Meal Plan Tips

I don't go around waving my meal plan at everyone, so I guess I just look like someone who knows what's for dinner!  Recently 2 people asked me if I could give them tips on how to make a meal plan.  The funny thing is the day one of them asked me, I had been anxiously scouring the internet for tips myself.  I was just  out of inspiration.  So it was quite rehearsed when I breezily told her to "just think back on the last 10 or so meals you cooked and make a list". 

And that is actually very good advice.

I like to try lots of recipes and I like to cook, but some people like to eat the same thing over and over and hate to cook.  We probably won't have the same meal plan!

My own meal plan is so involved that I just let her see it for a second.  I didn't want to build too big of a meal plan geek reputation!  But the thing is, I am very dependent of my meal plan.  I can't shop without a list, and can't make a list without a meal plan.  Making decisions is stressful, making lots of decisions many times a day is that much worse.  So I plan every meal, snack options, and a couple of dessert options. 

For breakfast - we eat the same things every week on the same days - it actually rotates every 3 days and on Sunday we have cereal.

(Disclaimer - on Sunday I would feed them cereal 3 times a day if I thought that would fly.)

For lunch - we eat the same things roughly every two weeks.  Cold lunches make me grumpy - unless it is hummus.

For dinner - I have these tips:

*If you are excited about meal planning, choose lots of interesting meals from cooking magazines.
*If you are totally stumped, poll everyone in the house for favorite meals.
*If you are very tired of shopping for, organizing, cooking, and serving meals - make the same things again and again.
*If you have been meal planning for years and years and have kept all your plans, use an old one!  Hooray!

How to: Make Heart Shaped Deviled Eggs

I did make more than 2! I had to make them 2 at a time because I only had enough of the heart making supplies to make 2 at a time and they won't wait!

I did a little investigating and it turns out that shaping boiled eggs is a whole art form of it's own and it is popular in Japan.  They even have little egg molds to make animal shapes!

So step one - boil your eggs.  I like 12-13 minute eggs.  Actually if we are just eating boiled eggs, I like a soft boiled egg, but that won't work here!

Step two - not pictured! - after removing egg from the water, immediately peel the egg - I ran some water over the egg while I peeled, that helped, but don't chill the eggs first, they need to be very hot when you put them in the form.

I made my form by cutting the corners off of an orange juice container.  (Step three:)Wash and dry the corners and place a hot, peeled egg in the middle.  Balance a chop stick over the egg and secure in place with two rubber bands (rubber bands don't seem to last long in our house, so I used pony tail holders, it worked).  The shape of your chop stick will make a difference.  Mine was square and I turned the chopstick so the corner of the square pressed into the egg.  Don't press too hard or the white will crack.

Step four: wait for the egg to set.  I put them in the fridge and tried not to forget about them.  One tutorial I saw said 10 minutes, another said 30.  I was somewhere in there. 

Step five - cut in half and be amazed and all the eggy love!

You can leave them like this or take out the yolk and make deviled eggs - I thought they needed paprika for Valentine's Day.

I just couldn't stop with the eggs - behold - heart shaped tomatoes and pickles and cheese.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Homemade Microwave Popcorn

Rob likes to eat popcorn - I mean he likes to eat popcorn every day!  Microwave Popcorn is pretty unhealthy and expensive, so I made him eat the kind that comes in a big bag of kernels.  Unfortunately, stove-top popcorn is best popped in my pasta pot and finding my pasta pot with popcorn popping residue in it every morning was starting to get old.  I mean, this is the TWENTY FIRST CENTURY!  This has to be another way!

And there is!

Place 1/4 cup of popcorn kernels in

1 paper lunch sack

and fold over the sack firmly about 3 times.

Place the sack in the microwave and microwave on high for 3 minutes.  Remove when popping stops, season as desired.

I thought this was the neatest trick the first time I did it - but it took a little tweaking to perfect.  It is not sufficient to pour melted butter into the bag and salt won't stick to dry popcorn.  So we found the following modification to make popcorn adequate for every day consumption:

1/4 cup kernels in

1 paper sack

add 2 teaspoons oil

and 1/4 teaspoon popcorn (fine) salt

fold over

shake vigorously

microwave as directed

Rob says he will still make it in the pasta pot for movie nights, but this new trick is making us both happy!

How to: Make a Cuban Sandwich

(I shredded a piece of roast pork and cooked it a little longer with some Mojo marinade.)

(No panini press?  George Forman with added muscle.)

Ah! Beinvenidos a Miami!

These were soooooo good and I am sooooo bad at making fried catfish, it's hard to believe it grew up closer to Havana, Arkansas than Havana, Cuba.

How to: Make your own individually frozen chicken quarters

I buy chicken in 10lb bags.  If it is important to you to eat only white meat, free range chickens, or all certified organic foods, this post may not be useful to you.  If you would really like to trim your food budget significantly, it will.  So as said, I buy chicken in 10lb bags.  They are all dark quarters and usually that means 10 portions.  Sometimes there will be a lone thigh or leg in there to get the weight right.  I usually make 4 meals out of the meat in the bag - 2 meals where I serve the meat on the bone and 2 where I cook the meat, pick off the meat and put it in a casserole.  Publix sells the 10lb bags for $7.90 and Wal-mart for $5.90.  There are places around here where you can buy 20lbs for less per pound, but that usually means the pieces are frozen in one solid block.  As I am not throwing a huge party, this is not useful for me!

To store the chicken, I used to spend an hour packing the chicken in meal portions, but now I do it an easier way.  I create my own bag of individually frozen chicken quarters.  Here is how it works:

Step 1:  Lay out quarters on a sheet pan.  It's ok if they touch a little.  Once they are frozen you can break them apart.

Freeze the pan of chicken uncovered overnight.

The next day pop them off the pan and if necessary break them apart and store in a big plastic bag.  This is not for long term storage - I use these all in about 2 weeks.

When I thaw the meat, I skin it and can trim off extra fat if I want too.  Also, these pieces are roughly processed.  The backbone is not removed.  Sometimes there are unappetizing bits of organ still attached (I guess some people like organ meat, when I was a kid I liked the livers and the gizzards, but that just sounds icky to me now!).  All this can be trimmed off too, but it takes some practice to get the back off without damaging the meat.

Broccoli

My mom passed on this easy way to cook broccoli to me.  I think it is from Alton Brown - who I can always count on to find a new way to cook something better!

You'll need:
Broccoli with stems
1/3 cup water
butter to taste

I usually make two big pieces and that is enough for us.  Trim off the florets and set aside.  Peel the stem and cut first in half lengthwise and then into slices.  Put the stem pieces in the bottom of a pan and pour in water.  Top with florets.  Cook on high for 3 minutes, then on low for 3 minutes - that is, put the pan on the burner, set it to high and set the timer, don't wait for it to come to a boil.  After it cooks add butter (I add about 1 tbsp) and stir to make a light butter sauce.  Serve immediately.  I am still trying to sell the rest of the family on the stem pieces, but I think I like them BETTER than the florets. 

How to: Broil Chicken

I've heard it said that your broiler is effectively an upside down grill. I was skeptical about broiling bone in chicken, but compared ideas found online and tried it. I marinated the chicken all day in Mojo seasoning and broiled it skin on 9 inches from the broiler. 20 minutes on the skin up side, flip and another 20. Some of the pieces would have been done in 12-15 minutes, but one piece needed the full 20. They temp'd out at a safe 180 degrees and tasted...like they were hot off the grill!

With the homemade yellow curry sauce it almost seemed like we were at Pollo Tropical!

How To: Make Puff Pastry

One of Caleb's favorite dinners is "Star Pot Pie" - that's what he calls it. It's a chicken pot pie and instead of topping it with biscuits I cut stars in puff pastry and top it with them. Puff Pastry isn't super expensive, but it isn't super cheap either. I wanted to make it myself, but felt discouraged when I read:

...keep in mind first and foremost that this most delicate and challenging of pastries must be made the way porcupines make love - that is, very, very carefully. Then shut off the telephone for an hour or two, cut yourself some paper pattern guides...and get to work."

in Joy of Cooking (page 643). I didn't even bother to try their way! I did, however, find a recipe online that admits to not being exactly orthodox puff pastry, but you could've fooled me, the result is a very puffy pastry that looks and tastes like puff pastry. It is not hard and not time consuming. Here is a picture to prove it:

This was a scrap piece after making pot pie - I bake the scraps and dust them with powdered sugar for dessert. You can see in the picture the layers of flaky goodness. And I can assure you it is 100% homemade with two small children underfoot.

Puff Pastry

1 cup flour
1/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup cold butter
1/4 rounded tsp salt - that is 1/4 + 1/16 or just a smidge more than 1/4 tsp

Mix flour and salt well. Cut butter into 1/2 inch slices and mix lightly in the butter and salt. Stir in water. Get out a big piece parchment paper or flour your work surface and pour out the dough. Obviously the butter will still be in huge chunks. Knead it 10 times and make a ball, then shape it into roughly a square shape. Roll it out into a big rectangle about 15x12 inches, I don't bother to measure it. (And ignore the big chunks of butter, they will work themselves out.) Then, fold the long sides in like you'd fold a letter. Think of the remaining rectangle as being in 3 squares stacked on top of each other. Then fold the top square down and the bottom square up over each other to make one square - there will be 4 folds, resulting in 9 layers. Wrap the dough in parchment or wax paper and store in the fridge for 20 minutes. Re-roll, re-fold - now you have 81 layers. Back to the fridge for 20 minutes. Again re-roll, re-fold - now there are 729 layers!!! This is basically a stopping place. I usually put it back in the fridge and leave it there until I am about ready to use it, then I take it out for about 10 minutes, then roll it and cut it.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes if you are just baking the pastry. For the pot pie, I bake at 400 for 25 minutes.

How To: Roast Peeps

It is Easter and like millions of other Americans we have Peeps in the house! Our kids took one taste...

and rejected this classic sugar coated marshmallow.

But Rob suggested, what if you roasted a Peep, like you would a marshmallow, hmmm, so, having no campfire, we broiled them instead.

The results were pretty noteworthy, I think the taste was much improved. Here are the before and after results:













To broil a Peep, place Peep or Peeps on a cooling rack and place the rack over a cake pan (in case of drips). Position top rack so that the Peep will be about 5 inches from the broiler. Heat broiler to 500 and pop in the Peep. Watch closely for the sugar to caramelize, serve immediately.

How to: Make Rice in the Microwave

It never occured to me to make rice in the microwave, but my favorite celebrity chef - Alton Brown - says anything that does not need to be browned can be cooked in the microwave! So the other night when I realized I was using my normally rice pot for something else, I thought, there must be a way! And there is....and I was so happy with the results, I think I will cook it in the microwave from now on.

To do it...

Put 2 cups of water in a microwave safe bowl that also has a lid
Stir in however much salt you prefer.
Stir in 1 cup of long grain white rice.
Microwave uncovered on HIGH for 5 minutes, then cover and microwave on HALF POWER for 15 minutes.

The awesomest thing about doing it this way is that the bottom does not burn! Hooray! The dish is so much easier to clean out. The rice is a little sticker, but we like it that way.

If you're going to cook another kind of rice, consult the package or the internet. :)

How to: Store Cilantro

One thing I am not crazy about is buying fresh herbs. Not because they are expensive, but because they always end up going south on me before I can use them. But I had two recipes calling for cilantro, so I went ahead and bought the bunch.

After my celery experience, I searched online for tips on storing cilantro and here is what I learned:

Fill a glass with about 1 inch of water and put the cilantro in like a big green bouquet:


Cover everything with a paper sack and stick it in your fridge.


As it turned out, I forgot to add cilantro to the first of the two recipes and had to move the 2nd recipe back a couple of days - a full week after I bought the cilantro, it still had a strong aroma and was quite fresh.

How to Cut Up a Whole Chicken

I'm no Alton Brown, but you'll get the gist :)

How To: Get Serious about Saving Money in the Kitchen

The economy, ugh what a dreary word. It seems like everywhere I go everyone is gloomy about the economy, the price of milk, the cost of oil. Ugh. And then I think of the Little House books and how incredibly poor they were...but how wonderfully resourceful! Honestly, we have been penny pinching at the grocery store (pretty much the only place I spend money besides Target) for quite a while now, so I didn't really notice that food prices have spiked. So here are some tips for those who really want to feed their family for pocket change...and no, none of them are about coupons!

1. Seriously curtail eating out. - when we eat out, we usually spend the same money on one meal that could have fed us breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 3 days. Dining out is a real luxury.

2. Learn how to cut up a whole chicken. There are a million recipes for boneless skinless chicken breasts - and of course they are good for you, but they cost the most of any cut of chicken. So eliminate the middle man and buy a whole bird - cut it up yourself. Cutting up a whole chicken is a bit of a lost art. I consulted several books and cooking shows to craft a technique that works for me. My first bird took an hour to disassemble, but now I can par down a broiler/fryer in under 10 minutes. I plan to either photograph or video tape myself doing this and post it in the future. It is a skill that can save you big bucks over time.

3. Think outside of the recipe. A lot of those boneless skinless chicken breast recipes can be easily modified for leg/thigh quarters.

4. Eat your oatmeal. When Caleb was a baby, we were probably in our tightest pinch ever, so I didn't want to buy expensive food for him to throw on the floor. Enter oatmeal - at 13 cents per adult sized serving, this humble whole grain is not going to bother me much on days my kids decide they just aren't hungry. Just be sure to skip the instant, it's expensive and who needs it when 1-minute oats can be cooked in the microwave in 45 seconds. Old fashioned oats must be cooked the entire 5 minutes or they will not be fully cooked.

5. Learn to love salad. Salad is one meal that has just gotten cheaper and cheaper for me. I love salad, when I was a kid I hated it. At first we saved by buying spinach to make salad with - I could make 6-8 individual salads with a $2 bag - and add my own carrots (whole is cheaper and tastes much better than baby), etc. Lately, I buy a whole head of romaine - about $1.69 per head, stays fresh over a week and makes 8-10 salads. Carrots are up about 25% in cost, but are still under $1/lb and make their way into my meal plan several times a week.

6. Waste not, want not. I have to repeat this old adage to myself often. Leftovers make great lunches! Be sure to do a full inventory before making a grocery list. It's annoying to find I didn't have enough money to buy something I wanted because I bought something I already had on hand.

7. CC your shopping - carry a calculator and use cash. Using cash puts a clear STOP sign on how much you can buy. Using a calculator helps you find that stop sign before you get to the check out!

How To: Make a Giant Cinnamon Roll

Nothing says "Good Morining!" like a GIANT cinnamon roll!

To make a giant cinnamon roll the easy way, you need a roll of "counter-whop" cinnamon rolls. Set one roll in the middle of the pan. Unroll 3 rolls* and starting where the first roll ends, add on the 2nd, then 3rd and then 4th rolls. Bake according to package directions (my package said to cook them longer if they are all bunched up rather than spread out on the pan, so that's the time I cooked them for.) Ice with half of the icing for the roll.

*It used to be that only store brand cinnamon rolls were simply cinnamon studded buns cut into circles, but I bought PILLSBURY and they are now only cut into cirles and STAMPED with circles to APPEAR to be rolls, when they are not! I cut mine into spirals using my kitchen shears, which was perfectly easy, but I really had higher expectations for Pillsbury.

How to: Store Celery

It used to be that I would omit celery when a recipe called for it - mostly because I would use a single stalk and in a few days the rest of the bunch would be droopy and gross. It wasn't that celery was super expensive, it just seemed like I was tossing my $1.99 into the garbage can.

But I recently learned it does not have to be this way! Celery can easily be stored and kept crisp! All you have to do is wrap the whole bunch in a big piece of aluminum foil and keep it in the fridge. Remove what you need, wrap it back up and it will keep much longer.

Celery is a good source of fiber and vitamins and is not only nutrient dense, it's also very filling, making is a good snack.

How to : Bakin' Bacon

I've always been a "nuke it in the microwave" bacon cooker, but recently tried baking bacon in the oven. It turned out very well. Here's how you do it:

Preheat the oven to 400.
Line a baking sheet with foil.
Lay out the bacon so it is just touching.
Bake 15-20 minutes depending on how crispy you like it.