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Quick and Easy Family Meals
Time with the Kids vs a Home-Cooked Meal? You can have both!
By Elizabeth Yarnell
www.GloriousOnePotMeals.com
Believe
it or not, today’s mothers spend more hours focused on their children
than the mothers of the 1960s did. While we like to hark back to the
Leave It To Beaver halcyon days of mothers greeting kids after school
with milk and cookies as an ideal for raising happy children, the
reality, according to a University of Maryland study, actually looks
better these days.
Based on detailed time diaries kept by thousands of Americans, mothers
in 1965 spent 10.2 hours a week focused on their children in activities
such as reading with them, feeding them or playing games. While the
number of hours dropped in the 1970s and 80s, it began rising in the 90s
and is now higher than ever at almost 14.1 hours each week.
But ask those same moms how they feel about it, and at least half will
say they don’t have enough time with their kids.
The study shows how these extra hours spent with kids have been stolen
from time spent on housework, cooking, meal cleanup and laundry. Oh, and
sleep!
What I found most interesting was that moms almost halved the time they
spent in cooking and meal cleanup. Unfortunately, this might suggest
that we’re relying more on take-out, fast food or prepackaged frozen
meals. Along with the cost of convenience, we’re also paying for
undesirable amounts of sodium, additives, fats and calories.
I firmly believe that meals don’t have to be time-consuming to be
healthy; that you don’t have to face an hour of cleanup after dinner in
order to serve delicious, home-cooked food.
Here is a quick and easy kid-friendly recipe that can be easily adjusted
for using fresh or frozen foods, depending on your rush level and how
recently you’ve been to the grocery store. Regardless, you can feel good
about serving it, and it won’t eat up important time better spent with
your kids!
Garlic Fish and Potatoes
Serves 4
16 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
1 – 1 1/2 lb. filets of white fish, such as flounder, tilapia or sole
fresh or frozen
2 russet potatoes or 16 oz. frozen hash browns (loose, not in patties)
4 cups broccoli florets, fresh or frozen
4 cups corn kernels, fresh or frozen
2 cups sliced carrots, fresh or frozen
Sea salt and pepper, to taste
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Spray inside of 3 1/2- or 4-quart cast
iron Dutch oven and lid with olive oil.
Drop whole, peeled garlic cloves into Dutch oven. Scrub and cube
potatoes and place in pot; or shake frozen hash browns in (break apart
hash browns so that they are not frozen in a single mound). Sprinkle
lightly with sea salt and pepper, if desired. Set fish filets in next,
in a single layer as much as possible. With thinner filets, it is ok to
have multiple layers as long as the filets are not frozen to each other.
I find it easy to separate frozen fish filets using the tip of a knife
as a lever and applying a little pressure.
Tuck carrots into the crevices and follow with corn and broccoli until
pot is full. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and pepper.
Cover and bake for 40-53 minutes, depending upon the thickness of the
fish. Note: using frozen foods WON’T necessarily increase cooking time!
You’ll know its ready 3 minutes after the aroma of a fully cooked meal
wafts from the oven.
Notes
Your kids won’t eat fish? Although the fish species suggested here are
very mild flavored and a great way to introduce more fish to
non-fish-eaters, try substituting 4 pieces of chicken for a different
meal.
Don’t be nervous about the amount of garlic! Although it may seem like a
lot, when the cloves are left whole they impart a milder, nutty flavor.
Nutritional Analysis per serving, based on 2 servings and using
flounder, fresh potato and carrots and frozen corn and broccoli.
Calories 326
Protein 33g
Carbs 53g
Fat 2.8g
Cholesterol 54mg
Sodium 150mg
Fiber
11g
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About the author:
Elizabeth Yarnell is the inventor and author of Glorious One-Pot Meals:
A new quick & healthy approach to Dutch oven cooking. Visit
www.gloriousonepotmeals.com
for more information on this unique, patented cooking method and to
sign up for Elizabeth’s newsletter.
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