A Quick Note

Today is Friday- we have managed to survive the first full week of school, though not without incident. Included in this week were karate class and Adrian's first ever soccer practice, as well as a four hour meeting for me that started at 6:30pm, James' birthday and the general exhaustion of long, busy days.

I have come to a conclusion about the cooking once a week idea: TOTALLY worth it. I can't tell you how helpful it was, even on the nights we DIDN'T have after-school activities, to be able to just put dinner together. No dicing or sauteing. Things were just ready to go in the oven. This included our lunches, since I've decided to pack both Adrian and James' lunch every morning. James in particular had a variety of food to eat this week that hopefully kept him from lamenting the loss of his fast-food lunch habit.

I will try to find recipes that are a little bit less intensive for the next week I do this (unfortunately, my grocery bill has been a bit out of hand this month, so the last few days of August we will be consuming whatever I can find around the kitchen). But I think this is honestly going to be the best way to keep my sanity during the school year, and still keep a healthy dinner on the table.

See you in a week, with the next menu and suggestions-

Worth It? The Jury Is Still Out...

This constitutes only round one of the dishes that were dirties last night in my whirlwind cooking extravaganza. Of course, calling it that makes it sound a whole lot more fun than it actually was. The temperature was 94* at 5:00pm when I got started last night. Admittedly, I had wanted to start earlier in the afternoon, but couldn't. I started on 5 recipes at once. That might have been a mistake...

I got the wheat berries cooking in one pot. water boiling for the lasagna in another, and a large saucepan for the lasagna sauce. In the sink, the chicken for the chicken crescents was thawing and in the oven were the zucchini and tomatoes, roasting in preparation for the ratatouille (which I had to make without eggplant this time). It was about that time that I needed about 4 more hands... one to lay out foil on the counter that was already covered in dishes so I could lay out the cooked lasagna while cooking more (had to do in batches), another hand to line the lasagna pans with plastic wrap and foil so I could freeze 2 pans, another set of hands to open all the cans of tomatoes, tomato paste and tomato sauce to dump on the frying onions and another to check on the veggies in the oven. Because that all needed to happen at the same time.

This is when I put out the S.O.S. call for a sous-chef. My husband came to the rescue, opening cans and spreading copious amounts of foil. The temperature in the kitchen was hotter than outside with 3 burners on full blast and the oven at 375*. We ran out of counter space so once the lasagnas were put together (not baked), I had to place them on the floor in the pantry to cool before I froze them. The roasted veggies found their places on kitchen chairs to cool (thankfully the kids were outside playing) and as you see in the picture above, the dirty dishes had taken up what seemed to be permanent residence on the counters.

I didn't quite get through my entire list of food to prep for this week- sometime tonight I still need to make homemade sausage-flavored seitan and mix up Cara's FABULOUS basil salad dressing (see previous post). James grilled 10 chicken breasts. There's no way I'd gotten through it all without him (or if I did, there's no way I would have still been a pleasant person).

Once I get those last two things made, I will have plenty of food all prepped and ready to serve up for the next 7 nights. I really, really hope it was worth it. And I hope I get better at this, assuming I ever choose to do it again. :)

Keep On Keepin' On...

Did I just accidentally quote The Brady Bunch? Or was it the Partridge Family?

At any rate, as eating seems to be something we absolutely have to do every day, there's nothing left to do but just keep trying to improve what we eat. So we're making small changes around our household- some radical, some not so much.

Neither my husband nor I are quite ready to make the grand leap to vegetarian (let alone vegan). However, after several great conversations with some vegetarian and vegan friends and 3 trips to India, he is much more willing to concede that the meat industry consumes an inordinate amount of resources, especially when compared to what is used by other countries. So our commitment right now is simply to eat LESS meat. To this end, I have scoured a few vegetarian cookbooks as well as consulted with my good friend Joy (author of www.veganjoy.blogspot.com and the upcoming cookbook "Eat. Live. Thrive. Recipes from Everyday to Exotic") about how to make sure that we continue to get the necessary protein in our meatless meals.

As I have talked with vegans, who, generally speaking, are more concerned with the treatment of animals in any industry, the diary industry actually seems to be a less-humane industry than even the meat industry. I have to admit that at this point, I am selfishly more concerned about depriving myself of much-loved cheese and yogurt than I am about the conditions of diary farms. Ignorance is everything, I suppose. I'm too afraid to watch all the recent documentaries that expose the meat and diary industries in this country. Having said all of that, though, I have made the commitment to again consume LESS animal-derived diary products than before. I have switched my kids to soy milk, which they love. And I want to be sure that I am not replacing meat in my vegetarian dishes with more cheese because nutritionally speaking, it would be a bad move.

So our recipes this week look like this:

Tonight: orange-teriyaki chicken with brown rice & roasted bell peppers/onions

Sunday: shrimp stir-fry using leftover ingredients from above plus a sweet & spicy sauce

Monday: herb-crusted island pork tenderloin with roasted cauliflower and yucatecan corn

Tuesday: spinach lasagna (made in a huge batch to freeze) (vegetarian)

Wednesday: ratatouille (vegetarian)

Thursday: leftover lasagna

Friday: James' birthday choice- chicken crescents & pecan pie (healthy ideals thrown out)

Saturday: grilled pizza (probably BBQ sauce, caramelized onions & bleu cheese, maybe with sausage-flavored seitan crumbled on top)

Sunday: grilled salmon and asparagus

A couple of other recipes I'll be making this week for our lunches include whole wheat pasta with a basic tomato sauce and sausage-flavored seitan and a wheat berry salad with an orange-vinaigrette dressing.

-For the sake of the health of these kiddos...

Vegan? Vegetarian? Sugar-free? Sucralose Is The Enemy?

Who can tell anymore just exactly what the best dietary guidelines are. I went looking for a cookbook at Barnes & Noble the other day and there were (literally) hundreds of "diet" books, in one form or another. Honest to God, it is EXHAUSTING to assimilate all the information there is about food and somehow formulate it into an educated decision about what to cook for dinner.  And yet, I don't feel like I can ignore all of this "great" information and still call myself a responsible adult and parent.

My husband and I both come from, shall we say, "non-dainty" stock. We both eat when we're stressed, anxious, bored or if given the option. I managed to lose 40 pounds after Baby #2 and have only put on about 8 of those after 3 years. My husband also lost 40 pounds, but has unfortunately put most of that back on. We have two very healthy, wirey boys who are active and intelligent. While I don't worry at this point about childhood obesity, given that you could play their ribcages like guitar strings, I do worry about setting them up with good eating habits that will go with them throughout the rest of their lives. So it doesn't feel like a luxury for me to worry about all of these different dietary concerns when my husband (who is genetically predispositioned towards diabetes and heart issues) desperately needs to curb his anxiety-food relationship and I have two eager young minds who will either learn to reach for a bag of chips when they are hungry or a bag of carrots- and who will either learn that food will make them feel better or that there are other ways to cope with stress.

So I'm neck-deep in food-related information. I have articles, books, cookbooks, blogs and friends- all of which (or whom) contain valuable information about the best way to feed ourselves. The conclusion? It is absolutely impossible to adhere to all of these great ideas simultaneously. I feel like I'm choosing my own religion, picking this idea from the Eat Clean Diet and removing that food as suggested by my lovely vegan friend. Will this mish-mash of food-dogma lead to a healthier body, or am I just making myself crazy for no reason?

A While...

I realize it's been, well, quite a while since I have posted. The holidays are just like that, I guess. Well, in preparation of a new year and our continued commitment to eat both healthy and economical meals, I took some time to make a master list of favorite meals. I find that as I am planning meals for the week, I get stuck in serious ruts and I forget the brilliant thing I made 2 months ago...

And because I'm oddly anal (which is a weird thing to type as I now look at it), I made categories for chicken and pasta and veggies... but it's super helpful, especially when I don't want to spend a ton of time planning meals. It took a little while- I combed my recipes in my (many) cookbooks- but hopefully it will save me a lot of time in the future.

So, there's a little tip for ya. :) Hope it helps!

Shrimp, Acorn Squash & Pear with Basil Polenta in Butter Wine Sauce

Ok, I really should come up with a shorter name... I just came up with this recipe tonight because I just had some ingredients on hand to use. I thought this turned out really well, but James absolutely loved it.

For 2 large appetites-
1lb shrimp (thawed, tails off)
1 acorn squash, peeled, seeded & cut into 1/2"
   cubes
1 danjou (green) pear, peeled, seeded & cut into
   1/4" cubes (adds just a tiny bit of sweet)
2 handfuls of fresh spinach
1 stick of butter
1/2 c. white wine
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tube of basil/garlic polenta

In one skillet, melt 2TBS butter over medium-high heat. Add the squash, and a little salt. Saute for a good 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. While that cooks, prep the polenta by cutting into 1/2" slices. (You can also prep the pear and pull the tails off the shrimp, if you haven't already.) You will need two more skillets (or a skillet and a big griddle- that's actually better). Add the pears and another TBS of butter and continue to cook over medium heat.

 In the other skillet, melt 1TBS over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp and stir frequently until almost completely cooked but not quite. Add all the contents of that skillet into the squash skillet. Add the wine & nutmeg and lower heat to very low.

On the griddle, melt another TBS of butter and add the slices of polenta. Cook for about 3 minutes on each side. After you have flipped the polenta once, add the two handfuls of spinach to the shrimp mixture and stir in to wilt.  Serve on top of the polenta.

My Plan For The Week

I apologize for getting behind, but hopefully there have been some recipes here for you to put some meal plans together over the last week. Here's what I am doing this week because it works for our family schedule and it didn't involve buying a lot of ingredients- this may or may not be particularly helpful to you, but I hope it helps even a little bit. 

Monday- Sloppy Joes (see recipe below) and asparagus (lightly browning an extra pound of turkey meat while I'm at it to save time on Thursday when I make the Taco Bake.)

Tuesday- We have a supper club that will be doing a taco salad bar thingy

Wednesday- Sauteed shrimp, acorn squash & pears in a butter sauce served over basil/garlic polenta and a side salad. I have not come up with this recipe yet, but if it's good, I will post it for next time.

Thursday- Taco Bake (great for creating leftovers)

Friday- Sweet & Spicy Salmon with zucchini chips

Saturday- Sausage & Peppers with goat cheese

Sunday- Leftover Taco Bake (because I work on Sundays and hate to cook)

I'm not creating a grocery list for this because I have a feeling it's too random for y'all. But all the recipes will be on this blog somewhere, if not posted immediately around this one.