I challenge anyone to name a faster homemade meal than this one. (Cereal doesn’t count.)
I had a head start with a roasted sweet potato, so I’ll allow that exception. W and I make banana bread often — a simple recipe where W mashes banana, sugar, oil and eggs with a potato masher, adds the dry ingredients, stirs, pours the batter into a pan and bakes. Recently it felt wasteful to run the oven for a single loaf, so I wrapped a sweet potato and a head of garlic in foil and popped them in at the same time. They roasted for about an hour while the banana bread baked. Both the sweet potato and the roasted garlic keep well in the fridge for up to a week.
Roasted sweet potatoes are ideal for mashing: they have concentrated flavor, retain nutrients (none lost to boiling water), and the skins slip off almost by themselves when they come out of the oven. I mashed mine with a small pat of butter and a splash of orange juice, and that was ready in moments.
For the protein I used leftover glaze from an Easter ham — equal parts balsamic vinegar, brown sugar and grainy mustard — and bought a salmon fillet to make use of it. I lined a sheet with foil to avoid sticky cleanup, poured the glaze over the salmon, and preheated the oven to 400°F. You can substitute other sauces if you prefer: basil or sundried tomato pesto, teriyaki, or even barbecue sauce all work well.
I trimmed the asparagus and mixed 1 tablespoon of sugar (white or brown) into 2 tablespoons of soy sauce for a quick glaze. I heated a splash of sesame oil in a pan over medium-high heat, set the table (yes, our “setting the table” is three forks from the drawer and three glasses of water), and tossed the asparagus in the hot pan for a minute or two. Then I added snap peas for another minute, turned off the heat, and poured the sweetened soy over the vegetables. A sprinkle of sesame seeds finished them off.
The salmon went into the oven and came out shortly after. As a rule of thumb, salmon cooks about 10 minutes per inch of thickness, so a typical fillet is done in roughly 10 minutes.
Total active time: 8 minutes. I know because the timer was on — it didn’t just feel fast.
Compare that to battered frozen fish fillets that claim convenience but take far longer from oven to table. This fresh, simple approach is quicker and tastier.
One Year Ago: Crabcakes Benedict (with classic hollandaise and a lightened version!)
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