I've been cooking since I was 5 years old. Non-cooks, I will let you in on a little secret -- you don't have to have a PhD in Culinary Arts to know how to make tasty, easy-peasy meals. You just have to learn how to 1) follow a simple recipe, and 2) not feel bad about taking shortcuts.
My favorite recipes are like this: turn on the oven to the proper temp, take a bunch of ingredients [example: pumpkin, sugar, eggs, flour, oil, spices] and put them into a bowl and mix them together really well. Pour the batter into a container [loaf pan, casserole dish, etc.] and cook as long as the recipe says to cook. It's usually a good idea to spray Pam or rub olive oil into the container so the food will easily come out of the container. Oh, and the tricky step -- plan what you want to cook, find the recipe [easy with Google] and go buy the ingredients if you don't have them on hand.
I thought about this Friday night when I was preparing my dinner. When I buy groceries from Publix I like to get 1 or 2 salmon filets, bourbon salmon flavor. I put the filets in a small dish and pour in about half a cup of orange juice, cover the dish with foil, and bake that for about 30 minutes. I fix a veggie, and that's dinner. If you're feeding a family you might want to add rice or potatoes.We like Bob Evans mashed potatoes -- we add in lots of butter, cheese, and garlic salt.
Voila. You're a cook. That's Meal #1, salmon and veggies.
Here's another easy meal. [Meal #2, hamburgers]
Take my meatloaf recipe [below] and make hamburgers. Use ground turkey if you don't eat beef. Make your patties and pop them into a hot skillet for two minutes, then flip them. Also in the skillet, throw in some portobello mushrooms, half a stick of butter, a cup of red wine or sherry and half an onion, chopped. Cover and cook on low for 20 minutes. Top each burger with cheese before serving.
1 lb. ground sirloin 1 large egg
Soy sauce Red wine
1 cup breadcrumbs olive oil
Onion powder Garlic powder
1 Tbsp. Ketchup baking powder
minced garlic or garlic powder
Everyone seems to love chicken a lot more than I do, so for Meal #3 [Chicken Taco Soup] I will grudgingly throw in a chicken recipe. This one is so easy it's almost embarrassing to tell you. Take your boneless chicken filets and wash them. Dry on paper towels. Cut off anything that looks weird. Salt and pepper each side and let them sit out for 30 minutes. One big mistake lots of amateur cooks make is they don't salt their chicken properly.
Get out your crock pot. If you don't have one, buy one. Even if you live alone, you need one. You can always freeze whatever you cannot eat.
Throw into the pot a can of black beans, a can of corn, a can of tomato puree, a packet of taco seasoning mix, and rice [optional]. We like Cento brand, because it doesn't have a bunch of chemicals in it. Cook on low for 4 hours, and shred chicken with a fork before serving. Serve picante sauce on the side.
Whenever I don't feel like fixing a veggie, I throw a Stouffer's Spinach souffle into the microwave.
Another super easy veggie: cabbage. I buy shredded cabbage and fix Eggroll Cabbage. Saute the cabbage in a pan with hot oil, and add soy sauce, garlic, onion or onion powder. Cook on low for 10 minutes.
You can find these and other easy recipes in my cookbook: What's for Dinner, Mom? on Amazon.
