May 15, 2025 • 21 mins
Shortcut ingredients are such a big part of my cooking routine. In this episode, I dive into my favorite ingredients that I like to use in a pinch for making family meals a little easier, especially during this crazy transition time from Spring to Summer.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription,
the podcast you listen to when you don't know what
to make for dinner. Today is episode one hundred and
twenty seven, Shortcut Ingredients Saving Me during a busy month.
Let's kick off this week with a wellness check as
we are smack dab in the middle of May. Are
you hanging in there? I hope. So. While we're juggling
(00:27):
end of your activities, I'm also feeling a bit of
stress when it comes to beginning to think about summer.
I feel like all of our systems and schedules will shift.
And not anytime that happens, even if it's just slightly,
and even if it's to a technically like more laid
back state, everyone in this house has a bit of
a tough time adjusting. So I like that I'm thinking
(00:49):
about it now so it won't shock me once it arrives.
But I do just feel like, Okay, here we go,
We're we're gonna shuffle things up. I spend a little
time this weekend reviewing all of the camps that we
have scheduled along with our summer travel plans, and we've
got family coming to visit us. But speaking of camps,
(01:09):
did you know that we are doing a Recipe Club
kids cooking camp this summer. It's gonna be so fun.
I've actually been spending so much time on it lately,
so it's top of mine. But it's four classes via Zoom,
and the whole experience comes with a recipe binder specifically
for the kid chef in your household. It's still that
the recipes will be cooking. It's got this Darling sticker sheet.
(01:32):
It's got instructions, intro, paid shopping list, everything you need.
But I just finished testing the recipes and I sent
everything off to the printer today so we can get
all of those Darling binders into the hands of our
butting chefs. They are like this swimming pool blue color.
They are so cute. It's been super fun to pull
it all together. But in between wrapping that work project
(01:54):
up and keeping my household running, I've found that, especially
this week, I've been relying on a lot of shortcut
ingredients right now to kind of get me through dinner.
So I want to briefly chat with you about that
today and let you know what's working for me in
case it might work for you. But first let's tackle
a few recipe ideas you could throw on your meal
plan for the week. Reminder, mapping out your meals is
(02:16):
so worth it. Deciding what to make is the hardest part,
so let's check that off for you. Okay. First up
is Oh, this one, so good, so good. This is
new to recipe Club. It's a skillet coconut chicken with
sweet potatoes. I like coconut milk. In fact, you're gonna
see that that's one of my shortcut ingredients. But something
about coconut milk for me, it just packs so much
(02:40):
flavor and it instantly creates a sauce and not only flavor,
but body in a recipe. If you're dairy free, it's
so great because it does a lot of the things
that a heavy cream would do, but it's coconut cream anyways,
So so good. So this is ground chicken with a
can of coconut milk. I do some sweet potatoes, I
do some cilantro and some lime. It's so simple but
(03:02):
so good, which I like to think is what we
are best at at Recipe Club, what I am best
at as a recipe developer, is so simple but so good,
So this one super great and I love I love
a ground protein that cooks quickly, that is high in
protein and that my kids will eat. So this is
on the list. I'm doing peanut chicken bowls. Our Peanut
(03:23):
chicken bowls are is a five ingredient recipe, super simple
peanut sauce that comes together I do PANTSI or chicken cutlets.
There's also lime and cilantro not but the flavor profile
is slightly different. So while it uses some of the
same ingredients, is the skillet coconut chicken, you are going
to get a whole different flavor profile, and I serve
that with rice. Then I'm gonna do a summer slow
(03:46):
cooker recipe. Are we saying summer? Are we there? It's
like sprummer, It's like spring almost summer. But I like
having a couple of slow cooker recipes that are better
for that, like lighter, brighter flavor profile. And so I'm
making my Greek shredded pork petas where I definitely get that.
(04:07):
It's not as heavy as like a Mississippi pot roast,
which I will never say no to anytime of year,
but and it will make extra so I can incorporate
it into other recipes throughout the week. All right, they
are your recipes. You can find and print all of
these in Recipe Club individually, or, as you know, in
our weekly meal plans that we put out every week.
We always include a shopping list that's broken down by
(04:28):
recipe and have the option for one click shopping within
our membership. I create a Recipe Club to fix all
the things that drove me crazy about getting recipes online,
namely the ads, the banner ads, the long blog posts,
and all those drawn out stories. So in Recipe Club,
I provide just the recipes you need to help you
meal plan quickly and get dinner on the table with
as much easy as possible. I also really like cooking
(04:52):
from printed recipes rather than my phone, although we have
a pretty great app within Recipe Club. But if you
are a printed recipe person and you will love our
recipe Binder. I like to store all of the recipes
I make most often in my recipe binder. It's my
kitchen bible, and I love that it's pretty enough I
can kind of keep it out on my countertop all
the time. So we sold a bunch of those for
(05:13):
Mother's Day. I cannot wait for you guys to get
those in your hands and start using them as part
of your simple dinner system. When you combine an annual
membership of Recipe Club with the Binder, you always save
twenty bucks. And that really is a system in itself,
having the digital and the physical together. Really just like
that's the perfect way to kind of pull yourself out
(05:36):
of a dinner raut and say this is what I'm
doing now. All right, let's jump into the back half
of the podcast and discuss how these shortcut ingredients are
saving me. Right now, it should come as no surprise
that I love a shortcut ingredient. I like that I
(05:58):
can rely on it for a quick and simple rest.
That makes my life easier and I have fewer decisions
to make because when I'm using a shortcut ingredient, I'm
using less ingredients, meaning that that ingredient often incorporates a
variety of flavors. So I'm a big fan. In fact,
one of my first experiences in food professionally is I
(06:21):
was an intern on a Food Network show twenty plus
years ago called Semi Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee. Some
of you might remember it, maybe not, but she was
this for a while this like iconic Food Network hoast,
and she would use semi homemade, she would make semi
homemade recipes, so she'd have these shortcut ingredients. I would
(06:41):
like to think that we have come a long way
in those shortcut ingredients that we can get now. They're
filled with better ingredients. They're a little bit cleaner, slightly
more elevated flavor profiles. What I'm trying to say here
is we're not using a tub of cool whip. And
Sandra kind of had a reputation for using some trashy ingredients. Sorry,
(07:02):
trashy feels like a harsh word, but I'm just speaking
my truth. Anyways, it was an incredible experience. I got
to learn all about how cooking shows are made and
how they work, and it led to my decade long
experience on Food Network. But one thing Sandra did get
right was the value of a shortcut ingredient and I
still practice that, especially as an overwhelmed mom who's raising
(07:23):
three kids and is running a business. I love a shortcut,
so I want to go through I'm going to go
through four shortcuts I've been using lately, and the recipe,
the specific recipes that I use them for so number one.
It's almost becoming a joke, like no one should be
surprised if I only got one shortcut ingredient for the
rest of my life, where I only could have one
(07:44):
thing stocked in my pantry, it would be the REOs
Marinera sauce. I love it. It is the best. It
is supreme, it is superior. They have never paid me
to say anything, they have never worked with me, although
I would love to work with them. It is the
best sauce ever, ever, ever, ever. I'm not sure I
(08:04):
could make a sauce better than this jarred sauce. And
that is saying something. And guess what, it's pretty darn clean.
It's filled with pretty good ingredients. You're gonna have a
hard time finding anyone who really criticizes what's in this sauce.
So maybe the only the only drawback is it slightly
more expensive than some other options. It's definitely not the
(08:26):
cheapest one, but it is still worth it. And guess what,
it's a lot cheaper than if you were to go
make your own tomato sauce. I'm gonna be completely honest
with you on that. So I'm a fan. My Costco
sells it I almost always add two jars to my order.
Oftentimes I can get those for like four or five
dollars a jar. But that is what I'm we're gonna
(08:47):
talk about right now, is that is like the primary
building block of a meal for me, and such a
valuable ingredient. So the recipes that I tend to use
this raos mari and aarow sauce for most are my
sheep chicken palm. Super simple recipe, but I use it
just after I've breaded the chicken cooked it off. I
literally pop up in that jar and I don't even
(09:08):
measure it. I just literally let it flow out right
on top of each of those chicken cutlets, and it
is perfect. Oftentimes I'll serve that with like traditional spaghetti,
and so this is the sauce I use with spaghetti.
Speaking of spaghetti, the next one on my list are
my five Ingredient meatballs, or even my chicken palm meatballs.
I know I just mentioned chicken palm, but if you
(09:29):
would rather have your chicken palm and meatball form, both
of those utilize this sauce. I'd eat a lazy sheet pandlasagna,
which uses this probably the most popular recipe in all,
a recipe club that uses REOs, jarred sauce is my
spinach tomato tortolini. It's got Torlini baby spinach. Obviously you
can add Italian sausage if you want a boost of
(09:51):
protein in there, a jar of rayos and a splash
of heavy cream and some palm. Done, dinner is done
like almost no recipe required that simple. And then finally
sheet pant pizza chicken. So we like to do this
every couple of Fridays. We always do pizza on Fridays,
and usually we're picking it up from either a local
spot or you know, delivery. But I do like doing
(10:14):
sheet pan pizza chicken, where you take like a thin
sliced chicken cutlet and you treat it like a pizza slice.
So you put the sauce, you put the cheese, you
put the olives and the pepper and chini and the
peppers and the whatever. And it's actually a very healthy
way to have pizza. But it's super fun and it
looks like a big sheet pan pizza party. My kids
(10:37):
really like it. So while not the same, but I
would say in the same family. Another short cut ingredient
I rely on is pesto, pre made pesto. I have
strong feelings out which ones I like best. Hands down,
gold star Number one goes to the Kirkland pesto. If
you're a costco shopper, make a great pesto. It's a huge,
(10:59):
you know container, it's ten bucks, and I use it
for all sorts of stuff. My ham and cheese wraps
with pesto Ali I used, obviously the pesto in this
little sauce. Super good, super good. That's a great thing.
I just did those for like a make ahead meal
for like taking to the baseball field, and they were great,
and it's the sauce which really makes them super delicious.
(11:20):
So I always use my pesto for that. Another tortellini dish,
my tortellini with tomatoes and creamy pesto. This is tortellini,
grape tomatoes, obviously pesto, a splash of cream and palm.
I think I think that's what it is. Once again,
another one of those, like barely a recipe even required,
(11:40):
Caprice grilled cheese sandwiches. When you treat that pesto, which
you can do on its own, or you can mix
it with a little bit of mayo as a spread
with that fresh mozzarella and tomato is so so yummy.
And then my baked feed out with chicken and veggies.
One of the last steps is to stir, and I
think it's a quarter cup of pesto. And what it
(12:02):
does is because it's got the garlic and the parmesan
and the basil and the nuts, it's just got so
many flavors in it, and so it really adds a
nice flavor boost at the end. Okay, next is a
good protein option chicken sausage. Now when I say chicken sausage,
this is like the pre cooked sausage, so they're already
in the links. I really like the Italian chicken one
(12:24):
at Twitter Jos, but Applegate makes some great options. I
just would stick with something you can get like different flavors.
I would stick with someone pretty classic, like Italian, but
I use that for my sausage and potato skillet, which
is a super hearty meal, like if you've got hungry
teenagers or big eaters in your family and they like
meat and potatoes, My sausage and potato skillet is awesome.
(12:48):
One that's similar but actually much lighter in profile, is
my sausage and orzo skillet that's like a little bit creamier.
It's like reminiscent of a risotto almost, but you do
utilize the sausage so you have that boost protein. Sausage
is also great. And a sheet pant dinner. So I
have a sheet pants sausage, sweet potato, and Breaszels sprouts
that has a balsamic vineagrette or sauce that you drizzle
(13:10):
over the top. All great, all super simple, all come
together quickly, and like I said, that protein's basically cooked.
The other thing I want to say about chicken sausage
is I've been thinking a lot about summer meals and
eating outside, because that's actually a goal I have for
my family this summer is I want to do more
dinners outside. I want to take our family table to
(13:33):
the beach, I want to take it to the pool.
I want to I want to spend as much time
outside together as possible, and I create those family memories.
And so I've been thinking a lot about tinfoil dinners
and easy tinfoil dinners that no one would ever be
nervous about eating because they're not worried about the meat
being done, and sausage would be perfect. So I'm really
(13:56):
excited to actually take my some these recipes, like especially
the sausage and potato skillet and this sweet potato Brussels sprout.
I don't know, I might have to do softer veggies,
but I'm gonna play around with that this summer to
see if I can't come up with a really good
tinfoil dinner that we can do at the beach over fire.
So I'm excited. Okay, next, coconut milk mention this earlier,
(14:21):
but I just always got a couple cans of coconut
milk in my pantry. In Recipe Club, I use it
a fair amount, especially in the spring and summer when
I want those more tropical and bright fun flavors. But
I use it for I have a five ingredient coconut
lime chicken, which is awesome, coconut milk lime cilantro super super,
(14:42):
super simple and delicious, My Thai coconut ramen, which I
believe was on the meal plan this last week we
had it. It was delicious, And my veggie coconut curry,
which is another five ingredient recipe especially friendly for my
Trader Joe shoppers. Where you can easily buy their fresh
sturfry mil and their yellow Tai curry and you add
(15:04):
a can of coconut milk and some rice and some
cilantro and fresh lime and dinner is served. So I
thought just might be helpful to go through the shortcut
ingredients that are really helping me, tell you those recipes,
and see if that doesn't spark some stuff for you.
All Right, that's it for this week. I'm sending you
positive vivees as you all survived the last two weeks
(15:25):
of this crazy month. Remember that if you like the
idea of shortcut ingredients helping you get dinner on the table,
we have cheat sheets and recipee club that are perfect
for this, with a picture of the ingredient followed by
a bulleted list of the recipes you can make with it.
All found in the club. We have one specific to spring, summer, winter,
and fall, all pantry ingredients that I keep on hand.
Let's finally finish with my gimme five. These are five
(15:48):
things that made my life easier or more enjoyable this week.
First up, glass bottles for my Force of Nature cleaner.
If you've been around here for a while, you know that.
My favorite multipurpose is this product called Force of Nature.
It is electrolized water. It is like a mini science
experiment that you do at home. Not really basically, it's
(16:09):
like this little beaker. You plug it in and it
comes with these little capsules of assaults vinegar mixture, and
you push a button and magic things happen and it
becomes as effective as bleach, but completely non toxic and
really really safe. I use it everywhere. I use it
on my countertops, in my fridge, in the kid's lunchboxes,
(16:31):
on door handles, on the floor, on like literally sometimes
I use it on my hands because it is also
a deodorizer, and so if I've been chopping onions or
garlic and I don't want my hands to something like that,
you better believe I'm just a brain. Force of Nature. Anyways,
Force of Nature is actually not what's on the list,
although it totally could be because it does make my
life easier every week. But as much as I love
(16:53):
that company and I love that product, the bottle it
comes in is not good, and it is multiple times
the little spritzer, and I like a glass bottle versus
a plastic bottle. Mostly I just like the way it
feels my hand better. So I finally bought some glass
bottles on Amazon, and I bought a two pack so
(17:14):
that I keep one in the fridge, not the fridge,
excuse me, the kitchen, and then one up in my
bathroom because I use this also for cleaning my makeup brushes.
I like to use it to wipe down my sinking
and counter area. It's just so great. So glass bottles
are on the list. I finally got a set, and
happy I did. Ooh, this was kind of a big thing.
Oh gosh, I don't have time to get into this,
(17:36):
but I had a lot. I went back and forth.
I needed to refresh some cookware, and the reason why
is well, I needed to refresh some nonstick cookware, and
I so much has come out in the nonstick cookware
space in the past couple of years, especially the ceramic
style of nonstick cookware, the cleaner version where it doesn't
(17:59):
have the top, it's not the black coating, YadA, YadA, YadA.
I had a Caraway set and I really liked it,
but I knew, I knew from the beginning that Caraway
set is awesome, but that Caraway set is gonna last
you no more than two years, just because it's ceramic
nonstick cookwear. And I don't care if you're buying green
Pan or our Place or Carraway. That's just how long
(18:21):
it lasts unless you are extremely careful with how you
cook with it, which means you are always cooking on
low to medium high heat. I don't I mean good luck,
but the amount of people that use cookwear in my house,
from my son to my husband, even nors starting to
you know, make eggs and things like that. I can't
babysit everyone, and sometimes I just want to put the
(18:44):
flame up. I like cooking with high heat. So ultimately
I bought another Caroway set. That's what I'm saying. I
went back. I got another Caraway set because it was
time they I'm starting to get some peeling and stuff
like that. The nonstick features were less non sticky. I
really went back and forth between Caraway and going all
(19:06):
in on Hexclad. But Carawait is a little bit more affordable,
and I am donating my other set to a college
student that's getting ready to head out because it's still
got some life in it. But for as much cooking
as I do and filming as I do. I needed
a fresher set, so that happened. After purchasing a pair
of Quint's sunglasses a couple months ago, I graduated from
(19:29):
my pair of Amazon sunglasses that are twelve dollars and
I have sworn By for years. I graduated to a
fifty dollars pair of sunglasses, and boy do I like
them better. So they were ten dollars off this week
and I bought another pair of quint sunglasses to have
one more style to swap throughout the summer. And I
love them. They're really good quality for the price. Next
(19:52):
is I did a little bit of a wardrobe refresh
for spring summer, and I got a couple of T
shirt dresses for really easy wearing. I can, you know,
throw a sweater over the top in the mornings when
it's chilly, and throw a downim jacket on. Anyways, Old Mayby.
I love their vintage T shirt that's just the style,
(20:14):
the vintage tea. I have a ton of them in white.
I have a couple of solid colors and stripes. But
they also make this same style in a T shirt
dress and I love it. It's perfect length, great, comfy, easy,
perfect thing to have on hand for spring and summer.
And then finally I have the kids cooking classes, camp
and Binder on here because that is definitely going to
(20:37):
be something that occupies my own children this summer. In fact,
as I've been working on the recipes this week and
finalizing all of the internal components of the binder, my
kids have been loving it. And anytime you can get
your kids excited about cooking or excited about anything that's
not a screen, I am all for it. So that
(20:58):
made number five on my list. All right, that's it
for today. Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so
that you never miss an episode. This podcast is meant
to be a quick twenty to thirty minute listen while
you map out your own meals for the week. I
always like listening to a podcast, and so I try
to put out something that would be a good fit
while you are doing your weekly planning. Don't forget that
(21:19):
our Kids Camp and Binder is open and we'd love
to have you. I really appreciate you listening today. Until
next time, I'm Kelsey, Happy Cooking, and I'm forge
Hi everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription,
the podcast you listen to when you don't know what
to make for dinner. Today is episode one hundred and
twenty seven, Shortcut Ingredients Saving Me during a busy month.
Let's kick off this week with a wellness check as
we are smack dab in the middle of May. Are
you hanging in there? I hope. So. While we're juggling
(00:27):
end of your activities, I'm also feeling a bit of
stress when it comes to beginning to think about summer.
I feel like all of our systems and schedules will shift.
And not anytime that happens, even if it's just slightly,
and even if it's to a technically like more laid
back state, everyone in this house has a bit of
a tough time adjusting. So I like that I'm thinking
(00:49):
about it now so it won't shock me once it arrives.
But I do just feel like, Okay, here we go,
We're we're gonna shuffle things up. I spend a little
time this weekend reviewing all of the camps that we
have scheduled along with our summer travel plans, and we've
got family coming to visit us. But speaking of camps,
(01:09):
did you know that we are doing a Recipe Club
kids cooking camp this summer. It's gonna be so fun.
I've actually been spending so much time on it lately,
so it's top of mine. But it's four classes via Zoom,
and the whole experience comes with a recipe binder specifically
for the kid chef in your household. It's still that
the recipes will be cooking. It's got this Darling sticker sheet.
(01:32):
It's got instructions, intro, paid shopping list, everything you need.
But I just finished testing the recipes and I sent
everything off to the printer today so we can get
all of those Darling binders into the hands of our
butting chefs. They are like this swimming pool blue color.
They are so cute. It's been super fun to pull
it all together. But in between wrapping that work project
(01:54):
up and keeping my household running, I've found that, especially
this week, I've been relying on a lot of shortcut
ingredients right now to kind of get me through dinner.
So I want to briefly chat with you about that
today and let you know what's working for me in
case it might work for you. But first let's tackle
a few recipe ideas you could throw on your meal
plan for the week. Reminder, mapping out your meals is
(02:16):
so worth it. Deciding what to make is the hardest part,
so let's check that off for you. Okay. First up
is Oh, this one, so good, so good. This is
new to recipe Club. It's a skillet coconut chicken with
sweet potatoes. I like coconut milk. In fact, you're gonna
see that that's one of my shortcut ingredients. But something
about coconut milk for me, it just packs so much
(02:40):
flavor and it instantly creates a sauce and not only flavor,
but body in a recipe. If you're dairy free, it's
so great because it does a lot of the things
that a heavy cream would do, but it's coconut cream anyways,
So so good. So this is ground chicken with a
can of coconut milk. I do some sweet potatoes, I
do some cilantro and some lime. It's so simple but
(03:02):
so good, which I like to think is what we
are best at at Recipe Club, what I am best
at as a recipe developer, is so simple but so good,
So this one super great and I love I love
a ground protein that cooks quickly, that is high in
protein and that my kids will eat. So this is
on the list. I'm doing peanut chicken bowls. Our Peanut
(03:23):
chicken bowls are is a five ingredient recipe, super simple
peanut sauce that comes together I do PANTSI or chicken cutlets.
There's also lime and cilantro not but the flavor profile
is slightly different. So while it uses some of the
same ingredients, is the skillet coconut chicken, you are going
to get a whole different flavor profile, and I serve
that with rice. Then I'm gonna do a summer slow
(03:46):
cooker recipe. Are we saying summer? Are we there? It's
like sprummer, It's like spring almost summer. But I like
having a couple of slow cooker recipes that are better
for that, like lighter, brighter flavor profile. And so I'm
making my Greek shredded pork petas where I definitely get that.
(04:07):
It's not as heavy as like a Mississippi pot roast,
which I will never say no to anytime of year,
but and it will make extra so I can incorporate
it into other recipes throughout the week. All right, they
are your recipes. You can find and print all of
these in Recipe Club individually, or, as you know, in
our weekly meal plans that we put out every week.
We always include a shopping list that's broken down by
(04:28):
recipe and have the option for one click shopping within
our membership. I create a Recipe Club to fix all
the things that drove me crazy about getting recipes online,
namely the ads, the banner ads, the long blog posts,
and all those drawn out stories. So in Recipe Club,
I provide just the recipes you need to help you
meal plan quickly and get dinner on the table with
as much easy as possible. I also really like cooking
(04:52):
from printed recipes rather than my phone, although we have
a pretty great app within Recipe Club. But if you
are a printed recipe person and you will love our
recipe Binder. I like to store all of the recipes
I make most often in my recipe binder. It's my
kitchen bible, and I love that it's pretty enough I
can kind of keep it out on my countertop all
the time. So we sold a bunch of those for
(05:13):
Mother's Day. I cannot wait for you guys to get
those in your hands and start using them as part
of your simple dinner system. When you combine an annual
membership of Recipe Club with the Binder, you always save
twenty bucks. And that really is a system in itself,
having the digital and the physical together. Really just like
that's the perfect way to kind of pull yourself out
(05:36):
of a dinner raut and say this is what I'm
doing now. All right, let's jump into the back half
of the podcast and discuss how these shortcut ingredients are
saving me. Right now, it should come as no surprise
that I love a shortcut ingredient. I like that I
(05:58):
can rely on it for a quick and simple rest.
That makes my life easier and I have fewer decisions
to make because when I'm using a shortcut ingredient, I'm
using less ingredients, meaning that that ingredient often incorporates a
variety of flavors. So I'm a big fan. In fact,
one of my first experiences in food professionally is I
(06:21):
was an intern on a Food Network show twenty plus
years ago called Semi Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee. Some
of you might remember it, maybe not, but she was
this for a while this like iconic Food Network hoast,
and she would use semi homemade, she would make semi
homemade recipes, so she'd have these shortcut ingredients. I would
(06:41):
like to think that we have come a long way
in those shortcut ingredients that we can get now. They're
filled with better ingredients. They're a little bit cleaner, slightly
more elevated flavor profiles. What I'm trying to say here
is we're not using a tub of cool whip. And
Sandra kind of had a reputation for using some trashy ingredients. Sorry,
(07:02):
trashy feels like a harsh word, but I'm just speaking
my truth. Anyways, it was an incredible experience. I got
to learn all about how cooking shows are made and
how they work, and it led to my decade long
experience on Food Network. But one thing Sandra did get
right was the value of a shortcut ingredient and I
still practice that, especially as an overwhelmed mom who's raising
(07:23):
three kids and is running a business. I love a shortcut,
so I want to go through I'm going to go
through four shortcuts I've been using lately, and the recipe,
the specific recipes that I use them for so number one.
It's almost becoming a joke, like no one should be
surprised if I only got one shortcut ingredient for the
rest of my life, where I only could have one
(07:44):
thing stocked in my pantry, it would be the REOs
Marinera sauce. I love it. It is the best. It
is supreme, it is superior. They have never paid me
to say anything, they have never worked with me, although
I would love to work with them. It is the
best sauce ever, ever, ever, ever. I'm not sure I
(08:04):
could make a sauce better than this jarred sauce. And
that is saying something. And guess what, it's pretty darn clean.
It's filled with pretty good ingredients. You're gonna have a
hard time finding anyone who really criticizes what's in this sauce.
So maybe the only the only drawback is it slightly
more expensive than some other options. It's definitely not the
(08:26):
cheapest one, but it is still worth it. And guess what,
it's a lot cheaper than if you were to go
make your own tomato sauce. I'm gonna be completely honest
with you on that. So I'm a fan. My Costco
sells it I almost always add two jars to my order.
Oftentimes I can get those for like four or five
dollars a jar. But that is what I'm we're gonna
(08:47):
talk about right now, is that is like the primary
building block of a meal for me, and such a
valuable ingredient. So the recipes that I tend to use
this raos mari and aarow sauce for most are my
sheep chicken palm. Super simple recipe, but I use it
just after I've breaded the chicken cooked it off. I
literally pop up in that jar and I don't even
(09:08):
measure it. I just literally let it flow out right
on top of each of those chicken cutlets, and it
is perfect. Oftentimes I'll serve that with like traditional spaghetti,
and so this is the sauce I use with spaghetti.
Speaking of spaghetti, the next one on my list are
my five Ingredient meatballs, or even my chicken palm meatballs.
I know I just mentioned chicken palm, but if you
(09:29):
would rather have your chicken palm and meatball form, both
of those utilize this sauce. I'd eat a lazy sheet pandlasagna,
which uses this probably the most popular recipe in all,
a recipe club that uses REOs, jarred sauce is my
spinach tomato tortolini. It's got Torlini baby spinach. Obviously you
can add Italian sausage if you want a boost of
(09:51):
protein in there, a jar of rayos and a splash
of heavy cream and some palm. Done, dinner is done
like almost no recipe required that simple. And then finally
sheet pant pizza chicken. So we like to do this
every couple of Fridays. We always do pizza on Fridays,
and usually we're picking it up from either a local
spot or you know, delivery. But I do like doing
(10:14):
sheet pan pizza chicken, where you take like a thin
sliced chicken cutlet and you treat it like a pizza slice.
So you put the sauce, you put the cheese, you
put the olives and the pepper and chini and the
peppers and the whatever. And it's actually a very healthy
way to have pizza. But it's super fun and it
looks like a big sheet pan pizza party. My kids
(10:37):
really like it. So while not the same, but I
would say in the same family. Another short cut ingredient
I rely on is pesto, pre made pesto. I have
strong feelings out which ones I like best. Hands down,
gold star Number one goes to the Kirkland pesto. If
you're a costco shopper, make a great pesto. It's a huge,
(10:59):
you know container, it's ten bucks, and I use it
for all sorts of stuff. My ham and cheese wraps
with pesto Ali I used, obviously the pesto in this
little sauce. Super good, super good. That's a great thing.
I just did those for like a make ahead meal
for like taking to the baseball field, and they were great,
and it's the sauce which really makes them super delicious.
(11:20):
So I always use my pesto for that. Another tortellini dish,
my tortellini with tomatoes and creamy pesto. This is tortellini,
grape tomatoes, obviously pesto, a splash of cream and palm.
I think I think that's what it is. Once again,
another one of those, like barely a recipe even required,
(11:40):
Caprice grilled cheese sandwiches. When you treat that pesto, which
you can do on its own, or you can mix
it with a little bit of mayo as a spread
with that fresh mozzarella and tomato is so so yummy.
And then my baked feed out with chicken and veggies.
One of the last steps is to stir, and I
think it's a quarter cup of pesto. And what it
(12:02):
does is because it's got the garlic and the parmesan
and the basil and the nuts, it's just got so
many flavors in it, and so it really adds a
nice flavor boost at the end. Okay, next is a
good protein option chicken sausage. Now when I say chicken sausage,
this is like the pre cooked sausage, so they're already
in the links. I really like the Italian chicken one
(12:24):
at Twitter Jos, but Applegate makes some great options. I
just would stick with something you can get like different flavors.
I would stick with someone pretty classic, like Italian, but
I use that for my sausage and potato skillet, which
is a super hearty meal, like if you've got hungry
teenagers or big eaters in your family and they like
meat and potatoes, My sausage and potato skillet is awesome.
(12:48):
One that's similar but actually much lighter in profile, is
my sausage and orzo skillet that's like a little bit creamier.
It's like reminiscent of a risotto almost, but you do
utilize the sausage so you have that boost protein. Sausage
is also great. And a sheet pant dinner. So I
have a sheet pants sausage, sweet potato, and Breaszels sprouts
that has a balsamic vineagrette or sauce that you drizzle
(13:10):
over the top. All great, all super simple, all come
together quickly, and like I said, that protein's basically cooked.
The other thing I want to say about chicken sausage
is I've been thinking a lot about summer meals and
eating outside, because that's actually a goal I have for
my family this summer is I want to do more
dinners outside. I want to take our family table to
(13:33):
the beach, I want to take it to the pool.
I want to I want to spend as much time
outside together as possible, and I create those family memories.
And so I've been thinking a lot about tinfoil dinners
and easy tinfoil dinners that no one would ever be
nervous about eating because they're not worried about the meat
being done, and sausage would be perfect. So I'm really
(13:56):
excited to actually take my some these recipes, like especially
the sausage and potato skillet and this sweet potato Brussels sprout.
I don't know, I might have to do softer veggies,
but I'm gonna play around with that this summer to
see if I can't come up with a really good
tinfoil dinner that we can do at the beach over fire.
So I'm excited. Okay, next, coconut milk mention this earlier,
(14:21):
but I just always got a couple cans of coconut
milk in my pantry. In Recipe Club, I use it
a fair amount, especially in the spring and summer when
I want those more tropical and bright fun flavors. But
I use it for I have a five ingredient coconut
lime chicken, which is awesome, coconut milk lime cilantro super super,
(14:42):
super simple and delicious, My Thai coconut ramen, which I
believe was on the meal plan this last week we
had it. It was delicious, And my veggie coconut curry,
which is another five ingredient recipe especially friendly for my
Trader Joe shoppers. Where you can easily buy their fresh
sturfry mil and their yellow Tai curry and you add
(15:04):
a can of coconut milk and some rice and some
cilantro and fresh lime and dinner is served. So I
thought just might be helpful to go through the shortcut
ingredients that are really helping me, tell you those recipes,
and see if that doesn't spark some stuff for you.
All Right, that's it for this week. I'm sending you
positive vivees as you all survived the last two weeks
(15:25):
of this crazy month. Remember that if you like the
idea of shortcut ingredients helping you get dinner on the table,
we have cheat sheets and recipee club that are perfect
for this, with a picture of the ingredient followed by
a bulleted list of the recipes you can make with it.
All found in the club. We have one specific to spring, summer, winter,
and fall, all pantry ingredients that I keep on hand.
Let's finally finish with my gimme five. These are five
(15:48):
things that made my life easier or more enjoyable this week.
First up, glass bottles for my Force of Nature cleaner.
If you've been around here for a while, you know that.
My favorite multipurpose is this product called Force of Nature.
It is electrolized water. It is like a mini science
experiment that you do at home. Not really basically, it's
(16:09):
like this little beaker. You plug it in and it
comes with these little capsules of assaults vinegar mixture, and
you push a button and magic things happen and it
becomes as effective as bleach, but completely non toxic and
really really safe. I use it everywhere. I use it
on my countertops, in my fridge, in the kid's lunchboxes,
(16:31):
on door handles, on the floor, on like literally sometimes
I use it on my hands because it is also
a deodorizer, and so if I've been chopping onions or
garlic and I don't want my hands to something like that,
you better believe I'm just a brain. Force of Nature. Anyways,
Force of Nature is actually not what's on the list,
although it totally could be because it does make my
life easier every week. But as much as I love
(16:53):
that company and I love that product, the bottle it
comes in is not good, and it is multiple times
the little spritzer, and I like a glass bottle versus
a plastic bottle. Mostly I just like the way it
feels my hand better. So I finally bought some glass
bottles on Amazon, and I bought a two pack so
(17:14):
that I keep one in the fridge, not the fridge,
excuse me, the kitchen, and then one up in my
bathroom because I use this also for cleaning my makeup brushes.
I like to use it to wipe down my sinking
and counter area. It's just so great. So glass bottles
are on the list. I finally got a set, and
happy I did. Ooh, this was kind of a big thing.
Oh gosh, I don't have time to get into this,
(17:36):
but I had a lot. I went back and forth.
I needed to refresh some cookware, and the reason why
is well, I needed to refresh some nonstick cookware, and
I so much has come out in the nonstick cookware
space in the past couple of years, especially the ceramic
style of nonstick cookware, the cleaner version where it doesn't
(17:59):
have the top, it's not the black coating, YadA, YadA, YadA.
I had a Caraway set and I really liked it,
but I knew, I knew from the beginning that Caraway
set is awesome, but that Caraway set is gonna last
you no more than two years, just because it's ceramic
nonstick cookwear. And I don't care if you're buying green
Pan or our Place or Carraway. That's just how long
(18:21):
it lasts unless you are extremely careful with how you
cook with it, which means you are always cooking on
low to medium high heat. I don't I mean good luck,
but the amount of people that use cookwear in my house,
from my son to my husband, even nors starting to
you know, make eggs and things like that. I can't
babysit everyone, and sometimes I just want to put the
(18:44):
flame up. I like cooking with high heat. So ultimately
I bought another Caroway set. That's what I'm saying. I
went back. I got another Caraway set because it was
time they I'm starting to get some peeling and stuff
like that. The nonstick features were less non sticky. I
really went back and forth between Caraway and going all
(19:06):
in on Hexclad. But Carawait is a little bit more affordable,
and I am donating my other set to a college
student that's getting ready to head out because it's still
got some life in it. But for as much cooking
as I do and filming as I do. I needed
a fresher set, so that happened. After purchasing a pair
of Quint's sunglasses a couple months ago, I graduated from
(19:29):
my pair of Amazon sunglasses that are twelve dollars and
I have sworn By for years. I graduated to a
fifty dollars pair of sunglasses, and boy do I like
them better. So they were ten dollars off this week
and I bought another pair of quint sunglasses to have
one more style to swap throughout the summer. And I
love them. They're really good quality for the price. Next
(19:52):
is I did a little bit of a wardrobe refresh
for spring summer, and I got a couple of T
shirt dresses for really easy wearing. I can, you know,
throw a sweater over the top in the mornings when
it's chilly, and throw a downim jacket on. Anyways, Old Mayby.
I love their vintage T shirt that's just the style,
(20:14):
the vintage tea. I have a ton of them in white.
I have a couple of solid colors and stripes. But
they also make this same style in a T shirt
dress and I love it. It's perfect length, great, comfy, easy,
perfect thing to have on hand for spring and summer.
And then finally I have the kids cooking classes, camp
and Binder on here because that is definitely going to
(20:37):
be something that occupies my own children this summer. In fact,
as I've been working on the recipes this week and
finalizing all of the internal components of the binder, my
kids have been loving it. And anytime you can get
your kids excited about cooking or excited about anything that's
not a screen, I am all for it. So that
(20:58):
made number five on my list. All right, that's it
for today. Make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so
that you never miss an episode. This podcast is meant
to be a quick twenty to thirty minute listen while
you map out your own meals for the week. I
always like listening to a podcast, and so I try
to put out something that would be a good fit
while you are doing your weekly planning. Don't forget that
(21:19):
our Kids Camp and Binder is open and we'd love
to have you. I really appreciate you listening today. Until
next time, I'm Kelsey, Happy Cooking, and I'm forge
Host
Kelsey Nixon
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