I have been cooking in 2012. Cooking A LOT.
It saves muchos buckos, is more healthy and I get to wear an apron & pretend I'm domestic!! Winner!
Following are 2 easy meals we frequent. They are delicious & make great leftovers (we love leftovers!)
Disclaimer: These are non-gourmet, easy, cheap meals. If you like fancy, don't try them!
I like to cleverly call this meal "Meat & Peppers":
Buy some kind of shoulder or rump roast at your local store. Beef. We like to buy meat from the carneceria in Santa Ana where it's cheap. Freeze it until the peppers go on sale for cheap at the grocery store. You will need:
Meat roast
at least 1 of each- Yellow, Orange, Green, Red Peppers
Montreal Steak Seasoning
Pan &Oven
Preheat oven to BROIL. Cover one side of meat with steak seasoning. Let sit for about 10 min while oven is getting hot and you cut up peppers into large chunks and strips. Take whatever non-food item your toddler is eating out of their mouth. Put peppers on bottom of pan. Put meat (and most of the drippings if there are any) on top. Broil on each side for 10-15 min, depending on thinkness. Cook to Medium Rare, then pull out & let the meat rest while you set the table and stop your toddler from impaling themselves on a pen.
Pair with rice. Or a green salad.
VOILA!!! Meat & Peppers. What I love most is the peppers, seasoning and juices get all delicious on the bottom of the pan. If your peppers look burned, don't worry- they are not burned, they are DELICIOUS & flavorful. Easy and quick!
The second go-to meal of late is what we call-
Chicken Vegetable Soup:
You can use whatever kind of chicken, but bone-in, skinned thighs make the best flavor without adding anything. If you use boneless/skinless you will need to add more seasoning or some MSG in the form of chicken bullion or just a ton more salt. 4 chicken thighs(frozen or fresh)
Garlic Salt
Pepper
Chili
Half onion (optional)
Bunch of Italian Parsley
Lots of Carrots(like 7-8 whole carrots- not baby carrots. Just wash them, don't peel)
Whole Bunch of Celery
Head of Cabbage
Salt
Put the chicken on the bottom of a large stock pot on very very low (on my electric oven I do like 1 or 2) with like 1 cup of water. Go clean the bathroom, fold laundry, or watch a british murder mystery series. Come back half way and turn the chicken. If you use boneless it cooks faster. If you put them in frozen they take longer. (DUH.)
When you turn put in a liberal amount of garlic salt, pepper, dash of chili powder. Put in more than you think will be good- that is the right amount. Then put in a bit more just to be sure. You may choose to put in chopped onion at this point. Sometimes I forget to buy onion so I put in some onion powder.. and sometimes I forget the onion all together and it turns out just fine. Leave again until chicken is cooked.
Cut up carrots, celery, parsley & slice cabbage. Put parsley in first, then carrots, then celery and pile the cabbage on top. Sometimes the cabbage won't let the lid sit right cause it's so full- this is how full it should be. Put in 2 more cups of water.Then sprinkle a tiny bit of salt on top of cabbage. This makes the cabbage weep more easily.
Leave and finish the laundry you didn't finish folding bc you got to inthralled watching the murder mystery.
After about 15-30 min the veggies should settle and you can use a big spoon to mix up & push down so the lid closes.
Now really walk away and forget the soup is cooking. In about an hour to hour and a half, remember you forgot about it and it will be PERFECT! The chicken will fall off the bones & the natural oils will make it DELISH.
My favorite thing about this soup is the Italian Parsley. DELICIOUS and flavorful- makes boring veggie soup have pizzazz! REMEMBER: don't change the temp- just leave it at 1 or 2 the whole time.
Serve with saltine crackers or bread. Or nothing. Both my husband and my kid will eat this soup like it's going out of style. Winner!
