Take away, restaurant dining: Faster food?

Talk to people of a certain age and they'll tell you that Saturday night generally meant either meat loaf with baked potatoes or baked beans.

These foods, cooked in the oven rather than on top of the range, involve minimal preparation but a fairly long period in the oven.

Oven cooked food is easier for the chef. Pop the food in, then sit down with the kids, supervise their homework and read to them.

Jamie Oliver has pointed out that a meal made of oven-roasted chicken may not be gourmet but it is fresh, lower in calories than other choices and simply and quickly made.

Let's post favorite recipes, easily made.

Or favorite easy cookbooks.

One of the simplest and best cook books is Home Bistro Cooking (may not be exact title) by Betty Fusell. Chock full of recipes that involve no more than five or six ingredients and all easily done.

Much home cooked food is easily done, even with 'from scratch' recipes.
Not every smidge of homecooked food makes a healthy meal.

Conversely, take out food doesn't have to be unhealthy, or time consuming - if you are, as msOlga is, situated near some wonderful restaurants - though some huge percentage of it is pretty unhealthy.

I enjoy cooking, and many times spend Sunday afternoons making things that can be heated up during the week. I make every effort to make sure my meals are healthy.

However, I do takeway every week, sometimes more than once.

I buy those Entertainment books from school kids, and it's filled with 2 for 1 coupons from local restaurants as well as fast food.

Doing that saves both time and money for me, and I always order something healthy from the menu.

I'll call the restaurant as I'm walking out the door from work, and by the time I arrive, it's already boxed up and ready. It gives us the opportunity to eat things I normally wouldn't make at home, for a good price.

The older I get, the more I realize my time is valuable too.

I wouldn't do that every night, but once or twice a week is great.

Will be back with some cookbooks..

Last night, I learned that one may purchase a share of a farmer's crop, giving a family organic and/or IPM veggies and fruits throughout the season at a savings.

While the neighborhood pizza joint might offer decent pizza and subs and a low price, some of the big chains that push their take away offerings are terrible.

I ate at Chili's once, at the request of my son, then in high school. The service was pokey and neither his dinner, nor mine, were edible. I will never go to Chili's again.

During the recent heat wave, I told me son we had to eat out one night. I dislike Asian food, in part because I had two men in my life who would eat at no other sort of restaurant and in part because the pervasive flavor of soy sauce in Chinese(-American) restaurants is boring. He generally likes them, particularly CHinese restaurants. He suggested Outback, an "Australian" steakhouse, as a compromise. Since one of my favorite "junk foods" is a blooming onion, I said sure.

The long awaited bloomin' onion was overly salty and I sent the "chop salad" back as inedible. The shrimp were decent and the fries were good. Mixed to my palate: not as bad as Chili's but, I would not return for a long time.

That's the problem with these low priced chains: the food is mediocre. Waiting for it takes as long as the prep involved in making a meat loaf and baked potato -- that's prep and not in-the-oven time -- but, as I said, that cooking time is valuable and can be used to accomplish more personal family tasks.

The other problem is that more and more of these chain restaurants get their food from central commissaries, not their own, but vendors who offer food to everyone. If the salsa at Appleby's tastes like the salsa at Chili's, it is not because salsa is like mayonnaise -- a product that is defined by its name -- but rather because there is no in-house recipe and all the restaurants are buying the same thing in bulk.

Doesn't your family deserve better? I deserve better! Heat or no heat, I would prefer throughing some burgers on the barbie to facing another meal at Outback.

I too enjoy cooking, but we eat at least two "outside prepared" meals a week when we're both busy or just too tired to cook. Fortunately for us, there's a little family-owned Mexican place just around the corner where the food is always fresh and cheap. We love it so much we had them cater our wedding and the price was ridiculously low. They even make their own salsa!

I completely agree with you about the "chain" restaurants though. Long waits for food of mediocre quality and marginal nutritional value.

Yeah, we normally don't go to chains...nothing to write home about.

The chains certainly are nothing to write home about.

And, of course, every once in awhile, your day just collapses. Like today! My car overheated. I pulled into a gas station and the attendant said it was a cracked hose, an item they did not stock. He asked whether there was anyone to pick me up and, as my son's car is a work in no progress in pieces in the driveway, I said no. It was after the time my regular mechanic answers the phone and I am not certain that he isn't still on vacation.

So, what does this knight in shining armor do? He asks whether I can drive a stick. I can but I haven't in 22 or 23 years. He loaned me his car and sent me to AutoZone where the hose and a gallon of anti-freeze were less than $20. I return. He then points out that my registration is four months out of date. The state never sent renewal forms.

I drive directly to the public library (no internet at home) and renew on line, but, then I also email my state rep and let him know the Commonwealth of Massachusetts slipped up.

Tonight is the sort of night when reliance on a take away is necessary.

What I find appalling are the families that rely on take away four or five nights a week!

And, I do know of several small restaurants where the food is very good.

I think kids need to see meals prepared at home, however.

Actually, after all was said and done, bought some shrimp, sauteed them and put them in a salad with spinach, cukes and red peppers. Homemade vanilla ice cream and fresh raspberries for dessert. High quality protein relieves stress.

So does beer, but that's another topic....

Well, I had a glass of wine after dinner.

I'll probably have a glass myself tonight with dinner.

Well, there's take-away & take-away! By that I mean I never eat McDonalds, KFC, etc, & rarely indulge in really fatty foods like fish & chips, or pizza, even. But there are times when I'm just plain stuffed after a hard day & just don't want to cook, then clean up after myself. Then I simply opt for the healthier (& affordable!) take-away options. But I feel guilty if I find I'm doing this too often. I don't know, it feels like I'm not on top of things, or something .... Bad habits! Besides, you're never 100% sure of exactly which ingredients have been used (how much fat? Sugar? MSG or other additives?) when you haven't prepared the food yourself. So every now & then during the week is fine. And eating out on weekends with friends (often!), of course!

We do pizza once a week and the rest is cooked at home. Occasionally, we will also have lunch out or dinner out on the weekend because we are gone somewhere. But 90% of our eating is done from home cooked meals.

I used to be a fast food junkie but since have changed my wicked ways.

We went down to a local joint called the California Grill last night after meeting with our financial planner. It was late and we really didn't have anything in the house to cook anyway. I got something called the Beefeater sandwich-- layers of thinly sliced warm pot roast slathered with Swiss cheese on toasted cheese bread! With crispy fries! Yummm!!!!!!

Okay, it's probably a heart attack on a plate, but it was SOOOOOOOOO good!

You know those kitchens people are putting in their houses, the ones that cost as much as a 1970s house and have marble counter tops and cherry cabinets or else elaborate white cabinets? There are lots of kitchens of that type that are never used.

Because I am on the bottom of the earning pile and work two jobs, scheduling food can be a problem. I worked from 5 - 10 last night at a gift shop that is a 35-45 minute drive (depending upon traffic) from my home. My son and I had tortellini with jarred sauce (I prefer a simply sauce made from lightly cooked, whole canned Roma tomatoes but he won't eat it) to which I added spinach and grated parmesan with Italian sausages. When I returned home at 11, I cooked artichokes for us. We basically had a good lunch and dinner, although it was weirdly distributed.

Oh I know!
Those kitchens are simply to impress visiting folk & fill them with wonder.
Apparently some (wealthy but strange!) folk have two kitchens! The "show place" one (for showing off) & the real, decrepid one, behind the scenes, where they actually cook. No, actually they're probably just re-heating cold pizza or cooking frozen TV dinners. Crazy, huh?