Archive for October, 2008
Meal Planning – Why Now and Why emealsforyou?
Okay, so you have made it this far in your search for an understanding on why you should begin to plan your meals. This proves that you know your should be planning meals:
- To save money and time
- To feed your family better foods with less additives and preservatives
- To gather your family together to establish communication
- To make your family healthier and happier
Why emeals and why now?
- You want to begin planning but you just can’t get started
- You want to feed your family healthier meals
- Tough times mean you have to eat at home more
- Every time you go to the grocery you spend more than you wanted to
- You can’t decide what to cook
- You are tired of the same old recipes
- You know you will be better organized if you had a shopping list
- You really want to establish “family time”
- You feel guilty about all that “fast food”
With an emealsforyou membership you get the structure and support you need to make meal planning work. Recipes and meal plans are only a quick click away, complete with recipes scaled for the number of people you are feeding for each meal. A few more mouse clicks and you have your shopping list printed, in your pocket and are on the way to the store, and on the way to feeding your family healthier meals and saving money: the time savings and family times are added benefits.
Try our site and see the huge difference it will make in your life. Get a $6 Discount Today: use Sponsoring Identifier ACTNOW-44; bringing your cost down to $30 for a year. Start saving with your next trip to the grocery store.
Take me back to emealsforyou.com
Add comment October 29, 2008
Recipe of the Week – Baked Chicken and Rice
(From the Easy Recipes I Can Cook Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Baked Chicken and Rice
A cold front, of course in January it would be considered a warm front, came through the Ohio Valley yesterday. What this means to me is that I have to start to consider wearing socks again… I hate socks. It also means comfort food; good food with little effort. When I make this baked chicken and rice I usually wind up thinking, “I should make this more often.”
As you can see above, this recipe is in our Easy Recipe I Can Cook category of our website: www.emealsforyou.com. I buy the chicken breasts when they are on sale at the market then freeze them until I need them. Thaw them, sprinkle with garlic powder, salt and pepper, spread the rice and onions, pop in the oven and there you have it. I served this with spinach but you can put whatever vegetable you can get your kids to eat with it. I finished with some homemade Lemon Italian Ice, another very easy recipe you can make.
Baked Chicken and Rice
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Easy Recipes I Can Cook |
| Meal: | N/A |
| 2 | cup | rice |
| 0.5 | medium | onions, chopped |
| 1 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
| 1 | 14 oz. can | chicken broth |
| 1.5 | cup | water |
| 4 | medium | chicken breasts cut in half |
| 1 | Tb | garlic powder |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
| 4 | tsp | oil, olive |
Place rice evenly in an oven-proof dish. Add onion, oil and salt and pepper and stir. Add broth and water and stir. Place chicken on top of rice, skin side up; sprinkle with garlic powder, salt and pepper and remaining oil. Place in a 350 degree pre-heated oven and bake until golden brown and juices run clear, about 1 hour.
1 comment October 28, 2008
Fond Memories of Bygone Times
I was driving to the store to pick up some chicken broth when I started to think about the “smells of the kitchen.” I know this is weird but my mind was working over the thought that we are “dumbing down” our taste buds, selling them out for convenience. It’s easier to pick something up on the way home or pop something into the oven from the freezer section then it is to actually think about making good food.
I sometimes think about those who grew up without good, not fancy, food prepared at home. I remember the smells of the kitchen when I walked in from the outside. What were we having, I can’t wait. We always had home cooked meals in our house so I really can’t comprehend those who grew up not looking forward to supper. I am hopeful that those people at least had some sort of holiday meals, whether home or at a family member’s; that they can remember fondly.
Close you eyes and remember that special Thanksgiving or Holiday meal; what it was like to ring the doorbell and then the door opens to a burst of great “smells”. Your mind begins to travel back to a time when we had the time to enjoy a slower pace and maybe a second piece of dessert.
If these memories match some of yours then why not start giving these sensations to your families? If you were not fortunate enough to have enjoyed these simple pleasures it is probably time you started some for yourself and your families. I am not advocating that every meal be a holiday meal. With a little planning you can give the present of opening that door to your family, at least a couple of nights a week. You will be surprised at how fast they get to like it and how they will look forward to a family meal. Come on, what do you have to lose, make something special tonight.
Try this one, it is very “cost effective” and easy to make; plus the smells are incredible.
Sunday Roasted Chicken
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 6 |
| Category: | Chicken Entrée |
| Meal: | Mom’s Out of Town (Share-a-Meal Plans) |
| 6 | lb | chicken, whole, oven-stuffer |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 1 | tsp | salt and pepper to taste |
| 2 | medium | lemons |
| 1 | medium | garlic, whole head |
| 1 | 14 oz. can | chicken broth |
| 1 | Tb | cornstarch |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
Rinse and dry chicken thoroughly. Cover outside with olive oil, sprinkle salt and pepper over skin. Cut one lemon in half; cut garlic head in half, and place both inside cavity of chicken. Place in an over-proof roaster pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, roast chicken for 15-17 minutes per pound or until juices run clear. Place broth and lemon, cut in half, in a saucepan on stove, and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove chicken from pan, place pan on top of stove. Remove lemon from broth, add chicken broth, reserving 1/2 cup, to roasting pan and stir. Add cornstarch to reserved chicken broth, stir broth into roasting pan, and cook on low until thickened. Salt and pepper to taste. Remove garlic, discard garlic skin, and add cloves to gravy. Remove and discard lemon halves inside of the chicken.
Serve with gravy on side.
Add comment October 23, 2008
Recipe of the Week – Baked Pasta
Baked Pasta
My wife and I grew up on the east coast and were lucky enough to have a section of Trenton called “The Burg” that had really great, small Italian restaurants on almost every corner. These were small storefronts or older homes turned into restaurants; the type where the grandmother did the cooking in the extremely small kitchen. Traveling for business for 20+ years, I always tried to find those interesting, character filled restaurants that reminded me of home.
There is a great Italian restaurant in Buffalo, New York called Chefs, that fits into the mold of the restaurants of the burg. At Chef’s the linen napkin had a button-hole in the top that allowed you to fasten it onto your shirt to avoid the business tragic sauce on the shirt syndrome. I haven’t been there for maybe 20 years but I still remember and recreate one of their specialties of the house, baked pasta.
This recipe takes a very simple meal, spaghetti, “gucci’s it up, by adding cheese and baking it in the oven. You go from “just get dinner over with” to “boy is this good” in about 7 minutes. What could be easier; more importantly what could be better. Napkins optional!
Baked Pasta
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Vegetarian Entrée |
| Meal: | Veggie – Little Italy (Theme Meal Plans) |
| 1 | lb | pasta, penne |
| 2 | Tb | salt, kosher |
| 3 | cup | tomato sauce |
| 1 | cup | cheese, mozzarella |
| 3 | Tb | cheese, romano, grated |
Cook pasta in a large pot of salted, boiling water and drain well. Using your favorite jarred spaghetti sauce or part of the spaghetti sauce recipe which appears on this site, mix sauce with the cooked pasta, and place in an oven-proof dish. Grate mozzarella cheese and sprinkle generously on top; finish with a sprinkling of the romano.
Bakes at 400 degrees for about 4-6 minutes or until it begins to brown.
Shown here using spaghetti.
1 comment October 20, 2008
The Healthier Side of Meal Planning – Could and Should be a Rant
I saw an interesting ad in the paper this morning. Tucked in with all the economic news was this statement by a leading soup maker that their competition had over 90 soups on the market with MSG added while they had 36 without. This statement hit on a topic that I have been “noodling” around in my head. I have presented the benefits of meal planning and home-cooking from an economic viewpoint numerous times; but have barely touched on the health aspects of made-from-scratch foods for your family.
Sure I have told you the food is always better tasting and cheaper when you make it yourself but let’s take a look at cooking from the health end of the business. Open a can of something and dump it into your meal and you are adding all the “extra” ingredients that the commercial makers put in. Another TV commercial shows a woman coming home and thinking, “What should I feed my family?” It goes on to say open a can of cream of something soup, add pre-cooked chicken and veggies, maybe some no-boil noodles and there you have it, a wonderful “homemade” dinner.
To make my point let’s see what “she” added to her family’s healthy diet: preservatives, preservatives and a little more preservatives, flavor enhancers (whatever they are), stabilizers, artificial color, msg, too much salt, corn syrup and a bunch of things I can’t spell nor pronounce. Yum!!! This from a family that drinks bottled water to avoid any outside contaminants.
Look, I understand time constraints, and I understand money constants but I think we can all do a better job, at least some of the time, planning meals and preparing foods in our kitchens fully knowing what we are putting into the pot and thereby into our families. Let’s try to start planning and cooking on a healthier scale, we can all benefit from it.
Add comment October 15, 2008
Recipe of the Week – Teresa’s Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
(From the Dessert Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Teresa's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Chef Teresa sends us this wonderful, and I do mean wonderful, cookie recipe. Now I must be upfront with you and say that I really didn’t like oatmeal cookies before I tried one of these. We were doing a demo of our website at a local Learning Center, each of us brought a couple of things for the moms and dads to try. Teresa showed up with several dishes, among them these cookies. As I said, oatmeal cookies were not my favorites, but Teresa prevailed and I tried one, then another; then Teresa had to move them away from me to protect some for the guests.
These cookies are great at getting your kids to eat oatmeal. It is an easy transition from these sweet, chewy cookies, that they will love, to eating a good hot bowl of oatmeal in the morning. Make a batch and see how fast they disappear. The secret, just like the recipe says, is soaking the raisins before putting them in the batter…
Teresa’s Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
| Complexity: | Medium |
| Serves: | 8 |
| Category: | Dessert |
| Meal: | Dad’s in charge???? (Share-a-Meal Plans) |
| 3 | large | egg |
| 1 | cup | raisins |
| 1 | tsp | vanilla |
| 16 | Tb | butter, salted |
| 1 | cup | sugar, brown |
| 1 | cup | sugar, white |
| 2.5 | cup | flour, all-purpose |
| 1 | tsp | salt, table |
| 1 | tsp | cinnamon. ground |
| 2 | tsp | baking soda |
| 2 | cup | oats, old-fashioned rolled |
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine beaten eggs, raisins, and vanilla and cover with plastic wrap. Let stand for one hour. Cream together room temperature butter and both sugars. Add flour, salt, cinnamon, and soda to sugar mixture and mix well. Blend in egg-raisin mixture and oatmeal. Dough will be stiff. Drop a heaping tablespoons onto ungreased cookie sheets and bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned.
Delicious: Soaking of the raisins is the secret!
Add comment October 14, 2008
Risotto – Meal or No Meal – A Bonus Recipe
Pumpkin Risotto
We have a fundamental disagreement, more like a like verses dislike situation. I like rice; rice with Chinese food, red beans and rice, rice pudding. My wife on the other hand tolerates rice. If I make a dish that needs something under it, something to soak up the juices, and I am tired of pasta, I go the rice route, My wife will eat the dish but there is always a little pile of rice left on her plate; maybe her mother was scared by Chinese take-out when she was pregnant with her.
So that brings us to Risotto. The Italian’s make Risotto as a meal unto itself. They not only honor it but they relish the making of it as much as they enjoy the eating of it. For those believers it only takes about 20 minutes start to finish; if you are a non-believer you are looking at a long time-consuming process that is hardly worth the effort… same 20 minutes just a mindset adjustment. So Saturday I was thinking a nice plate of steaming Risotto, I had some pumpkin I wanted to use up and a container of Arborio rice ( the only kind you should use for Risotto ). I thought this would be a nice surprise lunch honoring the cooler weather,. My wife had other ideas, “What kind of soup do we have in the freezer?” I said I was thinking Pumpkin Risotto, she said that was not a meal, it was a side. I had the Risotto, she had the soup. So it is up to you as an individual… Risotto- Meal or No Meal?
Pumpkin Risotto
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 4 |
| Category: | Vegetarian Entrée |
| Meal: | Company Comfort (Celebration Meal Plans) |
| 1 | lb | pumpkin, fresh |
| 2 | Tb | oil, olive |
| 1 | cup | onions, chopped |
| 6 | Tb | butter, salted |
| 2.25 | cup | rice, Arborio |
| 1 | pinch | salt and pepper to taste |
| 5 | cup | vegatable broth |
| 0.5 | cup | cheese, romano, grated |
| 0.25 | cup | cheese, romano |
| 1 | Tb | parsley, flat leaf |
Cut, seed and peel pumpkin, cut into ¾ inch dice. Heat olive oil in a pot with 2/3rds of the butter. Add onions and pumpkin, sweat over medium heat until softened. Add rice to pot, stirring until rice is translucent. Add salt and pepper to taste. Lower heat; add broth ½ cups at a time, stirring constantly. Add remaining butter and grated Romano cheese.
Spoon risotto onto plates, shave remaining Romano cheese with a vegetable peeler over risotto and sprinkle with chopped parsley.
(You can find this recipe and others like it at emealsforyou.com)
2 comments October 9, 2008
Recipe of the Week – Easy Sticky Buns
Sticky Buns
The weather is changing, turning cool in the morning, the leaves are full of color… well not in Ohio. I guess the two years of drought, high winds and hot summers have taken their toll here… the leaves are gone. Anyway this is the ideal time of the year to surprise your family with these very good and more importantly, very easy sticky buns. Image waking up to the smell of caramelizing sugar and sweet rolls all actually coming from your kitchen.
These sticky buns are so easy I used to make a huge batch and deliver them to the neighbors on holidays, uncooked and they would just pop them in their ovens. Feel free to add pecans instead of the walnuts and maybe some raisins as well. The best part is you can make them and freeze them. When you are ready to eat them, leave them out on the counter over night and bake them in the morning. Gotta go now…I can smell mine are just about ready to come out of the oven.
Sticky Buns
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 12 |
| Category: | Breads |
| Meal: | Company for Breakfast (Share-a-Meal Plans) |
| 2.5 | cup | flour, all-purpose |
| 0.25 | cup | sugar, brown |
| 1 | package | yeast, dried |
| 0.5 | tsp | salt, table |
| 0.75 | cup | water, hot |
| 4 | Tb | butter, unsalted |
| 1 | large | egg |
| 0.5 | tsp | cinnamon. ground |
| 8 | Tb | butter, unsalted |
| 0.75 | cup | sugar, brown |
| 1 | Tb | cinnamon. ground |
| 1 | cup | walnuts, chopped |
| 0.75 | cup | sugar, brown |
| 4 | Tb | butter, unsalted |
| 0.25 | cup | corn syrup, dark |
| 1 | cup | walnuts, halved |
(Makes enough for about 3 8 X 8 pans)
Dough- Mix flour, 1/4 cup sugar, yeast, salt, water, melted butter, egg and cinnamon in food processor, remove from processor, add enough flour to make a soft dough, let rise for 45 minutes.
Filling- Mix 1/2 cup softened butter, 3/4 sugar, cinnamon and chopped nuts together.
Roll dough to 15” X 24”. Spread filling on dough. Roll up and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
Topping- Put remaining 3/4-cup sugar, 1/2-cup butter, and karo syrup in pan, bring to a boil. Remove from heat, add nuts and pour into baking tray or pan.
Cut rolled dough into 3/4” pieces and place on top of topping in pan. Can be frozen or refrigerated at this point. When ready to bake, let rise for 30 minutes and bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. Invert over plate and serve.
Note: When scaling this recipe be sure to adjust the ingredient proportions in this method section.
Add comment October 7, 2008
