So, can I just say, with all the love in the world, that I’m just the teensiest bit frustrated with you?
Let me explain.
When I go to speak, and I start talking about dinner, EVERY SINGLE WOMAN rolls her eyes and groans. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is perplexed by dinner.
“I feel like 5 o’clock sneaks up on me everyday.”
“I buy hundreds of dollars of groceries and there’s never anything in my house.”
“My whole family is BORED with what I cook, so why bother?”
I love you all. But I’m just sick of it. Because you all assume that it’s easier for the woman next door. You honestly believe that everyone else is out there, whipping up tasty food for their families, while you are the only one who is THRILLED that you at least have a box of Mac and Cheese that could pass for dinner. (It has two of the four food groups, right?)
Yes, there are some women who don’t panic at 4:00 in the afternoon when it comes to dinner. What do they have that your don’t?
A plan.
That’s it. They’ve taken the time to write down what they are going to have for a week, (or a month,) so when they go to the grocery store, they have a plan. And when they wake up in the morning and wonder what to defrost, they have a plan. And when their kids have swim practice, they have a plan.
And I KNOW you know this. But when I ask women if they have a plan, they know they should have it all written down, but for some reason or another, (their child needs them, The Real Housewives of the OC is on…) they don’t. And the Panic continues.
I want you to have a plan, and I plan on providing a public service to those of you who do. Here is what I’ll do:
Everyone who tells me by Friday at midnight PST what they are having for dinner next week will be entered into a drawing to win one of my books. (This week it’ll be The What’s for Dinner Solution!)
I’ll share my menu so you have some ideas
This Week’s Menu
Monday Chicken Sausages, Potatoes and Veggies on the Grill Tuesday Chicken Stir Fry with Brown Rice and Veggies Wednesday Lemon Pork Roast and Sauteed Spinach Thursday Going out! Friday Pulled Chicken Salad Saturday BBQ – Everyone’s Coming Over Sunday Leftovers
Now tell me. What is your plan for next week? I promise you, if you tell me what you are eating, your week will be so much better. Plus, if you put it in the comments, you will be entered to win my book The What’s for Dinner Project.
It’s bad for you, it has too many calories, too much fat and it is a terrible rut to fall into. That is, fast food that you order through a drive through intercom.
Fast food at home is a whole different story. Fast food at home is a staple in most homes and a much better alternative (cheaper, healthier, and better tasting) than resorting to figuring out what number order at McJack-n-Bell.
So to help you out on your busy nights running kids to activities and getting to PTA meetings I’ll be sharing some of my favorite Kitchen Fast Food recipes. This first one is a real kid pleaser. To keep the calories at a minimum, have kids share an add some veggies to round it out.
When companies ask me to try out their products for review, 99 times out of 100, I politely decline and get back to the fascinating stuff I post on this blog about cleaning out your purse and leaving Post-it’s on your bathroom mirror for your hubby.
But this time, it was personal…
You see, I gave up on stainless steel cookware a long time ago. Because in my experience, while it didn’t stain, it did stick. And there is nothing worse than lovingly cooking an egg white omelet and having the finished product stick to the pan. (OK, maybe gout is worse than a sticky omelet, but you get my point.) And since we are trying to cut back on our cholesterol (Doctor’s recommendation) and lowering our food bill be 15% this year, every egg white counts.
So my friends and I are divided into two camps, Stainless Steel vs. Non-stick. And I swore I would never buy stainless steel again. But I have friends who gently persuaded me (IE: mocked me mercilessly) to give it another try. They were convinced that the pans I used before were cheap and ineffective. (Hey, my stuff has been called worse.)
So All Clad sent me a fry pan in exchange for my honest review. And I was ready to give it to them, both eggbeaters a-blazzing….
But I have to say – this pan ROCKS. My eggs don’t stick. Huzzah. And the best thing is that everything cooks so evenly. My chicken didn’t dry out on the ends and stay raw in the middle. Which of course, would never happen to me. (Let’s just say I’ve been known to sneak back to the kitchen to re-cook a piece of chicken that was so pink I could’ve slapped a Hello Kitty sticker on it and sold it to a seven year-old.)
In my book, The What’s for Dinner Project, I talk about building up your kitchen equipment to the best you can afford. Let me tell you, these pans are now on that wish list!
Oh, and I have a gift for you as well. This Chicken Marsala recipe is the best I’ve ever tasted. Easy to make (or for Mother’s Day, may I suggest you have the recipe and ingredients lying around for someone else to make?)
Chicken Marsala
Ingredients
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – pounded 1/4 inch thick
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1/4 cup finely chopped onions
3/4 cup Marsala wine
Fresh Parsley to garnish
Directions
In a shallow dish or bowl, mix together the flour, salt, pepper and oregano.
Coat chicken pieces in flour mixture.
In a large skillet, melt butter in oil over medium heat. Place chicken in the pan, and lightly brown. Turn over chicken pieces, and add mushrooms and onions. Pour in wine. Simmer chicken 10 minutes, turning once, until no longer pink and juices run clear.
What do you do when you do not have a freezer meal thawing, nothing in the crock pot, it is 5 pm and the kiddos are getting restless? If you are like most you probably have a well stocked pantry. So you plan a meal on the fly with just your pantry items. A tasty and quick meal to prepare is chili. Grab a salad, corn chips or veggies for side dishes and shred some cheeses for a garnish.
Kathi’s Chili
A less-spicy version that even kids will like. Most of the ingredients are straight from the pantry. Plus, if you already have some fried ground beef with onions and garlic stashed in the freezer (one of the staples of our deep freeze) the meal practically makes itself.
3/4 lb Ground turkey or beef
1 c. Chopped onions
1 clove Garlic, minced
1-16 oz can Stewed tomatoes
1-16 oz can Kidney beans, drained
1-16 oz can Tomato sauce
3 tsp Chili powder
1/2 tsp Basil
1-6 oz can Tomato paste
In a large saucepan, cook ground turkey, onions, and garlic until the onions are translucent and the meat is brown. Drain. Stir in un-drained tomatoes, drained kidney beans, tomato sauce, chili powder, basil and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.
I love when I find other food nerds out there. It is a title I use – and embrace – lovingly. It’s very different than food snobs who want to tell you that you are using the wrong knife or look down their nose at you if your cheese isn’t aged properly. Food snobs can get away with cooking once a week and call themselves a gourmet, but a food nerd is always looking for new ways to make food better and easier – we are the ones who trade recipes at MOPS meetings and steal (with permission) each other’s freezer tips for getting dinner on the table.
Let me introduce you to fellow food nerd Kelly Rankin. Kelly and I met at an event I was speaking at, and we became friends through my blog. Kelly has taken the concept of freezer meals and slow cooking and done a mash up – freezer/slow cooking.
I am also a freezer/slow cooker, but Kelly’s ingenuity of stretching her meals and leaving no leftover left behind is admirable. I asked Kelley to share her plan for using her freezer and slow cooker for maximum savings of time, energy and stress:
Some of her favorite slow cooker to freezer recipes are things like soups, stews, and chili. You can double or – in a 6-quart slow cooker – triple a soup-like recipe and, after it cools, bag it up into gallon bags to be re-heated another time.
Here is a great recipe to make in the slow cooker and the store in the freezer for a busy night of running kids around. It makes a great dish for a potluck or to have for a family picnic while enjoying the great weather.
“Slow cooker Smoked Pulled Pork BBQ”
By Kelly Rakin
4 Simple ingredients and a day of slow cooking lead to an amazingly simple, economical, and delicious pork BBQ. No smoker needed, and the leftovers freeze beautifully for a later meal. The liquid smoke and beef bouillon are the essential keys to this simple recipe, giving the pork a great flavor with minimal BBQ sauce. Perfect for a large gathering!
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 7-9 hours
Yields: 10 servings
INGREDIENTS:
5 lb Pork Sirloin Tip Roast
2 Ts Liquid Smoke (Typically found with condiments)
2 Ts Beef Bouillon (NOT Broth)
1/3 C. Water
Serve with your favorite BBQ Sauce, to taste
DIRECTIONS:
Place pork roast in a large slow cooker. Pour water, liquid smoke, and bouillon on top of pork roast. Cook on High for 7-9 hours, flipping roasts once during cooking, if possible, to allow the juices to simmer all sides of the meat. Meat is finished cooking when it easily pulls apart with a fork. Remove roasts from slow cooker and pull pork apart. Return pork to slow cooker and add BBQ sauce to taste, or serve BBQ sauce on the side. Great on sandwiches or by itself.
To freeze: Place cooked BBQ in 1 quart freezer bags, removing air. Thaw, re-warm, and serve. Keeps in freezer up to 6 months.
It’s Monday morning. Staying in bed would be great, why is the weekend so short? For most of us Mondays are busy. But now that the days are longer it seems as if dinner time creeps up quickly and how many nights have you been scrambling to get dinner on the table before 8 pm? Well I have a solution for you. Get out the Crock Pot! If you don’t have one think about getting one, it will make getting dinner to the table easy and quick. You won’t have to spend much time in the kitchen and your house will smell delish.
For starters are are some Slow Cooker Tips
Let the meal equal the pot – The only time I have had poor results with a slow cooker is when I haven’t put enough food into the pot. When the pot is too big, food can tend to scorch and dry out. I actually have two slow cookers now – one for meals just for me and Roger (a 2-quart), and one for when I know all the kids will be home or I am making a meal with leftovers to be used in the following night’s dinner (a 6-quart).
You can overcook – Everyone says, “Just throw it in the pot and forget it!” Well, that’s true – to a point. You do what to make sure that to pay attentions to timing on your meal so that it doesn’t dry out.
If you are always going to be arriving home after a meal should be done cooking, you may want to consider getting a slow cooker with a probe thermometer. Our big pot has one of these handy little gadgets and can be programmed to stop cooking when the meat reaches a pre-determined temperature.
Use a non-stick cooking spray on the inside of your pot to make clean-up easier.
Meats don’t brown in the slow cooker, so if you do want your meats browned, do it before you put it on the pot.
What you should serve your troops!
Citrus-Glazed Pork Roast
I love pork roast in the slow cooker for several reasons – it doesn’t get dried out, you can cut it to size in order to have just enough to feed your troops.
Ingredients:
1 (3lb.) boneless pork loin roast
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ tsp. dried thyme
½ tsp. ground ginger
¼ tsp. pepper
1 T vegetable oil
1 c. chicken broth
2 T sugar
2 T lemon juice
2 T soy sauce
1 ½ tsp. orange zest
3 T. cornstarch
½ c. orange juice
Directions:
Cut roast in half.
In a small bowl, combine the garlic, thyme, ginger and pepper; rub over roast.
In a large skillet over medium heat, heat the oil and brown the roast on all sides.
Place roast in a 5-qt. slow cooker.
In a small bowl, combine the broth, sugar, lemon juice, soy sauce and orange zest; pour over roast.
Cover and cook on low for 4 hours or until a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees F.
Remove roast and keep warm.
In a saucepan, combine the cornstarch and orange juice until smooth; stir in cooking juices. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.
Serve with the roast.
Now you just need a side or two. Steamed veggies, mash or roasted potatoes, fruit salad and dinner is served!
You know I love you, right?
