When I got back from a trip I was too tired to put a lot of effort into making meals. I just set some beans and chickpeas to soak, and the next day I pressure-cooked them and also cooked a bit of quinoa, then put both in the fridge for later. With these ingredients I made four different meals:
- Nachos (dinner)
- Taco salad (dinner)
- Quinoa parsley salad (lunch)
- Bean stew (dinner)
Together with berrry salad (lunch) and cucumber with feta (lunch), this gave me three days of variation and enough food for the rest of the week. Of course I used other ingredients: kale, tomatoes, tortilla chips, lettuce, sweet peppers, feta, blueberries…but it all fit in one over-the-shoulder shopping bag. Just start with some versatile ingredients and it’s easy to come up with half a dozen different dishes with minimal effort if you have a few things in the pantry, fridge and garden (pasta, corn kernels, olives, spices, cheese) as well. Aside from the taco salad and nachos, there weren’t similarities in flavour, either.