4 Weeks of New Recipes, How to Meal Plan

I've been married 2.5 years and I have about 25 recipes that I make all the time. Every now and then I try something new but I'm ready for a lot of new!! I decided to make a new recipe every day for 4 weeks. That's 28 new recipes!! That's a lot to simply look up and hope I have the ingredients for.

Good thing I know how to meal plan. I don't do it very often. Not sure why because every time I do I love it!! When I was pregnant, student teaching, and working, I planned out 2 months at a time, shopped for 2 weeks at a time and dinner was never a worry for me.

An alternate to meal planning if being organized scares you is to make a list of everything you know how to make and then store most of the ingredients. I always have chicken, beef, pasta, spices, potatoes, onions, and cans of beans and tomatoes. Then at the store I pick up sour cream or cream cheese and I can make almost all of the aforementioned 25 recipes.

But for this challenge, I need a plan!

Hurry and name (or find) 28 new recipes. It's hard, isn't it? Could you name just 4 though? Probably. I'll let you in on my meal planning trick: Pick 7 categories, one for each day of the week and then pick 4 recipes that go under it. Ex: Mexican- enchiladas, tacos, burrito, pork salad, etc.

These are my categories:

Mondays: Soups

• Minestrone
• Saugage totelini soup

Tuesdays: Breakfasts

• Dinosaur Eggs
• breakfast casserole (potatoe, bacon eggs, cheese)

Wednesdays: Chicken

• Cilantro Lime Chicken
• Buffalo Chicken

Thursdays: Sandwiches

• Sweet Potato and Black Bean Wraps
• Waffle Iron Sandwiches

Fridays: Beef

• Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf

Saturdays: Pastas

• Creamy Pasta with Spinach and Tomatoes
• Lasagna Roll ups

Sundays: Casseroles

• Turkey Veggie Casserole
• Chicken cordon bleu casserole

(I usually do this on a calendar because I keep my planner out all day. Just do whatever works best for you.)

When you meal plan it's better to over plan. I usually have a day where I just don't feel like cooking or we need to clean out the fridge. When I was in school taking a sandwich to lunch every day I had a designated left overs day. As a mom at  home I usually eat left overs for lunch. But the way I set up my meal plan gives me the ability to cook every night or to resort to left overs on the days I can't bring myself to get cooking.

I only posted a few of my recipes on here because it was taking too much time. I shopped for 2 weeks at a time, it was great!! I ended up spending the same amount at the store as I did when I was going once a week, so I just cut my grocery bill in half!! My 2nd two weeks I used an real life cookbook for recipes instead of the internet. I'm excited to see how they go!!

Kitchen Cleanliness and Safety

The most important thing in your kitchen is keeping it clean and safe... especially when you have little ones!! You don't necessarily need to bleach everything down every day, you'd be surprised at  how well hot soapy water works! Afterall, do you bleach your hands every time you wash them? Most likely you use hot water and soap. These are important things to remember in your own kitchen:

To prevent fires and burns . . .

1. Use salt or baking soda, not water, to put out a grease fire.
2. If there is a fire, first remove the heat source. Simply turn off the burner, do NOT move the pan while it is on fire
3. Keep flammable materials away from the top of the range and away from portable appliances that produce heat.
4. Use a dry potholder to remove pans from the range.
5. Store flammable substances such as aerosol sprays away from heat sources.
6. Use a metal trashcan when disposing of hot or smoldering items.
7. Keep the range exhaust hood and ducts clean.
8. Keep pan handles turned inward on the range.
9. When removing a pan lid, tilt the lid away from you and do not hold your face directly over the pan.
10. When removing a pan from the oven, pull the rack out.  Don’t reach into a hot oven.
11. Wear an oven mitt on each hand and use both hands to remove pans from the oven.
12. Check to be sure all appliances are turned off when you are finished with them.
13. Use a spoon or tongs, not your fingers, to remove food from hot liquid.
14. When lighting gas burners with a match, strike the match first, then turn the burner on.
15. If you smell gas, turn off all range and oven controlsr.

To prevent falls . . .

1. Wipe up all spills at once.
2. To reach items stored in high places, use a sturdy step stool or ladder.
3. Close cabinet doors and drawers.

To prevent cuts . . .

1. Keep sharp knives sharp.  They are less likely to cause an accident than dull ones.
2. Use a cutting board.
3. Cut away from you with the knife blade slanted.
4. For peeling vegetables such as carrots or potatoes, use a peeler instead of a knife.
5. If a knife, kitchen scissors, or ice pick starts to fall, get out of the way.  Do not try to catch it in mid-air.
6. Wash, dry and store knives separately from other dishes and utensils.
7. Keep your fingers away from beaters and blades in appliances.
8. Use knives and other sharp tools only for their intended purpose.
9. Sweep up broken glass immediately.
10. Wrap your hand in a towel to pick up broken glass.
11. When opening cans, cut the lids completely off.
12. Don’t leave sharp knives in a sink full of water. (Always set knives on the side of the sink, wash and immediately dry and put away. It's too easy to get accidentally cut when you can't see it in a full sink or on a drying rack)

To prevent electric shock . . .

1. Read appliance booklets before using appliances.
2. Keep electrical cords away from water and hot objects.
3. Do not plug several cords into an electrical outlet at one time.
4. Unplug portable appliances after you have used them.
5. Disconnect appliances before cleaning them.  Do not put them in water unless the appliance is labeled “immersible.”
6. Before using an appliance, make sure your hands are dry and that you are standing on a dry surface.
7. Unplug appliances before bringing metal objects in contact with any working parts.
8. Plug the cord of portable appliances into the appliances first, then into the wall.

To prevent microwave accidents . . .

1. Never use a microwave if the door appears damaged.
2. Never turn on the microwave if there is no food inside.
3. Do not heat sealed jars, cans, or bottles in the microwave.
4. Do not heat home-canned foods in a microwave. Use a conventional range.
5. Use potholders to remove food containers from the microwave.
6. Remove lids and plastic wrap carefully to avoid steam burns.
7. Distribute the heat by stirring microwaved foods before serving them.

 SANITATION PROCEDURES

1. Place books, purses, and other personal items in an area not used for food preparation. The kitchen is for food and food only. Think about where you set your purse all day and then putting it on the counter...then putting your food in that...then eating it...
2. Wear appropriate, clean clothing.  Avoid long, loose sleeves, sashes, and dangling jewelry.
3. Wear a clean apron or lab coat.
4. Pull hair back and secure it so that it stays away from your face and shoulders.
5. Avoid working with food if you have an open wound on your hands.
6. Wash your hands with soap before you start cooking. Dry your hands with paper towels or on cloth towels not used for drying dishes.
7. While working with food, avoid touching your hair, skin, face, or other unclean objects.
8. Repeat hand washing when necessary - especially after coughing, sneezing, or using the restroom.
9. Be sure you have clean dishtowels, dishcloths, potholders, and oven mitts. Obtain additional clean items as they are needed but NOT in excess.
10. Wipe all counter tops and tables at the beginning and end of each lab.
11. Use hot, soapy water for washing dishes.
12. When tasting foods, use a spoon other than the one used for stirring.  Use a clean spoon for each person tasting and for each time food is tasted.
13. After working with raw animal foods, scrub all areas and utensils used with hot soapy water. Use bleach if you feel it's necessary. (I always bleach after using raw meat)
14. When possible use a kitchen tool, not your hands, to complete tasks.
15. Thoroughly cook foods to be served hot.  Keep them hot until they are served.
16. Foods to be served cold should be kept cold until serving time.
17. Cover leftover foods and store them in the refrigerator immediately.

(This worksheet was used by the teacher I taught with at BRMS and I edited it for the purpose of this blog)

Next up, a MUST READ will be FOOD SAFETY!!

Pre Pregnancy Nutrition

I was just talking to a pregnant friend of mine. She hasn't told anyone else she's pregnant, she just needed some advice and since I'd been through it all and I live nowhere near anyone she knows (so I can't spill the beans) I was a good candidate. 

It can be scary and intimidating to be pregnant and you might not want to tell anyone yet but have no idea what you're supposed to do. And since those "Baby Your Baby" commercials don't play anymore, a lot of people don't know when to go to a doctor. Or what to expect at the doctor. Or even how to find a doctor. 

So I thought I'd go through basic "need to know" pregnancy tips. This post will cover pre-pregnancy nutrition. 

Pre-Pregnancy:

Nutrition
(I am not a doctor or a registered dietitian. Everything I have written here are general guidelines and may not apply to everyone. If you have special circumstances please talk to your doctor or a registered dietitian. You can find an RD here: http://www.eatright.org/programs/rdfinder/)

So you want to get pregnant. Congratulations! It's a scary decision, but so fun at the same time! First things first, if you want to get pregnant, you need to be healthy. Both of you. The absolute best way to get nutrition is through food. Yes you can and should take a multivitamin but please PLEASE eat a healthy diet. Here are some really easy guidelines of how to eat well:

60% of your calories should be carbohydrates. Yes, 60%, as in MORE THAN HALF. Carbs aren't bad, I'm not sure where they get their bad rap but carbs=energy and if you want a baby you need a LOT of it! Also, your brain runs off of glucose and guess what the easiest source of glucose is? You guessed it, carbohydrates. So a little more than half of everything you eat in a week should be carbs. Carbs are bread, pasta, cereal, and fruits even count because of their sugar content. Also candy is a carb. Eat up! 

My one stipulation to eating carbohydrates is you need to make half of the grains you eat whole. Oatmeal cookie anyone? If you do your own cooking, add half wheat to anything you would normally use white flour in. You can buy already ground wheat in the grocery store but keep it in the freezer because the oils will go rancid very quickly. If you grind your own, which is much more cost effective, freeze that too. (Wheat is cheap and you can get decent hand mills for a really good price. You can't really put a price on health, can you?) I've made German pancakes with half white and half wheat- tasted the same. I even thicken my soups and sauces with hand milled whole wheat instead of white. Buy whole wheat pasta, bread, and brown rice, if you like it. Don't buy anything you won't eat. But if you've never given it a chance, try it a few times. It takes children up to 12 times trying something before they like it. But if you've tried it and you just don't like it, fine. Don't eat it. I don't like brown rice. I eat lots and lots of white rice. But I eat whole wheat bread to make up for it. 

Some grains to enjoy: Amaranth, Barley, Bulgur wheat (cracked wheat), Corn, Durum wheat, Flaxseed, Fonio, Kamut, Millet, Oats, Popcorn, Rice, Rye, Semolina wheat, Sorghum, Spelt, Teff, Triticale, Wheat, Wild rice, Quinoa 

Please note that popcorn is a grain. That stuff is seriously SO good for you. I'll put up some delicious popcorn recipes. If you like popcorn, I recommend buying an air popper. I lived off this stuff while I was pregnant and teaching. Refer to this site for info on some of the unfamiliar grains: http://wholegrainscouncil.org/whole-grains-101/whole-grains-a-to-z

Nutrition is all about balance over time. It's ok if one meal or even one day is full of white flour, just be sure to balance it out throughout the week. 

Next up, fruits and vegetables. Half your plate should be filled with these! If the only way you can stand broccoli is covered in cheese sauce, PERFECT! Cover it in cheese sauce! Nutrition doesn't cancel out. You still get the benefits of broccoli. And eating broccoli with cheese sauce is better for you than not eating it all. My favorite way to eat most vegetables is steamed or blanched (put in boiling water until almost cooked) then sauteed in canola oil and Real Salt or Vegetable salt (regular salt is fine too, I just prefer the flavor of the others). Obviously fresh fruits and vegetables are best. But frozen, canned, and dried are still wonderful!! Really, there is so much flavor in a well prepared fruit/vegetable, it's sad that so many people don't like a lot of them. If you want tips on how to prepare certain foods, comment and I'll put up a post for you!!

Next up, dairy!! Milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream. No really, ice cream. In high school I compared the nutrition facts of a Sweet and Salty Peanut Butter granola bar to those of an ice cream sandwich. They were almost exactly identical. Did I eat another granola bar after that? You better believe I didn't! Ice cream is great. Make a milk shake: frozen strawberries, some ice cream, and some milk.... a wonderful, delicious, and nutritious snack! Dairy is SO important!!! Girls, your baby steals your calcium before your bones even get a look at it. It's not uncommon for women's teeth to fall out during pregnancy if they are deficient in calcium. Because of a variety of other factors, women are more prone to osteoporosis (break down of bone). I won't get into that right now, but trust me, you need calcium! But dairy is so much more than calcium. You get a lot of protein and good fats from it. There is nothing wrong with drinking 2% by the way. 

A good rule of thumb is to drink a glass of milk at each meal and drink water throughout the day. If you can't stand the flavor of milk go ahead and add chocolate or strawberry syrup. 

Meats and beans! More protein! More fiber! More iron! I don't have a soap box for this group, but eat them! Beans can be substituted in baked goods for the oil. Seriously, I make a mean black bean cupcake! When choosing meats, choose a lean cut and try to vary your meats: ground beef, chicken, pork, etc. Don't forget your fish too! Some fantastic oils are in those!

Multivitamins:
Alright.... here we go. Men, you need to be healthy to create healthy sperm. You really should get your nutrients from a healthy diet, but if you are finding that hard, a simple multivitamin will be fine. Unless you are seriously deficient in a particular substance and your doctor has tested and told you this, stay away from single nutrient vitamins. This can lead to toxicities. There IS such thing as too much of a good thing. Talk to your doctor if you have questions or concerns. 

Women: there are a billion multivitamins. What's the difference between a prenatal and regular multi? It depends on the brand, but I'm seeing a trend in prenatals to be lacking in a lot of nutrients, probably to avoid toxicities for you and the baby. To be honest it doesn't really matter what you choose. There are 2 things you want to look for: Folate (or folic acid) and Vitamin A (from beta carotene). You want to make sure you are getting enough folate. And if the scene from Baby Mama where she has to swallow a folate pill the size of a cookie scares you, just realize that most people don't take a separate folate pill. It's in most multis and at the point in her pregnancy in the movie it wouldn't have been effective. You need folate before you even know you are pregnant. Luckily for us, most cereals are fortified with it. If you don't have enough folate your baby is far more likely to have spina bifida. That is a birth defect where the backbone and spinal canal do not close before birth. Scary. But don't be scared, just eat your grains and take your vitamin with it. Next, it doesn't matter what type of multivitamin you take but make sure the vitamin A comes from beta carotene.  This is an inactive form of the vitamin. If your body needs it, it activates it and uses it. If it doesn't need it, it gets rid of it. If the vitamin is coming from retinol, it's already activated and you can have vitamin A toxicity. It can cause serious birth defects. Any vitamin A you get from food will only be used if needed.  

Something you may notice about a prenatal is that it's high in iron but low in calcium. That's because calcium actually blocks the absorption of iron. It's best to take the multi with a meal or snack that is low in calcium. However, if you have a bowl of cereal every morning and can't remember to take your vitamin another part of the day, take it with your cereal, you will be fine.

A word about iron: you need it. Lots of it, and so does your baby. Here is a list of iron rich foods. Obviously red meat is a good source but I know that can be hard to stomach during pregnancy. 

• Beef
• Lamb
• Ham
• Turkey
• Chicken
• Veal
• Pork
• Eggs (any style)
• Spinach
• Sweet potatoes
• Peas
• Broccoli
• String beans
• Beet greens
• Collards
• Kale
• Chard

So basically, meats and dark leafy green vegetables. A spinach salad with chopped chicken topped with berries and your favorite dressing... delicious!

What nutrition questions do you have? When you're pregnant your nutritional needs do change but I will cover that in another post.

Welcome to the first day of Foods and Nutrition 1

When you're in the kitchen do you feel like Lindsay Bluth-Funke,

 

Or Carl Weathers??

Whatever your skill level I am here to help! If you were in my classroom, I'd make you watch Lindsay cook and list the good and the bad about what she does. You can do that on your own. I counted 5 good and 5 bad.

Answers:
Lindsay:
-She wore an apron! (yay! An apron is for more than protecting your clothes from food, it's about protecting the food from your clothes. Just think about how many kids you hug, dirty laundry you carry in your arms, push-ups you do on a dirty floor... your clothes are germy and you don't want those germs in your food)

-Using appropriate pot (there's a lot of soup, I mean hot ham water, the pot is big enough to hold it. When choosing pots, you don't want it to full since it might boil over. Her's might be too small but it's pretty big. She probably has too much water but we'll give this one to her.  You don't want it too small because it's too easy to burn.

-Handles turned the right way (this is more important with saucepans because they have longer handles  but again, I'm really giving this girl the benefit of the doubt. It's easy to bump a handle sticking out or for a child to grab it and pull it down)

-Using appropriate long handled wooden spoon (The spoon is long enough to get to the bottom of the pot. This way she can be sure that no ham will burn to the bottom.)

-Using hot pads (almost everybody has forgotten to use a hot pad before. It hurts.

Bad:
-Opened lid toward herself (Steam gets a LOT hotter than water. To avoid burn, open lid slowly and away from you so the steam doesn't touch you.

-Hair down (This should go without saying, pull your hair back. Unless your family enjoys a strand or two in their meal... I keep a clip on my apron so I always have something available to hold my hair back)

-Long sleeves (probably not as big of a problem in your own home as it was with 9th graders, but just think about everything your sleeves touch, usually the same as your hands, and you wash your hands throughout the day but not your sleeves. Baggy jacket/sweater sleeves are the worst! At least hers were tight)

-In the second segment she is stirring with a spoon rest. (It's important to use each utensil properly and for what it was intended for)

-Serves Buster with the same spoon she's stirring with. (If you're going to do this, you might as well just spit in the food before serving it. It's the same thing. Gross. If you need to taste test it, use a spoon- only once. Get a new spoon each taste test.)

Did you catch anything I missed?