Food, Fast

1. The sheet pan is your best resource

For fast meals, nothing beats a sheet pan.

In their blog post about sheet pan dishes, Food and Wine even has recipes for breakfast! I’ve done several of these, and they are all good, but my favorite is the recipe for chicken and mushrooms. 

The brilliant thing is that you can experiment, and there is only one dish to clean up at the end of the night. One thing to think about is the length of time individual ingredients will take to cook. For example, I often do fish this way: thinly slice potatoes and toss with olive oil. Cook in the oven just until they are beginning to brown. Place a piece of skinless halibut (or salmon) on top of the potatoes along with sliced lemons and asparagus spears. Cook until the fish is done, 10 minutes or so. The juices from the lemons and the fish flavor the potatoes, and that’s a whole meal, done!  

2. Kinda homemade

I don’t like to eat a lot of takeout, but sometimes you crave Mexican food, or Thai…My husband and I also adore Indian food, and I can whip up a passable Chicken Tikka on the grill (forgive me all you real Indian cooks), but there is no way I’m going to attempt Saag Paneer on a Tuesday night. So my hubby will pick up some Saag and maybe a yummy Dal (also hours of work) on his way home from the office and we serve that alongside the chicken. I make a quick raita–basically just cucumber and yogurt with cumin, and that’s a really delicious dinner that I spent less than an hour putting together. 

3. Freezer friendly

I have friends who use their freezer for nothing other than ice cream. I admire them. I don’t understand them, but I admire them. They serve only freshly prepared meals. 

Me, I like a freezer stocked with homemade foods that I can pull out for a quick dinner.  Just make sure to freeze them in serving size portions. Some things work better than others, so I stick to sturdier foods like casseroles, lasagne, and meatballs. 

Jennifer Segal features Baked Ziti with Sausage in her book Once Upon a Chef and it freezes like a charm. She also has a couple of meatball recipes–Vietnamese Style Meatballs (I sub the beef for ground chicken) and Turkey, Spinach, and Cheese Meatballs. I will make a big batch on a Sunday and serve them for dinner and freeze what we can’t eat. I swear they taste even better the second time around!

4. Quickie recipes

I know this one seems particularly obvious, but when you find a tasty recipe that is fast to prepare, that’s a real gem. I’ve come to rely on an arsenal of 10 or 12 dishes that I repeat regularly.  

Gone are the days when I felt like I had to impress with the newest recipe out of a magazine with hours of prep work. Today I want something quick and delicious. Like this Hot Cherry Tomato and Feta appetizer–it takes 5 minutes and there are never any leftovers.  

Ingredients:

1 pint cherry tomatoes

¾ cup crumbled feta

½ tsp. dried oregano

2-3 tbsp. good olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Put the whole cherry tomatoes, oregano, and feta in a small baking dish. Toss with enough of the oil to cover well and season with salt and pepper. Bake at 375 degrees until the tomatoes are beginning to break down, about 20 minutes or so. Serve in the baking dish with toasted french bread slices or pita chips

5. Eggs

When we were little, my parents would occasionally serve “breakfast for dinner” which meant eggs and bacon, and probably grits. My dad is from South Carolina and therefore grits would have been on the table. It makes a lot of sense–eggs are satisfying AND fast.  

When I want a super quick meal, eggs are the go to. I love them baked with a veg for a full, one dish dinner. The baked eggs are rich and creamy with mushrooms as in the Food 52 recipe, or you can try them with asparagus in the spring. Toss asparagus spears with olive oil, salt, and pepper and put them in a baking dish. Carefully break a couple of eggs over the top and season again. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the eggs are set.  Serve with toasty bread to sop up all the runny yoke. 

Cook fast, eat slow!