Sweet Potato says... hurry up!

Just kidding! We would never tell you to hurry up — we know you’re saying it enough to everyone else in your household every day. You know who should hurry up? Dinner, that’s who. After all, you’ve hustled to make daycare pick up (Not the last parent? Superstar!) or gotten your future Ronaldo to after-school soccer practice on time. The least dinner could do is be… well, be quick about it. Which means you need a few speed dinners in your rotation. Of course, most of the dinners you make during the week are easy and pretty quick, but sometimes you require a turbo-charged meal that goes from conception to the table in less than 20 minutes. Just enough time for homework to be started and the table set. Um, you know those last two are jobs for other people, right?
 
These are some of our favourite dinners when we need what we call, the lightening round. They’re easy, fast and you won’t need to rush anyone to the table when they’re done.
 
Ginger Pork and Noodle
500g minced pork?
2 tablespoons olive oil?
2 tablespoons chopped spring onions?
1 cooking onion, chopped?
1 cup sugar snap peas (or any crunchy green vegetable)?
1/2 cup of chopped mushrooms?
8 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed?
big chunk of ginger chopped, about the size of two index fingers?
2 1/2 cups chicken stock?
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro?
salt and pepper to taste
250g rigatoni pasta noodle (Select rigatoni for a kid friendly dish or egg noodles if you want to grow it up a bit.)
 
Method
1. Make pasta according to instructions and set aside.

2. Heat olive oil in a wok or deep frying pan. Soften chopped cooking onion. Add mushrooms and once softened add minced pork.

3. After pork is cooked add garlic and ginger. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

4. Mix it up and cook for a couple of minutes, then add sugar snap peas or another vegetable. Combine and then pour stock of pork mixture. There should be enough stock covering the meat and vegetables so that it is soupy. Add chopped spring/green onion and stir until blended.

5. Ladle over the noodles and garnish with cilantro.

Want to get moving with more quick dishes? More recipes from sweetpotatochronicles.com: 
A bag of shrimp in the freezer means dinner is always just moments away. We love this easy yet elegant dinner of Shrimp and Polenta.

Bacon and Mushroom Frittata comes together in about fifteen minutes. Which is also how long you have some evenings before things hit the fan.