Cooking for the Week: Recipes & Food Blogs

Did you miss my other posts?

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To round off the entire trio of posts (hmm, I seem to enjoy posting in threes), here are some great food blogs and awesome recipes.

FOOD BLOGS

RECIPES

These recipes have not all been fully tested by me, but they look like good options for taking to lunch or storing for the week to eat for dinner.

MEAT-LOVERS

VEGETARIAN

VEGAN

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    COMMENTS: 2

    Cooking for the Week: 10 Time Saving Cheap Tips

    Did you miss my other post?

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    1) Wash fruit and veggies as soon as you get home from the supermarket

    Do it so you don’t have to do it before each recipe. It takes about 15 – 20 minutes to really scrub them down, but it’s worth it.

    Dry them off, and when you pack them into tupperware, wrap some paper towels around it to absorb the moisture and keep them fresh for a few more days.

    I go the step further and mince, dice, chop, slice, mix and prepare so I don’t have to deal with it when I cook the next day.

    I just like spreading out the work, so that I am not on my feet for 4 hours, prepping what could have been done the day before.

    I DO have to share the kitchen with another cook, you know ;)

    2) Read the recipe (at least twice) beforehand & learn what it entails

    Before you make the recipe, make sure you have 4-6 hours free.

    At least 4 hours.

    If you don’t, you better be darn sure that you have everything on hand, and you will not be waiting 3 hours for the dough to rise.

    If you don’t have everything, you can always substitute in items, or omit them altogether, but sometimes you DO forget a key ingredient & your whole recipe is scrapped & so is the time, wasted on now finding a new one that’ll fit.

    Also, not to scare you, but imagine this all-too-familiar situation: “Poaching”? “Braising”? *tears hair out*

    If you aren’t a food buff like I am (not a foodie yet), then you are probably wondering what it means and how to do it.

    So read the ingredients, research on what each step means and how to do it (lots of great Youtube tutorials out there!) and then go through your pantry & mark off what you need to buy and/or feel you can substitute instead.

    3) Set out all your ingredients before you begin to cook

    Prepare your mise en place. Measure out the flour, get the canned tomatoes open, dice everything ready to go, start the rice cooker, and so on.

    If you are prepared and organized, cooking will be a lot faster.

    4) Take care of things that take up the most time, first

    I always get the dough prepared & rising in a bowl for 2 hours before I prep anything else.

    I always start the rice first in a rice cooker, knowing it takes 30 minutes, and another 10 to finish.

    Anything else, such as vegetables or fish for example, doesn’t take 30 minutes or 2 hours. It takes 10 minutes to stir fry, and by the time your rice is ready, your main dishes & side dishes will be too.

    5) Keep a calculator, 2 measuring cups and a kitchen scale in the kitchen

    It comes in handy when you have to double or quadruple recipes and don’t want to screw up.

    This is for those of you who feel nervous about measurements.

    I’d get a digital kitchen scale (quite handy, really), and at least 2 measuring cups, because I find I like having two on hand, so that one handles the dry stuff, and the other, the wet/sticky ingredients, without having to wash up halfway through.

    6) Keep your kitchen tidy & clean as you cook

    I always do this just because I hate seeing a whole sink full of dishes at the end, after I am hot, tired, worn out and not hungry any more.

    Wash as you use things. Let them dry.

    Put the dry items away as you are waiting for that soup to simmer.

    At the end of the whole cooking ordeal, you will only have what you just finished cooking with to clean up. Ta dah!

    7) Keep a bowl around for scraps

    I saw Susur Lee use this once, and it’s basically not wasting time.

    Toss your scraps, your garbage, and anything that you’d normally make a small, quick trip to the garbage can for.. or if you’d need to open a cupboard to toss out.

    8) Unless you’re baking, don’t measure if you don’t want to

    When they say half a cup of honey, or give me any kind of measurements, I just guess.

    If I don’t want to over-sweeten or over-season, I put in what I THINK will be enough, taste, and then add some more again.

    I hate measuring, and I say things like: a pinch of salt, a handful of flour, some of this and a splosh of that.

    I still like having measuring cups around just in case, but after a while, I just don’t bother with it for some recipes.

    9) Practice your chopping & dicing skills or find tools

    Watch videos. Learn how chefs hold their fingers.

    It’s going to be tough (and still is for me), to learn how to cut an onion properly, but with practice and some scuba eye gear, it is worth it to know how to carefully and efficiently take apart and onion.

    If you really hate dicing, like I do.. you can always buy a mandolin to shave vegetables down, or a food chopper of some sort to help with the situation.

    10) Don’t fret & freak out about it

    This is probably the best advice I can give.

    Don’t freak out. :) Cooking is meant to be fun, not a chore.

    So your souffle suffered, who cares? You’re learning.

    Just don’t try anything that you know you are not ready for, and have fun with experimenting with just the basics — a simple pasta, cooked well, in a tomato-based sauce with some grilled vegetables & herbs all over the place.

    Once you nail down the basic recipes you love to eat, then move on & try something new, like a Red Curry Thai soup!

    NEXT: Recipes & Good Food Blogs

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    COMMENTS: 4

    Cooking for the Week: Strategies & Tips for Mixing & Matching

    The same kind reader who asked about minimalist men’s fashion, Eric, wrote in and asked if I could also talk about cooking for a week.

    Since I wasn’t sure if I should just cover recipes or methods, I thought I’d lightly touch on both and keep it flexible.

    Why cook for a week at a time:

    • Saves time (any good meal takes at least 1/2 hour & if you are ravenous, it feels like an eternity)
    • Saves energy (you cook once, rather than each night)
    • Great for lazy people who hate to cook
    • Great for people who love to cook, but are tired on occasion
    • Great for people who are in need of a meal in a pinch

    (Doesn’t this asparagus and shiitake mushroom pasta look yummy?)

    The Basic Strategy = 2 meals: Lunch and Dinner

    This might not sound very appealing to people who want to eat something different each night, but hey, this is the lazy, simple way of ensuring you get properly fed, twice a day at the very least.

    If you go to work, you will want to take a lunch with you.

    When you get home, you might want a hot meal instead of that sandwich and salad you had at lunch, or just for a change of pace.

    This also gives you enough variety to have the option to do a little meal mixing, if you plan your recipes correctly.

    Hey, what about breakfast?

    I tend to cook for an army of one, so I ALWAYS end up with a lot of leftovers that I end up eating for Lunch/Dinner/Breakfast.

    And if there are absolutely NO leftovers, I scrounge for whatever’s available and eat it, or whip up something quick.

    1. Cashew butter on toast — Actually, not any more. I found out that too much butter/oil makes me break out
    2. Fruit
    3. Hummus and crackers
    4. Leftover weekend pancakes with chopped fruit on top
    5. Oatmeal

    My real favourite is #4 with pancakes. I make them in bulk on Sunday, and then I heat up a pancake per day, spread some sliced mangoes or bananas, and it’s a VERY hearty breakfast.

    I can barely make through 2 pancakes.

    General Tips

    • Choose meals/recipes that will hold up well for the week
    • Don’t get overly fancy with too many mixes & sauces, it becomes a pain to pack & carry
    • Try and co-ordinate the 2 meals, so if need be, you can combine the leftovers into one
    • Use fruit, drinks & other snacks to feel like your meals are varied during the week
    • Always separate your items instead of combining it all together (turns mushy)

    Elements that generally hold up well for the week:

    • Soups: they always taste better the next day & if you add pasta or rice = hearty!
    • Casseroles
    • Stews
    • Chili
    • Chilaquiles
    • Enchiladas
    • Spanakopitas
    • Gratins
    • Any kind of pasta: Bolognese is good, or baked and/or stuffed pastas are good
    • Choose tomato-based sauces over cream-based
    • Rice: If done right, cooked not too mushy or too al dente
    • Braised meats (roasted chicken, meatloaf, meatballs)
    • No seafood that might go bad very quickly — I’d bring it for the first meal, but not for the rest
    • Beans
    • Sliced mushrooms (won’t matter if they ARE a bit mushy), raw carrots, zucchini and harder vegetables that won’t wilt in 2 days
    • Savoury bread puddings
    • Salads should be packed separately & re-assembled when it’s ready to eat

    The Main Recipe Mix & Match Method:

    Here are my favourites for what holds up well for the week. I like to call it a uniform meal.

    I tend to always pick one from each group, and then change it up with sauces, flavours, herbs & spices.

    You can eat THE SAME pasta & veggie dish for 5 months and not notice, because you’re adding different textures and tastes each week just by seasoning and spicing.

    And if you don’t like eating ONE flavour all week, then make a standard pasta & veggie dish, and add different spices on different days.

    Ta dah! New meals each day.

    It really is that simple.

    So here’s the plan:

    Choose a protein/main: Meats, Cashew butter, Beans, Quinoa, anything with fiber & protein

    Choose a carbohydrate/filler: Pasta, Noodles Rice, Bread, Couscous, Quinoa

    Choose a vegetable: Zucchini, Broccoli, Stewed Tomatoes, Roasted Onions, Eggplant, Mushrooms, Peppers

    Figure out a sauce/flavour: Tomato-based, Cream-based (at the start of the week), Miso-based, Soy Sauce (lots of great savoury flavours in those soya beans!)

    Add herbs/spices: Coriander, Curry Powder, Cumin, Basil, Chinese 5 spice, BBQ spices…

    And mix and match.

    PROTEIN/MAIN:

    For vegetarians, quinoa and beans are very filling, but you already knew that.

    For meat-eaters, chicken thighs don’t dry out the way breast tends to, real bacon goes very well in many rice/pasta dishes, pork in general is a good choice if you choose a fattier cut, and beef is great because I like it rare, and when I microwave it, it turns medium, but not overdone.

    I also sometimes just enjoy eating hummus on toast or a cracker. It’s very filling & the chickpeas are tasty.

    CARBOHYDRATE/FILLER:

    I love, love, love rice. But it doesn’t hold up quite as well as pasta for a week-long dish.

    Here’s a tip when you microwave old rice: sprinkle a little water on it before you put it in the microwave. The water will steam the rice a bit, and make it softer and less hard.

    You can always buy Quinoa and use it as double-duty protein & carbohydrate, but it’s quite expensive here, and I’d prefer rice for the texture and just a childhood preference.

    VEGETABLES:

    What holds up well are vegetables that don’t get mushy over time, unless that is the texture you are looking for.

    Look for veggies with a big punch of flavour.

    I like roasting red onions (a very sweet, caramelized flavour), and I don’t mind if they get mushy (kind of like an onion jam, then).

    I also enjoy canned/stewed tomatoes which I mash into a sauce of sorts for my pasta dishes.

    You know what else is also tasty & filling? Roasted potatoes with rosemary & thyme, salted lightly… and sweet potatoes with sea salt and pepper, or other spices like Chinese 5-spice.

    Another great addition is eating seasoned nori (seaweed used in sushi) that is pre-seasoned with salt & sesame oil. It’s very tasty.

    Zucchini (not mushy) is also good, as are mushrooms, asparagus, kale, and swiss chard.

    SAUCE/FLAVOUR:

    I really enjoy the taste of soya sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil and miso.

    I mean, for me, any of the following in a mix, or alone, it’s the PERFECT foil for any kind of vegetable, protein or grains.

    I could put that on top of anything and it’d taste good.

    BF prefers to make cream-based or tomato-based sauces for his pasta. I like it too, once in a while.. but the tomato paste tends to taste of too much zing and tang for me to eat it every week without feeling bored.

    Maybe if I mixed it with miso paste. That might add another level of depth and flavour.

    You can also buy bottled sauces such as curry sauces and so on.

    HERBS/SPICES:

    I am in LOVE with coriander lately. I like the fresh herb-y flavour of it, and I mix it with almost any kind of meal.

    I could eat this stuff raw, just snacking on it.

    Moving on!

    Curry powder, BBQ spices, different salts, sesame or truffle oil (very flavourful), cumin and Chinese 5 spice.

    These will all help dress up the “uniform” lunch and dinner, which is basically what I’m proposing here.

    COOK IN BULK

    No sense in making one meal of each.

    If you’d normally eat half a tomato with your filling, couscous/quinoa sweet potato salad, then quadruple the normal amounts and do all the prep & cooking at once.

    That’s the whole point. Just cook more of what can hold up during the week, make the uniform meal & change it with seasonings and spices.

    DON’T FORGET SNACKS!

    You can bring a different fruit each week, make fruit salad that will hold up well & transport nicely 5 times a week.

    I love apples, mangoes, grapes, apples, bananas, and nothing like pomegranates at work (it stains your hands red).

    You can also bring snacks, such as strips of seasoned miso.

    You can bring nuts, cashews, and other munchie things, so you can switch up your lunches to make them seem different each time.

    EXPERIMENT

    Some of my favourite lunch and dinner meals are the easiest:

    • Hummus with veggies & toast/crackers
    • Any kind of pasta
    • Rice and/or meat and veggies
    • Roasted potatoes & sweet potatoes with spices
    • Chicken soup
    • Raw salmon, cooked in the microwave for 1 minute over rice
    • (Very-Bad-for-you) ramen with cracked eggs & some extra seaweed & veggies
    • Miso paste mixed with mushrooms, green onions – then just add hot water, stir & enjoy

    You will find what’s tastiest and/or easiest to prepare.

    Just remember that you do need something that is filling (just some salad leaves won’t do it), with carbohydrates, fiber, a bit of fat and lots of flavour, or else you won’t want to eat it.

    If you see someone with a tasty lunch, make notes about what you find appealing and make it.

    If you see something interesting on TV, then make a note of it. Try it out.

    Search out recipes on how to change up what you feel like making, and subscribe to food blogs to get ideas.

    NEXT: Tips on how to be quicker & more efficient in the kitchen

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    COMMENTS: 14

    Over caring for your things

    I talked about not caring enough for your things so you can avoid bringing in more stuff.

    I still stand by that, but sometimes taking too much care of your items can also be a detriment to your time, energy and wallet.

    If you don’t need to wash your car every month, then don’t do it.

    Sometimes, things work and look perfectly fine on their own without maintenance.

    If you start over caring for items, and trying to over maintain them, it can can end up causing more trouble than its worth.

    It is also a drain on your time to over care for things.

    And a drain on your wallet to pay for the service to take care of it each time.

    Or an additional drain on your wallet to pay for the products you use in trying to over clean.

    Taking the case of my winter boots from the previous post, if I cleaned them more than once a year, it might actually ruin the leather because I am over scrubbing and over treating them.

    If I just keep them lightly polished and conditioned once a year, an hour a year, it’s more than enough to bring them back to life.

    And a couple of hours a year every 3 months might not be a big deal, but it takes away from my precious free time to do other things that may need my attention more.

    I would also be using wasting the conditioning product needlessly, and purchasing more conditioner than I really need.

    There’s no need to over do it.

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    COMMENTS: Leave me a comment

    Time Wasters and their Solutions

    clock time management

    There are shortcuts we can take to help us with our daily tasks, and to help optimize our precious time.

     

    Time Waster: Shopping for groceries daily

    Time Saved: 20 minutes

    • Shop once a week using a Menu Plan
    • Make a short list of what you want to eat for the week and look up the recipes and keep the paper as a reminder of your Menu Plan
    • Write a list of ingredients for each meal and regroup them into their like categories (e.g. 2 onions for Beef, 4 onions for Chicken = 6 onions total)
    • Take inventory of what you already own (Carton of Eggs, Check!) and cross them off your list as you go along
    • Then write a final Shopping List, grouping the items together (Dairy, Meats, Veggies) for easy shopping

    Time Waster: Starting dinner from scratch

    Time Saved: One night – Four nights

    • Use your oven as a slow cooker while at work at 450 F for 20 minutes in the morning and then reduce the heat to 180 F to cook for 8 hours
    • This works for food you want to get really tender like ribs, lamb or pork
    • If you are OK with eating the sort-of same things each night, you can also consider cooking once a week like on Sundays and finding recipes where you can make the same sides but eaten with different, nightly cooked proteins

     

    Time Waster: Trying to find something you use everyday (makeup, keys, gloves, etc)

    Time Saved: 10 minutes

    • Keep only your everyday items out so they are easily accessible either in the bathroom, or a bowl near the door with your keys, gloves and wallet
    • For makeup, organize the rest into clear plastic bags or boxes into like categories (eyeshadows, lipglosses), or by face area (eyes, lips)

    Time Waster: Shampooing when you are late (Women)

    Time Saved: 20 minutes

    • Put it up in a ponytail or a chic chignon
    • Usually the dirtier the hair, the better it holds as it has natural texture

    Time Waster: Wandering without a purpose around the gym

    Time Saved: 10 minutes

    • Get a workout plan on paper before even going to the gym
    • It doesn’t have to be difficult: 20 minutes cardio, 20 minutes bicep curls

     

    Time Waster: Waiting (Waiting rooms, Bus stops, etc)

    Time Saved: 20 minutes

     

    • Ask nicely what days and times are the slowest for the doctor/dentist
    • Usually right after lunch is your best bet
    • Take the time to organize the rest of your day with a List Book

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    COMMENTS: 5

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