Meal Planning 101

Meal planning isn't something new; for some people what I have to say in this blog is a no-brainer. But for many people living on their own for the first time, whether that's college or thereafter, this is a skill that should be quickly learned and utilized. Your mother is not cooking for you anymore; it is now time for you to create your dinner plan!

For many of us who may lean more Type A, meal planning offers us a small bit of relaxation by planning our lives, even if it just revolves about the week's or month's dinner line up. HOWEVER, this relaxation technique has other benefits that just so happen to fit into our areas of expertise:

1. Dinner is planned, so no stress that night wondering what to cook. (Our FOOD Pillar)
2. As discussed in my crock pot blog, planning=financial saving as well. (Our FINANCES Pillar)
3. You can plan to rotate foods through your diet and aim for proper nutrition. Though a one up from ordering pizza, chicken and rice every night for a month just won't cut it nutritionally. Don't forget about the variety of vitamins and minerals from consuming varying meats, fruits and veggies! (Our FITNESS Pillar)

I personally like to plan a week or two at a time, unless I know I'm in for a crazy month, in which case I do more. Planning in this manner allows me to put like foods semi close together for grocery shopping ease and food optimization. However if I plan a month-long dinner plan, I create a second grocery list for the produce for the latter half of the month so they won't go bad! Essentially, plan asparagus meals within a certain time-frame that balances you not getting tired of asparagus and not letting said asparagus go bad. This being said, I do analyze the produce in the fridge and blanch/quick freeze anything on the verge of going bad.

Questions to ask prior to meal planning:
1. What is your grocery budget for the month?
2. What produce do you have in the fridge you need to use?
3. What meat/veggies do you currently have in the freezer that should or could get eaten?

Things to consider:
1. Travel plans: who will be home that night?
2. Work schedule: should you prepare meals at the beginning of the week?
3. Visitors: do you need to plan to serve more than just the usual one or two people?
4. Weather: what foods pair best with the weather?

Things to research:
1. Foods in season: veggies and fruits not in season are more expensive!!
2. Store specials: advertised online or in those circulars in newspapers you can pick up on your driveway or at the store!
3. Coupons: having a loyalty card with Kroger, they send me coupons every month, plus offer more online via an online card account. These loyalty programs will sometimes offer more personalized coupons in accordance to your actual purchases. Yay for proper marketing & purchase tracking-my college diploma applauds you. Also, coupons are usually in the weekend newspaper! I'm not an extreme couponer but multiple times I have saved about a quarter of my grocery bill by optimizing coupons and store sales. Still working on being better but no shame there!
4. Recipes: time to actually look through that Pinterest recipe board. Dust off those cookbooks and post it mark any & all recipes that look appetizing. This could be a joint effort, often I hand James a stack of recipes, my phone open to Pinterest or a cookbook and tell him to mark which ones appeal to him!

Time to ACTUALLY USE those pretty cookbooks!

Those lists might be intimidating but when sitting down and looking at our January, I knew:
-We would be traveling A LOT (can plan smaller grocery budget or use buy high priced meats or stock up for the future-icemageddon could happen again!)
-I would be home by myself a few evenings, so one meal could probably last 2ish dinners plus lunches, depending on dish. As many individuals agree, it's hard to cook for JUST yourself everynight. So I cook larger meals I can eat for multiple days. If I weren't married, I would still do this then freeze half to pull out later that month to not eat the same thing all week all of the time.
-There was frozen meat we should use from prior Sam's purchases.
-It would be cold; hello roast and hearty meals!
-Any coupons I had on hand would be looked over to help plan dinners.

So this is what our January looked liked:

The plan:
Since we are primarily paleo, we don't do a lot of sandwiches for lunch. This means leftovers from one night's dinner becomes the next day's lunch. If you like having different lunches, this could be one way to spread out how long a meal lasts. Just remember to plan your lunches out too! Same with breakfast!

We cook practically every night. Yes, it gets exhausting. Yes, we have cleaned every cooking dish and utensil multiple times in one week before. Yes, I wear supportive shoes in the kitchen when I'm in for a long haul ;)

I love gathering meal recipes, and planning actually allows me to be creative with dinners and not resort to my comfort food of chicken & veggies EVERY night.

This is literally a whole counter full of clean dishes, and the dishwasher had just ran as well.

HELPFUL HINTS

The List:

Include quantity of items (ex: 3 medium carrots, one 4lb spaghetti squash) as you go through recipes. It'll help when you hit the supermarket and debate prices and quantity! And it stinks to not buy the right amount for your recipe!

Coupons:

Get these organized so you don't forget them when you reach the cashier! Pay attention to brands, but also use them to debate whether that coupon will actually save you money or if you could buy a generic at a cheaper price!

Item ingredients:

This is a HUGE point when dealing with allergies. I read every single ingredient in anything I buy that has a label. Some brands are cleaner or don't contain our allergens so unfortunately some items can throw a wrench in the plan when it comes to shopping by coupons or meals. Start paying attention to which brands you use, when they go on sale and which supermarkets carry them! I stock up when I see a great sale on these approved items!

Sales/organic items:

I know manager special items get added on certain days at my store, so that's the first place I go. Blanch the veggies and use them later or move around your meal plans if there are items there you can use!

As I am starting to learn, there are certain foods that should have a higher priority to be bought organic. Lots of lists out there help you prioritize which produce to buy organically, so keep an eye out for sales!

DON'T GO GROCERY SHOPPING WHEN HUNGRY & ALWAYS BRING A LIST. 

Your budget and checking account will thank you.

Any other helpful meal planning advice to add? Any questions I didn't answer?

Now if you excuse me, I need to finish planning for the month of March!

Financial Peace, Food Love & Joy

RR

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”
― Benjamin Franklin

Double F: Food and Finances

I have a secret: I love my crock pot! (okay, maybe it's not a secret) Not because it's top of the line or can on its own land a perfect 10 back flip like other fancy slow cookers. 

 See? Only 1 knob with 4 settings including OFF. So simple.

Rather, deep down at the root of my being (well maybe one of the root shoots) I love to multitask. Besides prepping the food (you know super hard cutting meat and veggies or opening cans), the crock pot allows me to cook and do everything else I need to do in a day! AND minimal cleanup time if you use these fancy bags!

 (I buy these in bulk.)

So this 5 year love affair has been blissful, and I can't imagine where I would be without my crock pot.

Seriously.

I'd like to say I'm joking but almost everyone knows that James fell in love with me AFTER I fed him crook pot roast in college. (Single Ladies out there, take note: there are 3 ways into a man's heart, accomplishing 2 will solidify a date. One of those ways is through his stomach, so learn to cook and quench his appetite.

So I write this post to explain how my crock pot fits into 2 pillars of our household (as previously mentioned in this post: finances and food. 

 

Finances: One of the main PROs of a crock pot is the financial efficiency of most meals. I say most because I'm sure there's someone out there making organic, farm raised meat meals who would beg to differ. (Future Rachel we are talking about you!) But point is: Lots of food at a small cost. This food can be eaten all week, frozen for later, or shared. I have done all three and still find it cheaper than a meal out at times (even if I feed 12 other people). So for those days you know you would come home from work and NOT want to cook and cave in to ordering pizza at 8pm or later because your husband sits on the couch the whole time and whines about being hungry but doesn't want to cook anything either, a crock pot would have been a better solution financially and health-wise, too. So think ahead, plan your meals, and don't give in to the "let's just go somewhere and spend money" temptation anymore! When you come home to the smell of dinner, you won't think ONCE about going out to eat. Unless you are thinking about how much money you saved by using your trusty friend the crock pot!

The other pillar: Food. My favorite things to cook in the CP: Roast (True life: I have never not cooked a roast in a crock pot) and taco chicken. I'm starting to crave both of these meals now. The truth is, I wasn't a chef prior to or even during college. In fact, my skills are still minimal compared to many women who have more experience than me (and less for you gifted ladies out there). I began "cooking" in college by using the crock pot. It was my gateway kitchen appliance if you will. There are recipes upon recipes for slow cookers out there, and I rarely find one that's bad. I'll eventually post my winners.

If you don't have a crock pot, buy one. It'll be an investment that will positively change your health and bank account if you find it hard to cook healthy meals and are wanting to save more money this year.

Peace, love, and crock pot meals.

~RR

Allergy-free pancakes!

(I'm going to recap here a few sentences in case you haven't read my previous allergy free cooking blog):

A few weeks ago we got James's blood-work back and discovered James is allergic to dairy, eggs, gluten, peanuts, soy, citric acid...(I think I listed them all). At this point, most people ask why we tested James for allergies. Easiest answer is a combo of headaches and stomach aches and the curiousity of an allergy possibility. I am also allergic to eggs and am lactose intolerant, so we decided to attempt to be nice to our bodies and get rid of these food allergens from our diets.  Having a younger brother who's allergic to soy, gluten and eggs, an older brother allergic to peanuts, eggs and is lactose intolerant, and a sister-in-law allergic to beef and dairy (ie the whole cow), I thought I was ready to jump right in. I may have been used to the diet, but I was definitely not knowledgeable about how to cook for said dietary restrictions! (And everyone thought I was the hard one to cook for; I just can't eat corn/salads/extremely spicy foods! Cooking for someone who has 3 feet less intestines is SO MUCH EASIER than cooking for someone allergic to the common foods!)

So besides for purging our pantry of all those foods and purchasing more expensive allergy-free foods, we have begun researching allergy-free recipes. While our dinners won't differ much (we tend to eat meats and veggies for dinner), we realized breakfasts and snacks will be our challenges. So, I found a pancake recipe that is gluten-free, egg-free and dairy-free and thought I'd give it a try. 

The recipe is as follows:

Protein Packed Pancakes

http://www.realfoodallergyfree.com/2011/12/protein-packed-pancakes/

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Navy Beans, drained
• 1 2/3 cup Water
• 1 Tbsp Honey (Don’t substitute as this gives the pancakes the golden color.)
• 2 tsp Oil (I use olive)
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 1/2 cup Rolled Oats

Directions:

1. Add ingredients to blender in the order listed. Blend until well blended. Set aside to thicken while you heat the skillet to medium.
2. Cook on until golden brown, turning as needed.

The first challenge, besides purchasing the items, was getting over the fact that navy beans will be a main ingredient of pancakes. 

I compiled all ingredients into a blender and heated the griddle:

I used coconut oil to grease the griddle then began cooking. The first round of pancakes didn't turn out as pretty as the second and third.  These pancakes take longer to cook than the gluten filled Bisquick ones, but tasted practically the same! (Believe it or not!) The texture wasn't as light and fluffy as "normal" pancakes, but we enjoyed them!

I'm excited to find more recipes, hopefully ones that work out better than the waffle recipe I attempted the other day.... You win some, you lose some, right?

~RR

"There is no remedy for love but to love more." 

-Henry David Thoreau

Cooking Adventures of the Paleo/Vegan Diet

We recently learned my husband James has quite a few allergies: dairy, egg, gluten (to name a few).  We've decided to change our diets for awhile to see if the change affects headaches and stomach aches he has recently been having.  In our attempt to find allergy-free recipes, we have decided we are really adapting a paleo/vegan diet: eliminating processed foods and staying away from dairy and eggs, but still eating meats.  So far we have cleaned out our pantry, restocked it with allergy-free ingredients and products, researched appealing recipes and have started adapting to our new lives.

As my doctor told me, allergies are like a cup of water: as you are exposed to an allergen, imagine pouring some water into a cup; the more allergens you are exposed to, the fuller the cup, until your body goes completely haywire and your cup overflows.  When my younger brother was in the 8th/9th grade, this is exactly what was happening. He was skin and bones and had stomach issues.  We did a blood test on him and found he was severely allergic to soy, gluten and eggs, basically the only food groups he was eating.  Since he has changed his diet, he feels great, looks great, and is now a healthy senior in high school. I admire him; I couldn't imagine being 18 years old and not eating cake, hamburgers, drinking pepsi, and so much more.

With my brother's experience, my whole family changed our diets, so this new diet to accommodate to my husband's newly found allergies wouldn't be too different for me. The change, however, will be the cooking of the foods, as I have rarely cooked many allergy-free foods.

Today I changed up my usual crock pot roast so that it would be soy and gluten free. Normally I plop the roast in the crock pot, empty about half a packet of Lipton Onion soup mix packet on top and add some water. Today however, I used some different ingredients:

Roast from the 'Lewis Place', half of a small cooking onion, half of the package of dried portobello mushrooms, and half of the carton of organic, allergy-free mushroom soup.

We absolutely love returning home from work to the smell of a crock pot creation, especially roast! 

The roast tasted the same, if not better, than my traditional onion soup mix recipe; the main difference actually comes with the higher cost of the allergy free ingredients. I altered my mashed potatoes to use only Original flavored Almond Milk (normally I pile in the butter and regular milk).  The mashed potatoes were creamy and tasted just the same! Of course the gravy from the roast would have masked any odd flavors if there were any!

All in all, we had a successful dinner and, besides for the initial 'full' feeling, felt amazing! No discomfort or drowsiness at all. I look forward to adapting more of my recipes and trying new ones as we experiment with our new life change!

Is anyone else trying a new diet due to dietary restrictions? Any suggestions or recommendations out there?

Yours truly,

RR

"Do not live life attempting to make your presence known, 

but live in a way which makes your absence felt."