Confessions of a Scratch Cook: “I Serve My Kids FAST Food.”

Photo: EmilyWJones

In our home, both parents work crazy hours and our teens juggle heavy homework, sports, music and far more exciting social lives than me or my husband. Busy as we are, our family somehow manages to gather around the table regularly for home-cooked meals.

In our own way.

Not Getting Things Done

If you’re like me, you haven’t yet achieved the—I believe mythical—work-family balance.

Not that you don’t try—with online organizers, paper calendars, white boards, Post its and Blackberries or Iphones that would beg for mercy if their overloaded microcircuits could speak.

You organize. You plan. You list to-dos. But no matter how you categorize and commit to Getting Things Done, they don’t.

Things Don’t Get Done. Things like dinner.

The busier you are the more you need home-cooked comfort food

We’re all busy. Too busy. Too busy to gather as a family for home-cooked meals.

And that’s why I’m committed to gathering my family for home-cooked meals.

And that’s why with humility I reveal my dirty little secret.

I don’t cook from scratch every night.

It’s impossible—okay—it’s very, very hard—to define work-family boundaries when your office is in your home.

Theoretically, you should be able to interweave professional tasks and household chores, including meal prep.

I can’t. Especially around deadlines.

Home office + deadline = physical, mental, emotional meltdown

If you freelance, run your own business or have deadline-driven parenting commitments, you know how it is.

No matter how well you plan, the count-down days to deadline—or launch or event or whatever—are tortuous and bleary.

You wear the same black pull-on pants and turtleneck—or t-shirt depending on the season—for five days straight.

You don’t shower and your hair forms dreadlocks.

You cram in work before the kids wake up. You squeeze in a few hours after they go to sleep.

You race to your desk as soon as they’re out the door for school. If they’re pre-schoolers, you let them watch DVDs—even if you’re a semi-Luddite, no-tech Waldorf parent. If they’re teens you let them wander off to all-night reggae festivals in the city.

You don’t cook big family dinners. Sometimes you don’t cook.

And you feel lousy about it.

Because the whole reason you decided to work from home was to share more time with your family.

Now there’s help.

Homey family meals with Flash Almost-Scratch Tasty (FAST) recipes

Admittedly many scratch meals can be quickly prepared—see my Under 30-Minute Dinner Recipes. But sometimes you don’t have 30 minutes.

Or—more often—you don’t have the energy or desire to lift a knife or haul out the food processor.

That’s when I serve FAST—Flash Almost-Scratch Tasty—food.

FAST food uses one or two convenience ingredients that don’t officially qualify as hardcore scratch—like jarred chunky marinara, store-bought pizza dough or bottled lemon juice.

I’m the first to admit it’s a compromise. But it’s one I’m willing to make to enjoy a delicious, body and soul nourishing meal with my family.

5 components of Copywriters’ Kitchen FAST food

In order to meet Copywriters’ Kitchen’s stringent nutritional and gustatory criteria, FAST food recipes must:

• Go from stove to table in 20 minutes or less
• Use only a few convenience ingredients: no Hamburger Helper or Kool Whip allowed
• Require no exotic “I’ll-just-run-out-to-Whole Foods-for-organic-lemon-grass” ingredients
• Please palates of all family members—young and old
• Require minimal clean-up

Today’s recipe, FAST Penne Alla Vodka, easily meets all Copywriters’ Kitchen’s FAST food requirements. Basically four ingredients, this sauce is ready to go as soon as your pasta is cooked.

Note on pasta: Penne is perfect with this soupy sauce, but Alla Vodka sauce is also delicious on other pastas. If you’re incredibly pressed for time, use angel hair pasta. It cooks up in 3-5 minutes.

This recipe takes 15-20 minutes from start to finish.

N.B. My thanks to reader Madeline Shores for her comments on this recipe—I adjusted proportions since the original post.

FAST Penne Alla Vodka

1 26-28 ounce can or jar of good quality chunky marinara
1/4 cup vodka
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2-3/4 cup Parmesan
1/4-1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/2 teaspoon oregano (optional)
2 tablespoon Demerara or other sugar (optional)
1 pound penne or other pasta

1. Fill a pasta pot with cold water and a teaspoon of salt. Cover and turn up to highest flame.
2. In a high-sided saucepan mix marinara, vodka, red pepper and oregano, if desired. (The pan needs high sides because speedy cooking requires a quick simmer and the sauce spatters.) If your children adore sweeter pasta sauce, add Demerara or other sugar. Not familiar with Demerara sugar? Read my plaudit to this sugar-of-the-gods here. And if your jarred marinara looks very thick—Trader Joe’s Tuscan Marinara Sauce, my favorite, is very thick—add 1/4 cup water so sauce can cook down and still be soupy.
3. Cover pan and bring sauce to a simmer. Remove lid and briskly simmer sauce at least 15 minutes—or until pasta is cooked.
4. When water boils, add pasta and cook until al dente.
5. Just before pasta is cooked, turn off sauce and stir in cream and Parmesan, see photo below. If you’re still waiting for the pasta to finish, you may leave the sauce on the lowest flame to stay warm. Do not let it simmer or the cream will curdle.



6. Drain pasta then put it back into the pasta pot. Pour Alla Vodka sauce over the pasta and toss. The pasta will be deliciously soupy.
7. Spoon pasta into a pasta platter and serve immediately. Pass extra cheese at table.

Serves 6 generously.