A holiday meal is typically an occasion for breaking bread and sharing the hearth with our family, friends and community.

While not everyone wants to cook for an army during the holidays, there is still something about having a traditional holiday meal that evokes a feeling of celebration and custom. It’s not only the combination of foods particular to that holiday ritual that feeds the senses, but also the likelihood that the event offered an opportunity to share the workload increases the bonds of kinship and friendship.

For those passing a holiday alone or with one other rather than a crowd, there can be a sense of deprivation with the loss of the opportunity to partake in the traditional feast of the season of turkey, cranberries and sweet potatoes.

Here is a great solution to getting the meal with all the trimmings without spending hours and hours in the kitchen or facing a week of leftovers. Because it is an “infused one-pot meal,” each ingredient maintains its integrity during the cooking process and emerges separate, intact and infused with flavor, rather than merged into a stew or slab as with more familiar types of one-pot meals.

Best yet, you can spend a pleasant half hour or less in the kitchen with your dining companion while you wash, chop and layer the ingredients into the pot. Preparing food offers a great opportunity to chat across the cutting board and gives you each ownership for the holiday dinner success.

Just 45 minutes later, when sitting down to eat together, toast each other, toast the holiday and toast the easy answer to holiday dining: an infused one-pot meal.

One-Pot Thanksgiving Dinner
2 servings

Ingredients
1/2-3/4 lb. turkey tenderloin or boneless breast filets
1/3 cup whole cranberries, fresh or frozen
1/3 cup orange marmalade
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 dash white pepper
1/3 cup shelled walnuts
8-10 pearl onions, peeled, halved
1 med. sweet potato or yam, scrubbed, 1/4″ slices
2 cups broccoli florets

Instructions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Spray inside of 2-quart cast iron Dutch oven and lid with canola oil.

Set turkey pieces into base in a single layer, trying not to overlap pieces as much as possible. Lightly sprinkle with salt.

In a food processor or blender, pulse cranberries using chopping blade (shaped like a backwards “S”) until berries are in large chunks. Add marmalade, lemon juice and white pepper and pulse two or three times to mix together. Pour in walnuts and continue to pulse until walnuts are roughly chopped and you have a thick, rocky paste.

Drop spoonfuls of cranberry paste onto turkey pieces until only about half is left. Toss in onions and layer in sweet potato slices. Again, lightly salt. Cover with rest of cranberry paste. Top with broccoli florets.

Cover and bake for about 40 minutes. You’ll know it’s ready 3 minutes after the aroma of a finished meal escapes your oven.

Notes
In a pinch, substitute pulpy orange juice for the orange marmalade. You’ll just end up with more “gravy” at the bottom of the pot to spoon over the food when serving. 1/4 cup broth added to the cranberry-walnut paste will also increase the amount of gravy.

The turkey, cranberries and broccoli can all be used fresh or frozen (without thawing) and it won’t change your cooking time or most things about your meal, though realize that frozen broccoli tends to emerge softer than fresh. The larger the broccoli pieces the crisper they will turn out at the end.

Add a kick to your meal with 1 fresh or roasted jalapeño pepper, destemmed, seeded and chopped.

The abundance of end-of-summer vegetables should be in the markets by now. Zucchinis and other summer squashes, carrots, potatoes… they all come into their own in the early fall.

Celebrate the season with hearty, nutritious meals brimming with veggies. Try this infused one-pot meal that includes summer squash, bell peppers and tomatoes in a savory Italian recipe. It’s a quick and easy way to throw a weeknight meal together that even works if you use frozen boneless chicken pieces instead of fresh, as long as the pieces aren’t frozen together.

Feel free to substitute different vegetables into the mix; just try to exchange a green veggie for another green veggie, a yellow for a yellow, etc. to ensure a variety of nutrients in your meal.

Chicken Cacciatore

Servings: 4

>Ingredients
1/2 med. onion, sliced thinly and separated
1 28-oz. can tomatoes, chop, strain, and save juice
1 tsp. each dried basil, oregano, and marjoram
2 cups orzo *
4 pieces chicken, bone-in or boneless, fresh or frozen
salt and pepper, to taste
6-10 garlic cloves, peeled & chopped
1 sm. yellow squash, diagonal slices
1 sm. zucchini, sliced into medallions
1 sm. green pepper, julienne cut
1 sm. red pepper, julienne cut
2 Tbsp. Drained capers, optional

Instructions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Spray the inside of a 3 1/2 or 4-quart cast iron Dutch oven and lid with olive oil.

Place onions in a layer inside the base of the pot. Drain tomatoes and reserve liquid. In a large measuring cup or a medium bowl, mix tomato juice with herbs and water as needed to make 2 cups of liquid. Set 1/2 cup of herbed liquid aside. Sprinkle the orzo into the pot among the onion slices. Add the herbed liquid evenly across the base.

Place chicken atop orzo. Lightly salt and pepper. Sprinkle with garlic. Place chopped and drained tomatoes over chicken. Pile in all other veggies in layers, beginning with squash. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour saved herbed liquid over all.

Cover and bake for 53 minutes, or until 3 minutes after the aroma wafts from the oven. Be sure that the chicken is completely cooked before eating any ingredients from the pot.

Notes
*Orzo is rice-shaped pasta. Butterfly or bowtie pasta also work well in this meal.

“Mom, is that real food?” my son asked, pointing at the sugary, highly-commercialized cereal advertised on TV. “Can I have it?”

At 4, he knows that we only allow “real” food in our house; that is food that is either directly from the earth or animal, or minimally-processed with quality ingredients. If it’s locally-sourced and organic, even better.

Personally, I like to be able to identify every item on a label before deciding if it is safe enough to feed my family.

The recent tainted pet food scandal should have alerted us to the fact that not everything in our processed foods may be safe for consumption. Not only are many of our food additives imported from overseas, but they are largely unregulated and may have mysterious origins. We fool ourselves if we believe that this is only a concern in pet food

Trans fats, artificial sweeteners and petroleum products are just some of the health-jeopardizing ingredients found in our most familiar packaged foods.

Steve Ettlinger, author of Twinkie Deconstructed, traced three of the ingredients in the snackcake to Chinese petroleum products. Not that Twinkies claim to promote health, of course, but it’s a warning as to the state of our conventional processed food industry as a whole.

How can we be sure our food is safe? Look for pronounceable ingredients, sustainably-grown produce and meats, and eat more real foods!

Here is an easy summer recipe that’s a great alternative to a frozen entrée.

Lemon-Rosemary Salmon
Serves 4

• 10-15 red boiler potatoes, sliced thickly
• Sea salt and pepper to taste
• 1 lb-1 1/2 lb salmon fillets
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• 2 pinches lemon rind
• 1 large yellow crookneck squash
• 15-20 mushrooms, sliced thickly
• 15-20 stalks thick asparagus
• 3-4 sprigs rosemary

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Spray inside of 3 1/2- or 4-quart cast iron Dutch oven and lid with olive oil. Set slices of potato in a thick layer in base of pot and season lightly with salt and pepper. Lay salmon in next. Spray or drizzle olive oil on the salmon; then sprinkle fish with lemon rind.

Trim top and bottom off of squash and cut it into wedges like a pizza. Toss squash into pot and follow with mushrooms. Snap bottoms off of asparagus and set the stalks in next. Top with rosemary sprigs.

Cover and bake for about 30 minutes, or about 3 minutes after the aroma of a fully-cooked meal wafts from the oven. Remove rosemary before serving.

Nutritional Analysis

Cal 276
Prot 27g
Carb 22g
Fat 9g
Chol 62mg
Sod 58mg
Fib 2g

Believe it or not, today’s mothers spend more hours focused on their children than the mothers of the 1960s did. While we like to hark back to the Leave It To Beaver halcyon days of mothers greeting kids after school with milk and cookies as an ideal for raising happy children, the reality, according to a University of Maryland study, actually looks better these days.

Based on detailed time diaries kept by thousands of Americans, mothers in 1965 spent 10.2 hours a week focused on their children in activities such as reading with them, feeding them or playing games. While the number of hours dropped in the 1970s and 80s, it began rising in the 90s and is now higher than ever at almost 14.1 hours each week.

But ask those same moms how they feel about it, and at least half will say they don’t have enough time with their kids.

The study shows how these extra hours spent with kids have been stolen from time spent on housework, cooking, meal cleanup and laundry. Oh, and sleep!

What I found most interesting was that moms almost halved the time they spent in cooking and meal cleanup. Unfortunately, this might suggest that we’re relying more on take-out, fast food or prepackaged frozen meals. Along with the cost of convenience, we’re also paying for undesirable amounts of sodium, additives, fats and calories.

I firmly believe that meals don’t have to be time-consuming to be healthy; that you don’t have to face an hour of cleanup after dinner in order to serve delicious, home-cooked food.

Here is a quick and easy kid-friendly recipe that can be easily adjusted for using fresh or frozen foods, depending on your rush level and how recently you’ve been to the grocery store. Regardless, you can feel good about serving it, and it won’t eat up important time better spent with your kids!

Garlic Fish and Potatoes
Serves 4

• 16 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole
• 1 – 1 1/2 lb. filets of white fish, such as flounder, tilapia or sole fresh or frozen
• 2 russet potatoes or 16 oz. frozen hash browns (loose, not in patties)
• 4 cups broccoli florets, fresh or frozen
• 4 cups corn kernels, fresh or frozen
• 2 cups sliced carrots, fresh or frozen
• Sea salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Spray inside of 3 1/2- or 4-quart cast iron Dutch oven and lid with olive oil.

Drop whole, peeled garlic cloves into Dutch oven. Scrub and cube potatoes and place in pot; or shake frozen hash browns in (break apart hash browns so that they are not frozen in a single mound). Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and pepper, if desired. Set fish filets in next, in a single layer as much as possible. With thinner filets, it is ok to have multiple layers as long as the filets are not frozen to each other. I find it easy to separate frozen fish filets using the tip of a knife as a lever and applying a little pressure.

Tuck carrots into the crevices and follow with corn and broccoli until pot is full. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and pepper.

Cover and bake for 40-53 minutes, depending upon the thickness of the fish. Note: using frozen foods WON’T necessarily increase cooking time! You’ll know its ready 3 minutes after the aroma of a fully cooked meal wafts from the oven.

Notes
Your kids won’t eat fish? Although the fish species suggested here are very mild flavored and a great way to introduce more fish to non-fish-eaters, try substituting 4 pieces of chicken for a different meal.

Don’t be nervous about the amount of garlic! Although it may seem like a lot, when the cloves are left whole they impart a milder, nutty flavor.

Nutritional Analysis per serving, based on 2 servings and using flounder, fresh potato and carrots and frozen corn and broccoli.
Calories 326
Protein 33g
Carbs 53g
Fat 2.8g
Cholesterol 54mg
Sodium 150mg
Fiber 11g

Elizabeth Yarnell is the inventor and author of Glorious One-Pot Meals: A new quick & healthy approach to Dutch oven cooking. Visit www.gloriousonepotmeals.com for more information on this unique, patented cooking method and to sign up for Elizabeth’s newsletter.

Stephanie, a vice president for a venture capital firm in Denver, makes it a priority to get home in time to have a family meal with her husband and 1-year old son.

“I put a lot of energy into my job and then I get into my car at 5pm and realize that I have no idea what I’m going to feed three people for dinner in an hour,” she says. “That’s when a one-pot meal is just perfect.”

One-pot meals can be the solution to quick and easy cooking when no one really has the time to cook. While one-pot meals come in various forms, they all have the common concept of putting a variety of ingredients into a single vessel and cooking them all together. There’s no fretting about getting the timing right so that your broccoli is perfectly steamed at the same time as the pot roast comes out of the oven medium-rare and the rice is ready to fluff, which is a boon for all those who aren’t wizards at culinary planning. And, perhaps best of all, rather than a sink full of dirty pots and pans to scrub after dinner, there is only one pot to clean.

One-pot meals include everything from light stir-fries to hearty skillet meals to heavy casseroles made with cans condensed cream-of soup. Typically each forkful contains a little of each ingredient in the meal, whether it’s in a slab form or bite-sized pieces. Crock-pot cooking, where all the ingredients are placed in a crock-pot along with some liquid and then simmered at a very low heat for 6-8 hours until everything has disintegrated into a stew, is another popular method of creating of one-pot meals.

The only downside to each of these methods is that they are usually not a complete and balanced meal in and of themselves. Since the definition of a complete, healthy meal includes protein, carbohydrates and vegetables, stir-fries are typically served with rice, skillet meals with pasta, casseroles with a salad, and crock-pot stews with bread.

Infuse it
To have a truly complete and balanced one-pot meal consider “infusion” cooking. Infused one-pot meals are made by layering whole foods into a closed container– either a foil or parchment pouch or a cast iron Dutch oven—and then baking the container in the oven at a very high heat for under an hour. These dinners can contain everything needed for a full and balanced one-pot meal without having to prepare rice or a salad separately.

Low in fat and high in nutrition, almost any ingredients can be added to an infused one-pot meal to meet personal dietary preferences. Infused one-pot meals prepared in a Dutch oven can even accept frozen elements without any change in cooking time or flavor.

“I love that I can make my infused one-pot meal up in advance,” enthuses Stephanie. “I put it all together in the morning, keep it in the fridge, and then pop it directly into the pre-heated oven when I get home from work. Instead of fussing over a hot stove, I get to play with my kid while our dinner cooks. And they’re so healthy and tasty that my husband loves them too!”

For the answer to the age-old question of “What’s for dinner?” consider an infused one-pot meal for a healthy, quick and easy way to feed your busy family. Here is a great recipe to get you started!

California Chicken

Servings: 2

Ingredients

1/2 cup cous cous, dry
2-3 pieces chicken
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. lemon pepper
1 avocado, firm-ripe
2 tomatoes, cored, wedges
1/2 green bell pepper, seeded, cut in wedges
1/2 cup olives, small, ripe, pitted, sliced
1/2 onion, chopped
1 tsp. celery salt
1/4 tsp. basil, dried
1/4 tsp. marjoram, dried
1 Tbsp. dry sherry
1 Tbsp. lemon juice

Instructions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Spray the inside of a 2-quart cast iron Dutch oven and the lid with olive oil.

Pour dry couscous into pot. Add 1/2 cup water and evenly distribute grains across bottom. Arrange the chicken atop the couscous. Season lightly with salt and lemon pepper.

Add layers of green peppers, tomatoes and olives. Again, season lightly with salt and lemon pepper.

Halve, pit and peel the avocado. Then, layer it in slices or cubes on top of everything. In a small bowl, combine the onion, celery salt, basil, marjoram, sherry, and lemon juice and pour into pot over everything.

Cover and bake for 45 minutes.

Tips
Be certain that your oven temperature is accurate and your oven is fully pre-heated before putting the pot inside it. An oven thermometer can help ensure your oven is on target.

For light and fluffy couscous, fluff it with a fork when serving and let sit for a few minutes before eating.

Per serving:
Cal 566
Pro 36g
Carb 54g
Fat 24g
Chol 75 mg
Sod 1465 mg*
Fiber 11g

*More than half of the sodium in this recipe comes from the celery salt. To reduce the sodium, omit the celery salt and add one sliced rib of celery at the same time as the green pepper. This will bring the sodium down to 683 mg.

About the author: Elizabeth Yarnell is a Certified Nutritional Consultant and the author of Glorious One-Pot Meals: A new quick & healthy approach to Dutch oven cooking, a guide to a guide to preparing quick, healthy and balanced one-pot meals. Visit Elizabeth online at www.GloriousOnePotMeals.com to subscribe to her free newsletter. The Glorious One-Pot Meal cooking method is unique and holds US patent 6,846,504.