Tag Archives: make-ahead

Make These Desserts Ahead and Enjoy Your Holiday!

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I’ve always considered desserts the simplest part of the holiday feast. That’s because you can get it all done–or at least, mostly done–a couple of days before the big day so you have plenty of time to attend to other chores and dishes.

make-ahead-desserts-framesHere are five delicious, seasonal desserts that you can make at least two to three days ahead and savor throughout the holidays.

  1. Apple Pie with Chinese Five Spice and Hazelnut Crumb Topping. Chinese five spice powder adds a surprising, bright note to the cooked caramel-y apple filling while a nutty crumb topping adds crunch. You can make the Toasted Nut Pastry Dough up to a week ahead, pop it in the fridge, and then cook the filling, blind-bake the crust and finish off the pie a couple of days before the holiday. (Pressed for time? Pick up a pre-made whole-wheat pastry crust. We won’t tell.)
  2. Spiced Pumpkin Harvest Bundt Cake with Pecans. Linda West Eckhardt created this homey, old-fashioned treat to celebrate NOURISH Evolution’s first birthday. It’s golden and rich with warm spices and a lemony glaze. Leftovers will make delightful snacks all weekend long.
  3. Chocolate Angel Food Cake. For some crowds, only chocolate will do, so whip up our angel food cake. Only instead of macerated strawberries, pair it with Grandma Friese’s Whole Cranberries, which are soaked in port. It’s a gorgeous holiday presentation.
  4. Small bites. Desserts don’t have to be lavish to end the feast on a high note, and your guests may well appreciate a selection of little treats. (Honestly, I’m tempted to go this route myself this year.) Decorated with dried cranberries and slivered almonds, Crunchy Ruby-Studded Meringue Buttons are light and festively pretty. Our Chocolate Orange Pistachio Biscotti are prefect for dunking in after-dinner coffee, while these Boozy Orange-Pecan Truffles are rich-tasting, impressive and not too heavy. Make extra and freeze ‘em to enjoy throughout the holiday season.
  5. Pumpkin Tart with Maple Whipped Cream and Toasted Walnuts. Graham crackers, sugar and butter add up to the world’s easiest crust for this tart. Add a simple, spicy pumpkin filling and you’re good to go. Bake the tart up to two days before the feast and store it in the fridge. You also can whip the cream a day or two in advance and refrigerate it. Toast the nuts a day or two ahead and stash them in an airtight container.

Have a happy–and sweet–holiday!

Five Make-Ahead Musts

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Alison and I were chatting about how some awesome easy healthy dinners we’d had lately just came together from what we’d had on hand. It prompted me to tease apart the “what we had on hand” to ID especially helpful make-ahead dishes that can be prepped over the weekend or early in the week and put to work for the next several days (or, even better, doubled from a recipe you’re making anyway). Here are my five make-ahead favorites to make part of your meal planning:

  1. make-ahead-recipesChicken – On Monday nights in my house, we either go meatless or we do chicken. Why Mondays for chicken? Because then I can use the rest of it throughout the week to pull together simple meals. Here’s what my week o’ chicken looked like last week. Monday: Cook Simplest Roast Chicken (just ate the thighs/leg for dinner). Tuesday: Gave Noe a leg for lunch. Thursday: Greek Chicken Salad (then made stock with the carcass); Friday: Pork posole with fresh chicken stock. That’s four meals out of one chicken … which only took 5 minutes of hands-on prep time and 50 minutes of cooking time to begin with.
  2. Roasted (or Grilled) Veggies – In winter, it’s these Roasted Root Veggies. In spring, these asparagus virtually live in our fridge. In summer, it’s some sort of variation on this ratatouille. Whatever the form, roasted veggies are a HUGE help in a busy kitchen. Need a quick nibble before dinner? Pile some on toasted baguette slices. Want to pull together a quick dinner? Toss some with cooked pasta and a paste of mashed garlic and olive oil. Looking for an easy lunch? Mix them with some Chickpea Couscous, with or without the pesto.
  3. Lentils – I call All-Purpose Lentils the “little black dress” of legumes, because they go with just about anything: as a side dish or an addition to a salad, or quickly pureed into a spread or a soup. Nutritionally, they a great source of protein. I love dotting a bowl of whole grains with them, or tossing a cup or two into a salad with a nice, tart vinaigrette.
  4. Vinaigrette – My friend Honore turned me on to making vinaigrette in a jar long ago and I’ve never looked back. I shake together a big batch in the beginning of the week and keep it in the fridge to have on-hand.
  5. Bulgur – Bulgur is my go-to grain at the moment. I love how it cooks up super quick and has both a toothsomeness to make you take notice and a neutrality quality that makes it ridiculously versatile. I’ll cook up a ginormous batch and use some as a side dish with, say, lamb. Then I’ll use it as a base for throw-together lunch salads all week made up, you guessed it, of the other four make-ahead musts I have in my fridge. And if I have any left over, I’ll treat myself to dessert at the end of the week.

“Make-ahead” can sound so daunting. But it’s not. It’s more about smart meal planning and thinking all the way through a week so that what you cook does double, even triple duty. And that is food worth thought.

 

10 Ways to Make Fresh, Healthy Food Fast

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It’s all fine and dandy to talk about eating fresh, healthy food, but when it’s 5:30 and you’re faced with the dilemma of what to put on the table, good intentions can often be nudged out by convenience. Which is why it’s important to stack the deck in favor of fresh, healthy food. Here are 10 easy meal-planning suggestions to help make fresh as feasible an option as fast food.

make-fresh-healthy-food-fast

  1. Zip some greens – There’s no doubt, a bunch of greens busting out of the crisper can be daunting at the end of the day. But five minutes when you’re not rushed can mean having ready-to-use greens on hand. Zip the leaves off kale or chard (Noemi loves helping with this), roughly chop and give them a rinse in a big bowl of water. Then store them in a produce or plastic bag until you’re ready to use.
  2. Have stock on hand – Chicken, mushroom or vegetable stock are incredibly versatile ingredients to have on hand (or in the freezer). Make an impromptu soup, or use a few tablespoons to make a quick pan sauce.
  3. Have a well-stocked pantry – A well-stocked pantry can mean the difference between a healthy meal and heading out for a McDonald’s Happy Meal. Canned tomatoes and beans, an assortment of oils and vinegars, and a variety of grains and pulses are the mix and match essentials of quick, nourishing meals.
  4. Keep a stash of homemade frozen go-to’s in the freezer – Think of the freezer as an extended pantry; between the two, you can often pull together a complete meal. I like to have a batch of Super Succulent Five-Spice Pork Shoulder and Revelationary Duck Confit in the freezer, along with a winter supply of No Work Slow Roasted Tomatoes from the summer. Shrimp and scallops are also great to keep stocked in the freezer for quick stir-fries or to add to soups. And, while it requires a bit of planning ahead for defrosting, we’ve been getting most of our meat from a local CSA and keeping it in the freezer, so we’ll have anything from ground beef to goat.
  5. Make a batch of beans or lentils – These can be in the fridge for the week or frozen for later. I love to have cooked garbanzo beans (which are easy to do, and taste better than the canned version) in the freezer, along with a batch or two of lentils, which are fantastic as an instant side dish or for adding heft to a salad.
  6. Cut up some cauliflower … or squash … or green beans – I eat so many more vegetables when I have a bag or container prepped in the fridge. It, literally, becomes fast food to sauté cauliflower for tossing with pasta, or roasting squash to serve with lentils, or smash onto a sandwich, or squash in a quesadilla.
  7. Make a simple plan – A few minutes of meal planning at the beginning of the week can actually save you major time throughout the week. I like to sketch out a rough schedule on Sunday for meals through Friday. True, I’ll veer from the plan quite a bit, but the exercise lets me see where there are opportunities to double up a recipe, where I can get creative with leftovers, and roughly what I’ll need for the week.
  8. Roast some veggies – Roasted vegetables, in any season, are a boon to have in the fridge. In winter, I’ll use leftover root veggies as a spread for open-faced sandwiches, or in a soup or risotto. In summer, I’ll toss roasted tomatoes and eggplant with pasta (hot or cold) or into a frittata, or just serve them at room temp as an appetizer.
  9. Cook up a batch of whole grains — There’s a whole world to explore when it comes to whole grains, but it helps to have some pre-cooked and on-hand in the fridge (or freezer … cooked grains freeze extremely well). Some, like quinoa and bulgur, cook up super-quick. Others, like wheat berries and farro, take a bit longer. Scoop a cup of almost any whole grain into a green salad to make it a main meal.
  10. Dice an onion — Once you learn how to dice an onion (see a Kitchen Tips video here), it doesn’t take but a few seconds. Dicing one or two ahead of time to keep on hand in the fridge makes things even easier … and might just tip the scales when it’s “should I cook or call for takeout?”

Don’t feel like you have to do all 10 of these at once — jeez, talk about daunting. Instead, look for little nuggets of time when you’re not rushed, and view them as opportunities to do one thing to help set yourself up for happy, healthy meals.

Celebrate Labor Day with Our Make-Ahead Menu!

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Fall may not begin until Sept. 22, but Labor Day, which falls on Monday, marks the official end of summer. Heck, lots of kids have already begun their school year, and the rest will head back to the classroom on Tuesday. Celebrate the end of the season with our easy Labor Day Menu. It boasts lots of fresh, end-of-season flavor, and it’s good for you too.

labor-day-menu

To sip: Watermelon-Basil Agua Fresca
Nothing says “summer” like watermelon, which is the base for this not-too-sweet Mexican refresher. Add a splash of tequila for the adults–we won’t tell!
Make-ahead tip: Cube the watermelon up to a day in advance, but wait until just before the guests arrive to blend it with the rest of the ingredients so the flavors stay nice and bright.

To snack: Guatemalan Guacamole
Our guacamole, which pairs buttery avocados with red onion, crunchy jicama and hot chiles, is the perfect match for the agua fresca. Serve with your favorite tortilla chips.
Make-ahead tip: Chop the egg, onion, chiles and oregano a day ahead, and then combine with the rest of the ingredients when you’re ready to serve.

To start: BLT Bread Salad with Creamy Buttermilk Dressing
This salad combines the elements of the classic BLT sandwich with a luscious dressing.
Make-ahead tip: Combine the dressing ingredients and refrigerate; toast bread.

The main attraction: Buffalo Blue Burgers with Celery Slaw
Grass-fed ground buffalo is a lean, eco-friendly alternative to beef. Paired with creamy blue cheese sauce and a crunchy celery slaw, these burgers will be a crowd-pleaser.
Make-ahead tip: A day ahead, form the patties and refrigerate. Prep the hot sauce, blue cheese sauce and slaw; chill.

On the side: Corn and Quinoa Pasta Salad
This riff on traditional American picnic fare is a whole-grain bonanza, thanks to the quinoa, whole-grain pasta and fresh corn.
Make-ahead tip: Cook the quinoa and pasta the day before; combine with the remaining  ingredients on party day.

Don’t forget dessert: No-Bake Peanut Butter Popcorn Treats and Mexican Chocolate Brownies
Hey, it’s a celebration, so serve two desserts! The popcorn treats are a crunchy, salty-sweet indulgence. The brownies have the complex flavors of Mexican chocolate (cinnamon, a touch of chile).
Make-ahead tip: Prepare both up to 2 days ahead and store in airtight containers. But we’re not responsible if they “disappear” before the party!