These days, side dishes are afterthoughts. First off, they’re the easiest thing to buy at the prepared food counter. And secondly, unless you’re something of a pro, they often muck up the timing of the main course.
That said, here are a set of side dishes that are for the times when the effort counts, when you’re ready to step up and do a little more. Microwaving green beans or mixing bagged slaw mix with dressing is a simple shortcut—but you already know that. These recipes go beyond the semi-homemade. Some, like the speedy ways to make tasty risotto, may well be dinner in and of themselves on a weeknight.
Whether you’re preparing or even buying side dishes, embrace convenience but examine it. Take your glasses to the supermarket. Check those labels. Know what you’re buying. Don’t fall in love at first sight. Don’t pay attention to label bursts. Look among the cans of, say, bean dip, or the jars of mustard, or the packages of bread dough mix. In most cases, the right one has only the ingredients you would put in the food if you were making it from scratch.
In the end, the best convenience products in the supermarket may well be frozen vegetables and fruits. Given many of the recipes in this book, you now know they don’t need to be thawed before they can be used.
But there’s another reason to pick all that frozen fare. Frozen berries, corn, bell pepper strips, broccoli florets, cauliflower florets—and more—have often been picked closer to ripeness than the same produce headed for the fresh produce bins. Producers depend on transport time to “ripen” much of the bounty; in fact, underripe fruits and vegetables withstand long-haul trucking better. But the parts of the crop meant to be frozen have no such built-in time lag. They must be picked closer to perfection and are often flash-frozen right in the field—which means frozen fruits and vegetables may be better stocked with vitamins and nutrients.
And a final word about convenience: If you buy in bulk, don’t store in bulk. Separate that 5-pound box of broccoli into 2-cup bags for the fridge. Same with the 10-pound bag of potatoes. Or that 20-pound bag of carrots. (By the way, how many carrots do you intend to eat?)
And remember: An organized kitchen is already a shortcut-ready kitchen. No, you don’t need to alphabetize the spice drawer or arrange the boxed breakfast cereals by increasing sugar content. Just put like with like so you can better find it in a hurry.