easy week-day meals for a rubbish and uninspired cook!

[oiseau]

Prior to DS, when we both worked full time, my DH did the majority of the cooking in our house as he is much better and more interested in it than me. Since DS was born I now work part time and I feel on the days I don't work at least, I should get the meal. Thing is I can never think of what to cook that is quick, easy and low fat. I have two meals - Salmon steak, spinach and jacket potato and Stir Fry (which DH hates!).

So all you good cooks out there please share your recipe ideas with me!

Baked chicken - serves 2 or 3 depending on greed

6 chicken thighs (with bone)- the best ones you can afford (i.e. free range if you can manage it)
2 carrots
2 English onions
4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
Olive oil (or other veg oil)
Wine, lemon

Scrape carrots and cut each into 3 or 4 chunks. Peel onions and cut in half.

Throw all solid ingredients except lemon into a roasting tin, pour over a bit of olive oil and slosh of wine. Cut lemon and squeeze juice into tin - throw halves in as well. Bake at 175 degrees centigrade for about 1 hour. You can bake potatoes with this or serve with rice and a green veg or salad.

Whoops sorry, missed the low fat bit! Get skinless thighs.

lovely - that's just the sort of thing I am looking for! I think even I can just about manage that.

Roast vegetables, or roast almost anything, come to that. I use one of those Spanish ceramic dishes, but any large oven-proof dish would do.

Method: Cut your vegetables into slices -- courgettes, onions, aubergines, tomatoes work well; alternatively pumpkin/squash with onion and garlic. You can add bacon or chorizo too, if you want non-veg, or thinly sliced potato or sweet potato if you want something more substatial. Put in dish, slosh some olive oil around, add chilli, garlic, salt and pepper as appropriate, and put in the oven (200 deg.).

When you can see it starting to brown a bit (20 mins or so) pour over a tin or two of chopped tomatoes and some red wine if available and stir it all around a bit. Put back in oven until it's bubbling and going a bit brown on top (another 20 mins or so). You can add cheese 5 mins before the end if you want.

Serve on its own if you've put potato with it, otherwise with pasta/rice/couscous. If it's a veg. based one, any leftovers can be blitzed with a hand blender to make a pasta sauce for the children.

My kids love this one.
Dice and stir fry 1 onion in a tiny bit of oil in a large frypan or wok (you can also add courgette, mushrooms, or diced peppers for more bulk/flavour). Add a packet of lean minced beef and brown it. Throw in a tin of chopped tomatoes, a tin of sweet corn kernels, add a bit of water, a stock cube (beef or vegetable),a slosh of worcester sauce, soy sauce, tomato ketchup (whatever flavour you like really) allow this to cook while you boil some water in a saucepan and cook some pasta shapes (we like spirals or penne). When the pasta is cooked drain it and add it to the meat mixture. Stir it well and then serve. If your kids don't like vegies, you can grate carrot or whatever into it and they won't taste it for the sauce!

Ooooh, I love threads like this (another rubbish and uninspired cook) Keep 'em coming!

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

Is the 4 cheese sauce ready-made or a dry mix, Mosschops?

Message withdrawn

yum yum yum - will amaze my DH with my new found cooking skills next week.

any more?

Even better - sounds lovely! My family will be v pleased about all this, we've been living on something and chips 50% of the time for weeks...inspiration had gorn.

Message withdrawn

I know it's great - I had been living off weightwatchers frozen chicken hotpot and DH had been buying M&S meal on way home - terrible. DS eats really well as the nanny cooks for him!

Am off to buy wifely looking frilly pinny.

Should we get a shampoo and set too?

Yes - and some valium!

Message withdrawn

lol i thought this thread was for receipes?? im a rubbish cook so could do with some new ideas too

Not massively low-fat but you need the omega oils - flake smoked mackerel (preferably the peppered one) into cooked basmati rice. Add peas (you can cook them with the rice). And/or halved cherry tomatoes. And/or artichoke hearts. And lemon juice. A regular no-brainer we fall back on in the Inferiority Complex.

think you are on your own there Mosschops!

tammybear - it was supposed to be for recipes, hopefully more will come!

Mother I - we make that too! i thought I'd made it up myself.....

I'm following this thread for new ideas. Our quick standby is obviously pasta. One quickie we do is leeks and garlic cooked in butter and then when they are soft add in some marscapone. It's not in itself low fat but you don't need much of the sauce! At the moment also cooked pasta with garlic, olive oil steamed asparagus and cherry toms - parmesan on top.

We had a healthy easy lunch today of boneless salmon, pasta and peas. You can bake, fry or grill the salmon, can be done in 15 mins and is very healthy.

cooked rice
finely diced onion
ham/chicken/prawns/bacon/leftovers chopped up fine
mushrooms finely chopped
frozen peas and corn

melt some butter and veg oil, add some ready made chicken stock to taste, fry the onion and mushroom (in a wok or large frypan) and meats until soft, then add the frozen veg, when that is hot, add the rice... fry until heated through
yummy and kids love it!

ok.....family favourite,.....

Get a chicken breast....split it open, stuff with philadelphia (extra light one if on a diet like me!) close it up and wrap in one or 3 pieces of back bacon, chuck in the oven at 200 for 40 minutes and there you go!! YUMMY!!!

Serve with whatever you want, rice, stir fry, stemed veg, jacket potato, or salad!!

Quick and easy and yummy!! and not that bad for fat if you use the light philadelphia!

Adding to the mixed-carbs-&-protein theme developing below: something for some reason called "Spanish rice" made by all the mothers in the street where I grew up (& devoured by all teenage boys in particular)

30 mins start to finish

• water for rice on to boil
• frying pan warming up with bit of olive oil in it
• chop biggish onion & fry gently till translucent
• turn up heat a bit & start browning 125g of mince per person, with salt, pepper, bay leaf & pinch of marjoram
• water will be boiling: 75g rice per person (I like the long-grain-&-wild-rice mix best for this) with knob of butter
• when meat nice & brown, add teaspoonful per person tomato puree, mix in well; turn heat down a bit & let simmer while rice cooks. Some heretics add chopped green pepper towards end of cooking
• when rice is done, drain & mix with meat in rice pot, or, if not eating right away, in ovenproof dish. Will happily stay hot in oven for ages & in fact gets more nuttily delicious the longer it waits.