One Dish Meal Recipes
4 Down and Dirty One Dish
Meals
By Joe Wilkes
From the Million Dollar Body Club - Join Today and Workout to
Win!
My mother's menu consisted of two choices:
take it or
leave it. Buddy Hackett
 For a lot of us, an
elegant sit-down family dinner means serving the chicken without the bucket.
Having to work until 5:00 or 6:00 at night and then having to come home and
whip up something that your children will eat and won't get you reported to
Protective Services can be a challenge for anyone. Then after the cooking, the
serving, and potentially, the force-feeding, you get to spend the rest of the
evening doing the dishes and cleaning your kitchen so you can do it
all again tomorrow. They never show that part on Martha Stewart. No wonder the
pizza place is on speed-dial. But it is possible to eat both healthy and fast.
Here are a few ideas for getting something nutritious on the table in a hurry,
and the best part - only one pot to clean!
(And for single people, invest
in some airtight containers, freeze your leftovers, and be a slave to Lean
Cuisine no more!)
-
 Get to wok.
Instead of summoning the deliverymen with the greasy white
boxes, try making your own stir-fry feast. You can cut out most of the extra
fat, corn syrup, and sodium your takeout place so kindly provides, and if you
can enlist some prep help with the chopping, it only takes minutes to cook, and
less time to clean!
- Heat enough olive,
peanut, or sesame oil to keep food from sticking to the wok.
When the oil's hot,
add sliced meat or tofu with some crushed ginger and/or garlic.
When the meat is
cooked through, add your favorite chopped veggies like carrots, celery,
cabbage, onions, snow peas, or scallions (you can chop the veggies while the
meat's cooking).
Add a dash of
low-sodium soy sauce or tamari or a little orange juice to make a sauce and
serve!
If
you're not watching your carbs, there are a lot of microwavable rice products
available if you don't want to get another pot dirty. Just try and pick brown
or wild rice, so you get some fiber with your starch. You can also make extra
rice which can be stir-fried the next day with any leftover meat and
vegetables. Scramble an egg into the mix and you've got healthy fried
rice—doubling your meal output for your efforts.
Shortcut: Many grocery stores sell mixes of
stir-fry vegetables already chopped and combined in their produce section or
frozen. They won't be quite as delicious as freshly chopped, but as long as
they don't have any extra ingredients (frozen mixes especially might add some
sauce or salt you don't want), they're just as healthy.
-
 Loafing after work.
The humble meatloaf. Most of us remember this classic
treat from our childhood. It usually was an alchemic combination of ground
beef, bread crumbs, ketchup, and whole eggs. Delicious? Yes. Nutritious? Not so
much. Much of the deliciousness came from the beef fat soaking the bread crumbs
and combining with the egg yolks to give us a couple of days' worth of
saturated fat in one serving. And, there's all the extra salt and corn syrup
the ketchup brings to the party. But it doesn't have to be this way—a
healthy loaf can be made, still be flavorful without the fat, and still
maintain enough structural integrity to be repurposed as a sandwich filling the
next day.
- Use extra-lean ground
beef, or better yet, extra-lean ground turkey, although be sure to get
extra-lean ground turkey or ground turkey breast. (Check the
label—sometimes the "lean" ground turkey has as much fat as the
beef—so what's the point?)
- Next add some vegetables
to the meatloaf. You can add carrots, celery, onions, parsnips—whatever
you like, just watch the amounts of juicier veggies like tomatoes which can
turn your loaf into less appetizing soup. The amount of vegetables should be
proportional to the meat. (This is also a great way of slipping veggies to
picky eaters in your family.)
Instead of bread
crumbs, add a handful of rolled oats. You'll get more fiber and they won't
absorb fat (not that there's much to absorb anymore) as much as bread crumbs
will.
Add a few egg whites,
which, along with the oats' gluten, will provide enough glue to hold the loaf
together and any fresh herbs, garlic, or other seasonings you enjoy.
Bake in a 350-degree
oven for an hour or so and let it sit for at least 15 minutes and cool so the
ingredients have time to cohere.
Shortcut: Not good at separating eggs? Most
grocery stores sell cartons of egg whites on their own. Or you can use egg
substitutes, like Egg Beaters. In addition to being a lot healthier, they're
also more convenient. No cracking, scrambling, or getting hands and bowls
dirty. It may only save a couple of minutes, but those are minutes better
devoted to serious loafing!
-
 Stew in your own
juices. Stew. Or as I like to call it, my vegetables' last
stop before Garbagetown. You're cooking and cleaning out your
refrigerator - now that's multitasking! You can call it stew, goulash, gumbo,
cassoulet, ratatouille, cioppino, or ragout; but most importantly, you can call
it dinner.
- Put a big pot on the
stove. Brown some raw meat, poultry, fish, or tofu. (If you're using leftover
or precooked meat, just throw it in with the vegetables, and ignore this and
the next step.)
Put the cooked meat
aside, drain the fat, and then deglaze the pot with a little red or white wine.
Next pay a visit to
the vegetable morgue, also known as the crisper drawer, and add to the pot
whatever looks like it won't make it through the night (some garlic and onions
are always good, too - even if they're not at death's door).
Once the veggies have
softened and relinquished their juices, add the meat back in, add some
low-sodium chicken, vegetable, or beef broth and/or some no-salt tomato sauce,
and cook on low heat until it reaches the desired consistency (about 15 to 20
minutes).
If you're short on
time after work, this could be thrown together in a Crock-Pot or slow cooker in
the morning, and when you return home, dinner's ready!
Shortcut: Most meat departments sell stew
pieces of beef or fish, all cut up and ready to go. Also, it's always good to
have a couple of favorite staple vegetables in the freezer or a can or two of
beans on hand to throw into the pot.
-
 The casserolea pan
and a plan. How would the cream-of-anything soup industry
stay in business without casseroles? Not to mention the french-fried onion
companies. Casseroles, in and of themselves, don't have to be bad for you. They
start out with meat and vegetables, which are usually pretty healthy. It's the
improvisations that usually get diets in trouble.
- To begin with, choose
lean meats. Sausage-and-whatever casseroles are usually yummy because the other
ingredients soak up all the artery-clogging fat from the sausage. Using lean
meat or poultry will help keep it healthy from the beginning.
Also, keep the
vegetable-to-meat ratio fairly high. Imagine what a serving of a casserole
would look like spread out on a plate in its component parts. You probably
wouldn't consider a pound of meat and a brussels sprout a well-balanced meal.
Try and keep the meat to about 4 ounces per serving and fill the rest of the
pan with fiber-rich, filling, healthy vegetables (not just potatoes,
either).
For sauces, try to
avoid cheese and anything that begins with "cream of" as well as cream itself.
Canned soups, a casserole staple, usually rely heavily on sodium for flavor.
You can do much better by using a low-sodium broth, which can be combined with
some nonfat powdered milk and corn starch to make a faux cream sauce.
If you like pasta in
your casserole, try using a whole-grain variety.
And instead of adding
french-fried onions, how about thinly sliced almonds to provide a little
crunch?
Shortcut: Most casseroles can be assembled a
day ahead of time, so if you're anticipating a late day at the office, you can
make the casserole the night before, and just pop it into the oven the next
day. That overnight bonding time you give your ingredients will make the
casserole that much tastier.
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