The Fast-Food Kitchen: More Than 100 Fast and Healthy Recipes

The                

Fast-Food

      Kitchen

Sheri Torelli

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon

Cover photo © Tim Pannell/Corbis

THE FAST-FOOD KITCHEN

Copyright © 2011 by Sheri Torelli

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Torelli, Sheri, 1956-

The fast-food kitchen / Sheri Torelli.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-7369-3039-0 (pbk.)

1. Cookery—Planning. 2. Families—Nutrition. 3. Grocery shopping. I. Title.

TX652.T67 2011

641.5—dc22

2010015983

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in China

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 / RDS-SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my husband, Tim, my cooking guinea pig. You often tell me that a peanut butter sandwich prepared by me is better than any five-star restaurant meal. Your love and encouragement help me believe I can do anything. You have my heart! This book could never have happened without you. I love you, and I enjoy cooking for you most of all!

Acknowledgments

The many people who play a part in shaping a book enter the scene long before the manuscript is completed and the book is on the shelf. The idea for this book was born out of a desire to help busy women discover the joy that can be found in the kitchen. The original idea and title for the book came from my husband, Tim, who watched and listened as we taught seminars. Women expressed how overwhelmed they felt at mealtime because of a lack of resources, preparation, and experience. As someone who is very production-oriented, Tim knew there was a simpler, more efficient way to prepare home-cooked meals. As we began to brainstorm, talk to women in all walks of life, and ask lots of questions, The Fast-Food Kitchen was born. My wonderful publisher, Harvest House, believed the idea was timely, and I will be forever grateful for this wonderful opportunity.

So many others have encouraged me along this path, and I would love to let them know what their encouragement, help, and love have meant to me:

Hope Lyda, my amazing editor. She caught my vision and brought it to life. Thank you, Hope.

Shirley Almeida and Tracy Klehn—my Paisan-Amie girlfriends. Your love, encouragement and, most of all, your crazy fun and laughter have brightened many a day just when I needed it most.

Raquel Carlson—my close friend, and the best neighbor on earth! We tried many of the recipes in this book to determine their worthiness in terms of simple and delicious. She is a great cook for her husband, Curtis (also a great cook!), and her three sons—Andrew, Ryan, and Michael (my little loves!).

Tracey Barrett—a sweet and precious friend. She prays for me and lifts my spirits with her weekly calls of love and encouragement. I only wish we lived closer to one another!

Faithful friends of More Hours in My Day—to the women across the country who willingly and lovingly sent e-mails with their favorite recipes, you are the best! You will never know how special you are to me.

MOPS moms—your enthusiasm, your recipes, and most of all…your friendship and love!

My mom—who taught me the value of a clean kitchen and how to do it. I love you!

My nana—now in heaven, Nana was the best cook I have ever known. She could make something out of next to nothing, and she made it look so easy. She taught me that leftovers were just the beginning of a feast!

Wilma—a special treasured friend of my heart, an amazing cook, and a fabulous hostess!

Bob and Emilie Barnes—love and encouragement come so naturally for you. Your friendship means everything to me. Thank you for helping me become a maker of my home!

And saving the best for last—my children, Nicholas and Terra. You make me believe I am the best cook on earth, and I love to cook for you. Terra Bug, you will always be my favorite tea party companion! I love you both with all my heart!

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword from Emilie Barnes

CHAPTER 1 What Drives Us to the Drive-Thru?

CHAPTER 2 There’s No Place Like Home

CHAPTER 3 What Is the Fast-Food Kitchen?

CHAPTER 4 Personalize Your Fast-Food Kitchen

CHAPTER 5 Double-Duty Cooking Is Twice As Good

CHAPTER 6 Menus by Design

CHAPTER 7 Creating Little Helpers

CHAPTER 8 How to Save Money at the Grocery Store

CHAPTER 9 Your Most Important Piece of Furniture

CHAPTER 10 Fast-Food with Friends

CHAPTER 11 Traditions to Nurture Family Togetherness

My Personal Fast-Food Kitchen Goals Master Page

More than 100 Fast-Food Kitchen Recipes

Weekly Menu Planner

My Fast-Food Kitchen Ideas and Recipe Notes

About the Author

Foreword

Emilie Barnes

Iam delighted to have the opportunity to write the foreword for this book. As the founder of More Hours in My Day, I have had the privilege of meeting many women over the years who have testified how this ministry has changed their lives, but none more so than my sweet friend, Sheri Torelli. Sheri and I met in 1981 at one of my very early seminars. She was a reluctant attendee. She simply came to try to squeeze out the few extra hours in her day that she desperately needed. As a young wife and new mother, she was drowning in clutter and a disorganized home. Sheri became my star student! With her teachable spirit and desire to attain a level of simple organization and welcome in her home, she devoured everything I was teaching.

In the early years, Sheri edited many of our books, and as she typed our manuscripts, she was absorbing what she was reading. Many times she would try something in the book and find that it was not only very simple and easy to implement, but when it was applied, it was making a huge difference in her home and with her family. As she worked hard at becoming a maker of her home, it was not too long before others began to notice the changes.

In 1999, she began teaching seminars and traveling around Southern California and across the country, sharing what she had learned to women who were struggling as she had struggled. The principles were the same, but the stories were unique—shared from a heart that longed to see women encouraged and changed to become true makers of their own homes, whether they were stay-at-home, working out-of-home, or single women and mothers.

Today, one of the areas Sheri sees women struggling with is in the preparation of meals at home for their families. Eating out in restaurants and fast-food establishments instead of gathering around the dining room table has become commonplace, and it’s almost an everyday occurrence. She recognized the need to encourage women to see the value and worth of time and energy spent in the kitchen and at the dinner table. With encouragement and help from her husband, Tim, she began formulating an idea that would provide the necessary tools and ideas to make getting back into the kitchen something to look forward to instead of dreading. And The Fast-Food Kitchen idea was born.

Though this book has an amazing collection of simple and delicious recipes, it is not just another cookbook. More than that, it is a book that will motivate you to personalize and utilize your kitchen, embrace methods of cooking meals that make life easier and better, and encourage your family to gather at the table more often.

Sheri shares her life-changing ideas with a realistic perspective. She fully understands the time constraints busy women and mothers face today. As you read through the pages, her ideas, recipes, tips, and stories—laced with humor and love—will encourage and delight you as you work to create a home environment that says, Welcome home, my family. You are deeply loved!

Emilie Barnes

Founder of More Hours in My Day and bestselling author of more than 90 books, including 101 Ways to Clean Out the Clutter and If Teacups Could Talk

Chapter 1

What Drives Us

to the Drive-Thru?

On this particular day, I was not thinking about how I should spend time in the kitchen or how I should change where and how my family was eating. Life was busy. My family’s needs were my priority. I was juggling appointments, games, events, and regular visits to the store for everything from toilet paper to school supplies. Everything I did was in my family’s best interest.

At least that’s what I believed.

But on this day, as I was steering our car in the direction of our regular fast-food stop on the way to another activity, my daughter asked—no, begged—me not to have us eat out again. She just wanted a meal made and eaten at home. She was eight years old! I would like to tell you I was immediately ashamed and turned the car around to head home, but I can’t, and I didn’t. After all, for years I had bought into and relied upon the big lie that this lifestyle of eating out, eating on the run, and avoiding sit-down meals was the way to survive and thrive in the contemporary life. The pull of convenience and the inertia of survival mode were too much for me to halt in that one moment.

Had someone asked me why we were defaulting to drive-thru so much, I would’ve said that it is easier, quicker, and more economical to buy dinner than to prepare it at home. I started participating in the fast-food phenomenon. When my husband, Tim, was working as a fireman, he would be on duty for 24, 48, or sometimes 72 hours at a time. I often felt like a single mother. I had two young children, and on top of that, they were picky eaters. So I decided that it was much easier and cheaper to grab a Happy Meal (with the promise of a special toy surprise) and eat at the restaurant or in the car—no dishes and especially no whining. But it went beyond normal. Before I knew it, I was taking the kids to eat out for breakfast before school, I would grab some lunch in the drive-thru several times a week, and dinner would be fast-food most nights when Tim was on duty.

But on that day when Terra very wisely expressed her heart’s simple desire, the seed for change was planted in my mind and heart. It didn’t happen overnight. Old and bad habits die slowly. It was not until I acknowledged that I was wasting precious time, money, and family togetherness that changes began to occur for my family.

It took several months to incorporate manageable changes and then a couple years to perfect what I now call my fast-food kitchen. My energy goes toward healthier choices, faster meals (believe it or not), and investing in my family by providing a way for us to gather together now and then for meals. I thought this change would be impossible. And I thought that it was all about getting away from the fast-food establishments. But I was wrong. The small, simple steps that you and I will walk through together in this book are clearly about going toward a better way of living and caring for the family.

As much as I’ve always wanted to be a good steward of our family’s resources of time, money, abilities, and provisions, I can honestly say that I’ve only been able to embrace this lifestyle improvement because it is so doable. There are many great reasons to start this, and many more reasons to keep doing it will emerge once you start.

To know that you can incorporate changes over time is such a relief. When I started this, nobody was timing me, scrutinizing me, or demanding that I become an apron-clad heroine. If that pressure had been there, I would’ve thrown up my hands in exasperation and given up. But the journey was rewarding right away, and it was a pleasure. My perspective and that of my family transformed significantly in those beginning weeks and months. That’s all the motivation I needed to keep refining ways to make eating homemade meals a part of our busy lifestyle.

That’s why I’m excited to share with you the tricks I have learned so that you can bypass those initial weeks when I was floundering a bit. Now you and I can walk step-by-step through these simple ideas and transform how you buy groceries, think of cooking, view mealtime, and truly support your family’s best interests.

Why It’s Time for the Fast-Food Kitchen

A fast-food kitchen is a homemade version of fast food in the sense that it is about efficiency, accommodating your family’s needs, embracing your own preferences and style, and offering meal and snack choices for a family on the go. It won’t slow you down, but it will shift how and where you spend your time and money. Instead of getting in the car yet again and driving that same stretch of road to the exit where you pull up to the window and place your order, you can walk up to your fridge, your cupboard, or your freezer and make your menu selection. You can eat at home before you go, or you can often take items with you if need be. That’s flexibility at its best. And isn’t that what we’re craving to begin with? Isn’t that probably what drove us to the drive-thru?

Make this your very own experiment and enjoy the foundation of ideas, suggestions, and proven methods that I provide. I keep the information brief and doable, and I present enough direction so you don’t spend hours over the stove or with the cupboards and freezer open, scratching your head as you try to come up with something for the family to eat. It isn’t like that at all. Once you have a few fast-food kitchen practices in place, you’ll wonder how and why we ended up at the drive-thru window instead of our dining room window to begin with?

Along the way, you’ll discover that a fast-food kitchen saves the family lots of time, energy, and money. These vital factors are no longer wasted but are considered of value…enough value to preserve and use wisely. Your time is important. Your energy is what often inspires the rest of the family. And your family’s money…well, we can all relate to the need to save some dollars these days. Why should you pay for paper wrappings, disposable cups, and white bags that hold your burger for about one minute, the time it takes your ten year-old to open it and dig out the fries? When we dine out, we pay not only for food and service, but for marketing, sales, promotions, and national visibility (if you visit a fast-food chain). Those dollars would be better spent on your child’s college fund, your medical bills, food to stock your shelves and freezer, and family times of pleasure (vacations, family night activities, or membership to the local pool or community center).

Who knew that small steps would lead to such a big shift toward better living? I know it now, and I can’t wait for you to discover all of these things for yourself. You’ll be amazed how a few decisions up front will create a domino effect of goodness. And I don’t mean Domino’s Pizza!

But I’m Busy…Can I Do This?

If I can do this, you can do this. And that’s not just cheerleader talk. The ideas are practical and easy to implement. Once you rediscover the joys of sitting down together around the dining room table, you too will become a true believer in the fast-food kitchen. It is my hope to start a revolution of sorts—getting women excited about returning to the kitchen. As we take simple steps together, you’ll be able to design a plan of action that will give you the time you desire