Even though my work schedule this semester has me home by 3 p.m. at the latest, I decided that if I’m to get back on my writing treadmill and continue to bike several times a week, I’m going to have to streamline dinner prep. Usually I do my menu planning on Saturday or Sunday. I seek Neal’s input, but he sort of fades out after telling me what meat he’s going to make for himself this week. In a way, it’s not bad to have the menu under my direction; I get to feed my carnivore lots of veggie meals. My planning in the past has been for the entire week, but lately I’ve been doing half a week at a time. With so much fresh produce available, I’m finding it better to shop for meals twice a week, which allows me to use the freshest possible ingredients throughout the week instead of our eating corn that has started to get starchy by Friday.
Today I took the streamlining a step further. In addition to my meal planning, I did a bunch of prep work. We had gazpacho for supper today, and it will make a nice side with the tomato gratin I’ve got planned for Wednesday. We’ve been fortunate to have generous gardeners share their bounty with us; my kitchen garden isn’t producing as much as I’d like. Most of that bounty has been in the form of tomatoes, so while I was chopping veggies for the soup, I roasted the small ones to be used on a pizza tomorrow.
Since Neal likes a treat with his coffee at work, I baked some blueberry muffins. They look pretty, but we’ll see how they taste. We’ve set a big savings goal, and the little bibs and bobs of money we spend on treats are going to be re-directed. Anyway, homemade is so much healthier!
I hope to refine my Sunday streamlining in the next few weeks. What tips do you have for me?
Tonight I’m making quiche with leftover baby broccoli, bell pepper/summer squash/black beans from some quesidillas we had earlier in the week. Toss leftovers into a frozen pie shell with some egg and cream/milk, cheese and bake it. Yummy!
And the quesadillas are easy, too–sautee some summer squash/zucchini, bell peppers, corn, whatever strikes your fancy. Heat up some canned black beans with a little something spicey (like chipotle, ground or in adobo). You can do the beans whole (easy) or pop in the blender with chipotle in adobo (fussier and messier but yummy). Toss some of each and some cheese, cilantro if you’ve got it onto a whole grain tortilla in a pre-heated skillet and fold in half or put another tortilla on top, brown the bottom and flip. Cut and serve with salsa and sour cream.
frittatas keep a couple of days. soon will be soup time–make lots of extra and freeze. big pans of eggplant parmesan or pots of ratatouille are nice this time of year. i second the quesadilla idea.
I make sure to have our staples (rice, tofu, canned tomato (sauce or diced)) and then go from there based on what’s in the pantry. What does streamlined mean for you? Little that I cook takes more than 10-15 min of prep and 95% of it cooks in 30 min or less.
I do my best to buy ingredients that I can use multiple times throughout the week in different ways.
Tonight i sauted some garlic with italian spices, a bay leaf, extra oregano and a dash of red pepper flakes. I then dumped in some tomatoes that are about to go bad along with a can of cannellini beans and a small can of tomato sauce and a heaping half cup of rice. I added a small can’s worth of water, covered, and left it on low for 25 min or so. i just added some diced tofu dogs before i forget about them.
this is high on the “prepackaged” list for me, but was fast and is clearing the fridge and cupboard.
i still need to do better on breakfast and lunch. *sigh*