The week of Martha’s pre-prepped dinners has come to a close at last. If you read my posts from the last 5 days, you’ll see that in the Sept issue of Martha Stewart Everyday Food, the “Sunday Strategy” article details how to shop and prep in advance for 5 weekday meals. It sounded like a fun experiment.

Last night was the final meal and let me tell you I am a little tired of these pre-prepped ingredients at this point! Dinner was Pizza 2 Ways. You buy 2 pizza dough balls (I bought whole wheat) and on your prep day, you press them into rectangular baking sheets and freeze them. Let me tell you, It was a huge pain having those two baking sheets in the freezer all week. It was also a huge pain having those two baking sheets in use all week.

On cooking night, you spread olive oil on the crusts. On one pizza you spread some chopped up roasted tomatoes (pre-prepped) then plop some ricotta cheese around, sprinkle with Parmesan and salt and pepper. On the other pizza you’re supposed to thinly slice your pre-prepped potatoes and spread them. Sprinkle with rosemary and salt and pepper.

I cheated and took one pizza crust made a regular cheese pizza so that the family would not complain. On the other, I made half with the tomato/ricotta, 1/4 with the potato and 1/4 with some fresh tomatoes, broccoli and mozzarella just to have some veggies. I also cooked up tri-colored Swiss chard I bought at the farmer’s market and served that with a little butter and balsamic vinegar to have some more veggies.

Both of Martha’s pizzas got a thumbs down. Let’s start with the potato one. It’s just pizza dough, oil, potato, rosemary and salt and pepper. Blech. That’s not a pizza. In my opinion, potato does NOT belong on pizza. It was just yucky. The tomato/ricotta one was also not good. There just wasn’t enough topping. Ricotta has very little flavor, so this was just bland. The veggie pizza I made was ok – at least it had cheese. If I had added some garlic it would have been great. The plain cheese pizza was good, so at least there was no revolt.

I would say overall, I did not find this week to be a success. Only one night was a stand out winner – the salmon. The spaghetti night was pretty good too. The other nights are not worth bothering with. By the time this last dinner rolled around I was so sick of roasted tomatoes and baby red potatoes that I may never want to see them again! While pre-prepping does save some time, I would rather take the extra 15 minutes each night so that I can make what want fresh. I’m glad I tried the experiment, but I have to say that’s definitely not something Martha herself would ever do.

The week of Martha’s pre-prepped dinners has come to a close at last. If you read my posts from the last 5 days, you’ll see that in the Sept issue of Martha Stewart Everyday Food, the “Sunday Strategy” article details how to shop and prep in advance for 5 weekday meals. It sounded like a … Read more →