Tag: quick

Grilled Cheese & Orange Slices

I’ve been so busy prepping for my biggest market event of the season that I haven’t been able to set aside the time to cook anything fancy. But we’ve all still gotta eat!

Dinner last night was grilled cheese on homemade bread (my usual go-to of bread machine herb bread without the herbs) and orange slices. Of course, the ones I made for me were with lactose-free cheese; instead of the usual cheddar I had a rather nice Gouda, which was a nice change.

I’m looking forward to the holiday market season being over so I can spend more time cooking — especially cooking for Christmas!

Bacon-N-Egg Bagels & Spinach Salad

What with the tornado over the weekend, and the resulting damage and power outages affecting hundreds of thousands of people across the city, my focus hasn’t exactly been on cooking for this last little while. Not only that, but the city has asked that we stay off the roads as much as possible to allow priority use for emergency and Hydro vehicles, and to use as little electricity as possible so as not to overload what’s left of the grid. Luckily it hasn’t been so hot that we’ve needed air conditioning, which is a huge power suck, and it hasn’t been super cold — although to take the edge off the temperature in the evenings, I’ve smelled a lot of fireplaces in the area being fired up earlier in the season than usual.

Not wanting to use a lot of electricity means that I’m not doing a lot of cooking that has long cooking times. That means no canning (which requires hours and hours of time with the stove running), or slow-cooked dishes that can run 24 hours or more to make. Bacon and eggs is honestly one of the quickest hot meals that I know how to make, so that’s what I went for. Fry up a package of bacon, make up four eggs over easy, and toast four bagels. Add the condiments of your choice and you’ve got a lovely sandwich that’s as good for supper as for breakfast. To make it a bit healthier, I added a nice salad made with baby spinach, avocado, and tomatoes from my garden. And that’s dinner in a flash!

Beet Pesto

One of the things I love about beets is that pretty much the entire plant is edible; both the roots and the leaves not only taste good, but they’re great in other dishes. Case in point: beet pesto. As I’ve pointed out before, pesto is a really simple, no-cook pasta sauce to make, and it can be made with beet greens! Well, the ones I grew this year had red leaves instead of the more common, green, but they taste more or less the same no matter the colour.

The neat thing about making pesto with red beet leaves is that the pesto itself turns red, which makes for a much more colourful dish. As a warning, if you’re making or cooking with this kind of pesto, protect your clothing! Red beet juice stains very quickly, and this will also happen when it’s in pesto.

In this pesto I also used basil (from my mother’s and my mother’s friend’s garden), garlic, extra virgin olive oil, parmesan (from the deli, not the shelf-stable stuff that’s much harder and more powdery), and pine nuts.

This big batch made up sixteen 250mL jars that went straight into the freezer, plus one that I set aside in the fridge for use in the next few days. Each one of these tiny jars is easily enough to make dinner for our family of four. If stirred into prepared dried pasta, this means I’ll have sixteen easy meals (or at least side-dishes) over the coming winter. I like that kind of math!

Late Night Ramen

Ever have one of those nights where you just forget to have dinner? I did that the other day. I had a late lunch, which threw off my internal schedule, and then I wasn’t at home for dinner. It didn’t even occur to me until something like eleven o’clock at night that I should probably eat something. Of course, by then most things are closed, so going out to pick up some ingredients was problematic at best. Normally my late-night food runs toward sandwiches or cold cereal, but the girls had polished off the bread and all that was left in the cereal bag was dust. So I had to get creative.

I rummaged through the freezer and found some ramen noodles and sauce packets — originally from two different meals and hence likely by two different brands, but they were missing their original packaging. I did have a few eggs, the remnants of a frozen naruto fish cake stick, some frozen masago, and a few frozen dried shrimp. Aside from the green onions, which I grabbed from the garden, it was a little short on the veggies, but the fridge was bare! I grabbed an apple on the side to make up for the lack.

It wasn’t a difficult meal to make, but it’s definitely more effort than I usually put into food right before bed.

Fish Fillet Sandwich on Beer Bread

I’m still trying to perfect that beer bread recipe, this time experimenting with added flavour. Although the bread is lovely plain, I really liked it with caraway seeds. I think that the recipe is just about ready to be published… Maybe next week, after I’ve tried one more test loaf.

I served the bread as part of a lightly-breaded fish fillet sandwich, and I followed this recipe to whip up some tartar sauce. I really liked the sauce, but that might have been because I am partial to the dill pickles I made last year (and am still working my way through). I served the sandwiches with cubed watermelon and the sour turnip pickles that my friend made for me (of course I didn’t eat the turnip and the watermelon together, because yuck).

Shrimp and Eggs on Rice

I have been terribly busy lately, so I needed another super-easy meal again last night. Once again, I also wanted a dish that helped clean out my freezer, so I grabbed a bag of shrimp and threw together shrimp and eggs on rice.

I pan-fried the shrimp in garlic butter, which my family always loves. I mean, they like anything with garlic butter, I think. I also sprinkled a tiny bit of furikake on top at the time of serving. While the basmati rice was cooking, I soft-boiled some eggs and set them aside to put on the rice at the time of serving as well. Honestly, this was one of the simplest meals I’ve made in a while, but everyone scarfed it up, so I’m not complaining.

Look Ma, I Cooked!

What with ComicCon prep taking up 99% of my time, it seems like forever since I’ve been able to spend any time in the kitchen. Well, last night I actually was able to squeeze in a quick meal: nachos.

That’s Tostitos (yes, I know, not very authentic, but this whole dish isn’t, so never mind that) topped with ground beef, green onions, homemade salsa, chopped tomatoes, cheddar cheese, with a large dollop of sour cream on the side. Of course, this being me it had to be lactose-free cheese and sour cream, but it was tasty nonetheless.

Leftover Chicken Salad

Last night was leftovers night, the day when I try desperately to finish off the last few odds and sods in the fridge to make space for new ingredients. For some reason, there always seems to be a bit of chicken in there when it comes time for a clean-out, either from rotisserie birds from the store or, more commonly, chicken thighs or breasts roasted at home. While chicken bacon quesadillas are generally an option preferred by my kids, I don’t always have tortillas around, so another thing I like to make is leftover chicken salad.

Honestly, it’s one of the simplest things in the world to make. I wash and cut up the lettuce (or spinach, or greens mix — whatever we’ve got), and I’ll wash, peel if necessary, and chop up whatever veggies haven’t yet turned — that means usually some carrots, cucumber, and some avocado if we’re really lucky. I’ll also chop the leftover chicken into bite-sized pieces, and add some slices of hard-boiled egg on top. If we have cheese that needs to be eaten up, we’ll often grate/crumble a bit and add that too. Then everyone adds whatever dressing they like; we usually have Greek tatziki, bacon ranch, zesty Italian, Ceasar, and a couple of homemade vinaigrettes kicking around the fridge. Of course, Thing 1 for some reason hates the texture of lettuce, and hence ends up with a plate of cut up veggies, chopped chicken, and a hard-boiled egg. It’s nothing fancy, but it is a tasty, healthy meal in a pinch!

Crunch Time Chicken

Heading into Ottawa ComicCon cosplay crunch time, I’ve been resorting to some of my tried-and-true dinner dishes to feed my family. Last night I made up baked chicken thighs with my favourite spring chicken spice mixture, served with mashed potatoes and a Caesar salad.

I’m looking for new quick and easy meals for the next month or so (it’s one month away! Eek!), but I don’t have time to do my usual leafing through my cookbooks and browsing the Internet for ideas. I do have a few Crock Pot recipes I’ve been wanting to try that might be perfect. At the very least, I’ll try not to resort to Kraft Dinner and instant ramen…

Cheater Chicken Bacon Quesadillas

Basic quesadillas aren’t exactly difficult to make in the first place, but some nights I’m looking for an even quicker, easier meal. Not only that, but a meal that the kids can help me prep (although it’s debatable if they speed anything up, honestly). Truthfully, it’s more like a grilled cheese on tortillas than a true quesadilla, but everyone in the family likes it. It whips up nice and quickly while I make up a salad.


The dressing is for the salad, not the quesadilla… Although ranch and chicken and cheese are a proven taste combination.

It doesn’t really have a recipe per se, since it’s mostly made using leftovers. Each quesadilla starts with a tortilla on a baking sheet, then a layer of grated cheese (the kids like sharp cheddar, while my husband prefers mozzarella and cheddar mixed, and I stick with whatever I can get lactose-free). Next is a handful of leftover chicken — often from a store-bought rotisserie bird, but roasted does well too, and sometimes we’ll substitute whatever other leftover meat is in the fridge. If I’m lucky, I’ll already have some bacon made in advance, but most of the time I have to cook it fresh, which is easy enough in the microwave. Then it’s another tortilla on top. I bake it in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C), checking every couple of minutes, until it is warmed through and the cheese is nice and melted. If we’re feeling particularly fancy, I’ll serve it with sliced avocado and sour cream (lactose-free again for me), and a salad. That’s all there is to it, really!

I know, I know, people who like genuine Mexican food are probably squirming by now. There aren’t even any onions or peppers or anything in this to give it any spice! And I do agree. This is Kraft Dinner to homemade macaroni and cheese, Wonder Bread to a fresh-baked loaf of rye. But it’s quick, it’s easy, it uses up leftovers, it’s not too unhealthy (especially when paired with veggies of some kind), it’s miles better for you than fast food… And some days that’s exactly what the doctor ordered.