I finally got some decent sleep last night so I decided to get all ambitious with this other menu planner thing I'm looking at. I know, I know, I'm always searching for the perfect way to get dinner on the table, but lately I've needed something new to shake things up a bit with little effort involved.
Enter Menus4Moms. Simple, no nonsense, easily adapted recipes for the busy mom.
Poor Man. Last night we watched Ratatouille for the first time and immediately thereafter I had to go get dinner on the table. It was a decent little dish -- onions, garlic, chopped zucchini, chopped carrot all sauteed golden, remove and add chicken that had been floured (with flour, salt, black pepper, and ground coriander) and brown on both sides, remove and deglaze with white cooking wine, add chicken and veggies back in along with chopped roasted almonds and chicken broth, simmer until chicken is cooked through and sauce is thickened. Not bad at all. Served with roasted sweet potatoes (dipping sauce was sour cream, lemon juice, and high quality curry powder)
Thereafter Man asked whatever happened to the dozens of other meal planning strategies I've used over the years. I told him that I got bored with them all and wanted something new. This usually results in inefficiency and uncreative last minute cop outs. There are times when I'm feeling absolutely inspired, when something jaw-droppingly wonderful manages to come out of my pots and pans and Man makes me sit down and write down the recipe. 95% of the time, however, I'm going through old recipes to find what's easiest but still interesting, and also matches up with stuff I have in the cupboards.
The result -- blah.
This website is different from some in that it's free. I also like the versatility of it, giving me something to spring board from without feeling bound by complexity or otherwise difficult to adapt flavor combinations (like chicken piccata -- lemon and capers together don't allow for a whole lot of inspiring acrobatics, unless you're a real foodie, which I am not).
It also encourages the use of a variety of protein sources both vegetable and animal. My standby is chicken. Or hamburgers. Man is getting tired of it and so am I.
This morning I took the lady's suggestion of cooking up a whole bunch of onions (see "prepared ingredients" toward the bottom) at once and freezing to allow for almost insta-meals in some cases and after peeling and dicing 8 onions I finally cried uncle and admitted that I really hate prepping onions. It's a painful thing to spend 45 mins only to end up with 3.5 cups of final product but I have to admit that it's going to make some things unbelievably fast and easy. I just dread the prospect of having to do this particular chore again in just a week and a half. Either that, or I could use copious amounts of onion powder. Blech!!
Or maybe I could just train my kids how to cook one thing each and then I could take their off nights. Yeah, that'd work.
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3 comments:
have you ever used those dried minced onions? I've had great success with them. Still doesn't beat fresh, but when you're in a pinch...
::crickets::
::maniacal laughter::
Um, yes, I've used those before. In fact I've got a huge jar of them.
Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall a few times.
Love menus4moms. Some of the meals aren't budget conscious when made for a larger family, but it's usually adaptable.
AFA onions go, do you have a food processor? I used the dried minced ones when I just need a pinch, but if I'm cooking up a lot of ground beef then I use the processor.
Two or three onions are doable by hand, otherwise I find myself crying both from the time and from the onion smell.
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