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6/12/08

A Good Example of How "Do Ahead" or "Make Ahead" or "Double" Cooking Works!



Tonights dinner was marinated grilled chicken, steamed broccoli and homemade spinach pasta. If you think I slaved over it, making the pasta by hand early today, marinating the chicken all afternoon and standing over a hot grill this evening you would be... mistaken.

With all my hints and helps you might be interested in seeing a time line for tonights meal;


5:00 pm - I'm laying on the couch - exhausted. Oh shoot, it's almost dinner time, I don't feel like making anything!

5:12 pm - started making dinner.

5:26 pm - dinner was on the table and we were sitting down eating.

5:49 pm - the kids were already out the door to play with friends, stomachs filled, hands washed, plates cleared.



The chicken; Last week when I was grilling burgers for dinner I didn't waste 'time' on the grill so I opened a bag of frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts and partially grilled them about 1/2 - 3/4 done while were eating dinner. After they briefly cooled I put them back in the freezer bag, poured a marinade (leftover from tofu a couple weeks before and frozen until I needed some!) over them and put them in the freezer. Tonight I took them out and microwaved them until they were done (about 15 minutes).

Spinach Pasta: I took just a couple hours one afternoon to make pasta. I made spinach pasta, squash pasta and original plain pasta. I bagged them separately in gallon sized baggies and have kept them in the freezer. Tonight I grabbed a bag, boiled water and dumped them in. There is no pasta in the world as good as homemade pasta!

The broccoli - organic broccoli I bought frozen in bulk from Costco that comes in 4 individual bags. I opened a bag and steamed it while I microwaved the chicken breasts and boiled the pasta.Print Friendly and PDF