4 posts tagged “food”
I had a productive day yesterday. Ages ago at lunch with Ginger Sister she mentioned something about people who cook once a month, and they cook up lots of meals and freeze stuff and just pop something in the oven when it’s time to eat. So before our move to the new house I decided to give that a try. Mainly because I know that if I didn’t, that we’d spend a fortune grabbing “fast food” just because we’d both be too tired from the moving work that neither of us would want to cook. We liked it and I learned a lot in the process. So yesterday was my second go-round.
I started off making six casseroles with potatoes, sausage and green beans. It can be a nice combination if the sausage is good and the last time we went shopping I found a five pound bag of cooked sausage and so I bought it. (And no, I didn’t use all 5 pounds in these casseroles.)
While I was cooking I had the laptop in the kitchen and I figured out the calorie content of each serving as I went along. That made a tedious job somewhat intellectually interesting. And it amazes me how the pile of low calorie high nutrition veggies are equal to a cup of some higher calorie food. It’s really interesting to cook and do the math at the same time! So I ended up with some meals under 400 calories and some over 600, so I can do a better job of keeping an eye on my weight.
Then I made six quiches and they look lovely. I buy the deep dish pie shells at Wally’s and then load them up with veggies plus some sausage. Each one got three eggs and a ½ cup of milk and cheese on top. Surprisingly with all that good stuff in there, it’s still a good meal and not nearly as many calories as you’d think.
Then I made six veggie casseroles with a bit of ham for flavor and some tofu to bring up the protein. I baked them for an hour and that was that.
Then I baked four pork loin roasts and they turned out beautifully and they make the house smell wonderful. I wonder if that makes my dogs hungry to smell such good things?
Hubby got home just in time to skin two packs of chicken thighs. So after he did that and popped them in the baking pans I dressed them up with a variety of marinade/flavors from teriyaki to lemon pepper to the last of the honey mustard dressing. We had the honey mustard ones for dinner and they were yummy! Those turned into eight pans in the oven, four to a rack and maybe that even saves some energy to cook that much food at one time. Maybe I lose when I reheat them later, I don’t know.
I made two huge pots of rice, one a Mexican style and the other with a combination was more of a fried rice with some interesting spices plus some pineapple juice that made it taste “sweet and sour” and it turned out pretty good in my opinion.
Then I packaged up pork loin or chicken thighs with rice and veggie casserole, some in individual servings and some in doubles for when hubby is home. I counted and it looks like I made 80 meals. I’m pretty impressed with myself and who knows if it will last me a month or not but I can spend a day making some other kinds of things for a little more variety later on.
I don’t use recipes, so this kind of thing is really an experiment. And in these kinds of quantities, we’re up a creek if I make something we hate or something that doesn’t survive the freezer. LOL! That hasn't happened - YET. I spent some time on the internet doing research and it looks like some of the good folks who use this method are making primarily meat and potato dishes and a heck of a lot of cream, sour cream and cheese which doesn’t seem all that balanced to me. I was amazed at the lack of veggies or anything green, but maybe those people are adding a green salad to the meal they are reheating. But why make food ahead if you still have to make the salad? That just doesn’t make sense to me but maybe it would if I had fourteen children. So anyway, I wanted to make sure the meals I was making were healthy and balanced. When we cook in a hurry we don’t choose a healthy diet and so I have been intentional in my food choices when shopping for this kind of cooking.
When we first started to go to the church we currently attend, the word got out that hubby does most of the cooking. At the time that was a convenience issue. As a school teacher he got home long before I did and sometimes I’d be home quite late from the gallery and if the man wanted to eat, he was going to have to make something. The ladies at the church would talk to me about recipes and stuff and though I understood that they were just trying to make conversation, that just wasn’t my life. As a business owner I didn’t have time for trying new recipes and entertaining. It was interesting to notice that their assumption was that my husband cooks because I can’t. We may be a little outside the box but it would be a mistake to think that I can’t cook. I can. I prepared the meals in my family from before I hit my teens, I’ve had years of practice cooking for a family and when I prepare a meal for guests, it gets good reviews. I still remember one sweet lil church lady suggesting that maybe someone should get me cooking lessons for Christmas. What a strange assumption! So wrong on so many levels. I’m self taught at a lot of things, and if I got “lessons” for Christmas, please let it be something I can use! (Like dance or metal-smithing or hot glass.) I’m actually pretty good at creating a delicious, attractive and healthy meal. And then I put in my facebook status that I was spending the day cooking. And another woman from church made a comment about that being a sign of the apocalypse. There it is again. What’s up with that? Yes, I cook. No, I doubt that it will cause the end of the world. Yet.
I just had to sit and think about it and decide that I have nothing to prove to these people. Anyone can tell by looking at us that we are NOT starving. And though it may be a high priority in some circles for me to stay home, try recipes and take care of my husband… well… that’s just not my life. And who knows, it may never be. And before anyone decides to be sad for my husband, he is a capable man who is actually a good cook in his own right. And his life would be much less dimensional if I deprived him of this creative outlet where he can make the things he likes best. Society’s roles just don’t work for me, and much less when sweet little church ladies seem to suggest (not with their words but with their expectations) that somehow God is wrapped up in these social gender based role issues. Honestly, I’d just like to create a new “normal” where women and men both get to do the things they are good or choose to do - regardless of gender. But look at me, I’ve left blogging and gone on to preaching. Oh wait, a woman preaching? All together now: <GASP!!!>
Well pat me on the ass, I have lost 6 pounds since the beginning of the month. I’m using the Daily Plate on Livestrong.com that takes care of all the math for me. I’m learning how to play the system. Yesterday I did a good job of choosing good foods (after a trip to the store to buy those good foods.)
FYI: A salad seems like it would be a healthy meal, and it is except for the salad dressing which is LOADED with fat and calories! Mercy, I am really learning alot! Those spray salad dressings are pretty good.
So at the end of the day yesterday I had enough calories left over for a little bit of ice cream and an oreo cookie! Yay! So far I'm not starving but the weight is coming off.
Saturday evening we spent by the river in Bridgewater with family. My Aunty and Uncle are back in the country from an extended time in Trinidad. They are in the middle of a mission term there of two years helping the Mennonite church there. And it was our only chance at seeing them while they are back on furlough. So we had a delightful time catching up with them and enjoying my family. We’ve got some exceptional Mennonite cooks in the family and it’s always great to see what they’ve brought from the garden or pantry. We took hubby’s home-made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies garnished with the expensive cookies I brought from work. They were a hit. A cousin’s child nearly grabbed the plate right out of my hand before I got to the table. He’s a cutie cute! (And a rather hyper one after all the cookies he got that evening.)
One pair of cousins are starting the adoption process and working on a domestic adoption through a tiny little Christian adoption agency. Believe it or not, their agency has taken all the legal and intrusive paperwork and ratcheted it up about four notches by trying to have the couple PROVE that they are Christians, very conservative ones. They have to sign a paper that there will never be alcohol in their home. We already had to sign that we would not use corporal punishment. I was listening to her talk and just thinking to myself that what she was describing was soooo over the top. But she just kept saying what a ministry it was. Good for them but I’m not religious enough to want to spend an additional month on paperwork to prove my religion on top of every other aspect of “worthiness” I have to already prove in order to buy a child. With domestic adoption the parents have to be chosen by the birth mom. They’ve only dealt with infertility for three and a half years, not like our fifteen, so they don’t mind all that I guess. I, on the other hand, knew that after all I’ve been through in these fifteen years did not want to put my future at the whim of a fertile sixteen year old. It’s not like there aren’t children out there in the earth just waiting for parents. With our international adoption it won’t be about some Mom choosing us out of a book because she liked my eyes and my hubby’s tan and we happened to be wearing her favorite color or some equally ridiculous and arbitrary attribute beyond our control. So anyway, it was an interesting evening and we enjoyed spending time with family!
Monday morning we were off to the Professional building to paint a suite of offices for my landlord. He’s going to give me free art studio rent in June for painting these offices for him. Hubby put down paper, spackled all the holes and took down switch plates. I rolled the walls and then we both started with trim. We got a good bit done but had to quit in time for another party Saturday evening.
By that time I was really tired but we showed up for the 3:00 Memorial Day party with a group of friends and enjoyed some more great food including pulled pork that had been on the grill for hours. And a friend of mine brought a cake and acted very embarrassed about it in front of me which was funny. It did look rather sad, like the icing had been put on while the cake was still hot and had just melted into the cake. We took a watermelon and the cookies that hubby had made garnished with the expensive cookies I bought from work. They put a couple kites in the air in the back yard while it was sprinkling. That was fun. Then it rumbled real loud and they started to bring down the kites and I hid under the overhang of the house enjoying the cooler temperature and the occasional raindrop on my skin. After we got home I curled up on the sofa and didn’t move much until I woke myself up enough to go off to bed.
Oh wait, that isn't news! LOL! I made a total of about six dozen of these last week. I imagine that most of them are eatten by now. They are sugar cookies with royal icing decorations. Time consuming but I was happy with how they turned out. Yummmm
