Meal Planning

You guys, guess what?!?!?! On Monday I created a meal plan for Hubs and me, for two weeks - and we are FIVE FOR FIVE! Translation: We're on day 5, and we've cooked each meal on the plan for the past 5 days! I've cooked two and Hubs (incredible man that he is) has cooked three. This is a really big deal - it means we're getting this thing down! "This thing meaning" being adults and planning ahead and cooking real dinners every night - finally! ;)

This written plan wasn't for anyone outside my household to see, but I figured this post wouldn't be complete without it. I know it's a bad quality photo and scribbly notes - you can deal with it :)

Next Monday is a big day - we're going to try Arborio rice in a risotto! Haven't had rice since January.
If all goes well, we'll have it again with the curry stir fry on Thursday. We'll see...

Week 1
Monday: Grass fed beef hamburgers with grilled onions and mushrooms, guacamole, baked sweet potato fries

Tuesday: Slow cooked clam and vegetable chowder [Recipe coming...]

Wednesday: White Wine Oven Roasted (organic free-range) Chicken

Thursday: Alaskan cod "tacos" with broccoli slaw and avocado dressing [Recipe coming...]

Friday: (Repeat Monday) Grass fed beef hamburgers with grilled onions and mushrooms, guacamole, baked sweet potato fries

Saturday: Slow cooked boneless pork roast "carnitas" (freeze leftovers)

Sunday: Tangy Asian Chicken & Mushroom Soup


Week 2
Monday: Asparagus Mushroom Shrimp Risotto

Tuesday: Salmon croquettes

Wednesday: Leftover pork carnitas from freezer OR Slow cooked Beef Bourguignon

Thursday: Slow cooked Spicy Coconut Chicken

Friday: Shrimp Ginataan Curry with rice [Recipe coming!]

Saturday: Grilled Salmon

Sunday: Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Designer Salads

The plan is made up of mostly favorite, "stand-by" dishes that we love. That's partly why I haven't posted any new recipes lately - we've been eating the same dishes over and over. (Well that and I've been under the weather a lot, so no exciting cooking or blogging for me. And I've been spending my time enjoying my baby girl-who is growing up too fast!) But there are two new-to-me recipes on the plan, and I'll post them eventually if they work out. They both involve shrimp... yum!

There's not much to this post; it's not rocket science or anything brilliant I'm reinventing here. But I am very excited that this meal planning stuff is finally working for us. I've tried before and it didn't work out so well. Probably because I bit off more than I could chew. That leads into...

One tip I have for you is to make a plan of all or almost all tried and true recipes. You can't plan a week or a month with a new recipe every day -especially with an infant at home, a full time job, family extracurriculars, or anything else like that- and expect to succeed. If you want to try meal planning, choose recipes and foods that you're familiar with and dishes you can cook fairly quickly by experience. You can throw in one or two new ones to keep things exciting, but don't overwhelm yourself.

Another tip is to keep your budget and your pantry/refrigerator stock in mind. Take a look around at what you have before you start planning. Write down a different protein for each day and structure your meal around that - if you're concerned about preventing allergies, rotate your proteins in a four day cycle. For example, we are doing this and cooked grass fed beef burgers on Monday, clam soup on Tuesday, roast free range chicken on Wednesday, Alaskan cod on Thursday, then beef burgers again today and so on...

If you're at all like me, you have a limited food budget and it can sometimes be a challenge to make it to payday without running out of fresh food. Another great feature of this meal planning is no worry of running out of food to cook...

So here's another tip: plan according to what you can afford, or what you have on hand hiding in the back of the freezer or the corner of the pantry. This is where my clam soup on Tuesday came from - I had eight cans of chopped clams in the back of my cupboard! When you plan this way, everything is intentional and you'll need less so you'll in turn spend less.
Once you have that done, make an ingredients shopping list for the two weeks' worth of recipes. I did this, leaving off the usual basics we always have around like spices and oils, and frozen items like the Alaskan salmon and cod I purchased last week:

Everything is checked off but the pork, because it's the one thing I have to wait
 until the Saturday Farmers' market to purchase

Twice now I've looked over my list shown above - once on Tuesday and once today - to make sure we have what we need for the following couple days' recipes.

My final tip is to plan ahead by making a shopping list and make sure you've got your core ingredients ready when you need them. If you go to the farmers' market on the weekend, buy up only what you'll use in the next few days. Then mid-week you can go to the local produce stand, a mid-week farmers market or the grocery store and buy up the next few days' worth of ingredients. When you go to the grocery store, buy your frozen veggies and meats and fish in multiple packs, so you have plenty to use and they'll keep in the freezer until you need them. Frozen vegetables are preserved right off the field and go great in slow cooker recipes or soups, or steamed as a side dish. Thaw the proteins a day or two ahead, so each evening all you have to do is cook and eat!

One last suggestion: I am thinking that a great way to meal plan is to create lots of weeks of plans; four seems ideal. You can identify each week with a letter, for example I have created weeks "A" and "B". Then create two more, "C" and "D," and keep those weeks of meals and rotate them in different order each month. You will be able to successfully cook and eat healthy meals that fit your family's needs, while taking the stress out of dinner time, and staying within your food budget. You'll be able to get your food spending down to a very predictable amount, and that is pretty cool for financial health!

If you have any meal planning tips, go on and share them below. Happy planning, shopping, cooking and eating! :)

Fast Food Mondays: Breakfast Scramble

I've had Fast Food Mondays (my first themed series!) on the brain since it debuted way back at the beginning of February. (Did anyone try making those salmon croquettes? They are delicious. We've made them somewhere around ten times at our house since that first try. Yum!)

Today we're back looking at another way to prepare good, fast food on the most hectic day of the week - Monday! This recipe is a breakfast-y meal but it can be eaten morning, noon or night and you'll be satisfied. It is like an omelet, but without the eggs!

My husband gets the credit for coming up with this. One day I needed to eat before an appointment, and was racing around the house getting ready. Hubs knows I need protein in the morning and like to get started on my daily veggie intake with breakfast (he also obviously knows that I cannot have eggs). He came up with this "scramble" idea, and I just made a repeat to test out for all of you. Mix up the components according to what meats are in your 'fridge and what veggies are in season.

Egg-less Breakfast Scramble

What you need:

Zucchini, washed and sliced*

Baby spinach*

Basil (dried works fine; fresh is a treat)

Onion, diced

Black Forest ham (nitrate/nitrite free, gluten free) or other favorite meat, sliced/shredded

EVOO or grapeseed oil

*preferably organic, as these are two things that tend to have high pesticide levels when grown conventionally

What you do:

Heat oil in a skillet over medium low to medium heat. Toss in zucchini slices to get them cooking. Sprinkle with basil (about half a teaspoon to start; add more as you cook, to taste). A couple minutes later, when zucchini slices start to soften, add in diced onion. Toss everything together and continue cooking. When the onions are turning translucent, add in the ham and spinach leaves (tear them if you want truly bite size) and give everything a good stir to blend the flavors.

It is done when everything is warm, the zucchini and onion is tender, and the spinach leaves have wilted. Give it a taste. Sidenote: you should always taste while you cook; seasoning food is not science, and unless you're baking, there are no hard and fast rules ;)

Add more basil if you feel it needs it, and a sprinkle of sea salt to bring out the flavors - but not much when using ham, because it's already salty!

Did I forget anything? I hope not. I've been dealing with a hefty amount of brain fog for a few days. 

So here you go: a complete breakfast (lunch or dinner) meal from pan to plate in ten minutes or less.

Here's a picture of my breakfast plate, of course sitting next to my usual almond-almond latte and my morning meds and supplements...

...Don't judge me - most of that is Vitamin D, which does wonders for us up here in the Pacific NW  :)

I hope this helps someone out there that, like me, misses omelets terribly due to an egg allergy. Just take your favorite omelet components and try it without the egg as a "scramble." And let me know how it turns out; I'd love to hear your ideas!

Happy [Fast Food] Monday everyone!

Fast Food Mondays: Salmon Croquettes

Today I'm debuting a new weekly theme post: Fast Food Mondays. No, no, put down the car keys, toss that take out menu in the recycle bin, and put away your wallet. You DON'T need to go through the drive thru to come up with a fast family dinner solution for busy weekday nights. If you give it a try, I think you'll find that staying home and spending just a few minutes in the kitchen with common ingredients, you can have a satisfying dinner that doesn't break your budget or your eating plan.

Tonight we have Salmon Croquettes. One word: Delightful!
Isn't it true that some of the best creations come out of the most limited circumstances? When the refrigerator is looking sparse and the pantry is looking lean, all you need is a protein and Google to find a solution. Tonight our protein was a can of Alaskan pink salmon, and Google brought us to an outstanding index of canned salmon recipes at AlaskaSeafood.org. Inspired by several of the recipes found there, I came up with these truly delicious Salmon Croquettes. Time clocked from the can opener puncturing the lid, to a warm croquette sitting on my plate: twenty-five minutes. And that was without a prepared plan. With this as a guide, for you I'd say fifteen. So there you go: {real] fast food!

What you need:

• One 14.75 ounce can of Alaskan pink salmon, drained*
• 2 quail eggs (seriously!) OR 1 chicken egg OR 1 TB flax meal + 3 TB warm water, mixed and left for 5 minutes to gel
• 1/4 cup gluten free breadcrumbs**
• dried minced onion (approx 1 TB)
• dill (approx 1/2 TB)
• Dijon mustard (approx 1 TB)
• washed, chopped green onions (approx 1/4 cup)
• Lawry's seasoned salt (approx 1/2 TB)
• fresh ground black pepper (approx 1/2 tsp)

*You may pick out the salmon bones and skin to your satisfaction, but it is not necessary as the salmon is pressure cooked in the can. That process makes the bones and skin very soft and easily digestible. Leaving the bones in adds a great deal of calcium to your dish!
**Ener-G Foods makes a good gluten free variety for these purposes

What you do:

Using a fork, mash the salmon chunks as you would canned tuna fish. Add the eggs, bread crumbs and Dijon mustard and mix together. Then add your seasonings according to your taste. Blend everything together well.

Heat a cast iron skillet on medium heat, drizzling with a bit of grapeseed oil.
Form four patties with the salmon mixture. Place in the hot skillet and cook for eight minutes, flipping patties halfway through.

There you have it - a nutritious protein dish in less than twenty minutes.

Serving suggestion: Plate the salmon patties with a side of steamed broccoli or asparagus and (if you eat gluten-free grains) a small portion of wild rice.