Tag: food blog
I find it ironic that the month that kicks off the biggest eating binge of the year with Thanksgiving, November, is also National Good Nutrition Month. ( Mind you, it is also Georgia Pecan Month, National Peanut Butter Lover’s Month, National Pepper Month, National Pomegranate Month, Raisin Bread Month and Vegan Month!). November 1 is National Deep Fried Clam. I live in a geography where it costs more NOT to have your food deep fat fried – what is wrong with this picture?
So I want to spend a little time talking about my lifetime obsession – that twisted relation of health/weight/food. The national obsession and information overload on health and weight management is confusing. I’m actually going to break it into two parts, and I bet you know what they are – DIET and EXERCISE.
Part I -Diet
Help Tracking your Diet
We all have good intentions – and most of us mom’s try to put balance of good food on the table (although many are tied to the old food pyramid). The government has put together a really good site to explain this, and plan and track your progress to eating well. Give it a look see and gets your kids involved in planning.
Reality is we will all eat a little of everything – and that ‘s the key – A Little!
When you look at the portions in quick serve restaurants, they are full of fat, salt and calories – even a salad can contain a whole day’s worth (we all watch morning TV and have seen the expos). And heaven knows on a cold day I’m the first to line up for Mac and Cheese, or a cup of steaming hot cocoa with whipped cream, and that’s ok as an indulgence. But you can’t really live that way.
Our nation has an epidemic of obesity, starting with our children. We owe it to them to improve. If you really knew what a portion was, you could probably cut your food budget down – the man at the fish counter is always trying to sell me a ½ pound per person, when a portion is 4-5 ounces – half the amount. And the right portion for a toddler is ¼ that of an adult.
I spend a lot of time on the road where I do my best to piece together something clean and simple to eat – and I succeed about 60% of the time. All you have to do is look at my wardrobe to see the yo-yo battle. I used to make excuses, but the only person I’m fooling is me.
Manage Your Family’s Diet and Budget
The good news for managing your family’s diet and budget in these time is:
- Cooking and eating at home is 1/3 less expensive than eating out.
- Fresher/less processed food is generally less expensive.
- Coupons are great, but are they helping you purchase the healthiest food for your family? Many processed foods are convenient, but may not have the best nutritional value – sodium and fat are two things to watch. (If you don’t know it – check this out for retailer coupons).
- Cooking and coming together for a meal is a great way to connect. –whether within your immediate family, or everyone bringing potluck for Thanksgiving.
Eat as many fruit and vegetables as possible, serve food that is as close to fresh as possible, exercise and you’ll be fine.
If you eat in balance and control your portions– you can eat almost anything! What’s your favorite way to stay in control? Pass the dark chocolate please, it’s good for my heart!
For more National Food Holidays click here!
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November 10, 2009
Ok, I give up. My carefully laid plans ran aground again. We all had different schedules–my son had an afternoon crew practice, my daughter an evening ballet class and I had a late, late meeting. Thankfully, my husband was home to feed the dogs! Let’s face it, on a night like this it’s impossible to sit down together for dinner.
But there’s an easy solution! Make it a “scoop and nuke night.” What’s that?…. Here’s the easy recipe:
- An easy, no fuss, semi–nutritious meal. It’s so quick that I had time to prepare it before the after school frenzy.
- One pan cooking. After all, no matter what time I get home that pan will be waiting for me in the sink.
- Make a lot. I always planned on leftovers, but never got any.
- A meal that everyone will eat!
My family isn’t picky too about food, but like everyone their appetite depends on the day. My daughter couldn’t eat a heavy meal before dance, but my son was famished. My husband still thinks he plays college varsity soccer and I require just one dish–fast.
Ideas for What to Put on the Dining Room Table:
- Soup with fresh bread – Make a pot of whatever is left in the refrigerator from the weekend – add broth.
- Chicken stroganoff. A little heavy for the dancer, but one of her favorites and she could have some before and after class.
- Spaghetti. If I boil the noodles and mix with sauce before leaving for my meeting (one pan remember?)
- Tacos. Smorgasbord of cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes, except for the meat with sauce which can be “nuked” as needed.
Or ask friends! Our all time family favorite is an Indonesian spicy rice dish called Nasi Goreng (fried rice). You might think we picked this up when we lived in Asia, but no, we never do anything the easy way.
We first heard about this lifesaver on a ski trip with our best friends, who are Dutch. Apparently, Dutch cooking is replete with Indonesian and Malaysian influences, as they were a global trading power in the 1600’s. In fact, the rijstafel (rice table) is a frequent Malaysian occurrence – an assortment of Asian dishes, largely including or served over rice and named by the Dutch.
Anyways, we stayed in a rental apartment and everyone was tired from skiing all day. Yvette, my friend, was graciously in charge of feeding the troops that night. The pot filled with Nasi Goreng must have been as big as one of the best lobster pots, but 30 minutes later it was empty.
Nasi Goreng Recipe: Try it with your family!
- Spice mix. I found the Dutch store and bought the Nasi Goreng by Conimex packets. For added interest you can also purchase Ketcap Manis (something like sweet soy sauce), to be truly authentic.
- Cook rice. Mix with spice, add onion and chicken (optional). Then it’s ready to go!
- Or you can make it from scratch (but not on a scoop and nuke night!)
Low and behold, a few years later my family was transferred to Asia. The first day there, my son saw Nasi Goreng on the menu and was thrilled to see something he both recognized and loved!
Well, let me tell you – the original native is not what comes out of the bag. After the first bite, and many tears of disappointment, I had to find the closest Dutch store and revert to our mix. We still horde it in our cupboards!
Share your scoop and nuke meals–and how they save your family!
Want some history on the Dutch East India Company? Makes for interesting dinner table conversation!
Nasi Goreng Ready to Go!
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November 3, 2009
This is a great way to inaugurate a blog on a fun food day. I love my job, I get to cook, eat, learn fun facts and talk all about food. Plus, when food is involved there’s always something to celebrate.
Who doesn’t love Halloween and pumpkins? It gives us adults an excuse to pretend and have fun!
Scary Carved Pumpkins
What my Family Did for Halloween:
When my children were little, this season was all about the family trip to the pumpkin patch and finding that perfect Halloween costume.
As the kids became “too cool” for Trick or Treating, they turned their attention to scaring the neighborhood kids with our haunted hallway. The whole family got in on the fun. When the doorbell rang, the spooky music started, the hallway was foggy from a cauldron of dry ice and strobe lights flashed to complete the eerie feel. The children still got to dress up to hand out the goodies!
Then as the children grew even older and time more scarce, we planned one night together to carve an elaborate jack-o-lantern. Soon our pumpkins became the talk of the neighborhood.
Ideas to Celebrate Halloween and National Pumpkin Day:
- Printable pumpkin carving stencils:Stencils help those of us who cannot really draw a scary face. We love black cats.For scary printable pumpkin carving stencils click here .
- Child Friendly Pumpkin Decorating:For little ones, who you don’t want to arm with a knife or other carving implement –there’s an equally fun alternative. One of my favorite home movie moments is of my daughter, Laura, age 4, decorating the pumpkins, armed with toothpicks and a farmer’s market full of vegetables. With spinach hair, radish eyes, cucumber ears, a carrot nose and black olive teeth she learned about vegetables, ate and laughed for about an hour. Then that pumpkin was ready to turn heads! Show off their proud creation right on your front doorstep. These were done at a local fall fair.
Kid Friendly Pumpkin Decorations
3. Pumpkin Muffin Recipe:For a pre or post Trick or Treat pick–me–up, you can make some delicious pumpkin muffins. Check out how to make our great pumpkin muffin recipe from TSG Apple cake.
4. Pumpkin Roll Recipe:For those feeling more creative, prepare a delicious pumpkin roll
5.Heat up some cider laced with cinnamon and have a warm October evening full of memories that will be sure to give you goose bumps!
One of my favorite sources for quirky facts and the history of food is the Nibble, an online magazine, where I found today’s cause for celebration–National Pumpkin Day!
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October 26, 2009
Anyone Can Cook – if they want
Ok, well that’s not really me, but it was my Mom when she was first married. I honestly think that between us, we would have made one great housewife – I cook and she cleans. My father-in-law would have shriveled up without a microwave, and some surprisingly astute business women I know claim kitchen disability as well. But I think the truth is that they don’t want to cook – not that they can’t.
Now I confess that learning to cook can have it’s ups and downs. (We will not talk about the inedible disasters that have graced my garbage can.) I know for a fact that my son learned how to cook before he left home, but the first time he prepared dinner in his college room, he turned the burner on high, threw in the chicken breast, and set off the fire alarm – then he didn’t try again for a year.
Dinner Disaster
Worst case, anyone can boil some water in the microwave, add instant rice and slice pre-cooked chicken on top, open a jar of apple sauce for a side – and voila!. Just don’t try to get me to eat it. That might count as instant dorm food, but not dinner.
How to Bake Like a Pro
Right out of the starting gate you can impress everyone by baking – dare I say with a little TSG beer bread (just add beverage). You can even go to the website and download one sheet with over 15 variations, and you’ll be a master chef right away. Branch out –steam some fresh vegetables and spring with Tearless Onion and Chives – then you can add the precooked chicken breast – and you’ve come a long way in one day.
Learn How to Cook
To learn to cook, I recommend you find a friend who knows you well and start simple – like spaghetti
1. For entertainment as well as ideas you can go to You tube and watch “how to co
ok for men” videos on a step by step to make ramen spaghetti
2. A drier series from Howcookingworks.com - competent but not entertainment
3. You can also bone up on you skills from online sites so you look like like a pro when your mother-in-law arrives.
4. There are lots of food shows on TV that can help, like Semi Home Made with Sandra Lee. This is sort of an updated Campbell’s soup approach mixing some cooking with already prepared foods for a polished look that will help you gain confidence .
Personally, I’d go buy a book, – but sooner or later you just have to take the plunge and start !
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October 26, 2009
Ok, so we have all been there. Picking up the last minute items for dinner, rushing to get home and get cooking, only to find “rush hour traffic” at the grocery store check out lane.
Now what? You cast and eye a basket content, checker speed, presence of children and then shoulders slump, and you grudgingly place your bet.
My experience has been that 8 times out of 10 I pick the wrong line. Just like in a traffic jam, I watch the baskets in the other lanes whiz past me!. I’ve even tried the self-check out lane – I’m a whiz at bagging, but there’s always some item that doesn’t scan! In some stores in the Northeast they even have a scanner you take with you while you shop – if you scan as you go, you get special offers and are ready to plug in at check out! (although my first couple of times were slow, because I didn’t read the rest of the directions….) But that doesn’t help with the others in the line.
finding the fast grocery lane
So of course, someone, somewhere, paid good money to study this problem and found it’s the number of people in the line, not the contents of the basket that makes the difference – so go for the shortest line! See for yourself! Even so, I’m still not convinced!
Of course you can solve the problem by always keeping some TSG in the cupboard for last minute inspiration!
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October 26, 2009
Most nights I think we all secretly wish that someone would come take over the kitchen detail for us. And then when it happens, I think we are all a little sorry, because…….
My husband loves to cook, and fortunately, he’s very good at it. He does have some specialties though – anything that can be cooked on top of a barbeque (yes, even in the winter). In the 30+years we’ve been married, I can probably count on two hands the number of times I have had to cook on a weekend. Not bad, you say, but it does come with some caveats:
- It’s most frequently some form of beef and potatoes (although in the last few years with the advent of planks, we have a lot of fish too!)
- Someone has to go to the store for some ingredient.
- All dishes are in the sink at the end of the meal.
- There’s a lot of crispy crust involved.
All in all, this isn’t a bad list of details, it’s just the result of what happens when someone enters what is typically “MY” domain, the kitchen. I am, after all, a creature of habit – mine not his.
1. Husbands can learn how to grill fish with planks.
Grilling Planked Salmon
Barbequing with a plank is a great way to tackle more delicate foods and add flavor. At almost any grocery store, or store that sells barbeque equipment will have them. Just soak the plank in water for a couple of hours, and place the fish (usually) on the plank to add flavor while it cooks. The fish won’t have to be touched until done – meaning it will stay in one piece. Here are some easy steps to follow. (more…)
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October 26, 2009
Last weekend it was a familiar scene, Laura packed most of her worldly belongings in the car and headed back for her Junior year. By now I now longer have the early parent fears about her getting settled, studying, having a social life, but the older she gets, the smaller the meal program becomes and the more responsibility she has to feed herself.
Laura and Deb on Campus - before cooking
Just before Parent’s weekend, she sent me a text saying, “the H1N1 virus has hit my school!” After last spring’s media frenzy, she is worried about getting this virus. For my advice, I retreated to a standard “Mom formula” – eat healthy and get plenty of sleep. But who am I kidding? In college, no way!
If I’m lucky, she gets one nutritious meal per day in the dining hall usually consisting of salad or pasta. There’s a hefty amount of branded coffee in her diet too, which by the way means the same calorie content as milkshakes. Many schools are trying to prepare healthier dining hall meals, but that doesn’t affect the students eating habits!
How to Cook with Just a Microwave and a Refrigerator:
This got me thinking, how can you eat healthy with an electric kettle, a microwave and a refrigerator (without the freezer mind you)? Gratefully, food choices have improved since I was faced with the same problem years ago in my college days. I’m sure guys will resort to ramen noodles, but that gets old after a while. And I would say girls are more particular so I asked my daughter to brainstorm some ideas.
Dorm Room Cooking Essentials:
Here are my daughter’s staples:
- Tuna packets (with salt, pepper, and olive oil)
- Microwavable steamed vegetables (both frozen and non frozen brands)
- Cereal
- Oranges and bananas (no mess or dishes to clean up)
- Smart-ones frozen dinners
- Yogurts (The yogurts in the bottles are really good on the way to class because no spoon)
- In the university dining hall, I’ll get a wrap and put a salad in it from the salad bar along with some deli meat, just as healthy but way more interesting than plain salad
-
Tea!
Easy Recipes:No Cooking
They can track down the pre-packaged and pre-cooked aisles in the grocery store. Get a bag of pre–packaged salad, followed by pre-cooked chicken. Sprinkle grated cheese on the chicken and top it all off with your favorite dressing. Voilá you have a great meal! (Add a dash of TSG Outrageously Garlic or Tearless Onion and Chives on everything!)
As for the rest of staying healthy, I suggest:
- Bottle of hand sanitizer
- Tea mixed with honey and lemon
- Chicken noodle soup
- Vitamin C
And if all else fails – call home to mom.
If you want a teen’s perspective on what’s healthy and what they like, check out this post from Radical Parenting
For dorm room cooking 101, click here
College Student Holiday gift ideas:
- Everything College Cookbook by Rhonda Parkinson
- Healthy College Cookbook by Alexandra Nimetz
- Complete Idiots Guide to the College Diet by Shelly Vaughan James
- Cooking Outside the Pizza Box by Jean Patterson
Get involved! Click here and read how colleges can participate in local sustainable food projects.
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October 26, 2009
It’s time for parent’s weekend at my daughter, Laura’s campus, which also happens to be my husband, Rick’s, alma mater. It will be a fun filled weekend of school spirit, orange and blue spirit that is, and overall collegiate good cheer.
When Rick attended this beautiful campus, the football team’s record was something to brag about. Although, the stats have changed–win or lose the tailgating begins!
Our annual tradition kicks off Saturday with friends, sun, fall foliage and plenty of noise. I’m looking forward to a reunion with family friends whose children also attend Laura’s school. I love seeing both generations enjoying each other more than ever. It really is a made for TV moment.
Tailgating without Cooking – Easy Meal Ideas
This year we have to pack light because we are flying into Pennsylvania. Our usual tailgating gear definitely won’t be fitting into our little rental car. Despite this minor setback, I’m ready to go!
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October 23, 2009
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