331. 20 Easy-to-Prepare Meals
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| You don't have to do anything complicated to prepare these 20 meals below. |
Do you ever find yourself come
dinner or lunch and you haven’t the foggiest what to cook? It’s not that you
are incapable of putting a meal together; it’s just like clothes, you open the
wardrobe door and you wonder what on earth shall I put on. If you had a uniform you wouldn’t have that
problem, similarly with food, if you have a list, all you do is pick one
without having to bang your head against the wall first.
So as not to bang my head
against the wall every time lunch or dinner came along I made up a list of what
I usually eat every day, using the ingredients I normally keep in the house.
When I do the weekly shopping
I obviously include the normal things people eat; eggs, cheese, vegetables and so
on. I would also make sure I was well stocked up with canned/tinned food since
I am not going to cook mushrooms, runner beans or borlotti beans, and of course
no one prepares baked beans if not from a tin. Much of my fish, tuna, mackerel,
salmon, prawns or shrimps also come out of a tin. What’s more I make sure I have
frozen food supplies as spinach and fried potatoes (chips) which I fry in very
little oil or bake in the oven. I normally buy a week’s or more supply of
steak, chops, ribs, sausages, fresh from the butcher and then wrapped them up separately
and placed them in the freezer. Then there is food in packages… I can’t
remember last time I made mash from real potatoes, my mash now comes out of a
box and tastes even better than the other which more often than not was full of
lumps.
The problem basically I find, is
getting stocked up with salads because apart from cucumbers and tomatoes which
can last a few days, lettuce and stuff has to be eaten within a day or two. So
I choose to have all my salad dishes as near my shopping day as possible. The
same problem goes for fresh cheese and mozzarella which have to be eaten within
a week, though really that isn’t so bad but I hate stuff with cut off dates, it’s
like meeting an editor’s deadline!
Traditional Italian food is
the easiest to cope with. Pasta and rice will last for months in your larder
and so will chopped frozen vegetables for minestrone. Once or twice a month I will
get my pressure pan out and cook the minestrone vegetables then store them in
the freezer in separate portions to use when making a pan of minestrone soup.
The same with the bean soup which otherwise would take forever to cook. The
pasta sauce, and I like it with meat and lots of tomatoes, is something I make
once a month since it takes quite a few hours to simmer then make up separate
portions and place in freezer.
Finally I bought myself a
steam pan which is different from a pressure pan; In effect there are two pans,
one where the water is boiled and a smaller one which is placed inside with
holes near the top border so the steam comes through and your vegetables are
cooked with steam and not water which means most of the vitamins and minerals
are not dispersed in the water. But the other advantage this pan gives is that
you can cook different kinds of vegetables all at the same time in the same
pan.
So you see, if you arm
yourself with all these little trick, whether you have to get a meal ready for just
yourself or a dozen you can simply smile and say “no problem.”
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| Salad with a mixture of pre-prepared fish. |
20 Easy-to-Prepare Meals
All vegetables boiled or fresh are garnished with French dressing (oil,
vinegar, salt, pepper) or any other dressing to your taste.
1.
EGGS
scrambled, with baked beans, fried potatoes
2.
EGGS
scrambled, with salad, fried potatoes
3.
EGGS
boiled, with spinach, mash
4.
EGGS
boiled, with runner beans & bortolotti beans
5.
EGGS
boiled, with boiled vegetables: cauliflower/ sprouts/ carrots/ cabbage, potatoes
6.
FISH tinned
with boiled vegetables as above.
7.
FISH
tinned, runner beans, bortolotti beans
8.
BOILED
POTATOES, (fill a pan with water and unpeeled potatoes, when cooked take off
the peel, cut into slices or pieces and garnish with dressing) FISH tinned, salad or peas
9.
BOILED
POTATOES, (as in #8) EGGS, salad or verze (hard white cabbage sliced raw)
10.
FISH FINGERS, peas/baked beans, mash
11.
FISH FINGERS, salad, fried potatoes or mash
12.
MOZZARELLA with boiled vegetables as above.
13.
MOZZARELLA, runner beans, bortolotti beans
14.
MEAT: STEAK or CHOPS, grilled/fried with mushrooms or peas or any
other vegetable, mash or fried potatoes
15.
MEAT: STEAK or CHOPS or RIBS, grilled/fried with any kind of salad
16.
HAM, with any kind of salad, Fried potatoes
17.
CUTLETS: CHICKEN, pre-prepared (as in Corden
Blue type) with spinach,
mash
18.
CUTLETS, pre-prepared (as in Corden Blue type)
baked beans or
peas/carrots, mash
19.
CHEESE cooked in a frying pan without oil, salad,
polenta (corn mash which
can be replaced by mash potatoes)
20.
COTTAGE PIE with extra mushrooms or peas.
N.B. To
make tasty mushrooms: drain the water from the tinned mushrooms, fry a little
oil in a non-stick pan and place mushrooms in pan stirring until they have been
dried of water and are slightly roasted- be careful of the oil spits.
ITALIAN
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PASTA AND
RAGU’
·
WHITE PASTA
is just as nice- made by adding lots of butter to the cooked, drained paste and
lots
of Parmisan cheese on top.
·
RISOTTO
WITH MUSHROOMS
·
MINESTRONE
·
BEAN SOUP
·
FRICO’,
peas, or baked beans or salad
How to make FRICO’
Ingredients for two (quantities may vary according to taste)
Fried potatoes for two
2 Eggs
100 gr grated Cheese
50 gr of chopped onions
(optional)
Method
·
Beat the
eggs and cheese together in a jug
·
Fry the
chopped onions in a small quantity of oil in a NON-STICK frying pan (if used)
·
Remove the
fried potatoes (chips) from the oil pan and place into the NON-STICK frying pan
·
Pour the
ingredients from the jug over the fried potatoes and stir with a non-stick
palette until
cooked, the solidity depends on you.
·
Serve with
salad or peas or baked beans.
***Buon Appetito***
