Beef and Pasta Salad with Avocado and Chili Vinaigrette

Kitchen Shortcuts

For May 2012

When it comes to cooking, you can lump spring and summer into one long, lazy season when no one wants to take too much time making dinner. It’s too sunny, warm and beautiful to be stuck inside. You need a few good shortcuts to help get you out of the kitchen quickly. Consider these handy helpers:

Make Homemade Vinaigrette

Vinaigrette is quick and easy to make and you almost certainly have the ingredients in your kitchen, basically, olive oil and wine vinegar. Pour the liquids into a jar, shake it up and there you have it in less than a minute. It will keep for a couple of weeks, so make it in big quantities, store it in your refrigerator and remove enough for your dinner needs. Add herbs, spices and so on each time you use a portion, to vary flavor.

Among vinaigrette’s many virtues is its versatility. First, you can use it both as a salad dressing and a marinade, so your supply can take you through weeks’ worth of salad prep and grilling.

Second, it’s easy to change the flavor to suit any dish you might be cooking. If you’re grilling fish, add a bit of tarragon to the marinade. If chicken, mix in some chopped fresh rosemary; beef, a dollop of Dijon mustard and chopped shallots.

The same goes for salad. A classic chef’s salad will be fine with a plain vinaigrette dressing. But you can add mint and dill to the dressing for a seafood salad, basil and sun-dried tomato to potato salad, Harissa to chicken salad. The possibilities are endless.

Keep Several Items On Hand As Staples

Ingredients such as pasta, canned beans and Parmesan cheese can be helpful timesavers if you keep them on hand. In fact, you can cook up a quick dinner with those three items: cook the pasta, add the beans, moisten with some olive oil and serve the dish sprinkled with the cheese. Mix in chopped fresh parsley or basil if you wish, or chopped, cooked leftovers, meat, poultry, fish or veggies.

Avocados are high-value too. Serve them stuffed with chicken or seafood salad. Or cut the flesh into a frittata, serve it with tomatoes (sprinkled with lemon juice) as a quick side dish or mash it into guacamole for a fast hors d’oeuvre, sandwich spread or topper for burgers or grilled meat.

Deli items also help make meals more convenient: olives, marinated artichoke hearts, sun dried tomatoes, and so on and meats such as salami, ham and such are perfect additions to salads, pasta, frittatas, omelets and as pizza toppings.

Frozen peas and canned whole beets are fine as a quick side dish or to add to salads or omelets. The same goes for packaged pizza dough. Keep some frozen and thaw it just before you need it for dinner. If you also freeze a package or two of shredded mozzarella and grated Parmesan cheeses, pizza dinner will be a cinch to cook. Include other ingredients if you wish: tomato sauce or sun-dried tomatoes, olives, deli meats.

Make Certain Foods Ahead

On a rainy day when you’re stuck inside, prepare foods that can be useful when you need to build a quick meal: tomato sauce for pasta dishes, pizza or grilled eggplant or chicken; hard cooked eggs for egg salad, chef salad and devilled eggs; hummus, to use as a dip and as a condiment for turkey, chicken, grilled vegetable and meat sandwiches; pancake mix for weekend breakfast and biscuit mix for when eggs are for dinner; vinaigrette (see above).

Pesto is an especially versatile summer make-ahead dish, for use as a pasta sauce and condiment (used plain or mixed with mayonnaise on a grilled meat or vegetable sandwich), to mix into “devilled” eggs, as a flavor enhancer for soup or to perk up a plain vinaigrette.

Wash and Dry Produce when you Bring it Home From the Store

This might seem like a huge chore, but it will set you up for 5-7 days, leaving only the individual cutting prep before each meal. It’s a money-saver too, because you won’t have to buy costly (and potentially germ-laden) packaged salads.

Use a salad spinner or paper towels to dry leafy greens before storing them in the crisper drawers of your refrigerator. Store leafy green produce in paper towels or plastic bags.

Wash and dry the outside of vegetables and fruits you will use with skins intact: eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, peaches, plums and so on. For strawberries, wash with hulls still on; remove the green hulls just before serving (to prevent the berries from becoming too water laden).

Get Out All the Ingredients and Tools Before You Start to Prepare the Recipe; Clean Up As You Go

You might be amazed how much time you waste when you have to look for the garlic press or whisk you need when you’re in the middle of cooking a recipe. If the flour, butter and salt and the bowls and measuring spoons are right there in front of you, if you chop the parsley in advance and spray the baking pan or cookie sheet, you will save time and steps while you actually prepare the recipe. And if you throw way the egg shells just after you crack them, put the flour canister back in the cupboard after you’ve measured enough for your recipe and you place the dirty mixing bowl or cutting board in the dishwasher as you’re finished with them, you won’t have the thankless chore of a big mess to cleanup when your recipe is done.

Take advantage of all the shortcuts that make your life and meal planning easier and quicker. Even people who love to cook don’t want to spend extra time or energy making a meal. No one has to.