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Dave Smith[_1_]

On 2014-02-10 11:37 PM, wrote:

>>
>> I do most of my cooking on the weekends and then have that through the week.
>> One of these days......maybe I'll be able to retire, but not yet.
>>
>
> It doesn't take long to chop an onion or a bell pepper, or open a can of
> tomato product. We have plenty of two-minute pasta in the jar.
>
> Stir fry is easy: chop the meat and let marinate; turn the rice cooker on, rinse and chop the vegetables, fry (steam if necessary) add a sauce to pull
> it all together.
>
> If I have chicken stock, I can have chicken soup on the table in 20 minutes,
> provided I stopped to buy some parsley.

I used to watch Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Dinners and wonder what took her
so long. I used to get home from work before my wife most of the time,
so I would cook dinner. There are a lot of stir fries that can be done
in about 20 minutes. Start the rice. It takes a few minutes to come to a
boil and then 15 minutes to cook. While that is cooking you start
cutting the vegetables and the meat. It takes 3-4 minutes to cook in
the pan. By the time the rice is cooked everything else is done.

>
> I just made stracetti for dinner (Roman stir-fry). Nob Hill had top sirloin
> on sale. I sliced some up, salted, peppered, and sprinkled it with garlic
> powder, and washed some arugula. Then I made the two minute pasta, and tossed
> it with grated romano (using a microplane) and freshly ground black pepper.
> Then I started stirfrying the beef, adding the arugula by handfuls, finally
> dressing it all with some EVOO. Simple, easy, delicious, but above all: fast.

Even dinners that require baking or roasting time are not that time
consuming. Learn to multi task. Preheat the oven, toss in the stuff
that is being baked/roasted.... go and do something else for a while.
You're talking 5-10 minutes actual work over the course of an hour.
That gives you time to do other things.