Quick Recipes Please

Simple sabzi and dal with rice and raita. If you need roti try making in bulk on weekends and freezing or get from the Indian store.
For sabzi I use frozen vegetable mixes from the regular grocery store or tindora from the Indian store. No need to even defrost. Just heat oil in a large pan, splutter mustard seeds or add jeera as per your preference. Then add the vegetables, salt and spices. Dal can be cooked in the meantime. You can pressure cook and freeze dal ahead of time. Delegate chopping of a simple cucumber-tomato salad while this is getting ready. This should take 30 min or so.
Trader Joe's has a frozen ' vegetable melange' in a butter sauce, and frozen potatoes in garlic-Parmesan sauce. I will thrown in a pack of each into a hot pan. No extra oil needed, just salt and chili pepper.

 

If your in laws are the adventurous type then you can try making an Asian style stir-fry for variety. I always have a bag of frozen stir-fry vegetable blend from Costco. For protein you can use cubed firm tofu or chicken if you eat non-veg. I also add some canned baby corn. Fry in a large pan with a ready-made stir fry sauce, available in the Asian aisle of any grocery store. Adjust seasoning with salt, pepper and rice vinegar. I also drizzle some toasted sesame oil on top. Serve over white rice. This will take 20 min max.

 

@Users
checkout You tube- shruti's kitchen. Check out quick and easy recipes in the playlist Sruthiskitchen.
Her blog link for quick vegetarian recipes Vegetables » Sruthi's Kitchen

For busy working day, keep some prepped ingredient at hand- or in the fridge
In the refrigerator,
1. For a week, you can store ginger garlic paste and green chilly paste. Use within a week, if you can not spend time in making them fresh.
2. Pre cut vegetables ( cauliflower, cabbage, green beans, carrots, etc) and store in glass jars for 3-4 days.
3. Make a big batch of dosa or idli batter on weekend. Soak rice and udad dal ( 4:1) on Friday night, grind on Saturday morning, let it ferment in the oven with a light on for whole Saturday day and night, make dosa on Sunday. Batter can store very well for a week in the refrigerator.
4. On extremely busy weeks, I tend to make thick gravy paste, store it in glass jar and pour some olive oil over it. It helps me make gravy recipes for 3-4 nights in a working week.
5. Wash and chop salad, let it dry in the colander for 30 mins and put in glass 5 masor jars for 5 work weeks
6. Hard boil eggs and store for a week
7. Cooked lentils- chickpeas/ chole, black beans, rajma, sprouts. They stay good for 3-4 days. I normally soak them overnight on Friday. On Saturday morning, drain them and pressure cook. Let it get cold and store in glass jars.
8. Boil potatoes and store them for 3-4 days

Outside on the kitchen counter-top,
1. For breakfasts, keep zip log baggies for whole weeks breakfast ingredients-
- Upma- Dry roasted sooji, peanuts and curry
- oats and dry fruits baggies for whole week
- poha with dry roasted peanuts and curry leaves
- Daliya- dry roast
- Store fresh coriander in the glass jars to remember to use it

2. For nights, when you are planning to cook lentils/ rice/ roties/ parathas
- Keep rice baggies for the days- I used to cook rice 3 times a week. So I would keep 3 baggies for rice and dry spices on the kitchen counter for a week
- soak rice in the water before going to work
- Evening , pressure cook rice. If you have slow cooker, you can prepare rice/ pulav in it. Ask in-laws to switch on the slow cooker on low around 3-4 pm. By the time you come home ( around 6-7pm), rice/ pulav is ready.
- Same goes for atta for roties/ parathas. I measure the flour, add salt, prep for 5 days baggies ready to go in the food processor/ bread machine. After coming home, the first thing is to make dough in bread maker ( it takes 15-20 mins), until then put the tea on stove, get freshen up and relax for 10-15 mins before making dinner

3. One pan dishes,
- Pizza
- egg bhurji
- pulav
- khichadi
- kadhi
- tomato omelette

Tips-
1. Do not try to be perfect. Some days, you will be too tired to walk in the kitchen let alone cook. Give yourself a break and order in. Or make one pan dishes.
2. Ask for help. Remember, for in-laws we are super humans. We can work at home, outside home, teach kids, teach them, teach ourselves and do other gazillion tasks on our own. Break their hypothetical bubble and ask for help. If you will not ask, no one will help.
3. Let in-laws/ hubby help you with washing, peeling and cutting the meal ingredients during the week.
4. If possible, let them take over serving task. I keep my focus only on cooking at night. After that, I must take a break, relax, unwind and speak with my folks. running around from kitchen to dining is strictly minimal
5. Dishwasher gets loaded at night and unloaded in the morning. Dirty dishes directly go in the dishwasher thorughout the day.
6. Try to keep heavy cooking days to minimum. I prefer to make easy meals on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Then I save that energy, for cooking heavy meals on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
7. If you are comfortable, grocery shop online. It saves a tonne of time. Stop n shop, walmart, vitacost, target even costco is awesome for it. I generally ask hubby to pick groceries at the stores. Or get them delivered at home. In laws love to open boxes coming at the door step InLaws love costco trips, they do not mind spending whole day there. So that day is for just me. Music,movies, wine and my prep list for a week. Its a fun day!!
8. If MIL loves to take charge in the kitchen, let her --to some extent. If healthy food is not their cup of tea, take back the charge. Instead, let her handle the other things in the kitchen.
9. In-Law visits are anyway stressful, so I delegate most of the chores to my heart's content.
- Laundry- washing, drying, folding clothes (DH). Do not fret if few delicate clothes get ruined in the process. This is the learning time for DH
- Paper filing/ shredding/- FIL.
- Bathroom cleaning- giving turns to everyone in the house.
- Cooking- I can not ( better yet would not) cook non vegetarian food. so that day MIL/ DH take over kitchen and are responsible for cleaning the mess. That day I would ask DH to make egg curry and I cook breakfast items/ one pan dishes for dinner.
10. One day a week, mostly on weekend, we go out for meal if we are anyway out sightseeing with in-laws. If they do not like outside food, I pack lots of fruits/ snacks and ask for help in making parathas.

Most of the times, no amount of prep helps. We spend hours deciding where to go for dining out, some one or the other hates that place, don't want to eat anything there, do not want to eat food brought from home and the weekend gets really irritating. I try very hard to keep my sanity in check- when failed, get my share of wine at night in my room, enjoy a book and let them crib about how bad a DIL I am and how inefficient I am at home keeping. I try to laugh off and the countdown starts.

It has been 5 years and i am still not good at it. But it has gone way better than the first year. So remember
" DO not fret the small stuff and happy cooking!"

Good luck!

 

Hey ...outside does get spoiled in 2-3 days after opening ..try home made its nt very difficult you can find the procedure online as well..or I can pm u which ever u find easy.

If not as one of the OP's mentioned buy smaller packages