One Pot Mania!

For the sake of time and simplicity our dinners lately have been of a "one pot" nature, where everything literally goes into a single pot and bakes together. Presto - instant dinner and far less dishes to deal with afterwards. We were lucky enough to get a Dutch oven for Christmas, so this has significantly streamlined the process, since anything that needs to be browned on the skillet first can go straight into the oven without having to switch pans.

Back in our Christmas Wellington blog I mentioned how we cut a pork loin in half. The other half recently became a one-pot meal started off by browning the loin in chile oil and seasonings in the Dutch oven.

Each side is cooked for a few minutes until it's sufficiently browned on the outsides but hasn't cooked through to the center yet.

Next we begin throwing in the vegetable ingredients to round out the one-pot, starting with onions...

...then some diced potatoes...

...and finally carrots, broccoli, and red bell peppers. You can really do any kind of veggie that you like though, such as mushrooms, zucchini, squash, different kinds of peppers, or even beans.

For extra flavor and to prevent everything from getting dry we're pouring in a can of sauce. In this case we're using one of the new "Meal Starter" sauces from Progresso. Here we're using the mushroom variety, or you could use condensed cream of mushroom or golden mushroom soup, but that's not quite as good.

After baking in the oven we slice up the meat and dish out this complete one-package meal into a bowl for serving.

If you don't have a Dutch oven, of course you can still make delicious one-pot style meals using a skillet and a baking dish. Back in our chile pork blog we also mentioned using half a pork shoulder and saving the other half for a different meal. Here's the second half of the pork getting ready for browning.

Cover it in whatever seasonings you prefer (garlic, pepper, and salt is a good starting point) and brown each side in vegetable oil.

After browning, place the meat into a large and deep baking dish so there's enough room for all the vegetables and sauce.

For this one we're doing baby carrots, red potatoes, and sliced mushrooms.

This time we're using the "creamy roasted garlic" Progresso Meal Starter for our sauce.

Here it is straight from the oven with all the meat and veggies cooked together.

Spoon out some tender meat and vegetables onto a plate or bowl and you're ready to go! While this has everything you need for a meal, you could also do a side salad or some rice.

Although we used pork both times here, these one-pot meals are excellent with chicken thighs, chicken leg quarters, split chicken breasts, or any number of beef cuts.