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“Go To Meals” – Part 2

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Easy Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup

Hi!  Elizabeth here.  I’m calling this post “Go-To Meals” Part 2.  Anna shared her family’s “go-to meals” in her post last week.  Read it here.  I’m definitely adopting their yearly tradition–Anna, Dan and their children spend some time on their car trip home from visiting Dan’s parents for New Years to talk about what meals they’ve been eating during the year.   Anna writes down the list so she can refer to it during the year. I just love this idea! I also love the way Anna and Dan divided the list into categories that made complete sense to me. Some of my “Go-To Meals” might fall into Anna and Dan’s Standard Meals.  A good example that everyone’s meals and how they approach food are different.

My family’s current “go-to meals”  

There are definitely some that have fallen off the list over the years.  I plan to bring them back into our rotation and share them with you in a future post.

Meals don’t have to be complicated to be nourishing or to provide an opportunity to gather together to eat.

What does this list tell me?  That I rely A LOT on broccoli and salad as sides.  Perhaps it’s time to branch out a bit!? I’m going to refer to Anna’s post here on simple sides when I’m planning meals over the coming weeks.

One of My Family’s “Go-To Meals”: Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup

Everyone in my house likes a version of this soup.

My 11 year old, Ellie, only likes the broth.  The bowl she serves herself is often mostly broth with just a few beans.  Caroline, my 14 year old, loves this soup except for the kale. The bowl she serves herself is typically the complete opposite of Ellie’s bowl.  Caroline loves the beans and prefers less broth. I don’t worry that neither likes the kale. The kale cooks in the broth, so some of the nutrients from the kale find their way into the tasty, parmesan infused broth.  And eventually, they might end up trying the kale again.

I’ve made this soup for years.  It’s inspired by/adapted from a pasta recipe, Orecchiette with Shell Beans, Proscuitto, and Parmigiano-Reggiano in Alfred Portale Simple Pleasures: Home Cooking from the Gotham Bar and Grill’s Acclaimed Chef.

It’s quick and easy.  And I typically have the ingredients on hand.  It can truly be made in 30 minutes!

Easy Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup

At some point, I decided to change the recipe up a bit.  I began adding a lot more broth, a hunk of parmesan cheese (this gives the broth a lovely rich flavor), and black eyed peas.  

And it slowly transformed into soup, rather than a sauce for pasta.

Sometimes, I serve this over polenta–not as a “go-to meal” though!  Served over polenta is a great option for a nice dinner and it’s great for a crowd, too.   During a few Christmases at Chad’s parents (there’s always a crowd), I made a big batch of the soup and served it over polenta along with a salad. Then we used the leftovers as soup for lunches.  

Here it is served over pasta.  I love serving it over orecchiette (which means little ears) pasta because the broth pools in the “little ear” shape.  I alternate between the three because we have one person in our foursome who doesn’t like polenta and one who prefers it as the stand-alone soup.    

If you’d like to make this without the bacon, I’d suggest adding fresh basil or a couple of tablespoons of pesto to the soup just before serving.

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Easy Bacon, Black Eyed Pea and Kale Soup

A great weeknight soup that doubles as a tasty ragu over pasta or polenta.  Serve it over polenta for a nice weekend or special occasion meal.

  • Author: Elizabeth Davenport
Scale

Ingredients

4 slices of bacon cut into small strips

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

3 cans black eyed peas, drained and rinsed

1 can white beans, drained and rinsed

3 cups chicken stock

2 cups water

1 2 x 3 inch hunk of parmesan cheese

1 1/2 cups frozen peas, thawed

2 cups kale, washed and torn

1 ½ teaspoon salt

pepper

Instructions

  1. Stack the 4 slices of bacon and cut into strips crosswise.  Place the bacon in a large pot over medium-medium low heat. Cook the bacon until it is crisped–about 10 minutes.
  2. While the bacon is cooking, peel and chop the garlic; drain and rinse the beans in a colander, and rinse and tear the kale; and cut off a piece of parmesan cheese.
  3. Once the bacon is crisp, add the chopped garlic and cook 2 minutes.  Next add the beans, stock, water, parmesan hunk and salt and pepper.
  4. Bring to a boil.  Then turn the heat down to medium and simmer the soup for about 15 minutes.  Next add the peas and kale and cook for about 5 more minutes.
  5. Serve as a soup or serve over pasta for a quick and easy tasty weeknight meal.  

 

Notes

For a weekend meal or for a large group, I sometimes serve it over polenta.

 

“Go To Meals” – Your Plan B

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Each year on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, my family takes a 9 hour car trip home to North Carolina from Ohio through the mountains of West Virginia. While the kids are watching movies in the back of the minivan, my husband and I usually talk about the coming weeks, months and year. It’s a moment of calm after the months of busyness leading up to the holidays. We review our calendars, work plans, childcare arrangements and often our conversation turns to what we want to be doing differently or better. This always seems to include the topic of food and cooking, something we both value but have to work hard at doing well. This year, as we were rounding the curves of the mountains, Dan suggested that we make a list of all of the dinners we like to make, because we tend to get in a rut. We make the same 4-5 meals over and over again, and forget about certain meals we used to enjoy. We thought if we could keep our list handy, right inside our pantry, then we could refer to it when we are meal planning and grocery shopping. (Get our simple meal planning template at the top of our home page.)

So, we pulled out my little anchor journal I have in my work bag and found that we made a similar list 365 days ago. It’s beginning to be a tradition, this time of year, to feel like we could be doing better with meal planning, but we keep working at it and haven’t given up yet.  The kids paused their movie, and we brainstormed all of the meals we like to make for dinner.

We divided the list into 4 categories:

  • Go-to Meals – Meals that we typically have the ingredients for and can make without planning and quickly
  • Make Ahead/Slow Cooker Meals – Meals we can make on the weekend to have during the week or put in the slow cooker on a weekday morning if we know there’s a busy evening
  • Standard Meals – Meals that require some planning and cooking, but I usually keep meals to 30 – 40 minutes tops
  • Special Occasion Meals – Meals that we like but we’d never make during the work week.
Pizza

In future posts, I’ll expand on each of these categories. To start, though, I think it’s important to have a list of “go to meals” that we usually have the ingredients for and are easy to get on the table in 15-20 minutes.  We are all so busy and juggling work, activities, trying to keep the house clean, school and appointments. It’s easy to fall into black and white thinking about dinners. Sometimes it feels like there are 2 options — either cook something with a recipe or we don’t have time, or haven’t planned, so we order take out. There’s a lot of gray area between these two examples. Having a list of “go to meals” can help you have an easy plan for busy nights, but also are great to turn to when your plan isn’t going to work for whatever reason. They are your Plan B. These aren’t gourmet meals, but meals that are nourishing and you can make at any moment and know you’ve put together a nourishing meal for you and/or your family.

black beans and rice

This is our list of  “Go To Meals:”

  • Tacos (with fruit and bagged kale slaw or veggies and dip)
  • Spaghetti and Frozen Meatballs (with a salad or broccoli)
  • Spaghetti Carbonara (with fruit or a salad)
  • TJs Mandarin Chicken (with broccoli and rice)
  • Boxed or stove top Mac and Cheese (with broccoli or fruit)
  • Pizza – We keep premade pizza shells in the pantry (add a salad or fruit)
  • Black Beans and Rice (add avocado if the stars align)
  • Frozen eggplant parmigiana (with salad or veggies and dip and pasta)
  • “Brinner” – toast or waffles, eggs and/or bacon/sausage, fruit
  • Ravioli (kept in the freezer) (with fruit or salad)
  • Quesadilla (with salsa and fruit)
  • Tomato Soup and grilled cheese (apple slices)
  • Nachos – We make ours with tortilla chips, shredded cheese, salsa, black beans, and leftover meat and avocado, if available

When I’m headed in the door at 5:30 pm with hungry kids and I’ve forgotten to put the food in the slow cooker, or I just don’t have the energy to make the meal that I planned, these are meals I can pull together quickly.  I think it’s helpful for anyone to have their list of “go to meals” so that we know we have a back up. Just knowing we have a Plan B can be reassuring. What are your family’s “go to meals?” Your list will be different than ours. Would it help to make a list so you know you have several nutritious meals to “go to” in a pinch?

Tomato Soup