Cheap, easy meals! (Emergency Dinners)

Member Name: jesperado

Product:	Emergency Dinners
Date:	10/02/09 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Use up leftovers, easy to make

Disadvantages: The pasta one is not very healthy!

As I am perpetually in a hurry and fairly rubbish at organising myself, I usually end up making emergency dinners far more often than I should.

The easiest and quickest emergency meal I have found is a stir fry. It's great for using up leftover meat or vegetables. I always seem to have a little broccoli, a courgette and a few mushrooms left over in the couple of days before my next big shop and these make a good base for a stir fry. I also make sure I always have sesame oil and soy sauce at home. It's best to get these from Chinese supermarkets as you can get large bottles of nicely flavoured oil and sauce for a low price. Chop up the vegetables into chunks - if you chop them too finely they will tend to burn in the oil - and do the same with any raw meat that you might have. I always find I've got a chicken fillet left over from a previous meal. Heat the oil a little then add the meat and hard vegetables such as broccoli. The soft veg needs to go in a little later so that it doesn't burn. Add whatever flavouring you can find such as soy sauce, stock, chillies or garlic granules. Keep it on a fairly medium heat and stir occasionally until the vegetables start to soften. If you have noodles, cook these in some stock whilst frying the veg, drain then add to the stir fry and stir well.

If you have some pasta such as fusilli but no sauce to go with it, cook it as usual, drain then mix in lots of mayonnaise and grated cheese. It's not very healthy but it is yummy!

Another favourite meal of mine that uses leftover bits and pieces of vegetables is dhal. I always have a bag of lentils in the cupboard as they make a good filling base for a warming winter meal. You can put pretty much any vegetable you like into a dhal. The last time I made it I used: onions, sweet potatoes, a courgette, mushrooms, celery ginger, garlic and sultanas. I fried the onions, ginger garlic and vegetables in a little butter in a large saucepan until they were soft then added lots of green lentils and a couple of pints of stock along with some turmeric, cumin and chilli flakes. That's pretty much it really, you just leave it simmering and stir it occasionally until the stock has been absorbed and it's all a big lentil-y mush! It doesn't look particularly appetising but it tastes really nice and is nice and warming on a cold day. It's really cheap to make big pans of it so you can easily make enough for a number of meals or feed a lot of people with it.

Summary: All are easy to make and taste lovely but the dhal tastes better the longer you cook it