In Which I Decide What Meals Make the Cut
Everyone who has prepared food, whether a cooking devotee or not, can relate to the moment of complete brain freeze when thinking about what they want to have for dinner. I have been cooking for myself, and then for my kids, for nearly twenty years now, and can only too vividly remember having a moment such as this three days ago, as the weekly grocery list creation endeavor was getting underway. How is it that I’ve designed and prepared thousands of meals over my lifetime and still draw a blank when planning for our upcoming week of dinners?
This post is one of a continuing series where I will develop what I am calling The Rotation. The Rotation will be a solid list of fifteen meals that fit the following criteria: deliciousness, affordability, relative ease of preparation, and broad appeal(ahem, children). A bonus characteristic for me would be a meal’s adaptability. No longer will I gnash my teeth in trying to think of what to make, as all the tried-and-true contenders will henceforth be part of The Rotation.
When I first began to think about The Rotation, I figured fifteen meals would be a piece of cake to come up with. Why, I had decades of experience to call on. I began brainstorming, and promptly found myself struggling to come up with more than a handful of meals that I feel fit the above criteria. Yikes. The Rotation is a more daunting undertaking than first thought.
Here are the first meals, the Off-the-Top-of-My-Head meals, that most certainly belong in The Rotation:
SPANISH FRITTATA
I wrote about this simple frittata in The Boy’s Birthday Feast post, so it is no surprise that it is included without hesitation in The Rotation.
RICE BOWLS
This is a weekly standard that has evolved over the years. It began when the kids were young as simply Rice and Eggs, and was inspired by the one meal I remember my father making with any regularity when I was a kid. He is from the Philippines, where breakfast is often savory, and the one thing we always had in our house was cooked white rice. He would fry some up with oil and garlic until it was crispy, standing at the stove on a leisurely weekend morning, I would delight in the absolute simplicity of this cookery, and marvel at how oil, white rice, and patience could transform the fluffy starch to deep, smoky complexity.
Many years later, after becoming a single parent with a full-time job and two young kids, I adapted this childhood memory to a meal of convenience. Fortunately, the love of white rice is in our blood, and is a staple of our home. Adding eggs to the pan once the rice is fried and crispy brings protein, and, like all fried rice dishes, this meal welcomes any and all leftover vegetables hanging out in the refrigerator. The only essential seasoning is soy sauce. Done.
HOMEMADE MACARONI AND CHEESE
Perhaps my daughter’s number 1 overall pick is my homemade macaroni and cheese. I admit, however, right from the start, that though this is a solid recipe, and easy to put together on a school night, it is by no means the best macaroni and cheese recipe out there. I came across this recipe in a vegetarian cookbook many years ago, when we were pretty exclusively vegetarian, and this particular cookbook was not only veg-centric, but also more on the hippie-healthy side of things. Like, nutritional yeast instead of Parmesan cheese, that kind of thing. So an ooey, gooey, decadent version of macaroni and cheese this is not. Once, years ago, I tried making a different M&C recipe, looking for more melty goodness, more complexity in the sauce, and my daughter was so offended with the changes that she barely ate a bite. And so back to the original recipe we went. Sigh. I do picture the day, (getting uncomfortably closer and closer), when she is off to college, and I can finally tweak this staple dish into one more satisfying.
I have adapted the recipe from the cookbook in a couple of integral ways- I include a healthy dollop of Dijon mustard in the cheese sauce, and I top the whole dish with a liberal amount of Panko breadcrumbs tossed in olive oil, before baking in a 400 degree oven.
PEANUT NOODLES
When I first started cooking for myself, I was a committed vegetarian. As I’m writing this post, I am realizing that most of The Rotation meals I’ve come up with are meatless. Peanut Noodles is another one, and it’s a recipe I’ve made since the early days. It’s from a delightful cookbook by Jeanne Lemlin called Simple Vegetarian Pleasures, and the recipes she includes throughout the book truly are 🙂
Easy enough for a weeknight dinner, this recipe makes a boatload, and we enjoy eating the leftovers as a cold noodle salad. Other than making the sauce for the pasta, there aren’t any additions called for in the recipe, but as any mom does every chance she can get, I throw in some appropriate veg like steamed broccoli, peas, or thinly sliced carrots. If I’m feeling really fancy, I’ll throw together this deliciously easy version of baked tofu from another staple resource of the vegetarian kitchen, The Moosewood. Yes, tofu has it’s controversies, mostly for it’s affect on estrogen in women, so I intentionally limit how often I make it, but every time I make it, we all stake our claims early in order to get as many salty, crispy morsels we as we can.
ROASTED CAULIFLOWER SALAD WITH BREADCRUMBS, GARLIC, AND GOLDEN RAISINS
It hasn’t ceased to amaze me that both kids and I love this meal. In typical fashion, however, I love everything about it, The Boy doesn’t care for the raisins, and The Girl dislikes the capers, but other than that, we are all perfectly happy eating this dish on a fairly frequent basis.
I brought this salad to a friend’s Thanksgiving meal last year, and sat in private glowing happiness listening to other guests’ comments about its deliciousness. When I asked the kids what vegetable dish I should bring to Thanksgiving this year, they both simultaneously and nearly instantly agreed that it should be this one. The fact that it’s vegan, fairly inexpensive, and quick to put together(minus the roasting time) makes this dish a total winner.
CHICKEN CHILAQUILES
For a quick dinner that tastes like way more than the sum of it’s parts, Chicken Chilaquiles is a miracle recipe I found in a cookbook by Martha Stewart. Perfect for a weeknight meal, it features a rotisserie chicken and only a handful of other ingredients. The most time-consuming job is taking all the chicken meat off the bones, but once that is done, all there is left is heating it through in a tomato and adobo chili sauce. Until this recipe, I had never had chilis in adobo, and what a revelation! This recipe doesn’t call for very much, so there’s always some left over, and one of these days I’ll figure out how else to use this delicious ingredient.
For The Boy, any meal that includes chips is a hit. When I make this dish, I also make white rice(of course), and we crush up corn tortilla chips for texture. Topped liberally with feta cheese and sour cream, and cilantro for the Girl and me, this is a highly gratifying dish.
And there we have the first six meals of The Rotation.
Rebellious Belly 