Chili con carne with corn
And that’s bad. Cuz when you don’t have emergency food plans, you either have to:
a/ make a *fun* run to the grocery store for rotisserie chicken during rush hour,
b/ call a fast food joint (Chinese or Pizza related) to deliver (and regret the calories consumed later), or
c/ eat a ridiculous (and probably non-FDA approved) meal for dinner.
Now, I’ve done the occasional breakfast for dinner, and it’s not bad. I enjoy it, but my husband, who’s done a fabulous job of losing weight this year, does not. Waffles and pancakes and eggs and sausage are frowned upon by those trying to live by Weight Watchers rules. And so I take it as a challenge to keep my pantry stocked so that in an emergency, I can whip up a dinner without raising my stress level.
So, here are seven steps to take to achieve food sanity:
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1. Have a can of Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom condensed soup in your pantry. You would not believe how good leftover meat is when you use it as a base (after sauteeing some onion and garlic in the pot first).
2. Boxed lower-sodium chicken stock MUST be in your kitchen, somewhere. This ingredient has saved my tush many a time. Think of it as a major player in using up last bits of leftovers. Of course, if you happen to have homemade chicken stock on hand, so much the better. But generally that’s not the case if you’re having a dinner emergency.
3. Frozen peas, corn, green beans, or broccoli–at least one bag of these veggies should be in your freezer at all times. You never know when these veggies will come in handy. Think of adding corn to chili, green beans or peas to a low-fat chicken a la king (with or without the biscuits), broccoli to beef, etc.
4. Crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, whole tomatoes–these taken for granted cans have helped me more times than I can count. Many Italian dishes can be made from one or two of these cans.
5. Black beans, cannellini beans, whatever beans you like–in a can or two. Beans are a great protein that can really help out if you’ve got no meat in the fridge or freezer (veggie chili, anyone?).
6. Garlic is a must for me–either fresh or minced in a glass jar (usually found in the produce department at your local grocer). I love the minced garlic for use in a dinner emergency, because I generally have no fresh garlic at those times, ya know?
7. Frozen ground meat (either ground round, 7%, sirloin, or ground turkey breast)…whatever floats your boat and you like to eat. Simply buy 1 pound of the ground meat you like, cook it, put it in a freezer safe container, label it on the top with the meat name and date, and freeze it. You’ll be so glad you did when you have a ‘What’s for dinner?’ panic.
These are my suggestions to prevent panic at dinnertime; what are yours?
