Rhonda Lauret Parkinson - The Everything Quick Meals Cookbook: Whip up easy and delicious meals for you and your family

The Everything Quick Meals Cookbook: Whip Up Easy and Delicious Meals for You and Your Family Rhonda Lauret ParkinsonF+W Media, Inc. (2008)

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American families are busier than ever, and a nutritious dinner often falls to the bottom of the priority list. This cookbook shows them how easy it can be to prepare wholesome meals everyone will love. This second edition of an Everything? bestseller is packed with quick-cooking tips and 300 all-new, easy-to-follow recipes, including: 10-Minute Yogurt and Rice Pudding; Fast Frittata with Beans; Easy Skillet Zucchini Quiche; One-Dish Baked Chicken and Potatoes; Five-Ingredient Steak Diane; Foil-Wrapped Fish Fillets with Dill; Simple Rigatoni with Tomato Sauce; 5-Minute Chocolate ?Mousse?; Fast Chicken Fajitas, and more. With these recipes, readers will learn how to make delicious, quality meals in minutes, not hours!

THE
Quick Meals Cookbook
2nd Edition Dear Reader,As a professional writer working from home, I never had a problem finding time to cook dinner. A flexible schedule meant I was free to whip up meals on the spur of the moment, making a quick tr ip to the neighborhood supermarket for supplies if needed.That all changed when I took a part-time afternoon position. Faced with the challenge of driving home in rush hour traffic (picking up my son from child care on the way) and then quickly assembling dinner before we all headed out the door to sports, Scouts, or other activities, it became more and more tempting to rely on the corner fa st-food restaurant for evening meals.Clearly, my unstructured approach to meal preparation wasnt working. Over time, I developed several strategies to make this ever yday ta sk less stressful. Along with becoming better acquainted with my super markets offering of healthy convenience foods, I found that a little advance preparation on the weekend makes an enormous difference.In this book, I hope to show you that its easy to prepare quick and easy meals for your family every night of the week. I hope you enjoy the recipes as much as Ive enjoyed making them up for you. Rhonda Lauret Parkinson Welcome to the series!
These handy, accessible books give you all you need to tackle a difficult project, gain a new hobby, comprehend a fascinating topic, prepare for an exam, or even brush up on something you learned back in school but have since forgotten.You can read an Everything book from cover to cover or just pick out the information you want from our four useful boxes: e-questions, e-facts, e-alerts, e-ssentials. We give you everything you need to know on the subject, but throw in a lot of fun stuff along the way, too.We now have more than 400 Everything books in print, spanning such wide ranging categories as weddings, pregnancy, cooking, music instruction, foreign language, crafts, pets, New Age, and so much more. When youre done reading them all, you can finally say you know Everything!
PUBLISHER Karen Cooper
DIRECTOR OF ACQUISITIONS AND INNOVATION Paula Munier
MANAGING EDITOR, EVERYTHING SERIES Lisa Laing
COPY CHIEF Casey Ebert
ACQUISITIONS EDITOR Kerry Smith
DEVELOPMENT EDITOR Brett Palana-Shanahan
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Hillary Thompson Visit the entire Everything series at www.everything.com THE QUICK MEALS
COOKBOOK 2nd Edition
Whip up easy and delicious meals
for you and your family
Rhonda Lauret Parkinson

Copyright 2008, 2001 by F+W Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission
from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

An Everything Series Book.
Everything and everything.com are registered trademarks of F+W Publications, Inc.

Published by Adams Media, an F+W Publications Company
57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.
www.adamsmedia.com

ISBN 10: 1-59869-605-X
ISBN 13: 978-1-59869-605-9
Printed in the United States of America.

J I H G F E D C B A

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available from the publisher.

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the
American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Adams Media was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

This book is available at quantity discounts for bulk purchases.
For information, please call 1-800-289-0963.

Dedication This book is dedicated to my two favorite taste testers: my husband, Anthony, and son, Robert. Acknowledgments I would like to thank everyone at Adams Media for their help and support throughout this project. In particular, I would like to thank my Project Editor, Kerry Smith, and Executive Editor, Brielle Matson. Special thanks to my agent Barb Doyen, for her guidance and encouragement. Finally, I would like to thank About.com , a part of the New York Times Company, for providing me with a forum for sharing my passion for all things food-related with an entire online community. Contents Introduction In todays busy world, it seems that no one has time to cook anymore. At the end of a busy workday, few people have the inclination to pour over recipe books trying to decide what to make for dinner, let alone to prepare and cook it. Its all too easy to join the growing trend of fast-food families who rely on the corner drive-through restaurant for their meals.Why should you prepare home-cooked meals? For one thing, theyre healthier. A steady diet of burgers, French fries, and other fast-food standbys has a high nutritional cost. Despite the best efforts of fast-food and family restaurant chains, the average takeout meal is loaded with excess fat, sodium, and calories. Enjoying the occasional Sunday breakfast or celebration dinner at a restaurant is one thing, but eating out regularly can wreak havoc with your waistline, and lead to long-term health problems.Studies show that children of families that frequently eat fast-food dinners also tend to make poor food choices at home, favoring chips and soda over fresh fruit and vegetables. This can signal the start of a lifelong struggle with obesity and the health problems associated with being overweight.Cooking at home saves money. True, its easy to splurge when youre inspired to create a special meal on the spur of the moment; a trip to the farmers market for organic vegetables, to the butcher for a special cut of meat, and finally to the supermarket for ingredients to make that special sauce all add up. But the meals high price tag comes from making numerous one-time purchases, with no plans for using up excess ingredients or leftovers. Instead of discarding that unused half cup of canned herbed tomatoes, why not incorporate it into another meal? Planning in advance enables you to get the most for your food dollar.Believe it or not, cooking at home saves time. Once you develop a regular routinewriting up a grocery list, taking a spare hour to do advance prep work on the weekend, and planning for leftoversyoull find its easy to quickly pull together a meal. From start to finish, dinner can be on the table in under thirty minutes (frequently under twenty). Thats less time than it takes for a pizza to arrive during the busy dinner hour.Besides, having a plan and sticking to itinstead of struggling to throw something togethermay help you to discover cookings therapeutic side. Preparing a nutritious home-cooked meal for your family is a great way to unwind at the end of the day.Finally, preparing home-cooked meals can help bring back family mealtime. Numerous studies demonstrate the benefits of regularly eating together, from stronger family bonds to improved socialization and communication skills for children. But we all lead such active lives that this can be hard to arrange. Some stressed-out parents see the fast-food restaurant as a convenient solution, allowing them to spend time with their children while avoiding the hassles of cooking and cleanup. Being able to whip up a meal in under thirty minutes will give back that extra time you need to sit down for a family meal before rushing off to other activities. And youll feel better knowing that you are helping your children establish healthy eating habits that will last a lifetime. Chapter 1
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