As much as possible I encourage people to take time with their food, to put effort into it, to do things the way they're meant to be done. However, I do understand that people get busy and don't always have a spare hour to spend over the stove every night. Even so, I hate to see people abandon all hope of having a home cooked meal and instead just go for chinese take-out for the 4th time that week.
Today's effort is to put out some ideas for a nice, quick, easy meal that will keep you eating well when you're in a bit of a time crunch.
Let's start with a baked potato. Sure, it takes a while for it to cook, but does it really get any easier than putting something in the oven and walking away? Okay, so this one's more for when you do have time, but are too worn out to put too much effort into anything (we all have lazy days). Of course, if I were just here to say "put a potato in a hot oven", I wouldn't be doing a very good job of getting you to expand your horizons now would I? So what can we do? We can bake it twice.
Twice-baked potatoes are simple, easy way to really amp up your average spud. They taste great and are a fun way to really impress your friends.
For this application, I suggest the good ol' russet potato (or Idaho, or baker, or whatever other name you care to call it).
Start off the same way you would with a standard baked potato. Pre-heat the oven to 400, then give the potato a nice rinse and a little scrub to get the outside nice and clean. This can be done ahead of time if you really want to, but know that even scrubbing can be enough to break the skin to let in oxygen. Potatoes will oxidize in the same way that fruit does, and you'll be left with nasty brown spots. With fruit, some citrus juice will keep this from happening (the acid counters it). I don't particularly want my potatoes to taste like lemon, so instead of citrus just put them in a tub of water. Make sure they're fully covered and they'll stay for hours.
Next up is the coating. So many people ignore the potato skin and just eat the insides. Considering that the skin has most of the nutrients (same as with about any fruit or vegetable) your body's not going to be giving you any props for leaving that behind. The easy way to take care of this is to make the skin tasty too. Pour just a tad bit of oil onto the potato and give it a nice rub down. You don't want it to be dripping, but you want a decent coat. The oil will keep the skin nice and soft, so you're not spending half an hour trying to chew through it. Next, toss on some salt. It'll stick nicely to the oil, and you'll have a tasty skin to go along with the rest of your potato. Though you may be tempted to keep adding other seasonings, be warned. This is going into a very hot oven. Salt is a rock, and it's not going to burn. Pepper on the other hand? It'll just be a flavorless little black speck by the time you pull that potato out, so wait until it's out of the oven.
Once your oven is heated properly, toss in the spuds. It'll take somewhere around an hour to be done properly, depending on size. If you've got a smaller one, it may only take 45 minutes. A really small one may even take 30. Just give it a poke with a fork - if you don't meet any resistance all the way through to the middle, you're good to go. A mealy mess of delicious is waiting for you inside. If it's a bit hard near the middle (or anywhere else for that matter) leave it in.
Once you've got your potatoes all baked and ready, it's time to transform them into the twice-baked variant. The easiest way to look at this is that you're making mashed potatoes out of the insides, and re-stuffing them back in.
First, cut the potatoes in half lengthwise. Using a spoon, scoop out the inside. I suggest leaving a bit of a rim, maybe 1/2", so that it's not just skin. Get all of the potato-guts into a mixing bowl. From here, make mashed potatoes however you care to. I'm a fan of just some milk, butter, salt and pepper. A bit of mozzarella cheese is good, as is garlic or maybe chives. There are a lot of possibilities when you're looking at mashed potatoes.
If you want an idea, though, here you go. For each cup of potato you have in the bowl, try about 2 tablespoons each of butter and milk. Next add one clove of minced garlic, 1/2 tablespoon of fresh chives (snipped with shears or chopped with a very sharp knife), and 1/2 tablespoon of fresh parmesan cheese. Whip this up good - you want to incorporate some air and make it light and fluffy. Incorporating air also increases volume, and this means that you'll have a nice mound of whipped potatoes on the inside of your baked potato rather than just a re-filled potato.
After re-stuffing, it's time for another quick shot in the oven. This is just to reheat, and give a bit of brown to any cheese that you may have put on top as a garnish. A little bit of chive looks nice too, but don't send fresh herbs through high heat unless you want shriveled twigs in the end.
Nice and easy, and incredibly versatile. Baked potatoes make a nice accompaniament to quite a few dishes, and can be a meal in their own right. Twice-baked potatoes keep this versatility while jumping off of the plate a little more in terms of appeal. Serve as-is, or if you care to beside a nice bowl of soup or maybe a sandwich.
On to plate #2. I do love a good pasta dish, and they can be really easy to pull off. For now I'm going to suggest something that you may not have tried, but trust me, it's delicious.
When people hear the word pasta, they almost always jump to sauce as well. There's nothing wrong with a good alfredo (or marinara, or a lot of other things), but today I want you to look at anti-sauce. Anti-sauce is just a fancy word for "stuff". It's quick, it's easy, and it's whatever you have on hand. You can put pretty much anything you want in with noodles. Here are a couple of suggestions, and the best part is that all of the prep can be done while the water is coming to a boil.
So first, let's get that water going. Fill a stock pot with water and put it on high. The first plate is going to be a nice Spaghetti Caprese (feel free to substitute another pasta if you feel like it). Now the most classic caprese that you can make is simply fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil. Maybe season a bit with salt and pepper. I'd be happy with that, but I'd be happy with a little minced garlic and finely diced onion, too. The amount of any given ingredient here is strictly up to your own personal tastes. I personally would probably start with one clove of garlic and about a quarter of a medium onion diced fine per serving (also note that my serving is about two of the label's servings, but that's just me). If you have fresh garden tomatoes, good for you. If not, there are some options. You can go for a roma (I'd cut each half into about 12 pieces), or even grab some grape or cherry tomatoes to use whole or cut in half. If you can get your hands on balls of fresh mozzarella, they're about perfect for this. However, if you get a log and cut some of it into bit-sized pieces, I won't tell on you. A bit of fresh basil chiffonade (ie, cut into thin strips... just stack the leaves, roll them up, and slice thinly with a very sharp knife) and you're good to go.
Note that you can give the garlic and onion some time in a skillet (say, while the pasta's cooking) to bring out the natural sugars and enhance the flavors.
So now you've got your tomatoes cut, garlic and onions cooked, pasta's freshly out of the pot, and your stomach is grumbling at you to hurry up. No worries, this'll be done in just a minute (really, it takes no time at all).
Put the pasta into a mixing bowl, or even back into the stock pot (just be careful not to burn anything - yourself included - on the residual heat). Drizzle a bit of extra virgin olive oil over the pasta and toss to coat. Next, a bit of salt and pepper (freshly ground, of course) to taste. Again, mix to coat evenly. Then we add all of our ingredients. Tomatoes, basil, cheese, garlic and onions all go in. Just toss it around, mix it up, and throw on a plate. Dinner is served. Well, maybe with a piece of garlic bread.
The next version is similar in practice, just with a different anti-sauce. This time around we're basing our anti-sauce on eggplant.
First of all, if you're using eggplant (or zucchini, or another really wet squash) be sure to pull some moisture out of it first... unless you like mushy food, that is. It's easy to do - just salt either side of your slice, lay between paper towels, and weigh it down (I usually put the slices between dinner plates and put something heavy on top). The salt will pull out excess moisture, and the paper towels will absorb it. The weight just helps things along. This can be done well in advance (just keep it all in the refrigerator) or could probably be done along with everything else if you do this first, and check it when the water starts to boil (ie, allow 10-15 minutes to pull the moisture out).
On to the fun part, though. This version is going to have a few of the same things. Garlic and onion, salt and pepper, and the same extra virgin olive oil to coat the noodles. However we're going to add in the eggplant, parmesan cheese, and some olives (kalamata would be great, but black would also work in a pinch).
So let's start from the beginning.
The water is on and the eggplant slices are prepping themselves (you can slice into rounds or lengthways, just think of how you want to use the rest of the eggplant. I'd use about three 1/2" rounds for my own serving). While that's going you can mince the garlic and dice the onion. Once the water comes to a rolling boil, throw in the pasta and start the garlic and onions in a pan. Go ahead and pull out the eggplant to let it start coming back to room temp. The eggplant can cook in the same pan as the garlic and onion, just push them of to the side of the pan and put the eggplant down in the middle. I'd say give it about 2 minutes on either side. You just want a nice sear and even heating.
When the eggplant is done, remove it from the pan and cut into strips (about 1/2" wide). They'll be small enough to be manageable, but will give you a nice focus in the dish. If necessary you can throw the strips back into the pan to keep them warm while the pasta finishes.
After that it's the same story. Coat the pasta with the olive oil, season with salt and pepper to taste, and mix in the olives, eggplant, garlic, and onion. Just mix and serve. Done in the time it takes to cook pasta.
So there you have a few ideas, at least. As you can tell, you can really put anything into an anti-sauce pasta dish that sounds good to you. A little olive oil for flavor and to make the ingredients stick, and you've got dinner. Plus, with just a little work some old classics can be an exciting meal of their own.
So here's to putting down that take-out menu. Do it quick, but do it right.
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