Preparing for the Monthly Shop

(What the freezer inventory looked like before I went all high tech and made it into a table!)

I'm sorry, this post sat in the "edit" queue a bit too long. Obviously, the first Tuesday of April has come and gone. However--over at simplify 101, there's another brave soul who wants to attempt planning her menus for the month--and so--here's my process--typed up and ready to go-- just for you Megan. ;)

********
Well, the first Tuesday in April is coming up quickly. And so it is that time again to do the Monthly Menus. Some have expressed interest in how I have done this: so, since I'm still fairly immobile, now seems like a good time to hobble through the process with you.

I feed a family of four. My kids are home during the day: so lunch is always a hassle. Nonetheless, these menus I make up are for dinners only--oh--and I make a pot of soup once a week (as well as a batch of muffins) for my husband to take to work for his lunch.

My system has evolved over many years. I started with just the "Master Grocery List." For that, I simply kept and collected of all the grocery lists I'd made in a month and then entered them into the computer. Some advise making the list in the same order as the aisles of the store where you shop--but I did not do that: instead I grouped things in categories which made sense to me.

I used to use it weekly: I don't anymore. Here it is as it stands now.

It is one of the last sheets of paper we will use in this process.

First, I take inventory of the freezer and pantry. This is a fairly recent evolution of the process: and it was born out of the need to save every penny I could a while ago. I just go to my pantry in the basement and note what kinds of items I have. I have a one out, one in kind of rule. In other words, if there's ketchup in the fridge, but none in the pantry, we need ketchup. (Really, it's just a way of saving me worrying about what's in the fridge!)

That form looks like this:

You realize, of course, that neither of these forms are essential to meal planning. They are essential to shopping. I say that because you can just figure out what to eat when without them--that's a meal plan.

So, to the Nitty Gritty.

Sundays we have either Roast Ham or Roast Chicken.
Mondays are for leftovers. (Chicken corn Chowder soup and Chicken pot pie for the Roast Chicken, Hoppin' John soup for the Ham)

This month the rest of week breaks down like this:
Tuesdays: Pork or Poultry.
Wednesdays: Vegetarian
Thursday: Pork or Poultry
Friday: Beef (usually of the lean ground variety)
Saturday: Soup. (These are for the husband to take to work during the week. I actually make them up on Mondays along with the weekly muffins).

Going through the cookbooks, I write them all down on a calendar with side dishes. I record the cookbook and page number where I can find the recipe.

THEN--and this is where it saves us money--I go through the handwritten copy and type it out onto the computer. How does this save money? Well, as I do this, I look up each recipe again and write down what I need on my pantry inventory list. For example, tomorrow night we're going to have Turkey Pot Pie. I'm going to use the Campbell soup version of this: so I write down "can of cream of celery soup" on my inventory list. I put "1" under the category "plan to use."

For the next item, Italian Pasta and Bean bake, I record on my pantry list that I need
1 can 14 1/2 oz tomatoes
1 can kidney beans
1 jar of pasta sauce
8 oz (226g) mozzarella cheese.

The first three ingredients are merely tick marks on the pantry inventory form, the last is recorded on the shopping list.

And so on and so forth. After I've tallied everything up, I do some simple 'rithmetic. So, for example, let's say I'd noticed (and recorded) that we have 2 cans of 14 1/2 oz tomatoes in the pantry already--and my menu plan indicates I need five. So, on the pantry list, next to the listing for tomatoes, small can, I record 3 in the "NEED" column.

My system has some redundancy in it: the grocery list also includes "tomatoes, small can" where I may or may not write "3" beside it. I usually do, the goal being to take one piece of paper to the market and not 3 or 4, but I tend to bring everything--especially as I like having the meat detailed. Here's the shopping list ready for shopping:


And so, here it is, the star of our show. You've seen it before: the colour coded monthly menu plan.


But she certainly wouldn't work well at all with out her supporting players:

• the grocery list with everything we buy regularly
• and it's supporting actor: the pantry and freezer inventory.

Hope this helps, Megan.
Happy Shopping!

Menu Plans for January

Well, they are done again for the month! I actually invented a new form yesterday to help me take inventory of my pantry and freezer. I'm quite pleased with it, though it needs some fine tuning, now that I've used it.

But it was helpful. January is "use up what we have" month--so there's not much we'll be needing to buy this month.

Anyway, without further ado, here are the menus:

Menus for December

In the Spirit of Christmas, I offer you this odd photo I took with my film camera right after we'd put up the lights earlier this month. It has snowed afresh today and everything looks as it ought. I wish I could show you that!*



It was quite the week. No headboard, but I did get almost all of our Christmas shopping done (husband had the week off and so we went shopping!), all the Christmas cards mailed (with accompanying photo of the kids and newsletter), and I've got the baking planned. According to my calculations, we'll need just over three pounds of butter and nearly 8 cups of sugar. Yeah, I'm not on any sort of reducing diet this month, that's for sure!

I've been scrapping up a storm, too. I've got most of the calendar for 2010 finished. And I decided to put together an album of past calendar pages for my Mom as a surprise Christmas present. The pages are all different sizes--so I had to figure out how to get them all into one format. Pictures from 2004 and 2008 have had to be scrapped up from scratch, as I didn't do a calendar for those years' pictures. I've got Volume 1 completed-- 2003, 2004, and 2005. We'll see how far we can get with Volume 2 (2006, 2007, and 2008).

Oh--and I've done the menus for dinner in December.

Here's the proof.


Big shop tomorrow!

*The digital camera is still in another city being repaired. I'm pining for it.

Sunday Soup

Now that the colder weather is upon us, soup is the new salad.

I've decided to make a big batch of soup early in the week. The idea is to have it on hand for hubby's lunches. He has taken a package of noodle soup and eaten half of it for years. Other than being loaded with sodium and packing 300+ calories, it didn't offer anything nutritionally speaking. It's time we changed that. As well, having a vegetable soup around is handy for my lunches and snacks.

So, today's featured soup is a recipe I got from the Maintainers Forum at 3FC. I call it Glory's Minestrone*.


Olive oil for sautéing
1 large onion, chopped
1 Tbsp minced garlic
3 cups low-fat low-sodium vegetable broth (I use bouillon cubes)
3 cups water
4-6 carrots (however many you happen to have, I used 6 last night), sliced into circles
2 cans Italian-style stewed tomatoes, NOT drained (if they have no-salt Italian style, bonus points)
2 Tbsp Italian seasoning blend
about 1/8 - 1/4 tsp black pepper (to taste)
pinches of whatever Italian spices you have on hand (I use a bit of oregano and thyme) to taste
1 cup uncooked whole wheat elbow macaroni
1 can no-salt-added cut green beans (sometimes I use fresh, you just have to add them earlier so they can cook in the broth) or 1 to 1 ½ cups frozen.
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed.
½ cup frozen corn


1. Heat the oil in a large stock pot (Dutch oven works well) over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, sauté until onion is tender.

2. Add water, broth, and carrots, bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat, cook until the carrots can be pierced easily with a fork, about 5-8 minutes.

3. Add tomatoes and spices, bring back to a boil. Add elbow macaroni and cook as long as the package says to (usually 9-11 minutes), stirring occasionally (the macaroni WILL stick to the pan if you don't).

4. Add green beans, corn and kidney beans, cook until heated through.



*even though Glory didn't post the recipe, someone named "paperclippy" did that.
(I have also modified the amounts of the ingredients: it now has more green beans and less pasta. The picture shows the soup with the pasta originally called for. As you can see, two cups (uncooked) was just too much!)

Actually, the more I ponder this, the more I think I may just leave out the pasta altogether. It does tend to soak up all the liquid over the course of the week. On the other hand, I do love the taste of pasta and beans together.

My Monthly Menu

Another monthly Blitz attack on the grocery store is now complete. This month I had to purchase items for Thanksgiving Dinner on Sunday, as well. It was quite the shopping trip.

Here are the menus. If nothing else, CT has shown me how nice it is to have all my dinners neatly typed out on the calendar.

Here it is, then.

CT: In the Can....

I'm not entirely sure why Wende has pulled the plug on CT. I thought it was going along as well as these voluntary group projects seem to go.

I have been wrapped up in my own world a lot lately, it's true. And, I admit, I was lazy about looking up assignments. I didn't like paging back through Wende's entries and ignoring them...so until it was linked in the sidebar, I was rather lazy about getting to the weeks assignments. In fact, I hadn't even seen Decade Five when I saw that the project had been canceled. Pity. I was looking forward to what might happen next.

Meanwhile, however, I went ahead and did something I've always wanted to do and have never done before. And I'll do it again, too.

I made pearsauce.

It started when I bought 7 litres of unripe green Bartlett pears. No, I have no idea, really, how many pounds that is. By the time they were really ripe and ready for fooling about with, the family (and I) had eaten a fair number of them from the box.

Someone at 3FC suggested I make pearsauce. I cruised the internet while the pears were ripening and discovered you make it just like applesauce...and in fact a few recipes I found on-line suggested making it with apples to help keep it sweet.

But what made this whole endeavour CT-worthy was not that I made perasauce--anyone can make pearsauce and freeze it. Nuh-uh, what made this culinary therapy was that I canned it.

I read up on canning on-line. (I was on-line a lot last week! The Internet is my friend.) I went to three different stores one evening before I found the one that would even carry such a thing. Canadians will not be surprised that, no, there weren't any at Sears. And no, the Big Grocery Stores didn't have them either. The place to go? Canadian Tire. But they were sold out.

My pears were ripening quickly. I had, at most, likely 24 hours before they turned to mush. We packed the cell phone with the husband's lunch the next day and I printed off a photograph and slipped it in his lunch. He was to visit another Canadian Tire store across town after work --and to a nearby Superstore Walmart and report on what he found there. He called and told me he found a little home canning kit, to wit:

a jar lifter
a funnel (to fill the jars easily)
and two other little gizmos:
one, a "head space" measurer and bubble remover-in-one (no joke),
and, two, a little magnetic lid lifter.

I told him to buy it. But there were no canners. Not one. So, he moved on to the Wallys. They had a canner--but they wanted $45.00 for it. Something had to be wrong with that, so I told him to leave it there and come home.

Then, I called every single Canadian Tire and found out that 1) there was a mini-canner available at precisely one store, (big enough for pints, but not quarts) and 2) there may have been a shipping problem with the larger canners as CT hasn't seen any of those since the spring.

So, I high-tailed it off to the store and got the mini-canner and the jars. Oh--and I also bought a handy dandy book on canning by Bernardin.




And so I measured out my pears: 5 3/4 pounds. I think I had about 4 Galas on hand. So, I used those.



Aurelia and I peeled. And cored. And peeled. And cored.

And several hours later, we had this.



Yep.

Three pints.

That is all.

Dinner: Wednesday Night.

This is actually part of my camping repertoire. It's super simple.

Beany Beef Burritos.

1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups cooked beef
1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 package reduced sodium taco seasoning mix

Fry the onions until transluscent in the oil. Add the beef and beans and seasoning mix. Warm through. Place onto burritos, tortillas or wraps and add toppings.

Toppings:

chopped green onion
diced tomatoes
shredded cheddar cheese
chopped cilantro
sour cream
salsa

Like this:



I used a can of mixed beans for the Pinto and the Black as I'd used up the latter in a Barley soup I made last night. As well, that's a yellow tomato mixed in with the red. Cucumbers are sitting in for the cilantro and the green onions.

Prelude to the Extra Credit. (or How I Spent my Summer Vacation)

I have been thinking about having a decent vegetable garden for many years. I don't know the first thing about gardening except you have to weed it. For a long time we had a garden in a terrible and shady inherited spot near our garage. We got bitter lettuce and deformed carrots out of it until I decided it wasn't my responsibility and my husband could take care of it. Well, that didn't work out too well and the area became a grassy mound. It's the scruffy bit on the left, at the back.

This picture is from June of 2008. We didn't have a drought last year.

Our back yard faces south--so we have wonderful exposure. I really don't know why someone decided to put it there. I wanted to put the garden closer to the house (and hose) and in a better place for sun. But first, this sidewalk would have to come out.

(Picture taken in April, 2009. Yes, that's snow in the shadows.)

As you can see, no loss really. What you can't see is a) the gate doesn't work very well and my husband has given up on keeping it square year after year. It's an "emergency exit only."

Secondly, there's a great dip where we had our old drain pipe dug up and removed many summers ago. The fellows who did it carted away too much of our soil--we had to ask them to bring some back! They did, but after a few years, when all had settled, we could easily see it wasn't enough. So, there was a dangerous valley in the sidewalk right at the front and I would trip while walking on it. Often. So, I wasn't too interested in keeping this sidewalk: and it was a perfect place for a few raised beds. I decided we'd do three this year--and eventually work up to four.



We got the sidewalk out by mid-May and the forms built, then we promptly ran out of funds. We needed dirt. Lots of dirt and we just couldn't afford it.

We had another problem too.
Remember this?



This was all the stuff left over from last year's landscaping efforts. There's concrete rubble, and cedar bush and tree bits. There's also some really inexpensive brick we bought at a salvage place. We wanted to take it to the dump: (well, except for the brick, of course) but we couldn't figure out how to get it there. We needed a hitch (which we planned to get for the camper trailer anyway) and a cargo trailer which we really didn't want to pay for--even to rent. And my husband really didn't want to pay the dumping fees, either.

And then the Jeep had its accident.


We did come up with a solution for our lack of dirt and too much rubble problem, but not in time to plant anything like a garden.

So, this evening, I ran out to take pictures of where we are, now, and what will be available for planting next spring. We may get one more form built before the snow flies but now need a roof rack (which has been unavailable from Chrysler since July).


(Above: you can easily see where the old sidewalk had been. That's alfalfa growing in the partially assembled form.

Below: the view straight on. The dip was right under the hose reel and you can see where it carries out into the yard.)



I'm not holding my breath. The furnace came on for the first time today.

Decade 5: Musing

The Goals.

Yes, the goals of CT.

I wrote about them here. But, more accurately, I should say, I pretended to write about them. What I wanted out of CT had really nothing to do with changing my cooking: what I really wanted from CT was something to support my weight loss efforts. I was in trouble, though, with the very first assignment. Drooling over cook books with elaborate methods and exotic ingredients did not help me in the least. But, through reading fellow participant's blogs (Kerry, I actually haven't thanked you but yours is one which has helped this metamorphosis in my thinking) I have learned so much.

The education I have received about eating and cooking has been amazing...and I now have real honest to goodness goals for myself, my family, our budget and our food.

BUT, before I chew on all that, let's take a much smaller slice of the problem, first, ok?

I plan suppers around the following formula I learned from my grandmother. A "dinner" (whether prepared and consumed at noon as she and my grandfather did or after 5pm) should be made up of a hunk of meat, vegetables (translated, usually into "something green") and something starchy--usually potatoes. In my household, that starchy something has been expanded to include pasta, (though not much, because I always think it has to have a sauce and I'm just not into making a fourth thing), rice and potatoes. Yeah, I know. Not very exciting.

Enter, stage left, Bittman. Yes, again.

He has a whole page on cooking "Whole Grains without Measuring." And here the "starch" options are greatly expanded: brown rice, quinoa, barley (any type), oat groats, buckwheat groats, steel-cut oats, millet, cracked wheat, hominy, whole rye, farro, kamut, or wild rice or wheat berries.

Now, some of this I've never even heard of (farro? kamut? oat groats?), some I've heard of but don't quite know what it is and have never seen (wheat berries, hominy, millet, whole rye), and some I have (buckwheat, barley), right here at home, waiting for me to do something with it other than what I had had planned (whatever that may have been, though with the buckwheat it was most certainly Tabbouleh).

Then, of course, there's a whole page of the green coloured "side-bars" detailing "what to do" with them. I love it. I just love it! The versatility combined with the basics is like getting the little black dress and then going any direction you want with the proper accessories. It's wonderful.

And this, without knowing it, is exactly what I was looking for. In my original post I'd mentioned wanting something for those nights I "don't want to cook." Well, the key to that, I've learned, is to make lots of food when I make it, so that "left over" night is a built in non-cooking night for me. As well, I've decided to make a pot of soup every week: something for lunches, yes, but also something to serve when I don't feel like cooking. We needed more variety in our dinners--as well as simplicity. And, with Bittman, for now, anyway, I've found it.

So, for tonight's supper, I'm going to boil up some of the barley we have lying about with a bit of zucchini and broccoli mixed in with Olive Oil Drizzle. Supper itself is Crock Pot chicken stew: chicken breats with onions and carrots bathed in chicken broth, apple juice and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar). I made the juices into a sauce with some flour and water and a great deal of reduction.

added later--

Here's the Barley:


I cannot believe how good that barely was. I chopped and steamed some broccoli while I sauteed some onion and zucchini in olive oil. The barley still had a lot of liquid, though it seemed done, so I put it into the frying pan and added the broccoli, now chopped into infinitesimal, non-noticeable little bits. (I don't like broccoli). I doused it quickly with a splash of olive oil to prevent it from sticking to the pan, then added a few squirts of lemon juice. Since I now had two of the three components for the "drizzle" on my barley, I went ahead and added some dried parsley. It still needed "something" so per Bittmen's green coloured side-bar alternative suggestions, I added a pinch of oregano. It was perfect. Even the kids liked it, though my daughter called it "spicey." I made 1/2 cup raw--about what I'd make for rice--and I barely had any left over. Too bad. I was looking forward to putting it in the frying pan tomorrow and frying an egg into it for breakfast!

CT: In Sympathy with Omnivore's Everywhere.

Yes, I must be the last person in the Enlightened World to read Micheal Pollen's "The Omnivore's Dilemna."

While reading this book, I've been compulsively reading labels, of course. I challenge anyone not to read a label while reading this book! Here in Canada, though, I have never, ever seen anything with HFCS on it. I don't think our food is free of it, not at all. I just don't think it has to be on the label.

Last night I blasted through the chapters all about the corn in our meat supply while snacking on a sleeve of soda crackers. Of course, I'd read the label when I'd taken out the sleeve. Back upstairs, after I'd eaten them, I read about the whole system of processing corn into food additives. And then I read a little tid-bit about TBHQ. In my crackers, apparently. Yep, there it is on the ingredient list. Apparently it's akin to Butane.

I also found out last night that I was 19 when the chicken nugget was invented. Nineteen! I really hadn't realised how different my childhood had been from my daughter's. It sort of scares me. I'm going to go into a shop which sells Bison tomorrow and see what that's all about. But that's tomorrow. Tonight, I had to get dinner on the table and I didn't feel like feeding us corn-fed meat.

So, in the spirit of whole foods and eating from the pantry, I made a soup from Food Matters, by Mark Bittman. This, by the by, is the recipe book I've been waiting for. It will take me to the next level of learning to cook. Thus far, I have been a slave to recipes. In the past, I've been known not to make a particular dish if I didn't have the exact ingredient called for. And yes, I have run out and bought it when I "had to."

I now repent of my folly.

Bittman is great in that for every recipe he has, he gives the "basic" recipe. Then in either a header or otherwise, he presents add-ons and options. I really had no idea cooking could be this innovative and creative. For example, oatmeal gets both sweet and savoury options. Savoury Oatmeal? Cool.

So, tonight, I decided to make his Fast Mixed Vegetable Soup.
Here's the basic recipe:

3 Tablespoons olive oil, or more.
1 medium onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
2 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped. (I love that! Smashed and chopped. It's what I do!)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper.
6 cups vegetable stock (or water)
2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped. (Canned tomatoes are fine...) or 1/4 cup tomato paste
4 to 6 cups quick cooking vegetables, like green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, corn, cooked or canned beans, radishes, zucchini, or summer squash, or dark leafy greens like kale or collards, roughly chopped.
1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves.

1. Put 2 tablespoons of the oil into a large, deep pot over medium heat. When it's hot, add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook, stirring until the onion softens, about 5 minutes.



Can I just say that one carrot, one celery stalk and one onion is a lot of food? It always astonishes me.

2. Add stock, tomato, remaining vegetables; bring to a boil, then lower the heat so the mixture bubbles enthusiastically.


(This is my broth. I make batches of it from spent roasted chicken carcasses and vegetable peelings scraps. I started doing this a year ago as part of our efforts to live more frugally. I'm about due to make some more--and I've got everything I need already in the freezer plus what I peeled tonight.)

3. Cook, stirring every now and then, until all the vegetables are very tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning, add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil (oops, didn't see that!) and serve.

Then, in the book almost the entire page details various add-ins, from herb and spice substitutions (I used Cumin because I couldn't find the parsley) to adding root veggies and tapanade (whatever that is).

I confess I didn't go as hog wild as I had planned--I forgot to put in the broccoli I thought would be wise to use up tonight and I didn't get any farther with the root veggies other than registering we have butternut squash, sweet potato and beets on hand. Nope, I grabbed some frozen corn and this--ever preoccupied with making a meal with Whole and Complete Amino Acid Chains.



I was also a bit distracted by making what turned out to be my baking powder biscuit hockey pucks. They always turn out like hockey pucks.



I'm giving up, I think, and I'll try making Bittman's Easy Whole Grain Flatbread or something.

Inspired for Dinner

I think it was min/min who first mentioned Mark Bittman. I was led to his blog, and then within 24 hours, heard him interviewed on CBC. Then I requested his book Food Matters from the library, and last night, I read it.


I had two peaches on my counter which I had purchased and placed in a paper bag to ripen. They did. Too much so. I wound up throwing out the one I'd bitten into: but hung on to the rest. Tonight, Bitten inspired me to base a dinner around my mealy peaches. (Well, that and I wanted something simple, meatless and easy on my daughter's upset stomach.)

How?

With this brilliant method for cooking them.



I made whole wheat pancakes from my Jane Brody cookbook and fried up a few slices of bacon. (At 45 calories, all fat, from one slice, I "allow" it on the diet: but I cut all the "slices" in half and call it two: as if I am two and don't know the law of conservation of matter.)

And so the peaches were a wonderful topping for the pancakes.

Sorry, I didn't get a proper picture.
I was too hungry.

Timely Broadcast: Mark Bittmen on CBC

Today's (Tuesday, Sept 1) broadcast on Q: It is the first item.

I like his approach. Foods aren't "good" or "bad" but exist on a spectrum from "harmful," to "benign," to "beneficial."

And the zowie for me: The important choice is not between local and non-local, organic and not. The choice that matters is between plant and non-plant: to choose less meat, less processed and more plants. Period.

Have a 1/2 hour?
Have a listen.

Bittman on Q

I did the googling for you: 101 Salads

Menus done.

I discovered I really enjoyed using my Monthly Menu Plan last month all done up nicely on the computer. It was easy to read and navigate, so a lot of it actually got cooked! Only 7 out of 24 dinners did not get made and 6 of them involved using the oven. Given the atypical warm temperatures we've had these past few weeks, using the oven was completely out of the question!

I just finished preparing my menus and my shopping list for September. I incorporated two "old" recipes recently re-discovered in the newly revamped and re-organized Recipe Binder. Now, I am just waiting for the hubby to get home from work so I can do the Big Shop.



We got our attic insulated today to R-40. We need a turbine to help circulate the air up there, so they have to come back to install it. Nonetheless, I am looking forward to a snug and cozy winter (and hopefully, cooler summers! It's almost too hot to sleep up there right now.)

CT Decade 4: Ze bonz.

Bones

Clean and organize your recipe or cookbook collection, making sure that what you're likely to use is what's handy. If you do not have recipes to support your preferred level of culinary effort, it's time to go find some!

Would you believe I just re-read Wende's instructions only to discover I didn't follow them at all! Yet, I did what needed to be done and I'm really pleased. It didn't take very long, either. And it was just the task for a sleep deprived brain.

These are my cookbook shelves.




I did not, actually, deal with the cookbooks at all, per se. I've weeded these out many times and I'm currently happy with what's there. I generally use only the ones on the lower shelf. Some of those on the top shelf belong to the husband and I don't have his permission to get rid of them.

So, what did I do?

See those binders?

The black ones next to the Milk bones box?
(Yes, it holds Milk bones. They're kept here, kitty corner to the stairs to lure the puppy down should he dodge the gate at their foot.)

The skinny black binder is my printout of weekly housecleaning chores from Motivated Moms.

The other is MY "recipe box."

But the binder had become dysfunctional. You can see it bulging there on the shelf. Very little was organized--and I had recipes in there which pre-dated my computer that I hadn't probably made more than twice, ten years or so ago. So, it was time to sort through this collection of recipes.



I love keeping my recipes this way. I sort of fell into this format over time, but it's just so sensible. First, I can photocopy a page from a cookbook, three hole punch it and put it into the binder. I can also, naturally, print out recipes from on-line. I can type recipes into a word document and print them. The 8 1/2 x 11 format is by far the easiest way to capture a recipe. Why bother with writing everything out on a 4x6 card? The sheer amount of work: even with a program for it, smothers all desire to even have recipes on hand.

The second advantage to this format is that should I ever be bothered by the mish mash of styles and formats I could stream line the whole thing into some sort of attractive work of art with Word and artwork and pictures and what not. I may do something of the sort as a "going away" gift for the kids when they leave home, but I can't think I'd bother otherwise.

The third best feature of this format is that I can use page protectors. I'd like to get those extra-wide page dividers, though. Right now I can't really "see" the dividers I've already got in there.

I now have my recipes categorized like this:
1) Salads
2) Entrees, beef
3) Entrees, Chicken
4) Entrees, vegetarian
5) Soup
6) "Cooking Lessons" from Canadian Living
7) Holiday menus and recipes. (Here is where the stuffing recipe goes, the Carrot and Yam dish, the Bacon wrapped Shrimp, Turkey Pot Pie.)
8) Recipes focused on one ingredient, like Rhubarb.
9) Miscellaneous. (How to make Chili five ways, type thing.)

Nonetheless, even though I weeded out a lot of old recipes and retyped one to fit on one page instead of two, I decided to create a second binder for Baking. It's the blue one, now on the shelf.

This one is much simpler:
1) Muffins and quickbreads
2) Cookies
3) Other.



At the very least, I can now send the kids to get the Brownie recipe and not worry that everything else is going to fall out. At most, we might even eat a bit more variety around here. We'll see how the monthly menu planning goes this weekend.

Decade 4, La Tete.

Head

* Decide whether you're the sort of person who comparison shops for the best deal among grocery stores or whether you prefer to stick to one favorite store.

A long time ago my husband told me that since he works for a major grocery chain here out West, that we would shop exclusively at that grocery store. I was pleased. It isn't the cheapest in town: but then I don't have to bag my own groceries: and I can actually find clerks who will help me locate items. Coupons and what not are an entirely different thing here: and running to different stores for the "best deal" takes a lot of time and gas. I'm happy to stick to the one store. That being said, our food bills are very, very high. (A lot of that has to do with where we live: we're a long way from everywhere, so it all just costs more--but I can do much, much better when I cut down on our meat.)

* Construct a list of staples that need to be kept on hand and routinely replaced as the supply runs low. If you are a solo cook accustomed to shopping for specific cooking projects (and eating a lot of Toast), you will be shocked at how much food you need on hand to get through a week at a reasonable level of variety. Roll with it. There is a sense of security that is achieved only by possession of that second can of Great Northern beans.

I did this a long time ago, a la Flylady. It really wasn't that hard. I saved a few weeks of grocery lists (we weren't doing the once a month thing, then) and just typed up the recurring items. Then I added stuff I'd be likely to buy every week (the produce and bread, mostly) and saved the thing on the computer. I print it off every month and whatever I don't need, I simply strike out. I "need" something when, for example, my recipes call for 4 cans of 19oz tomatoes and I have 4 (or even 5) on hand. I'll simply buy one more: just to keep that pantry stocked and retain that sense of security Wende mentioned. (It's my bounty, my security and my largess when there's a food drive for the local food bank.)

I recently re-vamped it and added a second page to keep track of the meat we have on hand. It sits with me when I do my menus--and since Tuesday is the First Tuesday of Spetember, I've already printed it off to do my menus today and tomorrow.



The ideal, of course, is to have this laid out according to the aisles in your grocery store--and I tried that once. But, after the store underwent renovations, I didn't bother to change things and it just seems overly fussy to me. Still, it may be helpful to some to whip it into store-order.

Next up: Recipes.
Can I say I am looking forward to getting my recipes sorted and organized?
I've been waiting for this since Day 1.

Menu Planning

I plan my menus a month at a time. I plan for 6 days in a week. I do this, as I have mentioned before, because the grocery stores in our city offer 10% off the entire grocery bill the first Tuesday of every month. That means Sunday and Monday are spent frantically meal planning and (since I decided to save money by eliminating waste) taking inventory of the pantry and freezer.

This month I decided I wanted the following per week:
1 Roast or crock pot dish for Sunday evening supper.
1 meal with ground beef.
1 meal with pork
1 meal with fish
the rest I would fill in with Chicken and whatever.

As I mentioned, I love Leanne Ely's cookbooks. So, I sit down with her books and a blank calendar and start scribbling. If you enlarge the monthly chart below, you'll notice I've written in the page numbers of the recipe I'm using (or otherwise indicate how to find it.) (This month, since I knew I would share it with you, I re-did it on the computer. Inspired by zooza, I applied coloured highlighters to indicate the meat. (Orange is chicken; pink, fish; green, ground beef, and yellow, pork, though I don't think any but the yellow showed up from the scan.)



My challenge--in addition to all this work (and believe me, it is work)--is the weekly grocery shop. This is supposed to be for the fresh ingredients we need: you know, the carrots, celery, spinach, milk, yogurt and eggs. This morning, because CT is fresh in my mind, I actually sat down with the menu, the cookbooks and a piece of paper and made a grocery list. Then I went shopping. I was so proud.

Oh--and just a note. These are not set in stone. For example, on Thursday we went to the mall and had supper there. (The first time this year, I think. There was a Grand Opening. They had a circus act. It was extraordinary.) So, on Friday, since I was somehow in the midst of cleaning the oven--making it unavailable for the planned fish, I made one of our favourite dishes, the Pork Diane we would have had on Thursday.

So. That's my menu planning process.

Here is what I've planned for supper this coming week:

Monday
Shrimp and Snow Peas on brown rice.

Tuesday (my daughter's ninth birthday--the menu was requested.)
Roast Chicken
White potato, carrots, and sweet potato. (Could be a yam. I don't know. The orange one.)
Yorkshire Pudding
Beets.
Chocolate cake and ice cream.

Wednesday
Crock Chops with potatoes and coleslaw.

Thursday
Greek Turkey Burgers with side "greek" salad.

Friday
Citrus Fish, brown rice, orange & kidney bean salad.

Saturday
leftovers.

Sunday
Roast Ham, veggies.

I am, when all is said and done, a fairly simple cook.

Week 2: CT, Catching Up

Before I tackle the hard questions and "simple" tasks of CT Week Three, I want to tackle Week Two. Fortunately, for me, there really wasn't much for me to do to satisfy the requirements of this week. The real week, however, was quite full. And so, for the record, here is (part of) CT: Week 2.

Heart
Rummage through your brains (or your recipe books) for a dish you used to make "all the time" but have neglected in recent months (or years). Acquire the ingredients and make it! And photograph it (we like to see proof around here*). While you're at it, you might as well share the recipe. And tell us what the dish means to you. In fact... dish.

After much rumination, I am going to claim the Bran muffin recipes I posted for Mella. I could talk about how I used to make Lentil soup--but don't much anymore. (But then, I never made it much when I was single, either. It simply stands out because when I did make it, I ate really well that week!)

And that's the crux of it, right there. Until I had a family, I had no need to cook. I have no idea what I ate as a single person except the muffins, lentil soup and spaghetti sauce. (A recipe I've since resurrected. We have it once a month, now) Then (likely the result of years of severe sleep deprivation), when I did have a family, I've no recollection of cooking anything at all (unless it involved a spice mix) until I discovered Flylady--and through her--Leanne Ely.

Hers are my go-to-cookbooks. So much so, that it was with profound relief and joy when I discovered that Ely had broken down her recipes into diabetic exchanges--and thus would be ideal for my weight loss plan. In other words, I would have had to have found them if I hadn't already had them. (However, interesting thought: I believe that Leanne Ely's style of cooking is what Wende calls "Euro-trash Chicken." Personally, it was liberating to me. I really cannot overstate how much.)

I have these two:



This one is in the library.



I found a few recipes in it which we loved back when I decided that we needed to eat two (or more) vegetarian meals a week in order to save some money. I would have continued, except that eating vegetarian is heavily burdened with carbohydrates: nothing wrong with that except if you are me and trying to lose weight. The dishes used up practically all my carbohydrate portions and very few of my proteins. My challenge in life is getting enough solid protein, the carb part is ridiculously easy. So, vegetarian and losing weight do not go together for me at all, unfortunately.

So, the long and short of it is, I really can't recall anything I used to make that
1) I would make again
2) I can make again, and
3) I never made anything, anyway, so how could I make it "again"?

Breath

• If you've ever taken dietary supplements, go through the stash and toss any that are past their use-by dates or that you know you wouldn't take again. (I do take a multi-vitamin, as well as fish oil pills for strong, shiny hair and hooves.)

I threw out some vitamin combination recommended for stiff joints (I actually typed in monosodium glutamate, but that's obviously not it) outdated by two years and some B vitamins which expired earlier this year.

• If you have any sort of unused or disliked "how to eat better" materials hanging around the house, dispose of them. It's especially important to dump the stuff that you feel you should use but don't want to. Whatever you're trying to achieve with your eating habits, there has to be a source written in a tone and at a level of detail that works for you.

Strangely enough, I do not have any books like this in my home--oh, well, except one which has to do with feeding children. I took it out and skimmed through it a month or so ago. Really, the fellow was quite revolutionary, suggesting that diet could handle things like sleeping problems (the section I was most interested in) and attention difficulties.

My mother, on the other hand, read all of Adele Davis when I was a child and still has all her books. Brewer's yeast brings back bad memories.

Bones
Since all of the CT participants are women, we're going to take "bones" literally, and this is the one place where I'm going to push nutrition: check to make sure you are getting your full daily allowance of calcium. If it takes a supplement, take a supplement.

Done.

Or at least I'd thought so. I used to take two. Each one contained 300mg Elemental Calcium (Carbonate and citrate forms), 150 mg Magnesium, Zinc (5mg) and Vitamin D3 (200 I.U.) Turns out, apparently, that your body can only absorb 300 mg of calcium at a time: so it is best to take the pills at different times of the day. So, now I take one a day....and almost never remember to take the second one. Perhaps right before bed might work. The good doctor, in the book recommended above, recommends both calcium and protein before bed as a falling asleep enhancer. (So, a slice of cheese, which the sister of a friend of mine used to eat every night before bed is ideal).

I also take 1000mg of Omega 3, 60 mg CoEnzyme Q10, and a formula of B vitamins called "Stress B." (I don't eat fortified cereal and B vitamins help with depression as well as stress).

Head:
Menu Planning

This will have to be another post.

Week 1: The CT To Do tasks: Ta Da!

Our assignments for the first week were:

Breath
Rummage through your food storage and dispose of:

1. Food that is officially expired, according to the date on the package.
2. Food that may or may not have gone bad, but you're not going to risk eating it and finding out.
3. Food that you know in your heart you're never going to eat, regardless of whether you ought to want to.

Before we left for our vacation, I emptied the fridge. All that remained upon my return was the pantry, the freezer and my designated food cupboards upstairs. It's difficult to clear out the pantry as the husband is in charge of putting out the garbage and he tends to get grumpy when he sees meat leaving uneaten. I'm going to have to face the wrath or sneak it out, somehow. The pantry is pretty good. I have too many packages of Jello--I took them off my Mother's hands when we cleaned out her pantry--but it's reasonable, other than that.

That leaves the two cupboards upstairs. I elected to clean the top one. I try to keep just what I need on a daily basis in here: everything else is supposed to be in the basement. Unless it's been opened. Then it needs to find a home.

I managed to get rid of several boxes of various crumbs. No, really. There were graham crackers, vanilla wafers, chocolate wafers and, yes, pre-crushed and boxed cornflake crumbs. I also tossed a box of rancid triscuits.

I am stymied by this however.


(Yes, that box once held a Walkman. Some of its contents likely date from that era.)

They are "spice" mixes. I've seven, count them, seven packets of chili spice mix. There's also one package of Yorkshire pudding mix my daughter got from her grandmother for Christmas. They never expire, as far as I can tell.

But I know I haven't used anything from this box in over a year: maybe two....or three (or ten).

It just seems like "too much waste" to throw them all out, whoosh, just like that. But they need a better container and I really cannot justifying buying something.

Oh Woe.

But, except for a few matters, (I'm not going to touch the whole spice buying, storage, and retrieval issues) I am done. And I confess, I read Wende's Week 1 post just before we left, so I knew this was coming. I took photos of the cupboards, therefore, before we left on vacation.


(You can see how trying to find the olive oil or the butter in a split second while the egg newly cracked by my budding children-chefs begins to stick to the beat-up non-stick frying pan could be a bit of a challenge.)

(Sorry about the blur.)

And, now, it's all clean and (mostly) organized. I should have laid paper, but the task was daunting enough without fussing with all that.


(Yay, no more stuck eggs!)

Bones
Give your refrigerator, stove, and most important one or two cooking appliances a good wipe. If there's something that needs to be fixed on any of them, this is the time to do it.

Blech. The oven needs a wipe.

Baking Porn

These are the most wonderful Raspberry muffins, ever. Of course, I'm not terribly experienced in the ways of raspberry muffins, but when I was forced to borrow i Tablespoon of baking powder from my neighbour, I was happy to send her back two of these in return. I sent them over with Aurelia who reported back that Mrs. D said she'd never had a Raspberry muffin before. Never? She has twice as many bushes as we do: does it all become jam?

Anyway, here they are.



The recipe is from this blog. I made a few modifications, as noted.

Beat together:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1/2 c. yogurt-- I didn't have any plain, so I used 7% M. F. sour cream, instead.
  
• 2-3 T. lemon juice
• 1/4 c. melted butter
• 1 t. vanilla

In a separate bowl, mix or sift together:

• 2 c. all-purpose flour --I used 1 cup all purpose and 1 cup whole wheat, as I usually do.
  
• 1 T. baking powder
• 2/3 c. sugar
• 1-2 t. lemon zest
• 1 t. salt

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and mix until thoroughly moistened. Then fold in:

• 2 c. raspberries (frozen is fine, just don’t thaw them too much before mixing them in, or you’ll end up with bright pink muffins)

Pour into 12 large muffin tins. Bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes.

This made quite a stiff batter, and required fourteen muffin cups: not twelve.

I actually used a real lemon. I thought it was time to introduce Aurelia to the concept of "zest." (I didn't know anything about it until my twenties.) And I knew she'd have fun working with the zester. She did--but she asked me, "Why is it called zest?" I had no good answer.

Raspberry-Banana Loaf



I wondered how this Raspberry Banana Bread would turn out. The reviews on the web site were mixed. First, I reduced the bananas to two. Unfortunately, mine weren't as ripe as I like them to be. The resulting dough was much too stiff to fold raspberries, so at the last minute I quickly mixed in two tablespoons of apple sauce and 1 tablespoon of canola oil. That helped immensely. I also made a sugar and cinnamon/nutmeg crust. It took only 50 minutes in the oven.

The recipe is from here. As I won't make it again and don't recommend it, I won't cut and paste. However, my son, who is an extraordinarily picky eater, pronounced it "not bad."

Nonetheless, I'm anxiously waiting for more berries to ripen so I can try a Raspberry-Orange Loaf/Muffins and the Zesty Raspberry Loaf mentioned above.

Oh dear. This diet may be well and truly lost. I just found a recipe for Chocolate Raspberry Bundt cake. And it is Aurelia's ninth birthday on Tuesday.

Heart: Week 1.

For your culinary late night reading: this site is amazing.

http://bakingbites.com/

I can't wait to try the Zesty Raspberry Loaf. I just wish I'd seen it before I baked the Banana_Raspberry loaf currently in the oven. If it works out, I'll let you know.

PS: It seems I love to bake more than I love to cook. But perhaps it is only that baking is a novelty, while cooking happens every day.