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Home > So, you don't have time to cook?

So, you don't have time to cook?

January 27th, 2008 at 03:18 am

Yes, you do! Yesterday, in about an hour and a half, I made the following:
-one batch of granola, enough for 6-8 breakfasts (original recipe: http://www.recipezaar.com/23108, but I've made some changes)
-one loaf of blueberry oat bread
-chicken supreme, dinner for 6 with leftovers for two lunches (http://www.recipezaar.com/183972)
-chocolate raspberry cake (http://www.recipezaar.com/63073)

How did I do it? Follow along on my culinary adventure. It just takes some planning and prep work.

Pre-heat your oven. Start cooking the bacon for the chicken on the grill. Mix dry granola ingredients. Heat wet granola ingredients and stir in. Pop in the oven. (time: 10 minutes)
Remove bacon from pan and set in fridge (not needed until you serve dinner). Brown chicken breasts on both sides (5 minutes). Remove to crock pot. Heat cream of chicken soup in pan and pour over chicken. Add one can of drained mushrooms. (5 minutes). Dinner is done. (needs to cook for 4 hours - add cheese before serving)
Add bread ingredients to bread machine. Set on dough setting (5 minutes).
Start cake. This was the most labor intensive part of kitchen session, taking a good 30 minutes due to multiple steps and being the first time I have ever made this particular cake (not to mention the interruptions from kids, of course). It timed out about right, though, as I had just taken the granola out and turned up the oven temperature when it was time for the cake to go in. About a half hour later, my bread dough was done. It took me less than 5 minutes to roll it out and slap it into a bread pan. I let it rise for 45 minutes (no effort on my part) and threw that into the oven too. My crockpot and bread machine are probably my two biggest timesavers. To round out dinner, I just threw some lima beans from the freezer on the stove for 10 minutes and added applesauce for the kids. The chicken was divine, the bread was warm from the oven, and we had cake for dessert. Ahhh...

6 Responses to “So, you don't have time to cook?”

  1. denisentexas Says:
    1201404602

    I do very similar things but not with the granola and bread. I'll cook several meals, though, from a chicken or beef roast and put one in the fridge and the others in the freezer. It usually takes me about an hour to do it once the bird or roast is done. And it feeds us for several days. I love it.

  2. littlemama Says:
    1201404892

    Warm bread....yumm-o.

  3. rob62521 Says:
    1201406802

    There's a chick on the Foodnetwork who cooks stuff and makes three meals out of it by adding other stuff. I think it's called Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller and she will bake a two chickens (she had the oven on) and make three or more dinners from that chicken. You both are smart women for doing that!

  4. Ralph Says:
    1201446624

    I really need to learn this kind of thing. I can't stand the sight of Lean Cuisine boxes! I sure hope my wife is getting them fairly cheap on sale but man, they stink, there is so little food in them, and even on sale I don't think they are all that cheap. I don't eat them myself, but my daughter almost lives on them with her busy schedule in the evenings. It seems like home made frozen dinners would be much mo' betta'!

  5. nance Says:
    1201451087

    Chocolate raspberry cake sounds heavenly! Chocolate and raspberries are the ultimate combination!
    Sounds like a wonderful dinner!

  6. denisentexas Says:
    1201468312

    Oh yeah rob, Robin Miller is great! You can read some of her stuff here:

    http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/lf_qe_quick_fix_meals

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