My motto is, chop it up, chuck it all in and cook it! That’s why I’ve made my recipes as quick and easy as possible.
I love to cook but I like it to be quick and easy. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen cooking the evening meal. In this article you’ll find 5 simple meals to make and tips to make cooking easy.
My theme this year for my weekly Facebook cooking show – Thursdays with Annette – is SIMPLE, SIMPLE SIMPLE. I want to make healthy cooking easy, quick and doable for you even if you’re working a 50 hour week.
If you want a simple routine and tips that can make your time in the kitchen simple and stress-free, keep reading.
Get your kitchen ready
- Make a list of 7 dinners for the week ahead. This way you can shop ahead, and you can ask others in the household to help with the weekly cooking.
- Have the right equipment. Sharp knives are essential in the kitchen. You’ll also need a quality non-stick fry pan with a lid and some saucepans. Add some basic utensils such as spoons, egg lifter, whisk and tongs. Have a couple of chopping boards, one for meat and one for vegetables to avoid cross contaminating the food. And lastly, get some measure cups and spoons, so you’re accurate with the recipe ingredients.
- Keep containers for leftovers. Freezing leftovers makes for an easy dinner another night, make sure you write the recipe name and the date frozen on the container so there’s no surprises when the meal is thawed.
Keep it simple
- Choose simple meals to make. All my recipes have a difficulty rating, so you can choose easy options, look for the 1 star ratings. Be sure to check the cooking time if you know you are going to be short on time.
- Make more than you need. Why not make a double batch of a recipe and freeze the second batch to have later, this gives the cook a night off. Lasagnes, casseroles and vegetable slices are ideal for this.
- Be prepared. Shop ahead for the ingredients and get everything out on the bench before you start to cook. This way you won’t forget to add an important ingredient to the recipe. Put a plastic bowl on the bench to throw your rubbish in, and fill the sink with hot soapy water to wash up as you go, so you don’t have a big mess to clean up at the end.
5 simple meals to make
- Mediterranean Omelette (MORE Cooking for 1 or 2 people) – serve with a slice of grainy toast. This recipe is low in saturated fat because I don’t use all the egg yolks, it has a good amount of protein and fibre from all the veggies, which will fill you up.
- Mongolian Lamb (Book 3 & MORE Cooking for 1 or 2 people) – a super easy one pan, one bowl meal! Serve with Basmati rice. Freeze leftover rice separately into individual serving sizes, zip lock bags are great for this.
- Tasty Meatloaf (Book 4 & MORE Cooking for 1 or 2 people) – this recipe takes a little longer to cook but will keep well in the fridge for a few days so it’s a great one to cook ahead. Serve with either vegetables or salad. Leftovers are suitable to be frozen.
- Chicken Parmigiana (Book 2 & Cooking for 1 or 2 people) – this is one of my easiest recipes😊 Serve with home-made Potato Chips, use my recipe (Book 1 & Cooking for 1 or 2 people) and a fresh garden salad.
- Sticky Pork Chops (Book 4 & Cooking for 1 or 2 people) – serve with steamed veggies. This sticky sauce is great served over pork or chicken and can be made ahead and frozen in serving size lots.
Hopefully these few simple tips will help make cooking easy. Think of the money you’ll save by cooking at home, and how much better it is for your health than takeaways.
For more simple meals and cooking tips, watch my cooking shows over on my YouTube channel – Be sure to subscribe while you’re there so you never miss another show, it’s FREE.