do you guys make a weekly menu? if yes, will you please share?
and if you are a working couple.. do you cook everyday? share your ideas for fixing a quick dinner for working couples?
I only have 30 mins to make something when I get home… what can I do?
I usually cook couple of things on weekend and use that for Monday/Tuesday and the rest of the week happens to be take out or something similar!
and we are really not into frozen food.. we have tried it a lot but both of us dont like the taste of the frozen food.. we just cant do that!!!
ps: I get home by 6:00 pm..I have a 4 month old at home to take care of who goes to bed b/w 8-9 so I try to spend a lot of time with him hence I cant/dont want to cook.. I just need quick recipes/ideas that can be done in less than 30 mins!
first off i think this is a great thread/idea to start compiling ideas for quick fix dinners.
So i'm in the same/similar boat as you GTG ... only diff is I work overnites (8p-8a) ... so am home by 8:30 am. I do cook almost daily but I do mentally plan it ahead of time so the actual cook time isn't that long. When I first started this routine though ... I did a whole day to get myself started ...
Also, I keep my pantry really well stocked so that if i happen to find time I can cook quickly without an additional run to the store.
here are some of the things I do ... pardon the random unorganized format. i am typing with a fuzzy head.
prepare a stock of meat/chicken yakhni and keep individual portions frozen. Then all you need is a few cups of rice thrown in with yakhni into rice cooker or regular pot to get a pilau. supplement with salds/ raita etc...
from the halal meat store ... I keep a stock of breaded chicken patties, hamburger patties, kababs. the chicken patties + jar of your fav pasta sauce + parm cheese can be turned very quickly into chicken parm bake ...
hamburger patties I use to fake out a salisbury steak ... by piercing patty with fork heavily all over and cooking in gravy on stove top (you can find a spice mix pkt of gravy in any grocry store) and serve with side of mashed potatos (it takes no time to boil a potato).
-cook your fav daals 2 at a time and in larger quantities ... freeze portions, alternate ... eat with rice and/or supplement with kababs.
marinate raw meats with a couple of diff types of marinads and save portions in ziplock bags. the just throw it in oven with fresh vegetables to get complete roasted dinner.
buy a jar of thai red curry paste and coconut milk for your panty if you like thai food). on stove top ...saute, thawed chicken with curry paste, add your vegis. add coconut milk and you got a really yummy thai curry. served with boiled white rice.
fish (i use tilapia) broiled in lemon, butter ... or even desi spices cooks in 10 mins and can be eaten with rice or vegis.
Stock up on groceries specially Onion, Potato, Meat, Frozen Naans etc
Spend some time on weekend to put Malala on chicken pieces and freeze in saperate bags that you can pull out 1 bag per dinner time
Get 4-5 lbs Qeema, add seekh kabab masala, onion, cilantro, mint etc and freeze kababs. 4-5 lbs should give you around 20-25 kababs. These are life savers
Cook for at least 2 days if not more
You can also bhoono meat and freeze in small packs. It cuts back cooking time to almost half on weekdays
You can also freeze "biryani Masala" on weekend and just boil rice and DUM the biryani
monday: I was off so made qorma (saving one portion), sabut moong daal enough for 3 meals.
tues: pizza + salad. pizza dough will be homemade but you can always buy and keep store bought crusts/doughs. using sausage from halal store, jarred tomato sauce + various other toppings and cheese.
I also keep (when I can remember) frozen cheese pizzas on hand to customize n eat.
wed: chicken karahi + sabut moong daal from above.
thu: palak gosht. am going to use that saved qorma portion, add frozen chopped spinach + extra spices, giner, garlic ... to turn into palak gosht. If you havnt done this before try it ... it makes a kick-a$$ palak gosht.
fri: meatloaf + either sauteed vegetables or mashed potatoes . you can prep the meatloaf mix ahead of time and keep portions frozen.
I think GTG will struggle with some of my advice as I rely on my freezer as my bestfriend! I'm not sure if you don't like the taste of store bought frozen stuff or homemade frozen stuff so here goes!
However I have edited some of my ideas to cater for your palette.
Hows about using pre-cooked lentils? You can make the masala in say 10 minutes, add the lentils and add stock etc and it won't take that long to cook.
How do you feel about tinned and packaged food? Here in the UK we have a range of desi dishes available in packs or tins.
How about investing in a slow cooker? You would bhoonify the meat in the morning, and then leave the meat to cook by itself ready for when you come home. Chilli con carne works well in a slow cooker too. Same idea as above, but works so well. Chilli con carne works well at the weekend too-you can have it with rice, jackets or in tacos. Or serve with zeera chawal and sour cream.
How about a rice cooker? If you have one you can prepare a simple pilaoo using stock cubes and vegetables to go with say a chicken handi you cooked the day before and had with roti/naans.
Do you not like the taste of pre-prepared frozen food or is it just home cooked frozen food you don't like the taste of?
Here's an example of my weekly menu:
Sunday: keema
Monday: yakhni pilaoo cooked in rice cooker served with keema (so simple cooking day)
tuesday : daal dish (use pre-cooked lentils)-if you use an onion based masala make double and keep half for friday
wednesday: serve daal with rice (if left over) Or mix daal with keema (a new dish-yummy!) serve with naans-potentially no cooking
thursday: daal dish & meat dish with roti or naans-no cooking
friday: chicken dish using masala from tuesday=less time in kitchen Keep back some bhoonified chicken for lunch on saturday.
saturday-a homemade sub-sandwich (take your pick from the pre-made fillings on the market-or use some of the chicken strips from last night) Order take-out Saturday night!
Sunday-kaos starts all over again!
If you are willing to use packaged and tinned items or pre-frozen items you could replace another cookery day freeing up more time with little one.
My plan would mean cooking 4 times a week. Or if you want to you could cook two dishes in one go and free up another night.
I plan weekly menus and go grocery shopping once a week!
I jot it down every Friday n go shopping on sunday! For week days, the menu is simpler while I cook A Lot on weekends! Actually I have saved the menus n sometimes when I'm too busy to plan a fresh one I simply take out one of the previous ones.
I tend to keep marinated chicken / kababs/ koftay / boiled spinach etc. in freezer so it often comes handy. I don't really like using chicken cubes from market so whenever I boil chicken I cook the stock with a bit of ginger garlic n onion salt etc n reduce it n freeze in cube tray. That way it takes less space and I can add it to anything like rice etc. I prepare chicken /mutton for biryani n freeze it to use it later ....
Also I like preplanning everything so it's less of a hassle. We had gas loadshedding in past months throughout winter, n I used to get up at 4 am to cook everything as there was no gas during the day. That kind of helped me as I found it was much convenient to cook early in the day than coming home in evening and stressing about cooking. T
i also make weekly menu n bring the grocery accordingly....
i also have 2month old baby so i cant cook in daytime so i wait for hubby he sits with the baby n also hardly get 30-40 mins to cook....
on weekdays we eat vegees n daals so u know they dont take much time...while on weekends we take chicken beef biryani pulao keema etc....
so on weekends i chop the ginger garlic or make its paste n i use it throughout the week specially weekdays....n like u said i make 2 dishes at the same time n refrigerate it to eat the next day....
p.s i usually cook in pressure cooker....to save time
GTG, I normally make 2-3 dishes over the weekend. 2 salans and 1 rice. When we are done with rice, in the middle of the week, I convert a salan dish into rice dish (so make rice with the cabbage keema). Other then that, we always have frozen shami kababs, pizza, frozen ravioli that can be cooked in 30 mins. A simple vegetable pasta dish can also be made in 30 mins and khagina as well.
Gtg this is what I used to do when we both were working full time,
- always have chopped tomatoes in freezer
- also have sliced onions in freezer ( u will have to see which onion works for u) u can put this in oil directly no need to defrost
- have whole chicken with skin marinated in the freezer
- have fried onions in the fridge ( I use this for Hyderabadi kachay ghosht keep biryani which is cooked in the oven )
- cook daal and freeze half without baghaar.
- I always reheat frozen foods on the stove never in the microwave. It doesn't taste baasee at all.
- I always make instant pulsing either matar or chicken
- I make large batch of dhaniya pudina chutney and put small containers in the freezer. I take out one at a time mix with dahi and zabardast chutney tayyar.
If u want I can share recipe of instant chicken karahi, keema, biryani that is cooked completely in the oven.
If u don't have a pressure cooker then pls get one, it is such a handy tool for quick foods.
Also what I used to do was put Jr. In his bouncer/ swing and keep talking to him in the kitchen.
Try to eat healthy home cooked meals and enjoy them inshAllah with ur cuppycake.
I dont know why you do not like the frozen food but may be try this and see if it does not taste that bad.
I always heat the frozen food on stove and put some tarka on it so it does not taste baasi.
Rice never taste good after 1 day so I never freeze any rice dish. I dont find cooking rice takes a lot of time either. It takes me half an hour every evening to make 1 roti for my husband and some rice for myself.
I also use stand mixer for aata. I run stand mixer while I am washing the dishes or making roti.
I make 1 meat dish, 1 daal and 1 vegetable dish over the weekend and freeze half portion of each.
It usually lasts us until thursday and then on friday since we can sleep late, if there is no food left, one of us cooks.