And to Top it Off…

Do you cringe at what passes for maple syrup, but also at the prices of real maple syrup?  You can make your own pancake and waffle toppings in minutes. 

Grab a bag of frozen blueberries (or whatever looks good to you), and cook them over medium with a shot of water and as much sugar as you think they need.   Once hot, add a slurry of cornstarch and water and let the mixture boil and thicken.   It takes about 10 minutes in total.Besides being relatively low in price, you can control sugar, and blueberries are a great source of antioxidants.  

Another great way to get fruit and fiber into breakfast.If you’re really pressed for time, a can of organic pie filling will do the trick as well. 

How Sweet it Isn’t

Yesterday on the morning news there was an article about how artificial sweeteners led to obesity in rats.  This isn’t new news, because a study by professors in psychological studies was published in 2004 telling us that artificial sweeteners cause the body to not be able to gauge calories.   It’s definitely worth a read

The bottom line is always drink water, eat fruits and vegetables, and regular, healthy meals.  When will we learn???

Eat at Mom’s

Last week I used dinner time as an economic summit.  The boys wanted a meal that required chopsticks, and were discussing various venues for dining out.   While they debated the different dining opportunities, I pulled out the wok, and a bunch of ingredients from the pantry/fridge.

 By the time they had agreed that they could not agree, I had a meal on the table.  While we dined on Pork and Peanut Stir Fry, Garlic Snap Peas, Ramen Noodles (I found a healthier variety), and canned mandarin oranges, I asked them to consider what the meal might cost at a restaurant.  They approximated that a meal out usually costs about $50.  Next we estimated the cost of the meal on the table:

1.5 lbs Pork	3.00
Ramen Noodles	1.20
Mandarin Oranges	1.25
Snap Peas	2.00
1 Quart Milk	1.35
Misc. Ingredients	3.00
Total	$11.80

Granted the taste wasn’t exactly like our local Asian eatery, but we did use chopsticks from Japan.    Plus we saved a lot in fat and sodium, and I was able to sneak in vegetables that I knew they’d eat.

It was amazing to watch the boys make the connection that eating at a restaurant had an opportunity cost in terms of movies, games, and other things they wish for.  Now they want to see how many other restaurant favorites can be re-created at home.   These boys are going to have to learn to cook…

Staying Sharp

My husband finally tired of my complaining about the state of our cutlery, and went out and bought 2 Calphalon Santoku knives.   They sat in the box for a few weeks while I decided whether or not to use them.   It’s not easy to buy knives.  There are very few stores that will haul out a cutting board and some fruit and let you have at it.   Staring at a knife strapped to a board behind locked Plexiglas is not helpful.  You really need to test drive knives.   So, because I couldn’t choose, I had nothing.

 My favorite knife has been retired.  There is a lot of debate on whether or not knives are really dishwasher safe.  I am now on the NOT side.  The once shiny handle is dull due to the temperature and the harshness of the detergent (a non-stick pan put in by mistake has also been let go, as well as some gold rimmed glasses), and the blade is rusty in spots.  But perhaps the worst damage is from being banged up against things and getting pitted and nicked.  It just won’t hold an edge, which makes it dangerous instead of useful.

It’s really tough to make 3 meals a day and test recipes with no knife.  So, I grudgingly opened the box and looked at the replacements.  I have paid more for one knife (which disappeared after a party).   But I had chopping to do, and no old faithful knife.   After about 10 minutes I found that I like these new knives very much.   They are sharp, handle well, and fit nicely in my hand.  I’m going to go out and buy them a special brush for hand-washing, and put up a sign so that no one puts them in the dishwasher. 

Kicking it Up

Ok.  January is over for all practical purposes.  Time to evaluate those goals! 

Eating better?   Check.    Fruits and veggies up, secret stash of snacks down.   Calories that the meal planner gives me?  WAY down.

Drinking water?  Slosh!

Exercising?  Well…um…  After a great beginning, it got a bit boring.  What to do?  Music!  I discovered that our cable provider offers some interesting music channels, my kids have hip music on their MP3 players, and slacker.com (an awesome commercial free radio). 

If you go to a fitness center you’ll notice that they always have peppy music playing.  There are plenty of studies out about how adding up tempo music to a workout is shown to increase intensity and duration.    If you don’t have a personal selection of music that makes you feel like dancing (or running, or crunching), do an internet search for fitness music and build one!

 There’s one other benefit to adding music to a work out:  people tend to assume you cannot hear them when you’re wearing earbuds!

Is it a Gingerbread House Without Gingerbread?

I have tried for years to make architecturally accurate gingerbread houses with no success. My precision cut Frank Lloyd Wright shapes morph into Salvador Dali-esque blobs in the oven.

The kits never satisfy, we always have to get more candy and more icing. And the actual house part may be technically edible, but it’s not very tasty.

My solution? Cocoa Krispies! Nice color, barely any cooking, tasty, lightweight, and best of all, fast and easy. I need to save my energy for the clean up.

You really need to use Royal Icing to assemble a house. Canned frosting isn’t made to dry rock hard. You can use fresh egg whites, but I keep a canister of dried on hand. They might seem a bit pricey, but not only are you not throwing away the yolk, but you can also use them to make meringue cookies, or shells, or just more royal icing!

Royal Icing 1

3 tablespoons dried egg whites/meringue powder
4 cups powdered sugar
½ cup warm water (add more if you need it thinner)

Royal Icing 2

4 egg whites, room temperature
4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

In both cases, combine ingredients and beat 7-10 minutes. If desired, you can add up to ½ tsp of flavoring such as almond, vanilla, lemon… Scoop it directly into a zip top bag for piping.

And what about the candy? Well, the sky is truly the limit. Big marshmallows make great snowmen. Ice cream cones make trees. Just thin out some of the icing, roll the cone, then roll it in colored sugar. I have used Wheatabix and Shredded Wheat for roofing material, and although it looked cool, it got thumbs down for taste. Lightly toasted or tinted coconut works, but my kids seem just to prefer to cover the whole thing with candy.

This is also a great activity for holiday gatherings if you want the kids doing something besides playing video games. Hire a teen-age supervisor and enjoy your party!

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

We’ve all read the articles about effortless entertaining, and how you should always have wine and artisan cheeses and nuts on hand. AS IF. As if I normally add $60 to my weekly grocery bill just in case. As if I have room in my fridge for “just in case” food. As if my sons wouldn’t decide on a whim that the $8 hunk of cheese would make a few good sandwiches.

There are reasonable but still special things you can keep on hand to entertain friends and family who just drop by. The key phrase there was “friends and family”. They know you, and don’t need to be impressed. Save that for when you invite them for an occasion. Now is a great time to stock your pantry and freezer with things that can be easily turned into great meals or snacks.

Snacks:

• Pretzels and Honey Mustard : The nice thing about this mustard is that you can adjust it to be as sweet or as hot as you like. Fabulous served with that big winter sausage that someone always seems to give you.
• Mini Open-Faced Toasted Cheese Sandwiches: The grocery store has loaves of frozen bread that take 10 minutes to bake. Mini is festive! If you serve a lot of mini things it will look planned and more festive than, say 4 sandwiches.
• Raspberry Chipotle Sauce : Served over cream cheese with crackers is great. You can make or buy the sauce.
• Pickles, olives, crackers, nuts.
• Frozen shimp when they are on sale. You can make your own sauce with ketchup and horseradish sauce, adjusting the heat up or down to your tastes.
• Party Punch : Festive and fun, and the ingredients are easy to keep.

Entrees:

• Chili: Serve with a variety of toppings, or over rice or spaghetti.
• Pasta is always a hit. Keep some jars of good sauce, and, if you like, add some sliced turkey Italian sausage (which also freezes well).
• Fish fillets are elegant served with a simple butter/lemon sauce.
• Lasagna: The next time you make one, make two and freeze the 2nd without even baking it. It will take longer to cook, but no mess!
• Individual Pizzas: Premade pizza crusts freeze well, and so does shredded cheese. Anything in your ‘fridge is fair game for toppings!

“At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.”

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Happy Hosting!

Marianne

Bake, bake, bake (x2) ….Bake those cookies

Now that Thanksgiving is done and gone, I can turn my attention to the next major holiday task: Cookies. Sometimes I bake solo, and sometimes with friends and family. My favorite recipes are all safely stored on-line for easy access and sharing. Plus, when it comes time the “big bake” I can put all the cookies on one plan and use it as a check list and to make sure that no one has to run out to the store for some exotic but essential ingredient, because you really can’t make macadamia nut cookies without the macadamia nuts.

I love cookie exchanges. There are some that stand out with exceptional clarity: Like the year a co-worker’s oven broke, and she baked her cookies on her gas grill; I won’t say they were tough, but we gave them out as gag-gifts. One time we included guys, and they brought packages of Oreos and Chips Ahoy as their contribution. There was also the year that when someone went to put the latest batch of cookies on the cooling table there was a suspiciously empty patch and giggles coming from under the table. How can you be mad at chocolate covered kiddies? This year my son’s school has asked us to provide cookies for the Teacher’s Cookie Exchange, simple enough to fold into the planning!

Here are some tips for mass cookie baking:

Put the butter on the counter (under a bowl if you have a cat!) the night before. Room temperature butter keeps its integrity better than butter softened in the microwave.

Examine your recipes and figure out which ones use the same base ingredients. Make the base once; you can fold in flavorings and additions later.

Use parchment paper (you can reuse it several times) to keep production moving — very helpful if you have to press box fans or extra oven racks into service as cooling racks.

Don’t cool cookie sheets under running water, it warps them. Let them sit outside or in the garage for a few minutes.

Buy a loud timer!

Bakers….start your ovens!

C is for cookie…that’s good enough for me. ~ Sesame Street

Marianne

No Thanks, I’m Stuffed

Why is it that the less time you have the faster it seems to go? With less than 7 days until Thanksgiving, I’ve put the whole meal on my plan, and am starting to make a timetable so that everything hits the table on time. I’ll make gravy and rolls days before, pies and cranberry sauce the night before, and everything else the day of. The napkins and tablecloths are already ironed and waiting. Although I have collected many lovely table decorations, my sons voted them as annoying and in the way of the food.

Some people have intense opinions about stuffing. No matter where he has Thanksgiving dinner, my brother invariably shows up at my house for the stuffing. It’s not that other people’s stuffing isn’t enjoyable, it’s just, well, theirs. My father cooks his turkey for an extreme period of time. As such, his stuffing is…well…his. My mother’s side has their own stuffing, and this is the one we’ve always used. It’s not written down anywhere and it’s probably never been attempted, so this year, as my sons and I make the stuffing, we’re going to take the extra time and measure everything. My great grandmother was from Romania, and she would hand my mother and aunt the spices to be added and draw a circle in their palms to show how much (we all cook with our hands. How can you tell if the stuffing needs more broth if you’re using a spoon?). But woe be to the person who tries to get fancy. Somebody added mushrooms one year—it wasn’t pretty. Marshmallows on the sweet potatoes? If you must. Bread instead of rolls? Whatever. But don’t mess with the stuffing.

By the time the feast hits the table I will have checked the seasonings of so many things that I’m just not hungry. But it doesn’t matter, because to me the best part of Thanksgiving is the leftover turkey sandwich with mayonnaise, stuffing, cranberry sauce and gravy for breakfast the next morning. I have no worries about there being no leftovers because, so far, no one has ever noticed that I keep a secret stash of stuffing that never sees the table…

Enjoy your friends and family!

Thankfully,

Marianne : )

Ratted out by a Receipt

After seeing a $200+ grocery receipt the other day, my husband used the “B” word. After the shock wore off, I knew he was right. I need to pay more attention to. . . the budget.

I’m not extravagant by any means. I catch sales, and buy store brands where it makes sense. Sometimes I do spend more to get good quality food (especially bread and pasta), but there are a few brands that we like and one of them is usually on sale. The most impractical thing that I buy is the box of individually packaged chips. But chips are my trigger food. I can stop when the little bag is empty, but put that big bag in front of me and it ain’t over ‘til it’s over. Still, I buy them, and a few other things, from a warehouse type store. And in the spirit of economy I’ve stopped buying $4 coffee shop drinks in preference of having coffee at home with friends where we can actually talk and clean each other’s kitchens.

What precipitated the budget conversation was the mile long grocery receipt that I left on the table. It evidenced a woman gone wild. What happened? Things were on sale. Did we need 6 jars of peaches? Yes and no. I had a coupon for $1 off six jars. They were on sale 4/$9. I just had to take advantage of both incentives. It’s not like we won’t eat them; as a matter of fact, two are gone already. ( Why the expensive ones? Because they’re the only ones that aren’t made with high fructose corn syrup, it’s the quality thing). The same thing happened with salad dressing. I only needed one, but picked up two more because it was three for whatever. I don’t know what inner demon was dragging me from sale tag to sale tag, but I probably shouldn’t watch the headline news about the prices of oil and housing before going shopping anymore.

The good news is that our pantry and freezer are now very well stocked. Next week’s shopping trip will most likely be a lot less expensive. But I should probably make a list of things that don’t need to be purchased for the next 10 years…

“A budget tells us what we can’t afford, but it doesn’t keep us from buying it.”

~ William Feather

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Get meal planning, dieting, nutrition, and more at www.mealmixer.com