No More Dinner Dilemmas
Most nights, Pennsylvania native Anita Rivera comes home tired after long hours on her feet at a local jewelry store. By 6 PM, she barely has time or energy to read the mail—let alone make dinner. Her 9-year-old daughter, Christina, has soccer practice 2 nights a week, and 8-year-old Angela has dancing once a week. When 18-year-old Megan is home for dinner, meals need to be mild and bland to suit her taste. But Anita's husband, Andy, likes bold-tasting food. "For a while there, I was making 3 different dinners a night," she admits.
Learn how to bring one family's updated, nutritious meals into your own home.
Add to this the fact that Anita has type 2 diabetes. Andy has high blood pressure and high cholesterol. And their teenage daughter is a cancer survivor whose chemotherapy made her dislike many of the family's favorite meals, such as roast beef and pork chops. The Riveras love home-cooked meals and try to eat right, but when time is tight, health concerns take a back seat.
We recently visited Anita and her family to help them stay on track. We gave their all-time favorite dinners, Chicken à la King and meat lasagna, a healthy update with shortcuts to cut calories and prep time. We also gave the Riveras a list of solutions to their dinnertime dilemmas.
Use these tips to help your own family enjoy delicious, healthy, and relaxed meals together on most nights of the week.
- Problem: There's just no time to cook on weeknights.
- Solution: Make planned leftovers. On Sunday, cook a large chicken, turkey breast, or lean pork roast. Refrigerate the leftover meat and use it for quick burritos, stir-fries, or casseroles on Monday and Tuesday. Or make family-sized dishes on the weekend, then freeze the leftovers in individual servings. Microwave them at a moment's notice on busy weeknights.
- Problem: Healthy meals take too long to make.
- Solution: Use precut vegetables and other healthy convenience foods. To slash prep time, look for precut fresh onions, celery, carrots, bell peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, and mushrooms, sold in bags or tubs in the produce aisle. Or pick them up at the salad bar. Also use bagged salad greens, premarinated lean meats, rotisserie-cooked chicken breasts, quartered marinated artichokes, preminced garlic and ginger, refrigerated reduced-fat doughs, and old standbys like canned beans, canned fish, and preshredded, reduced-fat cheese to save kitchen time.
- Problem: We make separate meals for the kids.
- Solution: Prepare 1 meal but flavor it 2 different ways. For instance, on pasta night, make a complex, bold-tasting sauce for the adults, but heat up jarred spaghetti sauce for the kids. Divide the pasta between the 2 sauces. When making casseroles, divide the mixture in half, flavor each half differently, then pour into opposite sides of the casserole dish and mark them with wooden picks. One side can be spicy, the other side mild. Or, put a bold spice rub on 2 pork chops and a mild spice rub on the others. You get the idea. Think "1 Meal, 2 Flavors" and most dishes can be easily adapted.
- Problem: We're tired of boneless, skinless chicken breast.
- Solution: Try boneless, skinless chicken thighs instead. The meat is still quite lean, yet moister and richer in flavor. Or use pork tenderloin, which has roughly the same calories and fat as chicken thighs. Both chicken thighs and pork tenderloin work well in stir-fries, casseroles, and rice dishes.
- Problem: Many of our healthy meals taste bland.
- Solution: Use more herbs and spices. Dried or fresh thyme lifts the flavors of chicken and mushrooms. Saffron does wonders for rice. And rosemary deepens the taste of lean beef. Tape a chart of herbs/spices and their matched foods inside your cupboard for easy reference. Also stock high-flavor, low-calorie ingredients like Worcestershire sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, hot-pepper sauce, balsamic vinegar, and salsa for last-minute shots of flavor. Don't forget fresh lemons. A squirt of lemon juice or a quick grating of lemon zest really perks up bland-tasting vegetables, rice, chicken, and fish.
- Problem: We eat a lot of takeout.
- Solution: Limit takeout to once or twice a week and make smart choices. For Chinese takeout, order brown rice instead of white to add fiber to the meal. Avoid sugary sauces and deep-fried foods like General Tso's chicken. Stick with "dry-fried" lean proteins like chicken, fish, and pork, and ask for additional vegetables in your meal. At pizza joints, order veggies on the pie and skip the fried appetizers like mozzarella sticks. Order a salad on the side to balance the meal. If you're stopping at a sandwich shop, go for grilled chicken instead of steak and cheese. Or try veggie subs with a little cheese for protein (provolone is a good choice). No matter where you stop, bring the food home and serve it at the table on plates so the family can enjoy a stress-free meal together.
The Riveras' Favorite Meals—Updated
Chicken à la King
Calories and Fat Saved: 345 calories, 38 g fat
Time Saved: 30 minutes
What We Did:
- Used pre chopped fresh vegetables to save time
- Sautéed in cooking spray instead of butter
- Replaced butter, flour, cream, and salt with prepared light Alfredo sauce
- Replaced puff pastry with reduced-fat crescent rolls
- ½ can (8 oz) refrigerated reduced-fat crescent roll dough (4 rolls)
- 4 oz pre-sliced cremini mushrooms (about 1 ¼ cups)
- 1/4 cup pre-chopped green bell pepper
- 1 tub (10 oz) light Alfredo sauce (in refrigerated pasta section of store)
- 1/4 to 1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
- 1½ cups chopped cooked chicken
- 1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
- 2 Tbsp chopped pimento
- Ground black pepper
Prepare crescent rolls per package directions. Meanwhile, coat a large skillet with cooking spray and heat over medium heat. Add mushrooms and green pepper and cook for 4 minutes or until mushrooms begin to give up liquid. Stir in Alfredo sauce, broth, chicken, peas, and pimento. Simmer over low heat for 5 minutes or until flavors blend. Add pepper to taste. Split each crescent roll and divide among 4 plates. Spoon chicken mixture on top.
Makes 4 servings
Per serving: 325 cal, 24 g protein, 23 g carb, 16 g fat (7 g sat fat), 47 mg chol, 2 g fiber, 708 mg sodium
Tips
- For more flavor, add 2 tablespoons of dry sherry along with the pepper and sprinkle each serving with chopped fresh parsley.
- To cut more fat and calories and boost fiber, serve over cooked instant brown rice instead of rolls.
Italian American Lasagna
Calories and Fat Saved: 435 calories, 33 g fat
Time Saved: 1 hour, 20 minutes
What We Did:
- Doubled the recipe for planned leftovers
- Used no-boil lasagna noodles to save time
- Replaced ground beef with veggie crumbles to cut calories
- Swapped jarred pasta sauce for homemade
- Added vegetables for fiber
- Used reduced-fat cheeses in place of full-fat ones
- Replaced whole eggs with egg whites
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 bag (12 oz) frozen veggie crumbles
- 1/2 cup pre-chopped onions
- 1/2 cup pre-chopped carrots
- 2 tsp preminced garlic
- 8 oz (2 ½ cups) presliced cremini mushrooms
- 1/2 cup drained oil-packed sun-dried tomato bits
- 4 cups tomato basil sauce
- 24 oz (3 cups) reduced-fat ricotta cheese
- 8 oz (2 cups) preshredded reduced-fat mozzarella cheese
- 2 oz (½ cup) pregrated Parmesan cheese
- 2 egg whites
- 2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- 12 (8 oz) no-boil lasagna noodles
- 1 large jar (24 oz) roasted red bell peppers, drained and chopped
Preheat oven to 350°F. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add veggie crumbles and cook for 7 minutes or until browned. Add onions, carrots, garlic, and mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes or until mushrooms release their liquid. Add tomato bits and sauce, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine ricotta, 1 cup of mozzarella, 1/4 cup of Parmesan, egg whites, parsley, salt, and black pepper. Spoon thin layer of sauce over bottom of 13" x 9" baking dish. Arrange 3 noodles crosswise in pan over sauce, leaving space around each. Spread 1/3 of cheese mixture over noodles. Add 1/3 of roasted peppers, then spoon 1/4 of sauce over peppers. Repeat the layers of noodles, cheese mixture, peppers, and sauce to make 4 layers of noodles. Top final layer of noodles with remaining sauce, 1 cup mozzarella, and 1/4 cup Parmesan.
Bake until bubbly and golden, 40 to 45 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting.
Makes 10 servings
Per serving: 414 cal, 29 g protein, 39 g carb, 15 g fat (7 g sat fat), 40 mg chol, 5 g fiber, 975 mg sodium
Tips
- Freeze leftovers in individual portions and reheat them in the microwave on super-busy weeknights.
- For even more fiber, replace the no-boil noodles with 1 pound whole-grain lasagna noodles. Cook the noodles per the package directions before assembling the casserole.
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