« And How Many Nurses Do You Know? | Main | Nice Article on Sanjay Gupta's New Book, Chasing Life »
May 10, 2007
Dinner on the Table... FAST!
Needless to say, I don't have a lot of time to cook.
So I've created a formula for getting a healthy dinner on the table very, very quickly... under 20 minutes for a Zoned, nutritious dinner that tastes pretty good. I spend a bit more time cooking on weekends if I can, since I really enjoy cooking as a creative enterprise, and then I do other fancier dishes, like stuffed vegetables, pasta-less lasagnas, etc. But on weeknights, if I get to cook at all, it's the quick and easy, no-frills way.
Here's the basic formula: start with a bunch of veggies. It can be a bag of frozen veggies, some fresh squash or eggplant, leeks, whatever. Or a combination thereof. Last night I made a 20 minute dinner while on a brief break from work calls by throwing together a bag of Asian blend frozen veggies, generic from our grocery store (mushrooms, snow peas, broccoli) and half a giant leek. I boiled up a cup of no-salt veggie broth and steamed the veggies, then added the protein, in this case, eggwhites. I use eggwhites as the protein souce, usually cooked and crumbled into chunks, since they're pure protein, no saturated fat, and they really have no taste at all so that pick up the flavor of whatever dish you throw them into. But you could use shrimp, chicken, scallops, tofu, Quorn, whatever.
After I add the protein source, I figure out how to spice it up. I have about five basic combinations of spices that I use:
-- Vaguely Italianish spice mix: garlic, basil, oregano, and sometimes some tomato paste or Muir Glen Fire Roasted tomatoes. This goes great with eggplant, cauliflower, squash mixes.
-- Vaguely Asian spice mix: garlic, ginger, low sodium soy sauce (Trader Joe's has a great one), lime. That's what I used last night.
-- Vaguely curried orange thing: I do this a lot in fall with pumpkin, baby corn, and sometimes even apples. Garlic, curry powder, and sometimes cinnamon.
-- "The Flavor": This was one of those desperation meets necessity creates creativity ones. About six months ago I had this bizarre brainstorm that if worcestershire sauce is good with Tabasco in a Bloody Mary, then why not use a similar combination in a veggie dish? So I poured some worcestershire sauce along with some Chipoltle Tabasco into a dish that was broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, squash, eggwhites, and onions. MR loved it! It tastes vaguely like ginger, which I can't explain. It's one of his favorite combinations, so I use it about once a week in one dish or another.
-- Vaguely southwestern thing with cumin and hot pepper: I have this spice dispenser that has about seven kinds of chili powders, and I love to mix that up with cumin, habenero pepper flakes, and tomato based chili like dishes. Also can benefit from a dash of hot sauce, and we own many, many hot sauces. My ex-boyfriend used to say that I had no taste buds left because I've burned them all off eating spicy foods and drinking extra hot coffee. Some like it hot.
Those are my basic rotations of flavor mixes.
Then I add the healthy fat source, usually a teaspoon of flax oil on the dish (add after removing from heat) plus some hazelnuts on the side. Sometimes avocado, sometimes almonds, sometimes olive oil.
So here's how it works:
1. Choose veggies, steam them in no salt veggie broth.
2. Choose protein, cook and add, or just add if already cooked (like eggwhites, tofu or Quorn.)
3. Choose spice mix and spice.
4. Add unsaturated fat sources.
5. Serve and eat.
6. Go back to working.
I try really hard to make dinner for MR most nights, even if it's just the quick one-dish supper. The beauty of living six blocks from my office is that I can run home, throw together dinner, sit down and eat for half an hour, and then either go back to the office or go back to working from home and still get in a good twelve hour work day (or more, if it's an early morning.) We picked our house location for exactly this purpose, and it's been a tremendous improvement in my quality of life.
These days I'm so busy with work that I can't do much volunteering for the Mprize or SENS, so I also feel like by liberating MR from the task of cooking his dinner so that he can spend more time writing/researching, I am at least making a tiny contribution most days.
Cooking is a great creative release for me... stress reducing activity, as odd as it sounds. I find that when I'm so busy that I can't take even forty-five minutes to cook and eat dinner with my partner, my stress level goes way up. Just the act of playing with vegetables in a meaningful, productive way that immediately adds joy to the life of someone I love reduces my stress and makes me happy.
And here's one of the main reasons why I like to be in charge of dinner: I am so much faster and more efficient than MR is. I can throw together a dinner in no time flat, and so imagining him spending time cooking (it takes him a lot more time than it takes me to cook a meal) really offends my sense of efficiency.
Posted by april at May 10, 2007 5:32 AM
Comments
This is an excellent post, April! So many of us don't have the incredibly creative mind that you possess when it comes to food/meal prep. I sure don't, so I rely on a few excellent cook books and recipes I have collected. For the past year, our faves have been your recipes! Suggestion: could you simply copy most of this post over to the "Recipes" area of your blog, so when you get questions in future, you can simply direct them there. Now, which brilliant idea am I going to try tonight?! JD :-)
Posted by: Judith at May 10, 2007 9:30 AM
Thanks, April. This is a really helpful post. I like to mix up Red Devil hot sauce, mustard and nutritional yeast as a sauce as well. It sounds weird but tastes good.
Posted by: Jen at May 10, 2007 11:05 AM
Sounds so similat to my dinners on most nights. One big bag of frozen veggies, some protein source like tofu, chicken, shrimp, veggies burgers... etc... and then something for seasoning like Mrs. Dash, or a low-cal dressing or sauce or most times just salsa.
Posted by: Jake Silver at May 11, 2007 5:31 PM
Thanks April. I really appreciate this post on your regular day to day cooking, because it perfectly illustrates practical and easy it is to eat healthy food nowadays. My staple dinner is also based on frozen veggies and fish with sauces added to liven them up.
Posted by: Frank Harper at May 12, 2007 1:49 AM