1″ x 1-1/2″.

2. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat; add the olive oil to the pan.

3. Add the salmon to the pan and turn to ensure even cooking after about 2 mins.

4. Add about 1/4-1/3 cup of the white wine to the pan, to start the poaching process. Let this cook until the liquid is reduced by at least half.

5. Sprinkle the ginger around the salmon and let it cook for another couple of minutes, until the liquid is mostly gone.

6. Add the remainder of the white wine to the pan. Let this go until the liquid is nearly gone.

7. Drizzle the honey over the salmon pieces and toss/turn to coat them evenly. Let this go until the liquid is down to no more than maybe 1 tsp and serve with rice, noodles (pairs nicely with soba!) or the starch of your choice.