Having a trusty fast food strategy is the busy person’s key to eating well. When I’m swamped with work, travel, kids’ activities (or whatever), I quite simply cannot be trusted to choose the healthy meal over the quick one.
Unless, that is, the healthy one is the quick one. Over the years, I have developed a repertoire of healthier fast food options, dinners I can get on the table in minutes. A standby is, of course, the supermarket rotisserie chicken. Pick up one of those, add a quick spinach salad (by which I mean spinach with red wine vinegar and olive oil sprinkled on it with a handful of almonds and a quick chop of scallions on top), and my family is eating before anyone even has time to ask what’s for dinner.
I also always buy two rotisserie chickens (or roast two chickens when I’m bothering to heat up the house with the oven), so I have leftover chicken seasoned and ready to go for another meal a day or two later.
This week’s chicken and black bean stew is a meal inspired by one of those weeks. The ingredients are all basic, simple stuff that I have on hand most of the time (and if not, I can find something to substitute). I use canned chipotles in adobo sauce for tons of flavor and some warm heat (buy it canned, then store it in a freezer bag and just lop off a hunk for recipes as you need it).