May 20 2009
My Go-To Meals
Today was a crazy day for me and it got me thinking about my “Go-To Meals”. Everyone should have a short list of healthy meals they can make quickly and easily and always keep the ingredients for those meals on hand. They should be relatively cheap, easy to prepare and quick, if they aren’t all of these things then you risk going to the nearest fast food place instead of preparing something tastier (and much cheaper and healthier!) at home. Here is what I tend to make when I’m in a hurry, please feel free to add some of your favorites!
- Oodle Scedies (I have no idea how to spell it, it was a term made up when I was young). This is a simple pasta dish, but it’s always a little different and always good. It’s pasta (use linguine or spaghetti), some kind of tomato (sauce, diced canned, pizza sauce, you get the idea), meat (ground beef, ground turkey, sausage, etc) and cheese (whatever you have is good) all thrown into a pot (cook everything first, then mix it) and heated through. It is kind of like goulash and very yummy, all you have to do is add some garlic toast and a salad and you have a great meal!
- Tacos. These are about as easy as it comes to make. Just cook the meat and put the toppings in bowls. I always keep a few extra packets of taco seasonings on hand, I have used the traditional ground beef, ground turkey, diced chicken and even canned chicken to make tacos.
- One of my favorite meals is roasted chicken. I know it’s not something that you can make quickly, but my local Costco has whole roasted chickens for about $5, I can’t even cook my own that cheap most of the time! I just add some veggies and I have a whole meal with leftovers for lunch. I will even boil the carcass for soup, but that’s another topic 
- Stir Fry. This is especially good in the summer, it cooks fast so it doesn’t heat up your kitchen and you can modify it so that you use whatever veggies you have on hand. If you don’t have any fresh veggies then just use a bag of frozen stir fry mix. You can also throw in some meat if you like, my K-mart sells little bags of tiny frozen shrimp for $1, they are great for stir fry. Rice can cook up in half an hour (or less) and you have a full meal.
This gets me to the topic of a well-stocked pantry and freezer. I am lucky enough to have a chest freezer in my basement (one of my first purchases after we bought the house) and I know not everyone has that luxury, but most of these items can be kept in a regular freezer as well, just perhaps not in such large quantities.
Freezer
-Boneless, Skinless chicken breasts. I boil these about 5 pounds at a time then cube some and shred some and keep it in containers in the refrigerator, we eat it in meals (see above) and use it in salads for lunch.
- Assorted Vegetables. This one is easy. Frozen veggies are often healthier then fresh (they are frozen at their peak and don’t lose nutrients while traveling across the country) and almost always cheaper. Not to mention the fact that they won’t turn into an icky mess in the bottom of your produce bin. Pick what your family will eat, personally I always have peas (my toddler eats them frozen as well as cooked), corn, broccoli, stir fry mix (with extra snow peas!) and Broccoli Normandy.
- Meatballs. I can get these very cheaply at my local Sav-a-Lot and we use them quite a bit in both spaghetti and on sandwiches.
- Bread. Now, not everyone has space for this, but I go through the day-old bread bins and pick up things that we will eat. I can get sub rolls, french bread, hamburger buns, bagels, dinner rolls and more for about .80 or .90 a bag. I take them home, wrap them in foil and freezer bags and freeze them until we need them.
- Ground Turkey. My dollar store sells this by the pound, one pound for $1. This is heard to beat, it’s frozen, but once it’s thawed it cooks up similar to ground beef, but without all the fat. I have switched it in tons of recipes with fantastic results, it also makes very good burgers, excellent for grilling.
Pantry
- Pasta. I always keep linguine, spaghetti, elbow macaroni and egg noddles around. You can make tons of dishes from these simple pastas.
- Rice. I like short grain brown rice, it cooks in about 40 minutes (or less) and tastes great. I don’t really like minute rice, it has it’s place, but I have found that it’s very rare that I can prepare something to go with rice in less then half an hour anyway.
- Pasta sauce. I almost always have a jar of white sauce and a jar of red sauce. It can be used to make pasta dishes, sandwiches or even pizza in a pinch.
- Tomatoes. I keep tons of tomatoes in my cupboards. They are diced, sauced, paste-d, whole and stewed. I have found that tomatoes and tomato sauce are very versatile, they can go with almost anything.
Refriderator
- Eggs. They fit into almost any diet and can be eaten in so many different ways. I try to keep about a dozen raw and about a dozen hard boiled at almost any time. We eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, mostly in salads, on sandwiches or scrambled, but I also love to make egg noodles with eggs (it’s just what it sounds like, egg noddles cooked with eggs).
- Cheese. This is also in my freezer. I tend to keep in in blocks then chop it up or shred it as needed. I recently discovered (the hard way) that it is impossible to shred frozen cheese, it just crumples, which is also good, but can be rather unexpected.
This is in addition to the staples that most people already have on hand such as milk, butter and sauces and condiments.
Now this is not, by any means, a comprehensive list, nor will it work for everyone, but it’s a good start and can help you get through those long and jam-packed days.
