Ok, But Let’s Make It a Quickie
Over the years, we’ve been known to spend hours preparing elaborate meals that get consumed in less time than we spent chopping the ingredients for. We know that will be a thing of the past come June, and we’ve slowly been preparing ourselves for our new reality. The fact that our lives have already become busier has made this transition more a necessity, but other times, we’ve been experimenting just for testing purposes. Can I really cook this meal that used to take me an hour to make in 30 minutes? What can I cut out, what shortcuts can I use, do I really need to de-seed those cucumbers and tomatoes? Our goal is to retain the same type of meals that we’ve been enjoying over the years without succumbing to the ease of take-out and things pulled out of the freezer. I’m sure all of you parents will laugh and say “Oh, just wait. You’ll see.”
But we do have some advantages: we’ve built up a repertoire of meals that we can practically cook blindfolded with one hand tied behind our back (which may come in handy), many of the dishes that we make can easily be simplified by cutting out some of the ingredients, lots of things that we make actually require minimal cooking or minimal attention while cooking, we’re planners and figure out what we’re going to make each night of the week and shop and prepare accordingly on the weekends, we have a well-stocked pantry, and we’re a little nuts.
For us, meals are never an afterthought. We never say, let’s just eat whatever and get it over with. We eat dinner together at the kitchen table every single night, and it’s something that’s enormously important to us. Yeah, it’s a time to talk, share, blah, blah, blah, but more importantly, it’s a time to eat really tasty food. Every day and every meal, we’re excited about what we’re eating. We actually say things like, “Ah, I can’t wait for dinner tomorrow night. It’s going to be soooooooo good.” My favorite part of the workday is lunch, when I get to eat my tasty leftovers from the night before. For most people, cooking is a chore, but we choose to make it special every night. It makes the day so much better when you know you have something tasty to look forward to.
With that being said, we know we have to be realistic about things. In a few short months, something that cries a lot, poops a lot, and eats a lot will take precedence in our lives. We know that things will completely change, and we’ll have to make many sacrifices along the way. I know that our meals will be interrupted, delayed, or flat out ignored as we tend to the needs of a baby, but I have to stay optimistic and at least try to keep up what has always been a huge part of our lives. Ask me again in July how I’m doing with this.
On a busy Monday night, we attempt to cook dinner in 10 minutes, and it’s a rousing success. You have to know when to use some help, so we enlisted the help of our good friends Trader Joe’s and Russo’s. This would be a quick noodle soup with lo mein noodles, shrimp, carrots, and snap peas, and to make things easy, we used some boxed soy ginger broth from TJ’s and freshly made lo mein from Russo’s. The only actual prep work required was defrosting the shrimp (from two pound bags bought at Costco), slicing the carrots, chopping the scallions, and um, that’s it. The broth goes into the pot to heat up, and once brought to a boil, the snap peas and carrots go in. I added a little more fresh ginger and soy to liven up the broth a little bit, and in went the shrimp and the noodles. Everything cooks in pretty much the same amount of time (all of about 4 minutes), and a little hot sauce at the end finishes it up. Done and done. With the exception of the chopping, it could literally be done with one hand, and you know what? It tasted really good, and it immediately entered into our permanent rotation. All it took was having the right ingredients on hand.
I’ll be honest, it all felt a little Semi Homemade, but if I ever really get to that point, you have my permission to kick me in the junk. You’ll most likely be seeing a lot more of meals like this from me coming up, but don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be stupid enough to try to keep on tackling more adventurous meals, so stay tuned. Wish me luck.
Tags: 2007, cooking, food, noddles, quickmeals, shrimp, soup Permalink Comments (3)







