by teddlesruss dat who

Created on: November 21, 2008   Last Updated: January 22, 2009

You've just got home, you're exhausted. And you (and perhaps a partner and child or children) are starving. Pick up the phone and call for take-out? Or spend an hour preparing a healthy meal, then bask in the warm fuzzy glow and the numbing exhaustion? Here are a few suggestions for things that will "whip up" in minutes, yet be healthy and tasty.

Home made pizzas: If you buy small pizza bases or lebanese bread on your next shopping foray, you're on your way to a healthy meal in about ten minutes. Start the oven on a fairly hot setting. Apply a thin layer of bottled bolognese sauce, tomato paste, or ketchup to the pizza base or bread, then slice on some tomato, mushroom, pickles, cold meat such as ham or sausage, and top with a sprinkle of grated cheese or sliced cheese. You can even buy pre-grated cheese at the store. Pop in the oven for five to ten minutes, until the cheese starts to bubble. (Alternatively, grill one side of your base under the grill until pale brown, then turn up the other way and start adding sauce etc and pop back into grill until cheese melts and bubbles.)

Warm chicken salad: Buy a roasted chicken, by the time you bring it home it will generally be cool enough to break apart and shred the meat with your fingers. Tear up some lettuce, spring onions, any salad greens you may have, add sliced tomato. Put a round of lebanese bread under the grill and turn when it browns, brown the other side. Add shredded chicken to the salad, break up the (now hopefully crisp) bread and sprinkle through, toss. Add mayonnaise or any other creamy salad dressing and toss once more lightly.
Macaroni cheese: This is an excellent quick filler. Use anything you feel might be flavorsome I generally shred some bacon, add a few slices of onion, some crushed garlic, a few handfuls of chopped vegetables such as zucchini, green beans, carrot strips to a saucepan with a splash of olive oil, fry to desired stage of doneness. Measure your pasta (generally macaroni) by the cupful into the saucepan and keep stirring. Add twice as many cupfuls of water as you put pasta, bring to a simmer, add one chicken stock cube per cupful of pasta. When most of the water has been absorbed, add some cheese cut into small cubes or grated, allow to melt through, serve. One cupful of dry pasta is generally enough for two people as a snack, one person as a pretty large meal.
Quick "fried" rice: Got a cup or two of left-over rice? Then you can make a very quick meal indeed. If you have a few vegetables, a few string beans, some cabbage, shredded carrot, a few frozen peas, then your meal is almost made... (Also, a bit of leftover meat such as pork or beef, or some shrimps, whatever you have.) Chop the ingredients to around a centimeter, (add onions and garlic if you like) put in a saucepan with a splash of olive oil, fry on medium heat until the vegetables start to go limp and slightly brown.
Add a splash of hoisin sauce or soya sauce, reduce heat, stir in the cooked rice, serve. (You can also cook the rice while you're preparing and frying the vegetables two and a half cups of water per cup of rice, a pinch of salt, bring the water to the boil with the rice and salt already in it, then simmer it while doing the vegetables rice will absorb all the water, when it does, turn off the heat, let it stand while you do the other ingredients, add as per recipe.)
So meals in a hurry are easy, fun, tasty, and nutritious. The above are just starting points. Experiment with the ingredients, find flavours you and your family like and you'll have avoided the Fast Food Trap once again...

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