Newsletter for January 22, 2025

Three recipes, two tips, one plan

Intro

Welcome or welcome back to Caregiver Cooking! Here you’ll find recipes, tips, and ideas for helping to manage the load of cooking as a caregiver. This weekly newsletter brings together three recipes and two tips into one plan to support caregivers in their efforts caring for others. This week’s three recipes are breakfast potatoes and sausage and beans, tomato sauce with peppers and onions, and loaded mashed potatoes.

The plan

Major components: potatoes, veggie chopping

Choosing the best potato for the week may mean considering the work required and outcome of what the potatoes are going into. This week, roasted and mashed potatoes both work well with Yukon gold potatoes or baby potatoes. Yukon gold potatoes are generally more cost effective but require more time cutting, baby potatoes could save notable time cutting and cooking in these recipes.

Adding something, like additional protein, to a food like mashed potatoes can be a good way to meet nutritional needs if you are concerned about a shortfall. Blended cottage cheese works well in this recipe and offers an option for ways to increase protein intake.

Tip 1

More chopping or more cooking? Cutting components, like potatoes or peppers, in to smaller pieces generally reduces cooking time in exchange for more time spent preparing. More time cooking may be a more convenient place to spend time, as that does not require constant gripping of a knife, constant engagement, or constant standing (especially if using an oven preparation method). Neither is better or worse than the other — you know your time and energy budgets best and choosing where and how to spend those may vary from day to day. Options like a seated workspace for chopping or tools to assist can help to lessen the time needed as well, if a stool for working at your kitchen counter or a vegetable chopping tool could be helpful.

Tip 2

Freeze sauce in single servings
When storing sauces in the freezer, storing in single servings (whether that means one person or one standard family meal) makes storage easier to manage and makes future use easier. Reheating sauce from frozen can be done while cooking pasta for dinner, setting up a future evening of easy meal preparation.

Breakfast potatoes and sausage and beans

This recipe makes about six (6) portions

Prep time: 20-30 minutes. Cook time: 40-60 minutes

This (almost) sheet pan meal can be prepared ahead of time for easy reheating at breakfast or can work as a breakfast-at-dinner option. Topping with eggs, cheese, or salsa can bring variety to the same base if using across multiple meals.

Full recipe

Tomato sauce with peppers and onions

This recipe makes about six (6) portions

Prep time: 10-20 minutes Cook time: 30-60 minutes

Perfect for preparing and freezing, this sauce can work with a wide array of substitute options. Meatballs instead of ground meat (pictured above), chickpeas in addition to or as a meat-free option, adjusting the quantity of peppers and onions, cooking on the stovetop or in the oven, creamy sauce or not, lots of options for this time and next.

Full recipe

Loaded mashed potatoes

This recipe makes about eight (8) servings

Whether serving as a side or as a main event, these mashed potatoes add some additional nutrition using blended cottage cheese as a source of creaminess. To reduce prep time with this recipe and reduce chopping, choosing Yukon gold potatoes eliminates the need to peel the potatoes. Using baby potatoes (sometimes called bite size or little) reduces the cutting work more, as these can easily be cooked whole.

Full recipe

Shopping list:

• 5 lbs of potatoes
• 1lb of ground turkey/chicken OR frozen meatballs
• 1 lb of turkey sausage
• OR 2 lbs of ground plain turkey/chicken
• 3 bell peppers, maybe make one colorful
• bag of onions/3 onions
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can garbanzo beans (if using)
• 1 small container cottage cheese (only using 1 cup)
• garlic or minced garlic
• 1-28oz can of tomato sauce or tomato puree
• 1 lb pasta
• butter

Maybe:

• shredded cheese (maybe from last week?)
• sour cream (maybe from last week?)
• chives or scallions or parsley
• bacon
• mushrooms if using

Spices:

• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Oregano
• Sage
• Basil
• Paprika
• Cumin
• Cayenne (if using)

Likely in your pantry:

• Salt & pepper
• Cooking oil