Carefree Cooking

Emergency Food Ideas (Part 1)

After a long hard day at work, we often feel too tired to prepare something delicious and healthy. Sometimes we just want to relax on the couch and watch some TV, or perhaps listen to some soothing music. Who can blame you right? That's why I've compiled a list of "emergency food" ideas that can hopefully provide delicious food with little effort. If you can flip the channel on the TV, I'm sure you can do this.

1. Hearty Salad

Ingredients:
Box of pre-washed assorted leafy vegetables
Cooked meat (Canned variety or leftover)
Favourite salad dressing

I used to think that buying those pre-washed veggies were a waste of money. I mean why pay so much money for something that I can prepare myself for less than half the price. I head of lettuce doesn't cost that much after all. But the key thing here is variety. As Chef Michael Smith (Chef at Home - Food Network) said, variety is not the spice of life, it is the key to life. Having different types of veggies in your salad definitely adds a whole dimension in terms of flavour. The contrasting taste of sweet and bitter provides character to what you are eating. That's why most high end restaurant serve salad with assorted veggies, instead of just a bland romaine lettuce (unless it's caesar salad) that we would otherwise prepare. It's the taste that counts. How many food do you know that is healthy AND taste good as well. For that price, I think it's a good deal.

To make the salad hearty, we need meat. Without meat, I find that the salad doesn't provide the desired satisfaction especially if it is eaten as the main course. There are many different types of meat that you can use. Leftovers are perfect for this. Most cooked meat would work well (I'm not so sure about pork however). I would suggest that you use cook meat that doesn't have any sauce. The sauce might otherwise clash with the dressing that you put on the salad. Even bland tasting meat is acceptable, as you really just want the meat's texture to give you the hearty feeling. If you don't have any leftover meat, there are some canned alternatives. Canned tuna I think works well (make sure you drain the tuna first!). I saw a canned chicken at Costco and I just had to try it. Unfortunately, I was not very impressed with the taste. Even the color didn't look like it's a chicken. However, the texture still feels like chicken so that would work as well (if you are unfortunate enough to get a club pack). For the Spam enthusiast, you can use that one as well (yes, I know this is pork...or is it?!). I would prefer that you at least pan fry it (or microwave it if you really are feeling lazy). Anchovies will work as well as it bring that salty flavour to the salad, but may not give you the hearty feeling.

Salad dressing is very important as it is what completes the salad. There really is no reason to cheapen out on this as this can determine what makes a good salad from a bad salad. If this was not an Emergency Food Ideas topic, I would recommend you make your own salad dressing. I'll try to write about this in the future. Otherwise, the bottled ones are perfect for quick and simple preparation. Just grab your favourite dressing and pour some on the veggies and meat. When tossing the salad, I like to use a container that is much bigger than the contents. This makes mixing the salad dressing easier and you get an even coat on the veggies. Believe me, this is important if you want to have the perfect bite every time. Exercise moderation when pouring dressing on the salad. It is always easy to add more, but hard to take it off. If you are not sure, add a little bit, toss the salad and taste. If it's not tasty enough, add some more dressing and repeat. Just like my other recipes, I do not give precise instructions since that just makes cooking more like a lab experiment. Cooking is suppose to be carefree, and I am sticking with that policy.

posted by carefreecooking @ 11:49 PM