The Family Table: Cooking without red meat
We gave up red meat for Lent.
Well, Mike and I did.
And since none of the three kids who make their home with us do the cooking, they’ve given up red meat by proxy.
I’ve never been a huge fan of chicken. Pork (bacon aside — because bacon is never a bad idea) is OK once in a while, and when I think roasted turkey breast, I think Thanksgiving.
Finding things to make that keep things simple when I do my Sunday cooking has presented a challenge. As I’ve talked about before here, Sunday is my cooking day. I spend a couple hours making enough to carry the five of us through Wednesday’s dinner.
With work and the kids’ activities, heating dinner as opposed to making it from scratch on a nightly basis makes things much easier.
Making meatballs or meatloaf in advance is an easy go-to for me. They reheat well and they don’t dry out. A beef roast or stew in the slow cooker or pressure cooker is also simple — it’s supposed to be pull apart tender, and sitting an extra day lets the flavors marry even more.
Also: steak. While it doesn’t fit into the Sunday pre-cooking regime, a perfectly done steak is a little slice of heaven.
Reheated pork or chicken — even if it’s delicious and flavorful — has a tendency to get dry.
Case in point: Wes and I made two trays of teriyaki chicken and roasted veggies on Sunday. It was delicious (and great fun to get Wes in the kitchen — he’s the least likely to join me) when we took it out of the oven.
The reheated leftovers, however, needed a little extra sauce to cover up the chicken breast, which dried a bit when it was reheated.
It’s an ongoing adjustment.
I did have rousing success with our Monday dinner, cooked ahead chicken parmesan sandwiches.
We pan roasted the patties on Sunday, and reheated them on Monday to make what Wes called “naan-wiches.” Naan is a flatbread that is available in most grocery stores, usually in the deli area. It comes plain or flavored, and it is one of his absolute favorite things.
The successful sandwiches gave me some new ideas as to how I might more often incorporate beef-free meals into our regular mealtime.
Chicken Parmesan Sandwiches
2 pounds ground chicken breast
1 medium sized zucchini (about 1 pound)
1 tablespoon fresh, chopped basil
2 tablespoons fresh, chopped parsley
Salt/pepper
Breadcrumbs
Tomato sauce
Shredded cheese
Naan or flatbread (or whatever bun you’d like)
In a large bowl, grate the zucchini over the ground chicken. Add in the basil, parsley, salt and pepper. Add in enough breadcrumbs to form the mixture into patties. That was between 1/3 and 陆 cup for me.
If you’re using round buns, make round patties. If you’re using naan or flatbreads, make oval-shaped patties.
Cook over medium heat in a skillet, about 5-6 minutes per side, or until just cooked through. Set aside.
To assemble the sandwiches, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Smear some sauce on the bread, and add the patty. Since we used naan, I cut each oval patty in half, long way, and laid them end to end. Sprinkle cheese on top, and bake them for about 10 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly.