![]() When I’m ready to start dinner, I unwrap it, pop it into my electric pressure cooker, and 45 minutes later, we’re ready to eat. For the meatloaf, I’ll stuff it in a pan that fits inside my electric pressure cooker, wrap it in foil and then put it in a resealable freezer bag. Then I’ll transfer them to a resealable freezer bag. I’ll roll out the meatballs, place them on a lined tray and freeze them for a couple of hours to set up. I’ll thaw the chicken in the microwave or my electric pressure cooker while I have the pasta or rice cooking.Īlso, whenever I make meatballs or meatloaf, I’ll double the recipe, freezing half. For example, on days when I grill or poach chicken, I try to double up and freeze the extra cooked chicken, preportioned in twos. Or plan ahead when you’re making your favorite food. You can bypass thawing altogether if you own an electric pressure cooker you can go from frozen raw meat to cooked meat in little time. Quick thawing Soyrizo, chorizo and shrimp are some of the freezer proteins I keep on hand. I try to keep the refrigerator stocked with things that last longer than a week, like cheeses (cream cheese, sliced cheese, ricotta, cheese wedges and bricks for shredding), eggs, butter (both salted and unsalted) and milk.įreezer items include plenty of frozen vegetables like green beans, peas, corn, edamame, broccoli and cauliflower. peppers (pickled jalapeños, chipotle in adobo, both diced and whole green chiles such as Ortega brand).tomatoes (fire-roasted, sauce, crushed, stewed).beans (garbanzos, pintos, black beans, cannellini).When my stock gets down to two cans of anything, it goes on my grocery list for replenishment. simmer sauces and pestos (I love the ones from Trader Joe’s)Ĭanned goods are a must-have for quick meals.nuts (pine nuts, almonds, walnuts, cashews, peanuts), seeds (sesame, sunflower, pepitas), nut and seed butter (almond, peanut, cashew, tahini).masa harina and all-purpose flour for quick bread or tortillas.spring roll wrappers and rice noodles (aka rice vermicelli, glass noodles, rice sticks).pasta (whole wheat and regular in various shapes), rice (white and brown), quinoa, couscous.Some of the pantry items I try to keep on hand include: This happened often enough that, eventually, I learned that keeping my pantry and freezer stocked was essential for quick, repeatable recipes, like today’s recipe for Baked Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta With Chicken & Ricotta. By then, concentrating on the conversation became a little tricky, because I was simultaneously running through a mental list of the contents of my fridge, trying to figure out what I could toss together, since my normal Saturday afternoon grocery shopping had been waylaid. ![]() Chatting over iced tea and maybe a snack or two, the hours would tick away until it was almost dinnertime. Early in my cooking journey, I had times when a good friend would drop by on a Saturday, usually sometime after lunch but hours before dinner.
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