When I was a working mom with teen-agers needing to be fed, I devised a highly organized system for managing the food supply.
I'd sit down and make dinner menus for two weeks, develop a shopping list, shop once, post the menus, and assign dinner tasks (including cooking, salad making, table setting, and dish washing and drying) on a rotating basis. It worked great.
Then the kids dispersed and I found myself with no one to organize, and no one but myself to feed. I became the "queen of quick." I could throw together high-nutrition, low-impact meals in no time. Food was just fuel. That also worked great.
I'm getting a little more demanding now, even though I'm busier than ever. I started remembering that I like to cook, and I miss the satisfaction that comes from really great-tasting food.
So now I'm doing a rather eclectic balancing act, juggling fuel nights, quick-but-good nights, and some weekend and special occasion cooking. This works great, too.
One night a week, I go directly from work to school with just a few minutes for some brown-bag energy. My standby is a granola bar, a carton of low-fat chocolate milk, and a box of raisins or fresh fruit. This clearly is just fuel. Its advantage: it fits comfortably within healthy guidelines (390 calories, 7 grams fat, 195 milligrams sodium), needs no refrigeration, and I can just toss it all into a bag, hassle-free.
One of my favorite "gourmet on the go" meals is linguine with white clam sauce. This meal is ready in 10 minutes, but flavorful enough to have taken hours.
I cook one-fourth of a package of fresh angel hair pasta for one minute and top it with one-fourth jar of Progresso white clam sauce. I decorate the plate with rings from a red or green bell pepper, add a slice of bread and a teaspoon of butter, then finish with a piece of succulent fresh fruit (515 calories, 12 grams fat).
The clam sauce surprises some people. We're always warned that red sauces are low-fat and white sauces are high-fat. But clam sauce is not a cream sauce: It's made with clam broth, white wine and just a kiss of olive oil.
Managing the clam sauce is a little bit tricky. It's not homogenous like tomato sauce, so you can't just pour it out of the jar.
If you want to experiment, empty the jar into a large measuring cup with a spout. Microwave about two minutes. Stir, then ladle some onto your pasta. Pour the rest back into the jar and refrigerate.
This weekend's long project (hour and a half) was salad-making for a potluck supper. I did all the usual washing and spinning of greens (spinach and red leaf lettuce) to get them dry. Then I wrapped them in paper towels and refrigerated them plastic bags. For color, I added super-thin circles of yellow squash, shreds of carrot, slivers of sweet red pepper, and shaves of red onion.
The secret ingredient was fresh herbs from the garden. Oregano, thyme, parsley and chives added subtle flavors. But fresh basil created a salad of distinction. Dressed with just a -- of extra virgin olive oil, a touch of balsamic vinegar, a few grinds of five-pepper mix and a pinch of salt, that salad will long linger as one to be remembered.
Colleen Pierre, a registered dietitian, is the nutrition consultant the the Union Memorial Sports Medicine Center and Vanderhorst & Associates in Baltimore.