Slow cooked lamb shank yields maximum results from minimal effort.
Sometimes I don’t want to put much thought or energy into preparing dinner, but I still want to have something tasty ready when we want to eat. A slow cooker is fantastic for that as long as you begin with flavorful ingredients. Lamb shank is perfect for the slow cooker because long and slow makes it tender and delicious. The bones make great stock afterwards, so be sure to save them.
Preparing Lamb Shank
I recommend removing excess fat and connective tissue with a sharp knife first. Even if I am doing a no brainer dinner like this, I remind myself to take the time to sharpen my knife because I get very irritated when I must work harder than my tool to accomplish a task. (A knife sharpener is essential equipment, by the way. If you don’t have one, put it on your list.)
After that, I sprinkled with a little salt and garlic powder and put into the slow cooker. A packet of dried onion soup and a couple cups of water are all I need to make these shanks amazing. Four hours on low and you have a fantastic main dish. A couple hours in the oven works just as well.
Accompaniments
What do you want to pair them with? You could do all kinds of things, but as I was doing what I basically considered a zero labor meal, I tossed some green beans and chopped carrots into the slow cooker at the same time that I began to boil some potatoes on the stovetop just before dinner time. I had decided to make mashed potatoes and serve the onion soup as gravy. I could have thickened up the gravy with a little flour in the end, but I didn’t because this was a zero effort meal…hands on time took maybe 15 minutes to remove fat from shanks and scrub and chop potatoes. No work. Delicious, especially when paired with a nice Barbera. Red wine elevates any meat and potatoes dish in my opinion…Hooray for effortlessly simple meals!
Intuitive cooking leads to satisfying simple meals.
Pondering what to do with some ground turkey, I developed a taste for a meatball soup…Italian wedding soup would be good, but I didn’t have any fresh greens or the little pasta balls. Looking at the vegetables in my refrigerator, I realized I had a head of cauliflower to be used. That would do nicely in a soup, the king of simple meals, in my opinion. I had some chicken/lamb stock that I had frozen. What else would give these anchor ingredients some more flavor? Cheese is always a welcome companion to cauliflower, so it was time to pull out a parmesan rind from the freezer. Now we had a direction in which to go.
After sautéing a diced onion in a stockpot with olive oil, I added my concentrated stock along with some water and my parmesan rind to boil while I prepared the other ingredients. I wanted to give the parmesan a head start on flavoring my broth before adding the other vegetables because I don’t want them to get mushy by overcooking, just soft enough.
For the Meatballs I Used:
1 lb ground turkey
one egg
panko bread crumbs
minced dried onion
garlic powder
dried sage powder
a pinch of paprika/turmeric/cumin blend
salt
To the Soup I Added:
Cauliflower, cut into bite sized pieces
chopped carrots
chopped celery
chopped beet stems
dried basil
dried oregano
dash of Worcestershire sauce
tomato paste
a little frozen spinach added at the end for color
Do you think soup qualifies as a simple meal? Served with “a hunk of bread”, my husband thinks so. We sprinkled the top of this with more parmesan and it was comfort in a bowl. Two days later, the leftovers were even better for lunch. Yes, soup that has a chance to allow its flavors to marry is wonderful!
A well-stocked pantry and freezer are essential to creating simple meals anytime.
Looking into my refrigerator, I realized I needed to use up some okra. I had some leftover cooked rice and roasted chicken and decided to make jambalaya. Is okra required for this? No, and even without it, I will generally always have the necessary ingredients on hand: onions, celery, bell pepper, rice; and chicken, shrimp, sausage…or a combination of all 3. Yup, shrimp and andouille usually live in my freezer and you will often find leftover roast chicken in my refrigerator or freezer and it’s fantastic for simple meals like this one.
No sooner had I uttered the word “jambalaya”, Michael insisted that it begin with a roux…I had envisioned a more Creole style jambalaya with tomatoes, but what can I say to this adorable guy who had his heart set on a roux base…See how much variety there is with food? I believe there is rarely, if ever, only one way to do something. The possibilities are endless.
If you’re starting with uncooked rice, add it to the pot once you have the other ingredients in there and enough water to cook the rice. Cover and simmer until done.
My Method
So, for the roux, I whisked together over high heat about a tablespoon of grapeseed oil and a tablespoon of flour until dark brown. This only takes a couple of minutes. For more on cooking a fast roux, please read Gumbo Ya Ya.
Chopped onions, bell pepper, celery and okra then go into the pot to keep the roux from burning. I poured a little beef stock in after cooking the vegetables for a few minutes. I had defrosted what I thought was chicken stock, but without labeling it, I wasn’t sure until heating it up. Doesn’t really matter. Flavorful liquid to get a sauce going is all you need to know. Again, if you’re cooking rice from scratch, you need more liquid. Meanwhile I was boiling the shrimp shells and used the resulting shrimp stock to finish the dish.
Sausage and garlic go into the pot next along with some spices. I chose:
paprika
French thyme
red chili flakes
smoked paprika
oregano
basil
I would normally put cayenne into this, but I was out of it, so substituted with the chili flakes. Black pepper and some hot sauce can round out the heat factor.
Once the vegetables are tender, I added the cooked rice and chicken to heat through. Shrimp and stock go in at the end because shrimp only need a couple minutes covered over low heat to cook. They’re done when they turn pink.
What About Leftovers?
Reinvent them for lunch the next day, of course. Eat all the shrimp the first day because you don’t want them to turn rubbery by reheating. To round out the remainder, I added some canned tomatoes and canned clams with their liquor. Heat just long enough to heat through. Served with corn, no one thought of this lunch as leftovers. It was just as delicious as if it was the original meal made from scratch.
Have you embraced your leftovers yet? They’re an awesome time saver. Think of them as a foundation upon which you can build with whatever you have on hand that appeals to you. Work smarter, not harder! Have some fun making simple meals everyone will enjoy.
Hint: Here’s how to eat more vegetables when you don’t like them.
When I started this blog, a couple of readers left comments about preparing beets. One suggested using them in burgers. Got a meat eater in the house who hesitates to eat vegetables? Here’s an idea for sneaking some in.
I most often cook beets for use in a salad, so although Ava suggested beginning with raw beets, I decided to try her idea with some leftover beets that were chilled after slicing and boiling. They appeared to be about equal to the amount of beef I would be using, which was one pound.
Here’s How to Eat More Vegetables When You Don’t Like Them!
After chopping the beets in the food processor, I added an equal amount of ground beef to the work bowl along with some spices. I chose the following seasonings:
garlic powder
mustard powder
sage
turmeric
dash of Worcestershire sauce
After pulsing a few times to incorporate ingredients, I mixed in by hand some gratedjack cheese; the amount appearing like two dice.
Tasting the Burgers
I decided to make a tester by cooking a tablespoon of the mixture in a skillet. It’s not a bad idea when you’re mixing up a big batch of raw meat, especially if it includes ingredients you’re not used to combining. That way, you can taste and adjust the seasonings if needed before you commit to cooking the entire amount as is.
In this case I was very happy with the result and so I formed some patties and sprinkled some salt on each side before cooking in a hot skillet with grapeseed oil. Ava was right: 3 minutes on each side worked for me too.
After letting the burgers rest on paper towels for a couple of minutes, we put them on French rolls. I enjoyed mine just like that, while Michael put barbecue sauce, onions and pickles on his.
The beets added a pleasant texture and extra juiciness compared to a regular burger, plus we got extra veggies and fiber in there. That means they were very filling, so we ate less than we might have otherwise, and we had burgers left over for lunch the next day. Reheated, they were great served alongside a salad.
Eating More Vegetables When You Don’t Like Them Just Got More Exotic
The next time I tried this idea, I used ground venison and mixed it with an equal part roasted beet. I decided to season it Middle Eastern “kofta” style with:
garlic powder
minced onion
turmeric
cumin
cardamom
cinnamon
ginger
mint
Salt the patties and cook in a skillet for 3 minutes on each side. Served garlic yogurt on the side along with roasted cauliflower with balsamic vinegar reduction.
These burgers are so juicy…you may never go back to your typical burger again! I’ll bet you can even make a believer out of a non-beet lover. What about non-squash lovers? Have you tried my macaroni and cheese yet? It’s more squash than cheese, but they will never know! It’s A Great Way to Squash Their Prejudice. You can learn how to eat more vegetables when you don’t like them.
Stocking basic ingredients means cooking dinner tonight is easy.
Bacon and eggs for dinner? Yes, please! Although Michael would never order pasta carbonara in a restaurant, he enjoys eating mine. Why? He’s not a fan of cream based sauces, so I don’t make it that way. Here’s your answer for what to cook for dinner tonight. Easy!
While I wait for the water to boil, I begin making the sauce by browning some bacon in a skillet. I cut off about an inch from the bacon I keep in the freezer and chopped it up. While I was in there, I looked for some peas because I think they add a nice pop of color and texture, but the only peas I had were the ones I used as an ice pack last time I bumped my head, so no peas this time…Instead, I decided to use some chopped leeks that were starting to get a little frosty. Why not? Onions are the other essential ingredient here, so I figured a combination of leeks and red onion would work well while adding texture and color.
Are you getting the idea here? This dish can be made quickly and easily with things you probably already have on hand. A well stocked freezer of flavor gems helps immensely and who doesn’t usually have a box of pasta and a few eggs sitting around? That means you already know what to cook for dinner tonight and it’s so easy!
I spooned off most of the bacon fat that had been rendered before adding the onions and leeks to the skillet. Cooked until tender and added a splash of white wine while I waited for the pasta water to boil. That’s the thing that takes the longest here…
Preparing the Eggs
After putting the pasta into the boiling water, I whisked 3 eggs in my favorite big round bottomed pot and then placed it over the boiling pot of pasta and continued to whisk for a couple of minutes. Why? Because I wanted to begin cooking the eggs without turning them into scrambled. The eggs will finish cooking when you combine them with the hot pasta, but I like to give them a head start. Whisk quickly while heating them double boiler style and remove from the heat if you start to see any little bits that start to look like cooked scrambled eggs. Remember you’re making a sauce, not scrambled eggs. Whisk, whisk, whisk!
Season eggs with salt. Once the pasta is cooked, toss it together with the eggs, bacon, onions and some grated parmesan and serve. You can add a little pasta water if you need a touch more sauciness. Top with ground pepper and grated parmesan. The hardest thing here is deciding whether to drink a red or white wine with this dinner. I could go either way.
Here’s what we decided.
Okay, Michael makes one exception to the no-cream rule. To make that delicious sauce, read Make Your Pasta Pretty In Pink .
You can cook delicious brisket in the oven without a recipe. Trust me…and learn to trust yourself!
Are you trying to preserve your family’s recipes exactly as they have always been made or do you put your own personal spin on them? I don’t think it really matters as long as everyone continues to enjoy them. Which are traditional favorites in your home?
When I first got married, I tried to duplicate my mother-in-law’s beef brisket exactly. Sadly disappointed in how less-than-perfect it came out, I began to learn from that experience and develop my intuition in the kitchen. Cooking a brisket in the oven is really quite simple.
How did the heat in my oven compare to hers? How big was my brisket compared to the roasting pan I used? Where is the best placement in the oven for that roasting pan? Many variables impact the quality of a finished dish.
As far as ingredients go, the sky’s the limit on how one could prepare a brisket. I still make it similar to my mother-in-law, Dottie, but rather than relying on exact timing and measurements, I prefer to let my intuition guide me. That’s how you get more comfortable cooking without a recipe.
Preparation For Cooking Brisket in the Oven
Like Dottie, I let the brisket come to room temperature by taking it out of the fridge about an hour before putting it in the oven.
Into a covered casserole that would fit this brisket, I poured roughly equal parts dry red wine and beef broth. Continuing to follow Dottie’s lead, I mixed in some dry onion soup mix; but you could just as well season with fresh onion and spices. The important thing to know is that you want an acidic ingredient to help tenderize the meat as you would with any slow cooked roast. I added some French thyme too.
I put the covered casserole dish into a preheated 350 degree oven for nearly 3 hours. Testing it at the 2 1/2 hour mark with a fork, I decided it could use a little longer to become more tender. Yes, that’s about as technical as it gets. Take the lid off, look at it, stick a fork in and see if it’s tender. Trust me when I say this method is more reliable than counting the minutes.
After sautéing sliced mushrooms, I poured the brisket gravy into the deep skillet with the mushrooms while the finished brisket rested.
In a small cup I put about a teaspoon of flour and ladled a little gravy into it while whisking with a fork. Ladled a little more gravy into the cup while whisking until I had a smooth slurry to add to the pot of gravy. Let that simmer a bit until thickened. That’s all there is to it. Cooking brisket in the oven is easy and leftovers are just as good…
What else can you put into the oven and let it do its own thing? Read Don’t Be Chicken. There’s nothing to roasting a chicken either.
Please reach out with any questions and if you enjoy this blog, continue to share via your favorite social media using the buttons below.
Easy, quick chili recipes begin with a well stocked pantry.
Do you like chili? You could roast some fresh chilis and let a pot simmer all day, but for an every day meal, I often make an easy, quick chili from mostly pantry ingredients. There are endless recipes, but here are basics. Experiment and find your own favorite combination.
Ingredients
ground turkey, beef, elk, wild boar or other game meat
diced onion
minced garlic
chopped bell pepper
canned tomatoes
kidney beans or black beans or other beans or a combination thereof
corn
canned chipotle
garlic
cumin
paprika
smoked paprika
oregano
chopped jalapeno
cayenne
Aside from the onion and garlic, which I consider to be pantry staples anyway, everything listed above was either from the freezer or from a can or jar. If you didn’t have fresh onion or garlic, you could make do with dried.
Start by browning the meat and then add the onions, garlic and jalapeno. Add the bell pepper and tomatoes and season to taste while cooking. If using corn, add it near the end. Canned beans also just need to be heated through near the end.
Use just about any kind of meat or beans that you have. Want to make a vegetarian version? Add more veggies (corn, zucchini etc.) and a can of refried beans to thicken it up. Want it soupier? Add more tomato or tomato sauce and/or beef broth or other stock.
What about chili fries? Leave out the beans and top your favorite fries with chili and cheese. Did you decide what to cook for dinner tonight? So easy and quick!
For a unique dining experience and interesting selection of chilis and game meats, we love visiting Cold Spring Tavern in Santa Barbara. Until we can travel there again, we’ll be content with the memories.
For more comfort in a bowl inspired by memories, please read Gumbo Ya Ya next.
This fun, cozy dinner may become one of your favorite simple meals.
Ready for a fun, cozy dinner that will have you lingering around the table with loved ones? Try Shabu Shabu, a Japanese hot pot of vegetables and beef cooked at the table. All you have to do is wash and chop the vegetables of your choice and prepare the savory dipping sauces. Once everyone sits down, they dip their own meat into the simmering pot to cook their own. It’s one of my favorite simple meals.
I like carrots in there too, but they missed the photo opp as I had already put them into the pot to give them a head start on cooking…oops!
I offer 1/4-1/3 pound of beef per person. It must be top quality and sliced paper thin. Pictured below is wagyu ribeye purchased from a Japanese market.
The only special equipment needed is a hot plate at the dining table. Plug it in and fill a big pot with some stock. Traditionally you would start with some dried kelp, but I prefer to use beef stock flavored with some garlic and ginger. The dipping sauces are very flavorful, but why not add even more flavor to the pot?
Shabu Shabu Sauces
You can buy the sauces premade, but I prefer to make my own. The sauce on the left is for dipping your cooked vegetables. It is equal parts soy sauce and ponzu (citrus vinegar). I used lemon juice once when I was out of ponzu. It was great too. I enjoy the tartness of that ratio, but Michael prefers to add a little more soy sauce to his. The sauce on the right is called goma and it’s flavored with sesame. Dip your cooked meat in this one.
Ingredients for Beef Dipping Sauce (Goma):
1/4 cup tahini (sesame seed paste)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
1/8 cup olive oil
1/8 cup beef broth
1 clove of minced garlic
This is what I measured according to my taste for 4 people. I put it into a small food processor and let it sit for an hour before dinner. Your palate may prefer the addition of some miso or a little more of this or that. Experiment and see what suits you.
Cooking and Eating
Add vegetables to the pot a little at a time. Each person takes what they like as it cooks. Diners dip their own raw meat into the boiling pot and cook to their own liking. No more taking orders of rare to well done. Everyone is in charge of their own! What’s not to love about this meal? I love it so much that I neglected to take pictures of the meat that had been cooked and dipped in sauce…but you get the idea, right?
The beauty of taking a little bit of food at a time rather than loading up a plate all at once is that it makes one more aware of their satiety. You tend to check in with yourself to see if you’re still hungry or if you’re getting full. It also slows down consumption, leading to a pleasant dining experience. That’s what simple meals are all about, don’t you agree? I like to save some room at the end for cooking some yam noodles in the remaining broth.
You can certainly cook these noodles along with the vegetables, but they tend to disappear if overcooked, so it’s my preference to add them at the end…if anyone still has room to eat them!
Smart grocery shopping means less trips and better meals.
Do you want to go grocery shopping less often while continuing to eat fresh, healthy meals every day? You can if you have a system. I typically shop once every 2-3 weeks and use what I bought in a strategic manner. Smart grocery shopping leads to easily cooking without recipes.
How?
Before I go shopping, I take inventory of what I have remaining in my refrigerator, freezer and pantry so that I don’t needlessly buy more of something I won’t use right away.
Here’s an example of how my refrigerator might look before I go shopping. I have condiments in the door and a few onions and a few limes in the bottom drawer. A few random vegetables and fruits with long shelf life remain, such as squash, apples and part of a cabbage. The only fresh proteins left are some hard cheeses and eggs, so for me, that means it’s about time to shop. But I could still use what I have there for some time if I wasn’t able to go out because the freezer is still fairly full of proteins, vegetables and fruit. My pantry is also well stocked with rice, pasta, beans, oatmeal, nuts and a few canned goods.
What Do I Buy At the Market?
Fresh produce and proteins mostly. I load up my cart with one of each fresh vegetable offered…well, almost. I think about how much of each vegetable we can reasonably eat within a given period of time. Lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes will be consumed during the first week. Bell peppers, celery and collard greens can wait a bit longer. Carrots, beets and sweet potatoes can wait even longer. Take note of how fresh the produce was when you bought it and be sure to use it within a reasonable amount of time. You shouldn’t have to throw anything away.
Here’s what my refrigerator looked like after shopping.
How To Organize the Fridge
First I removed and set aside whatever I had remaining from before. Then I restock new items in a way that makes sense in order to help myself use things in the proper order. Produce that doesn’t have to be used immediately can go on the bottom shelf. Things I want to use sooner go in front and center. Fresh proteins go on the top shelf where it’s coldest in my refrigerator and arranged in a way that tells me what to use first. Fresh fish always gets priority.
What About the Freezer?
Fresh bread goes into the freezer along with anything else that I don’t think we will use in the immediate future. So in the first picture I had some grapes that we hadn’t consumed prior to purchasing new groceries. I plucked them off their stems and put into a plastic bag for the freezer. They can go into a morning smoothie along with some fresh veggies and raw nuts for breakfast.
What’s For Lunch?
What does lunch look like? Below is an example of lunch right after grocery shopping. I bought some cute microgreens that I knew needed to be consumed very quickly. So I combined them in a salad with some other new, very perishable produce and a couple of items that were remaining from before I went shopping. I had a part of a can of black beans in the refrigerator and some pieces of cooked chicken in the freezer that I didn’t really have room for after I went shopping. So I heated the beans and chicken in a skillet with some chopped onion, cumin, oregano, paprika, smoked paprika. Then I made a salad dressing with crushed garlic, salt, mandarin orange juice, salsa and olive oil. After tossing the vegetables in the dressing, I topped with the seasoned chicken and beans.
What’s For Dinner?
What would be on the dinner menu immediately after grocery shopping? If I had bought fresh seafood, that would have been the first thing to think about. In this case, Michael had requested hot dogs on hamburger buns…so, we did diverge from my usual, most practical approach. A package of unopened hot dogs can sit in the refrigerator for some time or be frozen, so I don’t consider them top priority to be eaten. However, because he requested hamburger buns, I decided we might as well eat them because those are big fluffy things that take up way too much valuable real estate in my freezer, which is where the uneaten buns were headed. So I decided hot dogs were a reasonable request. That being said, sliced whole grain bread, French bread, flatbread and tortillas get priority in my freezer. Smart grocery shopping also requires smart storage.
An opened bag of frozen French fries balanced out his plate. I had some leftover roasted cauliflower dressed in pickling spice. To each his own…to be fair, I had already snacked on some potato chips before dinner. Yes, I snack too…
What do you think of my approach? I find it liberating not to plan a weekly menu and follow recipes. Buying lots of fresh items while stocking the freezer and pantry with essentials means I can create something new every day depending on what I combine. Start with smart grocery shopping and get cooking without recipes confidently.
For more on vegetables and my strategy, please read Keep It Fresh next.
Savor the flavor of this pink pasta dish made with pantry staples.
Years ago we used to frequent an Italian restaurant where the owner named a pink pasta dish after himself. The sauce contained chopped shrimp and capers. My husband, who usually avoids sauces with cream, enjoys this dish.
The other thing he avoids eating is capers. In fact, the first time he decided to order this dish at the restaurant, he requested it without capers. I can still see the owner, Vincenzo, glaring down at him before answering matter-of-factly while gesturing, “You’ll have it with the capers. The capers are a what gives it the flavor.”
How could Michael argue with such authoritativeness? So, whenever I make this dish at home, I am sure to remind him with a smile, “The capers are a what gives it the flavor.” Indeed and this meal couldn’t be simpler. I don’t often buy cream, but I had a shelf stable carton hanging around just in case the mood should strike. Not a bad suggestion for your pantry.
The other day I was in the mood for cheesecake, so I opened the carton of cream to make some. What to do with the remainder? Take some shrimp out of the freezer and make Spaghetti alla Vincenzo, of course. No waste, remember?
What’s in a pink sauce? Tomatoes and cream. Throw some dried herbs in for good measure. What did I use here? I had previously pureed some ingredients in the food processor for pizza sauce and had just enough left over to make this. Here’s what went into that sauce:
a few cloves of garlic
canned chopped tomatoes
dried basil
dried oregano
dried thyme
olive oil
After sitting in the refrigerator for a couple days, the flavors have had a chance to marry and it’s even more delicious.
What Else Goes Into This Pink Pasta Sauce?
While the pasta water boiled, I put the aforementioned tomato sauce into a skillet to simmer along with some capers.
I boiled the shrimpshells in another pot to make stock. I pulled out of the refrigerator a small container of leftover white bean soup and the cream. Here I go with all my bits and bobs of leftovers…Zero waste cooking!
Yes, they were THE REASON I decided to make this dish. You could certainly make it with just tomatoes and cream. But the previously prepared bean soup was also made with shrimp originally and I figured that the bean puree would add another depth of flavor and creaminess to my sauce along with the freshly prepared shrimp stock.
The Takeaway
Here’s why I don’t do recipes and you don’t have to either. Get creative with what you have and find a way to use everything. Develop your intuition in the kitchen. Cooking wonderful meals really is that simple.
After cutting my raw shrimp in half, I seasoned them with garlic powder, salt and French thyme. I added them to the sauce to cook during the last couple of minutes of cooking the pasta because shrimp cook very quickly. You don’t want to toughen them by overcooking. Just a couple of minutes turns them pink and opaque.
A simple and elegant meal that brings us together as we recall fond memories. That is what food is all about. Don’t you agree?
Read Shrimp and Grits next for another shrimp meets pantry meal based on memories. What do your memories inspire you to cook?
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