Nothing is more frustrating to a cook tyhan when the meal you planned goes sideways. This can happen for several reasons.
- Someone unintentionally eats one of your ingredients. WTF chocolate chips aren’t a snack!
- The dish itself fails. It tastes awful or burns or something truly awful
- You forget to thaw your meat
The third reason happens to me a lot. Mostly because of the fact I get caught up with my job and remember too late. I could microwave thaw stuff but this never ends well for me. So I typically swing to looking for a plan B. This can mean
- Something from the frozen food section
- Takeout
- Leftovers
- Quiche
Why is quiche on this list? Because it is dead easy to make and 95% of the time I have the ingredients. I keep store bought pie crust in my fridge. This plus the fact I have eggs, milk, sandwich meat and cheese on hand means quiche is a snap.
Last night I ended up making a spur of the moment quiche with ham, cheese mushrooms and shallots. One thing I do with my quiches is I always pre-cook the veggies so they don’t mess up the quiche texture and make it watery. I like to do the same with whatever meat I’m using because browning it gives the quiche better flavor. If I can I shred my own cheese and use something nice. Yesterday, I was in speed mode so I used pre-shredded cheddar. The awesome thing about this type of meal is it is cheaper and healthier than my other options, except perhaps leftovers. I have leftovers for nights of complete desperation and/or exhaustion though.
So when you’re making your grocery list think about what ingredients you can include that will do double duty for a fall back meal. You’ll be grateful for that smidge of pre-planning when your pressed for time or things go sideways.