Winckler - Simplified Dinners: Frugal, Whole-Food Dinners Made Easy

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

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Simplified Pantry

Cover created using symbols from The Noun Project collection.

2012, 2015 Mystie Winckler

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Purchase of one copy includes rights to reproduce for one household only. Please do not redistribute.

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Also download your free menu planning page and master grocery list at Simplified Pantry.

Introduction

This cookbook is intended to provide the home cook with plenty of options for simple but delicious home-cooked meals that require little preparation time and can be made out of a simply, frugally stocked pantry. Often measurements are vague (like "dash" and "splash"), for three reasons:

1. precise measurements in meal preparation are usually unnecessary;
2. precise measuring increases the time requirement (both while cooking and the added dirtied spoons and cups);
3. precise measuring discourages creativity and individual taste.

You should feel free to vary the amounts particularly of spices and herbs to fit the tastes of your family. For example, my family does not like curry, so none of these recipes call for it. If you love it, however, add it in to any recipe that you think it might fit. Taste as you go and have fun while cooking.

The primary purpose of these recipes is not so much to provide recipes as to give reminders of the general method of certain standard family dinners. So often I find I don't really need a recipe for pizza or stir-fry; I simply need a reminder about the steps involved and what I usually add. So, each type of meal in this book begins with the basic "process" and then the specific meal directions are given under that. Feel free to create your own variations based on your family's preferences! And if you do, I'd love to hear what they are, too.

Each page gives one basic method (under "Process") for the meal type, then specific combinations are listed underneath for variety. For some recipes, the process is all that is needed, and then simply lists of potential additions are given below. Making dinner is play. Play with what you have on hand and play to your audience.

When menu planning, I pick my main dish first, then pair it with a vegetable or salad (both on good days) and a starch. Vegetables, salads, and starches each have their own page in this booklet, as well. Generally, beans are great with rice or cornbread. Soups pair well with rolls, crusty bread, or a quick bread. Pasta dishes and stir-fry, of course, already have the starch and could potentially have enough vegetables to "count," depending on how you make it and what "counts" for you. If you want more information on creating a solid dinner menu plan, check out my post How to Menu Plan: Think in Threes .

In the appendix you will find a menu planning sheet you can use to put together complete dinners, and you can also download the menu plan as a separate editable pdf on my site. The master pantry list is also available there as a free printable in its own pdf. I also have a companion ebook called Simplified Pantry: How to Simplify Grocery Shopping and Kitchen Routines that will help you get through the entire menu planning and dinner preparing process with less energy required. Use the discount code simpledinners15 to get 50% off. It is also available on kindle, but I cannot offer discounts at Amazon.

There is also a companion Evernote notebook version of Simplified Dinners that you may request for free if you own both Simplified Dinners and Paperless Home Organization: How to Create a Digital Home Management Binder. There is an Evernote version for both the regular edition and also the gluten- and dairy-free edition .

My secondary purpose for creating Simplified Dinners , after creating a cheat-sheet of sorts, was to figure out how far I could pare down my own pantry and still have plenty of meal options. There are certainly many more ingredients that could be listed in each recipe, but I wanted to keep a minimalist pantry list. The pantry list that follows is all you need to make anything in this book; the non-fresh items are what I keep stocked, always-at-hand. The meats and vegetables I choose based on season and sales.

A related goal I had was to keep the pantry list basic and the meal options broad so that I could buy any cut or type of meat that might happen to be marked down at the grocery store or vegetable that looked great at the Farmer's Market, and know I could do something with it at home without searching for a recipe and having to go to the store again for a missing ingredient. This book has accomplished these goals for me, and however you use it I hope it is helpful as a reference at the least, as a system at the most, and to stir creativity and inspiration in the kitchen regardless.

Abbreviations Used in this Book

c. = cup

T. = tablespoon

t. = teaspoon

Why Simplify?

I started creating this system in 2008 after I gave birth to our third child. I enjoyed cooking, and shopping frugally was one of my hobbies, but after baby number three was born, I no longer had the mental energy to page through recipe cards, cookbooks, bookmarks, keep track of ingredients needed, and remember it at the right time. While I used to be able to keep information in my head, now I found myself lacking the brain power and the energy. Paring down my pantry, purging my recipes, and printing out the processes freed up my mental energy for other things in life even making it easier to let the children help in the kitchen!

Benefits of simplifying menu planning and meal preparation:

• grocery list generating and menu planning no longer have to happen simultaneously
• no more half-used bags and jars of specialty ingredients forgotten in the corners of the fridge and pantry.
• once you're practiced, dinner can come together with only a quick glance at the plan, instead of constantly referring to recipes (which have to be kept track of).
• time spent at the grocery store is greatly reduced not only when you buy fewer things, but also when you buy only the same things all the time habit and routine work for you!
• if you have meat in the freezer and something in the pantry, you know you can make something for dinner.
• you can prepare and eat real, whole foods without health-food-store ingredients or gourmet cooking classes.
• you can purchase foods in bulk for greater savings, because you know you will use them and you have a variety of options for preparation.
• Having less to keep track of frees up mental resources; fewer ingredients, fewer recipes, equals less strain and drain.
• There are so many recipe options now at our fingertips online that it can greatly reduce mental as well as bookmark clutter when you have an easy, simple filter to run recipes through.

In my experiment of cooking with fewer ingredients and limiting my recipes to those that use my simplified master list, I have found the benefits far outweigh any regrets over bypassing fancy bottled sauces, most canned products, and boxed macaroni and "cheese." Limitations can bring freedom. The options available at any grocery store can be overwhelming and even stressful. Being able to walk past 90% of the grocery store's contents with a peaceful, "Nope, that's not part of the plan," is freeing. It even makes shopping with kids easier, because you're making few decisions on the spot, so you're more available and present rather than wrapped up in comparing salad dressings or wondering if this or that is a good deal.

You can go completely on what is provided in this book, but I would suggest adding one convenience dinner to your master list. Whether it is canned clam chowder, fish sticks, frozen pizzas, or whatever makes your family happy, having a "plan B" quick-we-need-dinner-now meal available is a lifesaver when days don't go as planned. And having something in the pantry or freezer is still cheaper than take-out. And, for special occasions, of course I branch out from this plan. But it's always there for me to fall back on when I need it, and that's what counts.