Winters coming..fast comfort food

dublinmayflower

My favourite time for eating is on it's way but I don't have 12 hours to spare cooking. Anyone care to share what they have come up with?
Here's one of my favourites but it's so good and so quick I eat it more than I should! For 2/3 people.
Ingredients; packet of sol chorizo, can of chickpeas, large onion, large pouch of Dolmio tomato and basil sauce. Boil in bag rice for 2. ( Okay you could totally make more of an effort with ingredients, ie soak dried chickpeas overnight, make own sauce, non lazy rice etc...! but it's quick and you get everything in your local spar/mace etc...)
Method; Put water on to boil for rice. Heat a large frying pan with a drop of oil. Add rice to boiling water. Throw onions and chorizo into pan, cook on medium heat for 5 mins, add drained chickpeas, cook for 2 mins, add sauce and cook for a further 3 mins and serve with the rice.
yum. try it, it's cheap, quick, easy but most important it doesn't taste as though it is!

The Sweeper

First, there's a difference between convenience food and convenient food. Some of the ingredients you're using are easily substituted with components, meaning less additives in your diet. For instance, scrap the jar of dolmio and replace with tin of tomatoes, tablespoon of tomato puree, shredded basil and teaspoon of sugar. Same thing basically, but without the modified maize starch, salt and other non specific flavourings that are clubbed together under 'spice'.

Also buy a large bag of rice and measure out single servings - for the 10 minutes it takes to boil rice vs the whatever - 3 minutes - it takes to do boil in the bag rice, if you put it on at the start of your preparation it'll still be done by the end of the meal. Also, you won't be scarfing a double portion every time.

You don't have to spend 12 hours cooking. There's a massive difference between soaking chickpeas overnight and spending 8 minutes combining your own simple sauce from ingredients instead of taking the lid off a jar.

Variation on what you already have - sausages in tomato sauce, with pasta. Buy a tray of dinner sausages. Cut one large onion in half, then slice the halves. Put some olive oil in a pan, add sausages. Colour the sausages on all sides - they'll probably be half-cooked. Remove from pan. Add onions to pan. While onions are sweating, cut sausages into bite-sized pieces and return them, plus any juice from the cutting plate, to the pan. When onions are soft, add a tin of tomatoes and a tablespoon of tomato puree. Add some garlic to taste, and some dried oregano to taste, along with a tablespoon of brown sugar to counter the acidity of the tinned tomatoes. Season with salt to taste (depending on the saltiness of the sausages).

Put pasta on and turn the heat down under the sauce - both will be ready in about 10 minutes. You can flavour the sauce differently using a glass of red or white wine, a beef stock cube, a splash of worcestershire sauce, a splash of cream - all works.

There's a recipe on here for Lakeshore Pork from the Avoca Cafe Cookbook - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=55420022&postcount=2 - downsize the ingredient measures for one person, and use a pork fillet instead of a leg of pork. Serve with rice or pasta for a very comforting dish.

I've posted a popular recipe for beef stroganoff before - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53651197&postcount=39 - that's a very comforting dish.

Quicker dishes again - try tuna and pasta - boil pasta, drain, then add olive oil and a little garlic to the pot. Throw pasta back in and coat with garlicky oil, then add tuna, chopped parsley and lots of black pepper. Squeeze lemon juice over, eat.

cozmik

The 9 Healthiest Winter Vegetables

http://www.bodyecology.com/08/01/17/healthiest_winter_veggies.php