Archive for June, 2008
Easy Conversion from emealz to emealsforyou.com
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Add comment June 28, 2008
What Do We Get Out of Those TV Cooking Shows? – A Rant
Julia Child, the goddess of cooking, started it all… and I must admit it worked. Way back when, who’d have “thunk” you could get people to sit in front of their TVs and watch someone cook. Today we have endless, and mindless for the large part, cooking shows available 24-7.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to anything that works to get more families together at the table eating food prepared in their very own kitchen. I just would like to see more instructional cooking and a little less cook-entertainment. Seriously, I want one of those ovens that you throw ingredients into an oven-proof container, pop it into the oven and then open the oven door below it to pull out a fully prepared, beautiful dish.
Here are a few that make easy targets, although I know many of you really like them. I proceed at my own risk…..
Anyone tired of our all-American girl RR with her EVOO and endless energy? When she is finished in TV she can get a job at Circ du Soleil as a juggler, carrying all those ingredients in one load, come-on.
How about learning Italian cooking while watching the bouncing boobs?
Do any of you dress up to make almost-homemade meals?
What’s with the guy who will eat anything, and I do mean anything, makes me want to lose my supper, not make it.
There are some good shows. The Martha Stewart produced Everyday… shows offer quick and instructional cooking. I like The Barefoot Contessa but do wonder when she makes 4 gallons of soup for two people. Napa Style provides good entertaining ideas and you just can’t beat America’s Test Kitchen for techniques and solid cooking tips.
Well, it’s time to pull the plug on this show for now, I’m off to the grocery to pick up a box cake mix for my grandson’s third birthday party….NOT!
Add comment June 25, 2008
Recipe of the Week – Cranberry Cream Scones
(from the Bread Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Our friend Jean is coming for a short visit this weekend. Jean is the god-mother to our kids and a friend for over 35 years. What this means is for a few days we’ll be having relaxing breakfasts over too much coffee, not the usual 5:45 A.M. bowl of cereal.
Jean is also the person who got us into cooking. We would alternate between her house and ours for dinner parties, mostly cooking Julia Child recipes. We’ll have a few dinner parties while she is here and I’ll keep you posted if I cook anything that I think you would like.
Back to the recipe… scones are the perfect leisurely breakfast food. They almost demand that you take your time and relax before setting out to see what the day brings. Try these and see if you don’t agree.
Cranberry Cream Scones
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 6 |
| Category: | Breads |
| Meal: | Lunch with the Ladies (Celebration Meal Plans) |
| 2.5 | cup | flour |
| 5 | tsp | baking powder |
| 2.5 | Tb | sugar, white |
| 0.25 | tsp | salt, table |
| 6 | Tb | butter, unsalted |
| 0.75 | cup | cream, heavy |
| 3 | large | egg |
| 0.33 | cup | cranberries, dried |
| 0.33 | cup | milk, whole |
Sift together flour, baking powder, 4 teaspoons sugar, and salt. Add cold butter, cut into small pieces, and blend until mixture resembles cornmeal. Mix together two lightly beaten eggs and cream. Mix with dried cranberries into flour mixture. Do not over mix- mix just until it forms dough. Pat out dough onto floured surface and cut with a 2 inch round cutter. Brush tops of scones with an egg wash of 1 egg lightly beaten with 1/3-cup milk. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 450 degrees for about 15 minutes or until tops are lightly browned.
2 comments June 23, 2008
Understanding the Paradigm Shift – A Rant
I had the opportunity to engage in a conversation with a cousin last weekend at a family gathering. She, like a lot of women, is a single mom, working full time and going back to school at the same time. Needless to say this leaves little personal time.
As most of my conversations go we turned to the discussion of meals and meal preparation. I asked her how she handled the daily routine of meal prep. She told me her day started early, dropping her son off at school, then on to work… pick up her son, go home and throw something on for dinner; admitting she probably should do more towards a healthier diet. Cooking the family meal had become a chore, something that was loathed but had to happen. I truly believe she is in the majority in this thought process.
As our discussion progressed I asked her to imagine coming home from work and preparing a warm, bubble-filled bathtub… sinking into the sudsy water for 20 minutes of pure relaxation; rewarding herself for a job, both motherhood and professional, well done. This appealed to her; frankly I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t enjoy this. My next statement was to imagine coming home and taking the same 20 minutes, 20 minutes you will spend anyway on the usual fare, to prepare a great dinner, something she had looked forward to all day. So, this is where it begins. This is the start of the paradigm shift. You need to stop thinking of cooking as a chore and begin to think of it as a reward… something to look forward to. Good cooking takes the same amount of time as bad cooking; you just get more pleasure out of the good stuff.
Stop thinking about the chore and think about the end result, a reward for you and your family. Special meals are normal meals made special by the way we think about them. The other thing is that special meals don’t have to cost more than normal meals; chicken breasts prepared quickly can be very special.(a recipe follows) I’m not advocating forcing yourself out of the old habits and into the new habits 7 days a week. Why not try making one “special” meal a week. You may find yourself enjoying it, more importantly your family may realize just how special you are.
Add comment June 19, 2008
Extra Recipe of the Week – Pan-roasted Chicken Breasts
(from the Chicken Entrée Collection at emealsforyou.com)
I guess if you write a Rant about taking a small amount of time to prepare a good meal for your family you should at least post a quick chicken recipe to go with it. The Pan-roasted Chicken Breast was a last minute idea one night when my wife said “do something different”. We like garlic, I mean we really like garlic in our house, so the natural thing to do was make sure I put lots of garlic in the pan. I added a few gold raisins, who doesn’t like golden raisins, some mushrooms and there you have it… a new house favorite.
Have your butcher, excuse me, have the guy behind the meat counter, bone out the chicken breasts but leave the skin on. I actually prefer to do this myself, tossing the bones into a pot with olive oil, a piece of carrot, onion and celery, add a can of chicken broth and you have some really good chicken stock to make the dish that much better. (want to learn how to bone out the chicken? send me a comment and I will give you the easy instructions)
I serve this chicken with creamy polenta but it is just as good with quick pasta tossed with some lemon juice. Round out the meal with a mixed lettuce salad and you have a $17 restaurant meal for about a third the price.
Pan-roasted Chicken Breasts
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Chicken Entrée |
| Meal: | Wednesday Night Bistro (Celebration Meal Plans) |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 4 | medium | chicken , breast, boned with skin on |
| 3 | cloves | garlic, chopped |
| 8 | medium | mushrooms, baby portabella |
| 1 | 14 oz. can | chicken broth |
| 2 | Tb | capers |
| 0.25 | cup | raisins, golden |
| 0.5 | medium | lemon, juice of |
| 2 | Tb | butter, salted |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat olive oil in an oven-proof pan. Sauté chicken skin side down for 4 minutes, repeat on the other side. Add mushrooms and garlic, sauté for 1 minute. Add raisins, capers, lemon juice and broth. Place in oven for 12 minutes. Remove from oven, remove chicken to a plate. Swirl butter slowly into pan juices, add salt and pepper to taste. Plate chicken and spoon on sauce.
Suggestion: Serve over creamy polenta, add some fresh tomatoes and it’s time to eat.
Add comment June 19, 2008
Recipe of the Week – Watermelon Salad
Watermelon Salad
(from the Salad Collection at emealsforyou.com)
This is a carryover from last year; but it’s still a winner. We were putting some chicken breasts on the grill and my wife wanted something “different” to go with it. As the spring heat turns into summer heat; cold, refreshing salads add color and a special touch to any meal.
The charm of watermelon salad is its versatility. Pair it with lunch meats, a can of tuna or even just some crispy crackers and you have a quick, delicious lunch… low in calories and good for you. Serve it as a dinner salad and watch the surprised looks you get. Having problems getting your kids to eat salad; come on what kid doesn’t like watermelon.
Well I have to go now… the photo made me think this is just what I need for tonight’s dinner.
Watermelon Salad
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Salad |
| Meal: | Summer’s Night (Quick Meals Planner) |
| 0.165 | cup | pine nuts, toasted |
| 3.5 | cup | watermelon |
| 0.5 | cup | cheese, feta |
| 0.25 | medium | onion, red |
| 0.5 | cup | arugula |
| 0.165 | cup | cilantro, chopped |
| 0.125 | cup | oil, olive |
| 1 | Tb | lemon, juice of |
| 0.25 | tsp | pepper, fresh cracked |
| 0.5 | pinch | salt to taste |
Toast pine nuts, Seed and cut watermelon into bite size pieces. Thinly slice onion, crumble feta and place in bowl with all other ingredients. Mix well, serve very cold.
This and many more salad ideas may be found at emealsforyou.com
Add comment June 17, 2008
Meal Planning – A Rant About the Cost of Laziness
Years from now when the social-anthropologists look back and try to determine when the decline started, they will settle on Bill Cosby and Jell-O pudding. Some of our moms made pudding from scratch; some from a package labeled instant…but the downfall can be traced to the advent of the ready-to-eat pudding cup. In our lay-the-blame society, you know the one without mirrors; it’s easy to say that is when kitchen laziness began.
It all gets back to- how much does it cost? For those few people who can afford it, kitchen laziness must be a very nice thing. Our society rewards kitchen laziness, the inability to push ourselves beyond opening a package to provide food for ourselves and our families. We have a whole slew of businesses designed to prepare our meals, actually just the entrées, in nice little freezer bags so that we won’t have to overwork ourselves in the kitchen. On a diet, not to worry, just order up from the Internet…Get 6 weeks of food for the cost of 4. Let’s not even get into the fast food route.
First let me attack the Diet Plans. Let’s look at what’s missing besides the vegetables, salads et al that you have to provide on top of paying “only about $10 per day” as the ads say. We are missing the self-discipline to use portion control… to limit our daily intake of calories and carbs. Will we stay on these pre-arranged diets forever, how will we learn to push ourselves into better physical shape if the only way we can diet is by checking off a list of meals on a menu? Besides diets don’t work; unfortunately we’ll need to change our lifestyle to really make the difference we are looking for.
Now about those Meal services, Dream Dinners, My Girlfriends Kitchen, etc. What are we really getting for our money? We have ourselves convinced that they are just like going out to dinner only cheaper. Surprise, you still have to cook them, still have to come up with sides or salads to go with them. Just what have we gained except less money in our checking account and bragging rights at the PTA meeting? Come on… take some time and plan you own meals. You will find it refreshing to have control over what you want to eat and not what they have on the menu for that week.
Look, I don’t care how you plan your meals; use your recipes, get recipes off the Internet or cookbooks. Like the Nike phrase, JUST DO IT! Show some discipline. For those who say they can’t plan meals I say bull. The only thing between your family and good meals is your laziness. Get over it. Don’t you want your kids to look forward to good meals at home?
Add comment June 12, 2008
Diabetes and Diet
by Lisa Ronco MS, RD, CDN
Diabetes is on the rise in the US. Whether you have “Type 1″ or Insulin dependent or “”Type 2″ non-insulin dependent, a healthy diet is critical for controlling diabetes.
A few basic rules to remember:
Exercise: Helps in weight control and stress reduction not to mention the cardiovascular and physical benefits.
Glucose monitoring: Frequent checking of blood glucose can help you keep diabetes under control.
Nutrition: To keep blood glucose or sugar stable, it is better to eat several small meals per day instead of sporadically grabbing “something” on the go. Ideally eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with a small snack in between each with a p.m. snack before bed. Whether you have diabetes or not; eating several small meals per day can help you consume the recommended servings of all food groups.
One of the easiest ways to eat “right” with diabetes and keep blood sugar well controlled is to follow the exchange system, which many diabetics do. Others may prefer to do carbohydrate counting. Whichever method you prefer, the outcome is basically a well balanced diet throughout the day. I prefer the exchange system for its ease of use.
As we know blood sugar increases more when we eat carbohydrates or “carbs.” Carbs are found in dairy products (lactose), fruits (fructose) and grains and starchy vegetables. Each of these foods has about the same amount of carbs …12grams /serving and is thus “exchangeable.” This doesn’t mean eat only fruit or only dairy products, instead choose food from each group.
So a typical day would look like this:
Sample Menu:
Breakfast:
1 fruit …………………………..1/2 c orange juice 2 starch/bread ………………..1 slice whole wheat toast, 3/4 cup Cornflakes 1 meat …………………………1 boiled egg 1 fat …………………………….1 teaspoon butter 1 milk …………………………..1 cup skim milkSnack:
1 fruit …………………………….1sma ll appleLunch:
1 fruit …………………………….1/2 banana 2 starch/bread …………………..2 slices rye bread 2 meat ……………………………1/2 cup tuna 1 fat ……………………………….1 teaspoon mayo 2 vegetable ………………………1 large tomato, 1/2 cup vegetable juiceSnack:
1 milk ……………………………..6 oz. Non-fat yogurtDinner:
1 fruit ………………………………1 1/4 cup strawberries 2 starch/bread ……………………1 small baked potato, 1 slice whole wheat bread 3 meat …………………………….3 ounces roast beef 1 fat ………………………………..1 teaspoon butter 1 vegetable ……………………….1/2 cup broccoliSnack:
1 meat ……………………………..1 slice low fat cheese 2 starch/bread …………………….3 whole grain crackersKeep in mind this is just a template for a “typical” day. The beauty of using the exchanges comes in handy for those special occasions such as a birthday. For example you want to have a slice of birthday cake at dinner; so one way to incorporate the cake is to “use” some exchanges for the cake. During the day possibly use the breakfast milk in exchange for the cake. As long as you use all the exchanges during the day, you will keep your blood sugar consistent. Use more than allowed; your blood sugar goes to high and by not using enough exchanges your blood sugar drops too low.
Lisa Ronco MS, RD, CDN
Add comment June 10, 2008
Recipe of the Week – Pulled Pork
The kids stopped in yesterday with their kids, Avery is almost 3 and Alexis is just 5 weeks. After a trip to the playground in the heat it was time to figure out lunch. I guess i could have called this, “Too Hot to Cook but Not to Thaw”. As we talked about in Meal Planning – Winning the Trifecta it pays to cook batches of food and freeze them for later use. I microwaved a frozen container of pulled pork, made a quick coleslaw, added pickles and chips and everyone was happy. Side note here… I usually like my coleslaw directly on top of the sandwich, unlike my photo above.
P.S. For dessert we had carrot cake, also frozen in individual packets and thawed as needed. The carrot cake is the Featured Recipe this week at www.emealsforyou.com.
Pulled Pork
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 10 |
| Category: | The Other Meat Entrée |
| Meal: | other (General) |
| 4 | lb | pork, shoulder roast, bone-in |
| 1 | recipe | dry rub |
| 3 | Tb | vinegar, cider |
| 1 | Tb | ketchup |
| 4 | Tb | water |
Rub dry rub (recipe follows) all over pork roast. Place in oven-proof pan and cook in oven at 275 degrees for 4-5 hours or until meat pulls easily off the bone. Remove from pan and shred meat with two forks. discard the bone. Pour water, vinegar and ketchup into pan and stir to remove all fond (the brown bits) and juices. Pour over meat and stir.
Note: You may choose to serve pork with additional store-brand barbeque sauce.
Dry Rub
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 8 |
| Category: | Misc |
| Meal: | other (General) |
| 0.75 | Tb | cumin, ground |
| 0.5 | tsp | pepper, cayenne |
| 1 | tsp | pepper, fresh ground |
| 1 | tsp | paprika, sweet |
| 1 | Tb | garlic powder |
| 1 | Tb | onion, granulated, dry |
| 2 | tsp | mustard, dried |
| 1 | Tb | chili powder |
| 2 | Tb | sugar, brown |
| 0.5 | tsp | salt, kosher |
Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. May be stored in an air-tight container for months.
Note: Use on pork, beef and chicken.
1 comment June 9, 2008
Grocery Shopping – Inattention Can Cost You Big
By now hopefully you have read all about Meal Planning in the Tips, Techniques and Ideas category and are ready to attack the grocery store with your shopping list. CAUTION!!! inattention here can cost you big. Here is the headline from an article written in 1993 and still as pertinent in today’s grocery stores:
This is the label that sits on the front of the shelf either over or under the product. The first thing you want to look at is to make sure the product and the tag are describing the same product. Look for the product name and make sure it is the same size as the box or can you are placing in your cart. Grocery stores “bait and switch” here, substituting larger, more costly sizes, their own brand or even the more expensive national brand for their less expensive product. This is called creating a false front, see they even have a name for it. My store habitually puts 36-40 count shrimp on sale then fills the case with larger 20-26 count shrimp, an up-charge of $3 per pound. In order to compare whether a larger size of a product is less expensive look for the PPU (price per unit). This is on the tag and will tell you the cost of each ounce or unit; compare this price with the one on the smaller box to see which in fact is cheaper. It may be the smaller box is less expensive per ounce or unit. The next thing you want to check is the price. If they have a bigger, brighter tag (called a shelf talker) hanging from the same area of the product shelf and the price is less expensive then the shelf tag, remember the shelf talker price. Many are not entered into the computer system of the store and will charge you the more expensive price instead of the sale price. Lastly, watch the two-fers, buy one get one free items. Make sure you are not charged for both. Remember, you can buy just one and be charged only half… especially if you only need one.
4 comments June 4, 2008
