make-ahead meals

By Friday, January 08, 2010 , , , , ,

my boys with banana stickers on their noses

In response to my 2010 goals posting, my friend Katie of Art Wall Online shared with me her food-related goal for the year:
I have one food goal, which is to plan and prepare a nice dinner from a recipe once per week with enough for leftovers. Ryan has the same goal so we should be set 4/7 days. Baby steps.

With the busy lives we all lead, it's tough to get a home-cooked meal on the table — at a reasonable hour — without wanting to pull your hair out or have a lie-down. As I wrote before, prepping on the weekend is the way to go. Casseroles and roasts scream “leftovers,” and are great things to tackle over the weekend.

I am so enamoured with Katie's idea of making one dinner that has enough leftovers for the next night — be it in its original form or morphed into another dish — that I am going to try my hand at it and share my results with you.

Here's what I am going to make:

Dinner One (Sunday): French chicken in a pot, served with crème fraîche mashed potatoes and mixed greens vinaigrette
On sunday, I'll make the sauce for the enchiladas and post-dinner, I'll shred the leftover meat, too.

Dinner Two (Monday): Layered chicken enchiladas with arroz verde
Preheat the oven, assemble the casserole and pop it in the oven; then start on the rice. Both should be done within a few minutes of each other.

Dinner Three (Wednesday): Roasted winter squash and mushroom tacos (my own recipe) with goat cheese and scallions, served with mixed greens
On your "day off," (a.k.a. carry-out night) roast the squash and mushrooms, so they're ready to go for the next day.

Dinner Four (Thursday): Joy of Cooking's winter squash soup with warm, crusty bread
Use the reserved roasted squash to make this quick, velvety and warming soup. Great topped with pepitas.

Happy eating, -s.

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About the Author

Author, cook, entertainer and world-class eater of delicious food, Sarah Klein began The Hungry Bambino as a way to capture her evolution as a mother and cook. Sarah's greatest passion is to cook for those she loves; so if you're invited to dinner, you know you're special. When Sarah's not cooking up a storm, she's managing a successful career, playing with her due bambini, rearranging the furniture in her house, or tackling a challenging trail run. She does this all with her partner in crime and best friend and favorite person to cook for: her husband, Chris, or Mr. Klein, as referred to on this blog.

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4 comments

  1. My Bambino09 January, 2010 00:32

    Great Post.....

    I found your site on stumbleupon and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!

    Thanks for sharing....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Devon09 January, 2010 19:42

    There's no mistaking that those two are related. Good luck on the meal mission.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sarah10 January, 2010 14:22

    My Bambino ... thanks for "stumbling" upon me. And thanks for the encouragement. I love hearing from the people who read my blog. Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sarah10 January, 2010 14:23

    Devon, good to hear from you again! Yes, if I didn't in fact gift birth to my hungry bambino, I would think he's a clone of my husband! Thanks for the luck!

    ReplyDelete