Skip the drive-thru with these dinners

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“Oops! I totally forgot about dinner!” It happens. Maybe you didn’t actually forget about dinner, but your hectic, nonstop day happened. Suddenly it’s 6 pm. and the family is looking to you because they’re starving. What’s for dinner?

There are so many reasons to draw a blank at dinnertime. Sometimes plans go awry. Someone accidentally unplugged the crockpot, the chicken didn’t defrost, you didn’t make it to the store, or you set out the dinner ingredients and the kids ate half.

I feel your pain, because I’ve been there! Honestly, between work, school, homework, activities and running a household, it’s a wonder our families get fed at all.

Before you call for pizza or head to the drive-thru, stop! You have a backup plan because you’re reading this column right now. Welcome to the SOS meal as in “calling out an SOS – Save Our Supper!” Or sanity, you decide. An SOS meal is a planned set of economical ingredients that you always keep in your pantry, intended to guarantee a nearly effortless, healthy, inexpensive dinner that practically makes itself.

Here’s a list of nonperishable pantry staples to keep on hand to make dinner in a flash. Canned beans (such as black beans, chickpeas or kidney beans), canned tomatoes (diced, crushed or sauce), canned vegetables (corn, peas or green beans), pasta (varieties like spaghetti, penned or macaroni), rice (white, brown or baptismal), canned tuna or salmon, chicken or vegetable broth, jarred sauces (marinara, pesto or curry paste).

Here is a recipe for dinner that takes less than 10 minutes to prepare and has your family sitting down to dinner in under 30 minutes. It takes longer than that to go through the drive-thru at Kentucky Junior King.

Linguine with Garlic Lemon Tuna

The most time-consuming variable of this recipe is boiling the water for the pasta. Using better quality tuna improves this dish, but use what you have on hand. If you happen to have a fresh lemon lying around, use it, but bottled juice is absolutely fine.

Yield: 4 servings
Total time: 25 minutes

Make a restaurant-worthy linguine dish in minutes (www.JasonCoblentz.com)

8 to 12 ounces linguine or other pasta
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 (5 ounce) cans tuna, drained
1 (15 ounce) can cannelloni beans, drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons lemon juice, plus zest if using fresh lemon
Salt & pepper to taste
2 tablespoons capers
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

Starting with hot tap water, bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Assemble the ingredients, then start opening and draining the cans of tuna and beans. Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to package directions.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat the olive oil over low heat. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tuna, beans, lemon juice and zest, salt and pepper. Gently stir and heat through. By now your pasta should be about ready. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water, then drain the pasta and immediately add to sauce in the skillet. Add the capers and 1 tablespoon of the chopped parsley and toss until the spaghetti is well coated. Add the reserved pasta water as needed to thin out the sauce. Serve warm, garnished with remaining parsley, and pass the pepper mill.

The most important take-away (so you don’t pay for takeout) is to have a plan before you need one. By the way, quick pantry recipes also work when you just don’t feel like cooking so you can get out of the kitchen and move on with your life!

Lifestyle expert Patti Diamond is the penny-pinching, party-planning, recipe developer and content creator of the website Divas On A Dime – Where Frugal, Meets Fabulous! Visit Patti at www.divasonadime.com and join the conversation on Facebook at DivasOnADimeDotCom. Email Patti at divapatti@divasonadime.com

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