3 Tips for Making Mealtime Easier

Nibbles

With the part last weekend wrapped-up, I fully admit I didn’t feel much like cooking. But rather than resort to fast food and microwave meals, I bucked up, made a menu and managed to have a week’s worth of fairly quick and easy meals on an other-wise inspired week.

Having a few leftovers helped, of course, as it’s a lot easier to refashion one dish into another than to start from scratch. But whether you’ve got some soup stocked away in the freezer or just got your goodies from your local CSA (community-supported agriculture), planning your meals is the first way to make mealtimes easier to tackle. And if you’re starting from scratch, checking out the store’s sales papers or what’s in season for your area can be a good kick-start to your list-making.

Of course, if you know you’ve got a busy week ahead–like this week we had our anniversary and then the Greek Food Festival–it’s okay to give yourself permission to have a night off from the kitchen. It’s okay to go out one night (or two) if it’s part of the plan. And if you’re concerned about the health benefits (or lack thereof) of a night out, remember it’s all about balance. If you’re going to indulge one night, balance it out by going a little healthier the night before or after. What you want to avoid is planning to cook, getting overwhelmed by your schedule, and pulling in for fast-food and–just like a dieter that falls off the wagon–getting off-track, discouraged, and throwing the plan out of the window for the rest of the week or month.

So you’ve got your plan and you’ve looked ahead at your schedule, what else can you do to make getting dinner on the table something other than mission impossible? Prepping ahead! If you know you’re going to need diced onions for 3 meals this week, go ahead and chop them all when you’re preparing the first dinner and put the extra in containers in the fridge so you can just pull them out the next nights and get cooking. If you need hard-boiled eggs for a salad in a couple of days, go ahead and boil and peel them one evening after you’ve finished dinner for the night. Think ahead about what and when you can get some of the work out of the way and the next night will be so much easier.

So, to sum it up, here are my Top 3 Tips for Making Mealtime Easier:

    1. Plan your meals ahead so you never have to wonder “What’s for dinner?”
    2. Give yourself permission to take a night off if you or your schedule demands it.
    3. Prepare what you can ahead of time to make night-of preparation quicker.

What are your tips for making mealtime easier?

Extreme Couponing…At What Cost?

Nibbles

If you watch any sort of cable reality shows, chances are you’ve heard of one of the newer ones: Extreme Couponing. I’d heard about it and rolled my eyes at the very thought–how on earth could clipping coupons be extreme, much less worthy of television coverage?

And then we saw it.

The other night, after finishing my DVR’d Housewives, the television returned to TLC in the midst of an episode of Extreme Couponing. And Todd and I watched transfixed. The stashes, the hours spent clipping and checking out. The sheer mass of products accumulated in only a year to 18 months!

We sat through 2 shows back to back just trying to make sense of it all. And this is the conclusion I’ve come to.

Beginning with the Best of Intentions

Many of the women profiled told as how they’d turned to couponing when their budgets felt the crunch of the current economy and, really, who can’t empathize with that?

If you haven’t been let go at some point in the past few years or kept your job at reduced hours, you’re one of the lucky ones. And if you did keep your job and hours intact, chances are those raises that got you through cost of living adjustments haven’t been showing up in a while. We’re all feeling the pinch.

So clipping coupons to stretch the budget makes perfect sense.

A Decision Made Out of Fear, Often Goes Too Far

And that’s the crux of what I saw over those two shows: the fear of not being able to feed one’s family takes root deep in the mind, and overcompensating is the result.

Within a very short time many of these women went from barely making ends meet to having stock-piles of non-perishables with values in the several-thousands to the tens of thousands, paying only a small fraction (between 1% and 5% if the example trips are any indication) of that value out of pocket.

So the practical side of me starts wondering: how often do these shopping trips happen? Every couple of weeks was the impression I got. How often do they really use the products they purchase? Hard to tell, but how fast does any household go through half a dozen bottles of shampoo or 100+ 2L bottles of soda? Not to mention the shelves of cereals and cupboards full of chips?

And then there was the woman who has cases of kitty treats even though she didn’t own a cat.

Shopping By Coupon Limits Your Options

This is a big reason why we don’t bother clipping and using coupons: we don’t buy the sort of things that have coupons available.

How often do you see coupons for a 5lb bag of potatoes? But one coupon extremist schools us on her money-saving strategy of skipping the large box of potato flakes by buying the individual packets and getting more bang for your couponing buck. Let’s ignore the fact that mashed potatoes are one of the simplest foods to prepare and that a raw potato gives you far more options than a box of preservative-laden flakes, by going for the single-use packets over the larger box you’re opting to create more paper waste.

Not that I advocate buying in bulk just because it’s there, but if it’s something you use regularly, why not also do your part for the environment?

Looking Beyond Your Own Home

Yes, these shoppers are ensuring their families against famine and being budget-friendly to boot. But what else is going on, here?

There’s a coupon for detergent so one coupon extremist helping her daughter-in-law start her own stock-pile clears shelves of the product from her local store. Granted, the daughter-in-law has a new baby and there’s a lot of laundry involved with a small child, but what about the other non-extreme shoppers who come after this shopper and find empty shelves? What about only taking what you need, instead of what you can just because it’s there?

Most of these deals, by the way, are achieved by taking advantage of stores who offer double-coupon discounts either as a rule or on certain days of the week. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in the case of double-coupon promotions, it’s the store that finances the doubled coupon, not the manufacturer. So the shopper who saves $990 on her groceries just cost the store approximately $445. Considering the value of at least one of these shoppers stashes was over $10,000, I’m beginning to wonder how many minimum-wage cashiers or stock clerks have been laid off due to the actions of the couponerati?

Where Does it End?

Going back to my theory of this being a fear-response, the adrenaline rush these shoppers experience when they get their final total (after several hours spent in the store) is highlighted. The fear of a single total being off (many trips have to be broken down into several transactions in order to take full advantage of the various offers and coupons being applied) heightens the exhilaration when they succeed at gaming the store out of so much for so little.

We all know the thrill of getting a good deal every now and then but I think the extreme couponers are actually addicted to this feeling–very much like a gambling addict!

And these stacks of stocks, squirreled away in basements and closets and finished attics give the shoppers a feeling of security. They are proud of their cache. It is a sight to behold. But I also wonder if, having tasted the victory over the shopping budget as these women have, will it be enough? When will they have enough cereal and extra-strength pain killer stashed away so that they can relax? Or will it continue to the point we see these same shoppers featured on another shock-reality series: Hoarders.

It’s Not All Negative

Don’t get me wrong–I think everyone should have a hobby that gives them a sense of fulfillment. And I’m not anti-coupon across the board; we use the occasional one on the rare occasion a promotion fits our plans (not the other way around).

One woman is reported to give away some of her coupon-gotten-gains to her local food pantry–that’s excellent and I applaud her for sharing her windfalls with those who could really use it. Another family hunts and gets much of their meat that way (which, if you’re going to hunt, having it be for sustenance is a great reason) and does grow a few items and even preserves tomatoes (as salsa) and pickles–another great use of resources.

But that level of sustainability was rare to see.

Many of the women spent 35-40 hours a week clipping coupons, organizing coupons, reading store sales paper and searching online for the hot deals of the week. If I had that amount of time available I like to think I’d skip the couponing, garden a number of my vegetables, and make even more food from scratch, spending my money on basic ingredients which can be bought, safely, in bulk and turned into healthy, nutritious food without all those extra chemicals and preservatives that are in so many of today’s coupon-frequent-fliers.

But that’s me.

There’s no doubt that the Extreme Couponers are organized and, hey, using their math skills in a very practical way. But the show, in general, highlighted a level of obsession rooted in fear which leads to greed and potential obsessive hoarding in the future that I cannot condone.

All things in moderation, folks, even coupons.

Eat, Drink & Be Merry…

Nibbles

For tomorrow? We Diet*.

At least, that seems to be the motto of many, this time of year. Over the next month there will be open houses and company dinners, family feasts and friendly parties, bountiful tables, gift baskets and bar carts.

So it’s no surprise that one of the most common resolutions, come January 1st, is to Diet in one form or another.

The problem is, or can be, that Diets are notoriously unreliable. Many just plain don’t work. And why is that?

I think it boils down to 3 main concepts:

  1. Diets are negative.
  2. Diets are restrictive.
  3. Diets are temporary.

Negative because many focus on the can’t-haves and the must-nots. Restrictive when large categories of food are eliminated from the diet–no carbs, no fats, no this, no that. And temporary because they are used to reach a specific goal and then abandoned (if not abandoned earlier when the dieter becomes discouraged). Only the weight loss, if achieved at all, cannot be maintained when old habits are returned to and, thus, the cycle begins again. There’s little to no lifestyle changes that stick outside of the Diet period.

Not to mention the fact that a month spent feasting at the holiday table takes several months of effort to undo.

This year, though, my friends and I decided to Diet early.

Yes, you heard right:

I’m currently on a Diet.

Despite the fact that I don’t believe in Diets at all, I agreed to try this one with some friends for a few reasons:

  1. It’s based on positive reinforcement and rewards.
  2. It’s permissive, allowing for days off when life interferes with our best intentions.
  3. It’s focused on more than just weight loss.

It’s called The Game On! Diet and it’s co-authored by a television writer and a bodybuilder, so take from that what you will–I didn’t read the book (reading Diet books is a special kind of hell I don’t choose to put myself through, though I hear–from our ring-leader–that it’s a good read). Instead of counting calories and scale-watching (though you do weigh yourself at least weekly), you earn points for eating balanced meals (5 a day), getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, daily exercise and even starting good habits and working to stop bad ones. It’s fun to compete against friends and have teammates to celebrate and commiserate with.

That said, it’s not perfect and I’d be lying if I said I was 100% drinking the kool-aid. While it does not suggest blocking carbohydrates or fats from your daily diet, it does lump all fruits together with the carbs as well as protein-rich beans and legumes. In fact, if you’re a vegan who prefers not to get your protein solely from soy products, you would not be able to follow the dietary guidelines as set forth by the book and website’s guidelines. Also, calories are not counted but portion sizes are–even though a fist-sized portion of whole grain is not necessarily the same calorie or nutrient-wise as an equal volume of fresh fruit. But that’s not the end of the world–Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and other meal programs can be followed in place of the Game On! guidelines.

And my bladder has yet to be convinced that 3 Liters (approximately 12 8-ounce glasses) of water is a good idea.

What I Hope to Gain (or Lose)

Do I expect to lose weight doing this? Not really. If I do, that’s a wonderful side-benefit. My primary motivation was to finally get a daily exercise regime started. Game On! only requires 20 minutes a day, 6 days a week in order to earn 140 points for the week (expecting you to take a day off from that, too). That, it turns out, is quite doable even for someone like me who hates exercise with a passion–I’ve been getting up early and spending my 20 minutes with the WiiFit before work and it’s not that bad! I’m also improving my posture by ditching the slouching habit (mindfulness in all forms) and practicing my baritone near-daily as my newly started habit.

There’s as much chance that I’ll be paying for an opposing teammates pedicure, next month, as enjoying one of my own (the agreed-upon prize at the end of the 4 weeks), but I’m going to do my best to not let me team down.

*For the purposes of this discussion, capital-D Diet refers to the departure from your nutritional norms in the effort to “better” yourself. Little-d diet refers to the general concept of food and nutrition.

In Search of Comfort & Good Grilled Cheese

Nibbles

(I have a feeling that I’ve written about this sort of thing before…)

Last week was a little rough around the edges: new schedules, unfortunate news, changing weather and a lot of things up in the air. When the going gets rough, the rough start craving foods that make them feel safe, warm and cuddled.

Remember, everything is fine in moderation: even comfort food.

So when it was my turn to grocery shop this weekend I loaded my list with comforting food that fit the change in the weather and were sure to sooth. Dishes including pot roast with potatoes and carrots, sausage with peppers and onions, chicken and broccoli roulade and stuffed meat load with glazed carrots will grace our table this week and  get us through the bumps in the road.

But to start things off, Sunday was soup and sandwich night.

I pulled out a container of the Borscht I’d made too much of while testing the recipe for Raiding Party and left it to defrost and simmer on the stove while I prepped the sandwiches. (This borscht, by the way, is based on a medieval Russian sour soup recipe and features 3 types of meat, lots of vegetables and a wine broth–it’s very hearty!) I can’t fully explain why (other than the general craving for comfort foods), but I’d been wanting a good grilled cheese sandwich for a couple of weeks.

Grilled cheese sandwiches are fairly simple, right? Butter both sides of two pieces of bread, place cheese between and cook until golden brown and melty.  Still, sometimes the simplest things can use a few tips…

Grilled Cheese Confidential

  • Make things easy on yourself, soften your butter first. Or, if you prefer, use a butter spread (we like Brummel & Brown yogurt spread). Point being, if you’re fighting with the bread there could be holes and holes mean the cheesy goodness can spill out (the horror!). Just 20 seconds in the microwave can soften a stick of unsalted butter, it’s worth the effort.
  • Speaking of bread, use a nice bakery bread. If you don’t want to bake your own, that’s fine, but some nice Italian sandwich, potato or honey wheat can really bring the sandwich up a bit, not to mention handle a wider variety of cheeses.
  • White bread and American singles might be what we were raised on, but there’s a lot of cheese out there deserving of the Welsh Rarebit treatment. Choose a cheese that melts well and has a good flavor. Stouter breads (such as rye or pumpernickel) can stand up to a good sharp cheddar or even a blue cheese while Havarti melds almost seamlessly with Italian or French breads (that’s what we had Sunday–delicious!).
  • If you like grilled cheese but think it might need just a little something extra, spread a thin layer of Dijon mustard on the inside of one of the buttered slices. You don’t need much, just a little will impart a tang that’s better than salting your sandwich.
  • Keep the heat low and slow to allow the cheese to melt as the outside of the bread turns golden. Too high a heat will scorch those butter solids and turn your toast black before the cheese has had a chance to get nice and gooey! I like to use our electric griddle set at 200F-250F since it’s much easier to control the temperature plus you get a larger surface than the usual frying pan.
  • Finally, if you’re prone to include anything else in your sandwich (crispy bacon, deli ham or tomatoes), keep a half-inch border of cheese around any inclusions so that the edges will seal and your sandwich won’t go to pieces in your hand when you try to eat it.

How do you like your grilled cheese?

Holiday Feasting

Nibbles

Happy Labor Day–are you working or playing, today?

For me, this long weekend has been a great opportunity to get quite a bit of drawing done for the cookbook but we’re also looking forward to cooking-out this evening, taking a slight departure from our usual menu.

Early holidays were feast days, so I suppose it’s no wonder we gravitate towards meals that are more expansive whether in size or ingredients.

Our menu for today?

Grilled Pork Chops
Macaroni Salad
Grilled Corn on the Cob

And for dessert we have Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream, homemade last night in my newest toy.

In some ways this is a departure from our usual menu–the pork chops are thick, not the usual thin loin chops we eat from time to time, pasta salad may be “bad” on some levels but the ratio of vegetables to pasta is better than most. And the ice cream, being homemade, means I had total control over the ingredients.

What’s on your menu, tonight?