15 Time-Saving Food Prep Tips

A few weeks ago, we posted Cheap Healthy Good and the Triangle of Compromise, in which I proposed that there was a reasonable cooking arrangement in which money, nutrition, and taste would receive equal attention. One thing I omitted, which would have made the triangle into a square, was time. Readers called out the oversight, and justifiably so. Without a doubt, when it comes to whipping up the edibles, time can be our greatest asset, or our worst handicap.

So, here are ten tips to speed up the process. Applied, they should cut a few minutes from every meal prep. Some were mentioned in 10 Cheap Shortcuts to Making Cooking Oh-So-Much-Easier, but many more were not. Readers, if you can add to this, I’d love to hear your tips. (Please note, these tricks don't consider slow cookers, which are very helpful in reducing time spent slaving at a stove.)

BEFORE THAT NIGHT

Make a meal plan.
Not only will it eliminate the "What are we gonna eat tonight?" question everyone asks at 6:32pm, but it ensures you have everything on hand, and there are no crazy-expensive, last-minute shopping trips. Here's how.

Organize your kitchen logically.
Keep your most-used ingredients and equipment in easy-to-reach places. This Lifehacker post and accompanying 60-second video is a good beginner's tutorial.

Concentrate on recipes with specific time limits.
Buy a 30-minute cookbook - or a 20-minute cookbook, even. Don't forget to read reviews, to ensure that the timings aren't exaggerated. These tips should help.

Figure out what pre-chopped/prepared items are worth the splurge.
Though I’m a fierce (in the Christian Siriano way) advocate of buying foods whole and then doing the chopping/mincing/whatever myself, sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. If having to small dice a carrot is going to keep you from making a certain recipe, go ahead and purchase it pre-diced. Ideally, as you become a better cook, you’ll increasingly prep foods yourself, anyway.

THAT NIGHT

Preheat and defrost when you get home from work.
If you know something is going into the oven for dinner, get that thing going a.s.a.p. It doesn’t matter if the temperature is right on, since an oven will reach 400°F from 350°F much faster than it does from 0°F. (Of course, don’t let it preheat for too long. You don’t want to create safety hazards.) Same goes for defrosting - if you know you’re having meat, but it’s still a block of ice, start it running under cool water OR stick it in the microwave right after you walk in the door.

Read through the recipe at least twice.
The reasons for this are twofold: 1) No "Dang! I didn't know this had to marinate for 30 minutes!" surprises, and 2) You can figure out how to best use your time. (See the ABDMTAO tip below).

Place the recipe where you can see it.
Having the visual ability of 140-year-old dead person stuck in a coal mine, this one is important for me. It keeps me from wasting time hunched over a cookbook and squinting at size-8 type font. I used to stick recipes to my oven hood with a magnet. On the fridge, in a cookbook holder, or taped to a cabinet are also good options.

Set out all needed ingredients and equipment.
This simple action takes about two minutes, but reduces the time spent scrambling down the line. Plus, you can make sure you have everything the dish requires, or can make appropriate substitutes.

Designate a garbage bowl.
Rachael Ray is right on about this one. Having a receptacle to place your peelings, shavings, and end bits will save you about 40,000 trips to the trash can.

Drain and rinse.
If you use a lot of canned or fresh ingredients, you know that the draining/rinsing/drying process can take a coupla minutes. It’s no biggie if you have the time, but can suck up precious prep minutes if you don’t. So, before you start cooking, empty beans, herbs, and other washables into a colander, hit the faucet, and shake the moisture out.

Decide what to cook first.
Roasted veggies take a lot longer to cook than a seared chicken tender. Long-grain brown rice could cook for 40 minutes, while its accompanying stir fry takes only ten. A braise will … wait, why are you braising on a Wednesday? Anyway, designating a logical order will get dishes to the table at the same time, which is nice. Granted, it's a little tough at first, but you’ll get better at the timing as you cook more.

Need to boil water? Cover the pot.
I know some of you are like, "A-duh," but I didn't know until about two years ago that a covered pot comes to boil much faster than an uncovered one.

With apologies to Alec Baldwin:
Always
Be
DMTAO (Doing Multiple Things At Once)
You don't need additional hands for this one, I promise. Just think of it as making the best use of your time, (instead of standing there, twiddling your thumbs, waiting for something to cook). For example, if you're preparing a simple pan-seared chicken: While the poultry is cooking, combine the deglazing liquids. While the deglazing liquids reduce, chop the herbs. While the herbs are cooking, take your side dishes out of the oven. It will become more intuitive as you practice.

Combine recipe steps. Carefully, though.
This one may be for advanced home cooks only. But if you see that, for example, the deglazing ingredients (wine, broth, juice, etc.) can be combined in advance while your meat is cooking, why not do so?

As dinner cooks, do the dishes, set the table, prep tomorrow’s lunch, etc.
Your soup take 20 minutes to simmer? Your potatoes won’t be ready for another half-hour? An easier way to say this might be “clean as you go." It chops off clean-up time at the end of dinner, which your dish-doin' family members will no doubt appreciate.

Readers, any more tips? Share 'em in the comments section.

~~~

If you dug this, you will most definitely dig:

Meal Planning - An Experiment and Conversion
Relax, Frugal Eater: A Measured Approach to Lifestyle Changes
Weekly Menu Planning for Singles, Couples, and Working People

Guest Post: Cheap, Healthy, Good Entertaining - Hosting While Preserving Your Finances, Sanity, and Well-Being

A freelance domestic goddess and English teacher, KitschenBitsch writes about fun, frugal, and (often) retro living and cooking, though her content ranges from cooking and puns to health, society, and her significant other's hilarity in any given month.

As the holidays descend upon us like so many hungry vultures (What? Am I the only person who feels completely blindsided?), many of us will find ourselves entertaining, either hosting parties, large dinners, or maybe even housing guests overnight(s).

From Flickr's jpovey

In the past, I’ve always looked forward with excitement to any opportunity to entertain. Due to work and distance, the mister and I rarely see some of our friends. Of course, due to work we end up running around like headless chickens, and it turns out that headless chickens do not do housework. Then, as the date looms, I begin to freak out because the house isn’t clean, food isn’t waiting in the refrigerator, and I’ve realized I have multiple work or other engagements around the time of said event.

Basically, I imagine myself as a lovely hostess with trays of hors d’ouevres, flowers in the guest room, and a nicely decorated home; in reality, I shove everything under the bed, buy the $2 manager’s special florals at Kroger, and end up making the refreshments after the guests have arrived.

Luckily, I’ve found some ways to allay my freakout, and I would like to share them with you.

CARE AND FEEDING OF HOUSEGUESTS

1) Chill out. Unless your guest is a complete neatnick and you know it, don’t worry so much about the state of your house. Wouldn’t you rather be somewhere that is comfortable than in a room that looks like a museum? If you’d rather be in a museum, don’t come to my house. If you’re worrying about the state of the house and running around the entire time, you won’t be spending time with your guest and said guest may feel uncomfortable.

2) Nice amenities aren’t expensive. Want a guest to feel welcome? Leave an extra blanket, pillow, towels, a notepad, a pen, a decanter of water, and a (working) flashlight near the bed. This way, everything the guest might need is close by, and should the guest need to wander around, the flashlight can help with navigating an unfamiliar house at night, saving shins, toes, and your sleep. Don’t have a decanter? Save a juice jar, clean it, fill it with water, and invert a glass on top. Viola voila!

If your guest is couchsurfing, try to give him or her some privacy. A folding screen is great if you have one around, and the above items could be left on an endtable close by.

From Flickr's Rick

3) Keep food easy and accessible. Guests breakfasting at varied times? Have some oatmeal in a slowcooker with a topping buffet. Leave bowls of fruit on the table. Apples and oranges are cheap and crowd-pleasing, and crackers are also marked down this time of year. Leave plates, glasses, and utensils out so your guest doesn’t have to rummage.

4) Plan escape time. If you live alone and haven’t hosted before, having a houseguest could be a weird experience after a couple days. Alternately, if your houseguest lives alone, it can be stressful for him to be surrounded by people all the time. You don’t have to hover (unless your houseguest is young enough to require babysitting). Go run an errand if you need to get away, or go take a nap. It’s okay!

5) Know your guest’s expectations. Does the guest just want to spend time with you? Are there other folks in town she wants to see? Does she want to hit the museum? Ask in advance to make the visit work.

THROWING A PARTY THAT FEELS LIKE ONE WITH MINIMAL MONEY AND STRESS

1) Eat your leftovers and stockpiles in the weeks leading up to the event. This strategy serves several purposes. First, you’re going to be prepping and cooking food for an event; the last thing you will feel like doing is cooking dinner for yourself during this time. Also, eating up your fridge and freezer stockpiles makes room for the food you cook in advance. Lastly, this frees up space for the glorious leftovers you are sure to have, as well as the booze you or your guests may be chilling. And while you’re at it, wipe down the fridge shelves and door pockets. You’ll be so happy every time you see it, and you won’t shriek when one of your guests opens it to slip in a bottle of bubbly.

2) Resist last-minute additions. If you have already planned, shopped, and begun prep, do NOT drop everything to make that gorgeous appetizer you saw on The Kitchn. Cool your jets. You have enough food and you are trying to be superhost. No one will give you a cape. I promise; I have tried.

3) Have a timed list. Kris has already taught us the importance of the timetable for knocking out a holiday dinner. It’s applicable for parties too, and you should include all the tasks necessary (cleaning, dishwashing, etc.). Also, make sure you work in a good 45 minutes of chill time for yourself before guests arrive so that you can be relaxed and ready to enjoy yourself.

4) Ask two people to bring ice and have a place to put it. Unless you have an industrial icemaker, you need this whether you think so or not. You will run out of ice. It is a fact of entertaining. Also, by asking two people, if one forgets -- you still have ice! Win!

5) You don’t have to be matchy-matchy. I have tons of mismatched glassware that I use for entertaining, and I picked up 18 white appetizer plates for 29 cents a pop at the grocery store last year after the holidays. I’ve used them for a baby shower, two spa parties, and a dessert buffet. Unlike the fine china, no one has to feel bad if one crashes to the floor. Look for deals like this, or thrift some cups and plates; just clean them well. Try to stick with one color to unify the look, or pick schemes that work with pieces you already have. You’ll come out close to the price of disposables and have something you can use again and again. Or, if space is a problem, donate them back.

6) Start early with cleaning and decorating. You can also get your servingware out and ready to go days in advance. It’s one less thing on the list and will help you feel collected and ahead of the game.

7) Decorate frugally and sparsely.

From Flickr's Elin B

Tealights are the best cheap decor. You can get a bag of 100 for under $5. Put them in colored glasses, ashtrays, in jellyjars on platters -- anywhere they won’t start a fire or damage what they sit on. Dim the lights, and let them flicker for ambience. Just don’t forget the matches.

Ribbon is multipurpose and thus handy for more than decor. Craft stores often have $0.99 spools of ribbon. Tie it to chandeliers and let long strands flutter. Put bows around vases and candleholders, and tie some ribbon around a mason jar to make a nice holder for a tealight..

Flowers are a nice touch, but not necessary. Shop for flowers late the night before if you’re not looking for something particular. Lots of grocery stores mark down gorgeous flowers to move them on out, and you can get great deals. Buy several bouquets and make groupings throughout the house if they are cheap enough. No vases? Pitchers, mason jars, and glass juice bottles can make great vases, or you can float the blooms in bowls of water.

Tablecloth, shmablecloth. Use an old (clean!) sheet or two to drape the table. For an upscale look, if you have some old pillowcases in a matching or complimentary color, rip the seams down the long sides and unfold them. Lay them crossways on the table for runners that double as placemats.

8) Don’t forget the music. ‘Nuff said.

9) Dress up the outside entryway with a ribbon or something to indicate to people who have never been that they are at the right place.

10. Enjoy your guests. Don’t constantly run back and forth to the kitchen or fuss too much with things. A party isn’t just for your guests; it’s for you, too.

~~~

If you enjoyed this piece, you might also quite like:

• Cheap Healthy Party Food
• Potluck Tips to Save You Time and Moolah
• Recession Chic, Party Planning, and Me

10 Steps to a Saner, Thriftier, Somewhat Healthier Thanksgiving

Are you tired of Thanksgivings when your entire family comes to visit, but you don’t have time to talk to any of them? Do you dream of serving fresh, home-prepared food instead of Stove Top and Potato Buds on Turkey Day? Come this holiday, do you wanna save a coupla bucks?

Sweet. We gotcha covered.

By following these steps and devoting an hour or two to planning ahead, you can cook up a wholesome, economically sound Thanksgiving feast without going completely insane. You’ll have time to actually interact with your loved ones, and no one will leave the house hungry.

Of course, if you’re not up for these strategies (and yo, it’s understood), A) do whatever works for you, or B) try a potluck. Roast some poultry and have each guest bring a side, a dessert, or some booze. No muss, no fuss, and no one can blame you if the green bean casserole came out a little weird this year.

In the meantime, behold! And if you have anything to add, fire away in the comment section.

Step #1: Start shopping now.
Supermarkets begin offering Thanksgiving bargains weeks before the actual holiday. So, if you know you need an item – say, unsalted butter or canned sweet potatoes – buy them on sale a.s.a.p. You’ll save cash AND get to check something off your list.

NOTE: Obviously, this doesn’t apply to perishable goods. If you know you’re making applesauce, wait until the week-of to pick up the fruit. Otherwise, Rot City.

Step #2: Get a headcount.
Is it just the immediate fam this year, or are your 16 second cousins from South Carolina stopping by for some big, juicy bird? Having an approximate attendance will help you plan and budget accordingly.

Step #3: Prep your recipes.
Once you have a headcount, research and start amassing the appropriate recipes based on number of attendees, dietary restrictions, taste preferences, and budget. (It’s easier than it sounds, since Thanksgiving tends to focus on a few traditional dishes.) Cut and paste them into a Word Document, so they’re easily searchable and referenced. My favorites include:

• Alton Brown’s Brined Turkey, roasted via Cook’s Illustrated directions
• Pioneer Woman’s Cranberry Sauce
• Honey-Glazed Roasted Carrots
• Ma’s Applesauce
• Sweet Potatoes with Mini Marshmallows

Don’t worry about appetizers, as people are going to stuff themselves at dinner. If you do opt for hors d’oeuvres, choose something light, like crudite and bean dip.

Ask guests to bring wine and desserts. Of course, you can prep a pie or two the night before, but letting family pitch in will A) make them feel validated/as if they contributed, B) ease your stress level, and C) save you a buck or two.

Step #4: Create a grocery list.
Now that you have all the recipes, make a big ol’ grocery list of their ingredients. (This is super easy if you’ve already compiled the recipes in a Word Document.)

Helpful hint: If two dishes call for the same ingredient, combine the quantities so you don’t overbuy. For example, if your mashed potatoes need 4 tablespoons of butter, and your stuffing needs 6 tablespoons of butter, combine them into a single line, reading “10 tablespoons of butter.” Shopping will be way less complicated.

Step #5: Check off what you already have.
Odds are, a few list items are already floating around your pantry. Olive oil? Check. Salt? Check. Sixteen-pound game bird? Che- … oh, wait.

Step #6: Spread the remaining shopping out over the next few weeks.
To reiterate, supermarkets tend to spread sales out in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Buy a little of your list each week, during your regular grocery shopping, using online circulars to check for deals. You’ll have to make a final trip, of course, but you’ll have already banked a bunch of money, and reduced your list by leaps and bounds.

Step #7: Create a schedule.
Okay. This one is where it gets a little nuts, but trust me – creating a schedule really, really helps. Why? It does four things:

1. Manages your time. Worried about what you’re supposed to be doing, and when? No longer. Also, you actually get to socialize.
2. Coordinates the stovetop and oven. If you’ve ever tried to cram stuffing, turkey, and sweet potatoes into the oven simultaneously, only to have nothing cook all the way through, you know what I’m talking about.
3. Ensures you remember everything. Have you ever blanked on the biscuits? Forgotten the beans in the fridge? This visual cue will stop it from happening.
4. Gets all the food to the table at the same time. Never again will your turkey be ready two hours after the mashed potatoes.

To make this magical document: Take each recipe, and working backwards from the time you’re serving dinner, assign each prep step a time slot. For example, if the stuffing needs to be served at 4pm, it should go in the oven at 3pm, be assembled about a half-hour earlier, at 2:30pm.

This is tough to explain, so here’s mine from last year. (Click to enlarge.)

Click to enlarge

I usually stick my schedule to the fridge, along with the recipes I’m making that day. This way, it’s convenient, accessible, and I won’t spill gravy on it.

Step #8: Enlist a Sous Chef, a Dish Doer, and a Table Setter.
Unless you’re Ina Garten, Superman, or SuperInaGartenMan (whom, I assure you, exists), you’re gonna need some help in the kitchen. Your Sous Chef can take care of potato mashing while you’re making the gravy. The Dish Doer will wash kitchen gear throughout the day, guaranteeing the appropriate equipment (whisk, measuring cup, etc.) is always clean. And heck, you know all about the Table Setter.

Fun fact: One person can cover the three jobs, if he/she is particularly talented. Last year, my sister’s boyfriend basically made Thanksgiving possible.

Step #9: Do as much as you can the night before.
The Night Before Thanksgiving 2009, my schedule read like this:

• Make brine
• Dunk turkey
• Make applesauce
• Make cranberry sauce
• Make cornbread
• Dice all gravy ingredients
• Peel and cut carrots
• Wash and cut green beans
• Prep all remaining ingredients

It looks complicated, but only took a few hours, and allowed me tons of time to hang out on Thanksgiving Day. With a similar strategy, you’ll reduce potential stressors and eliminate last-minute trips to the grocery store for cranberry sauce.

Step #10: Stick to the gameplan.
Adhere to the schedule, and Thanksgiving Day will be a walk in the turkey park. (Yes, the turkey park.) You'll not only have plenty of quality time with family and friends, but they'll applaud your efforts for decades to come.

BONUS Step #11: Start drinking, but wait until AFTER you’re finished chopping.
Don’t ask me how I know this.

Readers, what think you? Does this seem crazy, or does a little time invested up front seem like a good trade-off for the day-of? What would you add or take away? The comment section, she is open.

~~~

If you like this article, you’ll surely enjoy:

• Feeding a Group on Vacation
• Potluck Tips to Save You Time and Moolah
• Recession Chic, Party Planning, and Me

Creating a Global Pantry

Exploring a new cuisine can be exciting and intimidating. Flavors and ingredients are sometimes unfamiliar, and the techniques can be tricky. But trying new food is an adventure, and it’s less stressful when you realize that the strange is not so strange at all.

American food is a mishmash of influences, primarily western European: English, French, German, and Italian. We use lots of parsley, oregano, garlic, and onions in our everyday cooking, with a little sage thrown in at Thanksgiving. So do many other cultures.

When I first started cooking Indian food, I was worried that I would blow a week’s pay on spices just to learn a few dishes. Not true. I found after reading a few recipes that I had several of the Indian staple ingredients in my kitchen already. The same was true when I first tried Caribbean and Middle Eastern.

As you can imagine, many spices and/or staples are used in a variety of cuisines--and therefore worth your investment. Dried chilies, cayenne/red chili powder, and cumin make endless appearances across nationalities. If you like fiery, flavorful food, you won’t be sorry you splurged on the big bag of dried chilies. They’ll take you all the way around the world.

Fresh items like garlic and onions are featured in nearly every culture. You’ll almost always need one or both of these alliums. Other chart-topping fresh ingredients are parsely, cilantro, and ginger.

Sure, there are some exotics that are specific to particular regions, and as you advance, you may want to indulge in mango powder and a box of Kaffir lime leaves from the Internet. But to get started, your local grocery, spice market, and ethnic shop are all you need.

To create this list, I read over 200 recipes to cull the most commonly used staple ingredients, primarily spices, of 10 regional cuisines. (I purposefully left out our western European favorites, Italian and French.) Once you have these staples in your pantry, if you don't already, you'll be ready to begin countless culinary adventures, jet-setting around the globe without leaving your kitchen.

The Global Pantry

Mexican/South American
achiote (annato)
corn tortillas
cumin
dried beans
dried chilies (ancho, serrano)
corn meal/masa harina
oregano (Mexican varietal, if available where you live)
rice
Fresh ingredients: chilies (poblano, habenero, and jalapeno), cilantro, epazote, garlic, lemons, limes, onion
Extras: adobo, sazon, recaito
Recipes: Esquites, Fresh Salsas, Quick Red Posole with Beans

Caribbean/Central American
allspice
bay leaf
coconut milk
cumin
dried beans
oregano
rice
thyme
Fresh ingredients: cilantro, garlic, ginger, lemon, lime, onion, Scotch bonnet/habanero peppers
Recipes: Nuyorican Rice and Beans, Gallo Pinto, Jamaican Cook-up Rice with Callaloo

Eastern European
bay leaf
bulgar
caraway seeds
thyme
vinegar
Fresh ingredients: dill, garlic, onion, parsley, sour cream
Recipes: Kasha with Root Vegetables, Sweet Potato Kugel, Red Cabbage with Apples

Greek/Mediterranean
bay leaf
clove
dill
oregano
rice
vinegar
Fresh ingredients: garlic, mint, onion, parsley, yogurt
Extras: grape leaves
Recipes: Greek Tofu Salad, Greek Antipasto Pita, Tzatzki

North African
cayenne
cinnamon
coriander
cous cous
cumin
dried beans
lentils
rice
turmeric
Fresh ingredients: garlic, ginger, onion
Recipes: Roasted Butternut Squash with Moroccan SpicesNorth African-style Chick Pea SaladTunisian Beans and Greens

Middle Eastern
bulgar
cayenne
chick peas
coriander
cumin
lentils
paprika
tahini
turmeric
Fresh ingredients: cilantro, garlic, mint, onion, parsley
Recipes: Falafel, Shaksouka, Chicken Shawarma

Indian
basmati rice
coriander seed
cumin seed
dried chick peas
dried chilies/cayenne
garam masala
mustard seed
turmeric
Fresh ingredients: chilies, cilantro, garlic, ginger, onion
Extras: asafetida, cardamom, curry leaves, mango powder
Recipes: Cauliflower with Garlic, Ginger, and Green Chilies, Beets and Greens Curry with Chick Peas, Pindi Chana

Southeast Asian
cinnamon
coriander
cumin
jasmine rice
sesame oil
soy sauce
Fresh ingredients: chilies, cilantro, garlic, ginger, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, onion, parsley, Thai basil
Extras: peanuts, tamarind paste
Recipes: Indonesian Curry Bean Stew, Noodles with Lime and Peanut Sauce, Tofu Bánh Mì

Chinese
dried chilies
rice
rice vinegar
sesame oil
sesame seeds
soy sauce
Szechuan peppercorns
Fresh ingredients: cilantro, garlic, ginger, onion, parsley
Extras: Chinese Five Spice, fermented black beans, rice noodles, wheat noodles
Recipes: Hot and Sour Soup with Baby Bok Choy, Vegetable Lo Mein, Orange Sesame Stirfry with Shirataki Noodles

Japanese
dark sesame oil
dried chilies
kombu seaweed
miso (soybean paste)
rice
rice vinegar
sesame seeds
soy sauce
Fresh ingredients: garlic, ginger, onion
Extras: Japanese Seven Spice, mirin, nori and wakame seaweed, sake, wasabi
Recipes: Vegetarian Miso Soup, Miso Mashed Potatoes, Bare Bones Miso Soup

Resources/Further Reading
International Vegetarian Union Recipes
Cook’s Thesaurus Herb & Spice Mixes
Rick Bayless’ Mexican Food Glossary
Hooked on Heat: Intro to Indian—Know Your Spice
Just Hungry—Back to Japanese Basics
Tigers and Strawberries: Staple Ingredients of the Chinese Pantry
How to Stock the Middle Eastern Pantry

Readers, what’s missing? Are there must-haves missing from this list? What international cuisines need more love? The comments await your expertise.

~~~

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Pantry of the Gods
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Saturday Throwback: Weekly Menu Planning for Singles, Couples, and Working People

Every Saturday, we post a piece from the CHG archives. This one is from March 2009.

Spend an afternoon perusing family-oriented frugality blogs, you’ll discover there are a few recurring themes. Among them: yard sales, thrift store shopping, a widespread love of free shampoo, and of course, weekly menu planning.

Menu planning, it’s argued, will streamline evenings in the home. Ma and Pa are saved money, time, and mounds of frustration because they know what the brood’s having for dinner days ahead of time. There’s no scrambling in the kitchen or supermarket, since both shopping and cooking are refined to a science. Kids (sometimes) get to have a say in what they eat, too, which makes the whole thing a family activity rather than merely a parental chore.

All in all, it’s a fantastic strategy. Even better, EVERYBODY can use it.

See, while weekly menu planning for non-families is a rare topic around the blogosphere, it’s just as monumentally helpful for post-collegiates, office workers, struggling singles, and young couples. It even offers extra benefits, mostly involving time management. Like:

• You’re saved from 8pm post-work dinner freakouts, because dinner is ALWAYS planned.
• Ingredients are guaranteed to be on hand.
• Cooking goes much faster, since you go in knowing how to prepare a meal (by instinct or through print-out recipes).
• You eat healthier, as home-cooked meals are generally much more nutritious than calorie-laden takeout or heat-and-eat dinners (Hot Pockets, Hungry Man, etc.).
• Grocery shopping goes waaaaay faster. You go in knowing exactly what you want, and don’t have to blow an extra half-hour wandering around. Case in point: last night, using my weekly menu plan, I did all my shopping in 59 minutes, door to door, WALKING. In that time, I hit two stores, the further of which is about a half-mile away. Woo!
• Extra trips to the grocery store are mostly eliminated.
• You can plan for leftovers for office lunches. This is huge, personally speaking, because turkey sandwiches get tired 40,000 times in a row.
• You always have food for those bag lunches (the night before, no less), saving you $30 per week, or around $1500 per year.
• For budgeting purposes, you can pretty much estimate the cost of your bill to the dollar.
• There’s less food waste, because you’re buying only what you need.
• It allows for variety during the week, since you’ve got all the ingredients on hand anyway.

But how to begin? How do you organize this stuff? How do you create a weekly menu and grocery list without it taking a billion, gazillion years?

The answer: I don’t know. Everybody has their own system, based on what works best for them. But here’s what The Boyfriend and I do currently:


STEP 0
Create a new word document
This is what you’ll be typing, cutting, and pasting to. It’s much easier than writing everything down, and at the end, you can print out the grocery list, weekly menu, and recipes all at once.


STEP 1
Make a quick grocery list of what you need
What groceries are running low? What foods do you eat regularly from week to week? This is my most recent list:

Cereal
Cumin
Deli ham or turkey (for lunches)
Eggs
Fruit (for breakfast and lunch)
Meat (general)
Yogurt (for lunches)


STEP 2
Brainstorm the dinners you want to eat this week
New dishes? Old favorites? Seasonal experiments? Whatever you’re in the mood for, list ‘em here, with special attention paid to food you need to use up before it goes bad. This is also a good time to take a cursory glance at your local online circulars. Entire menus can be built around loss leaders (biggest bargains).

This week, our dinner list includes:

• Chickpea and Bread Soup from the Kitchn
• Spinach Rice Casserole from Tammy’s Recipes
• Brunch Clafouti from Serious Eats
• Spiced Chicken with Tangerine Sauce from Cooking Club
• Curry Cauliflower Soup with Honey from Sunday Nite Dinner
• Pasta with veggies
• Turkey burgers with rice and frozen veggies

For the sake of convenience, cut and paste each new recipe IN ITS ENTIRETY into your document. That way, you can print it up and consult it when you’re cooking.

(Note: I cook a lot of new dishes for both Serious Eats and CHG, so chances are your list will be a lot less complicated.)


STEP 3
Make a rough menu
Based on what you have in the fridge, what you’re planning for the week, and what you usually have, create a weekly menu. Take care to note when you won’t be home for a meal. Yours can be simple or complex, but I might start off pretty low-key until you get the hang of it. Here's ours:

WEDNESDAY
Lunch: sandwich, leftovers yogurt, Kix, fruit
Dinner: Spinach Rice Casserole with leftover Irio

THURSDAY
Lunch: Leftover casserole, salad, fruit, yogurt
Dinner: The Boyfriend OUT; Me - Chickpea and Bread Soup w/asparagus

FRIDAY
Lunch: Leftover soup and/or casserole or sandwiches, fruit, yogurt
Dinner: Both OUT @ comedy show

SATURDAY
Brunch: Brunch Clafouti
Dinner: Both OUT @ friends’ house for dinner

SUNDAY
Brunch: Omelets, toast, and fruit
Dinner: Spiced Chicken Breast w/tangerine Sauce and Cauliflower-Honey Soup

MONDAY
Lunch: Leftovers, crackers, fruit
Dinner: Pasta with veggies

TUESDAY
Lunch: Sandwiches, popcorn, fruit
Dinner: Turkey burgers with rice and frozen veggies

(Note: 90% of our weekday breakfasts consist of cereal [or homemade whatever], so we don’t list them. Also, we keep our beverages limited to coffee, beer, and water. This way, we’re always awake, tipsy, and hydrated, just the way we like it.)


STEP 4
Add additional ingredients to the grocery list
Now that you have a concrete menu, add your new needs to the foods you listed in STEP 1. Mine are at the bottom here, for the recipes I plan to make:

Cereal
Cumin
Deli ham or turkey (for lunches)
Eggs (for Clafouti and otherwise)
Fruit (for breakfast and lunch)
Meat (general)
Yogurt (for lunches)
2 15-oz. cans chickpeas (for Chickpea Soup)
4 cups beef stock (for Chickpea Soup)
2 cups low-sodium chicken stock (for Cauliflower Soup and Tangerine Chicken)
3/4 a baguette (for Chickpea Soup)
9 or 10 ounces fresh spinach leaves (for Casserole)
1 1/2 cup fresh fruit (for Clafouti)
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (for Tangerine Chicken)
1/2 cup tangerine juice (for Tangerine Chicken)
2 tangerines (for Tangerine Chicken)


STEP 5
Go through circulars (thoroughly this time)
Now that you have a general plan, comb your online (or paper) circular for sale items corresponding to your list. If you have coupons, this is a good time to see if there are any good discounts.

One more thing: if you see something you love but don’t need on mega-sale, go for it. For example, I don’t NEED red peppers this week, but I use them frequently for salads, pastas, and whatnot. So, I’ll probably pick up a few because $1.99 is a good price. If beans were on sale, I’d be all over that, too. But they’re not. Boo.

This week, this was on sale from my list:

SUPERMARKET #1
Chicken Breast - $1.69/lb (for Tangerine Chicken)
Bananas – 2lb/$1 (for breakfasts/lunches)
La Yogurt – 2/$1 (for lunches)
Oranges – 8/$2 (for breakfasts/lunches)
Red Peppers - $1.99/lb (for whatever)

SUPERMARKET #2
Cantaloupe - $0.99/ea (for breakfasts/lunches)
Blueberries - $1.99/6oz (1-1/2 cups for Clafouti)
Eggs – 2/$3 (for Clafouti and otherwise)


STEP 6
Finalize the list
Okay, stocks weren’t on sale. Neither were tangerines, chickpeas, baguettes, cold cuts, or spinach. So now, I assign them to a grocery store that I think will have the lower price.

In the end, my list looks like this:

SUPERMARKET #1
Chicken Breast - $1.69/lb (for Tangerine Chicken)
Bananas – 2lb/$1 (for breakfasts/lunches)
La Yogurt – 2/$1 (for lunches)
Oranges – 8/$2 (for breakfasts/lunches)
Red Peppers - $1.99/lb (for whatever)
2-15 oz. cans chickpeas (for Chickpea Soup)
2 tangerines (for Tangerine Chicken)
1/2 cup tangerine juice (for Tangerine Chicken)

SUPERMARKET #2
Cantaloupe - $0.99/ea (for breakfast and lunch)
Blueberries - $1.99/6oz (1-1/2 cups for Clafouti)
Eggs – 2/$3 (for Clafouti and otherwise)
Cereal
Cold cut ham or turkey (for lunches)
4 cups beef stock (for Chickpea Soup)
2 cups low-sodium chicken stock (for Cauliflower Soup and Tangerine Chicken)
3/4 a baguette (for Chickpea Soup)
9 or 10 ounces fresh spinach leaves (for Casserole)

(Note: I get cumin in bulk from an ethnic grocer on the walk home, so it’s not included here.)

~~~

And that’s it. Now, after only 40 minutes of planning, I have an exact grocery list AND menu for the whole week. Plus, I’m guaranteed to save money on sale items, prepare healthy foods, and have plenty to bring to the office. And that’s good for everyone involved.

Readers, how about you? Do you menu plan? What’s your plan like? How might you change this one? Fire away in the comments section.

Veggie Might: Lunch Buddies—Share Costs and Get Healthy Together

Written by the fabulous Leigh, Veggie Might is a weekly Thursday column about all things Vegetarian.

Freelance work is light this month, and I’m finding myself with more time to spend in the kitchen. My good pal JBF, however, is busier than ever.

As are most worker bees these days, she is doing the jobs of several, keeping late hours, and coming home exhausted. She manages to cook healthy dinners, but making lunch to take to work is a challenge.

She finds herself eating on the run, spending insane amounts of money for midtown Manhattan lunches, and making less than healthy choices that sabotage the good work she is doing in other areas.

Since my unceremonious kick to the curb (from the job where I was doing the work of several), I’ve been working from home. For the most part, I have time to cook healthy meals for myself every day. (These habits were already in place, so it wasn’t much of a shift.)

JBF’s struggle gave me an idea. What if I made lunch for both of us—kind of like a personal chef-lite?

The Proposal

1. Share food costs, saving us both money (I’d make enough for both of us.)
2. JBF: Kick me a little extra for my effort 
3. Leigh: Make 5 inexpensive, healthy lunches and snacks per week
4. Leigh: Provide variety, but dishes can repeat (We both easily lock into dishes we love.)
5. JBF: Report back with preferences every couple of days
6. Leigh: Call/email to arrange drop off/pick up
7. Leigh: Submit an invoice with food and labor at the end of the week
8. Everybody wins: I stay on a schedule and make a little extra scratch, and JBF gets healthy lunches and snacks for less than she was spending on take out.

While JBF is an omnivore, she eats primarily vegetarian when dining sans hubby. She gave me carte blanche to make the meals veggie, even vegan. She also loves to try new things, so I’m at liberty to be creative. And as we know, keeping it interesting is the golden rule of sticking to any kind of healthy eating plan.

Here’s how it’s been shaking out.

JBF’s Take-out Stats
(click on graph to enlarge)

Lunch Buddy Stats for Week One
(click on graph to enlarge)

That’s over 40%!

Week two demonstrated similar savings, though we operated on a four-day week. So far our little arrangement has been a success! I’m sticking to a meal plan, which is hard for me, as well as experimenting with new dishes. JBF is getting healthy, home-cooked meals delivered to her door (We live near one another; it’s no big.), and we’re both in the black.

We’ve even made time to eat together on occasion, and that’s the best part of the deal.

~~~

If this article had you dancing in the aisles, shimmy on over to

• Vegetarian Meal Planning for Meat Eaters
• The Brown Bag Brigade: Your One-Stop Shop for Work Lunch Ideas
• Meal Planning—An Experiment and A Conversion

Saturday Throwback: Pantry of the Gods

Every Saturday, we post a piece from the CHG archives. This one comes from July 2007, meaning it was one of our very first articles. My pantry's changed a lot since then, but it's still fun to revisit.

I just moved for the 47,000th time in eight years. While transporting three tons of stuff to a bizarre, unfamiliar locale isn’t exactly my idea of a hootenanny, it’s giving me the opportunity to once again restock my pantry. Whee!

Having a well-stocked pantry doesn’t mean owning an actual pantry, which is a realization that most people have around 2nd grade, but only came to me in apartment #5,233. Instead, it means:

• Always having a few basic, inexpensive, long-lasting goods that will provide the foundation of millions of meals to come,

• Saving precious dough by buying necessities on sale,

• No last-minute runs to the supermarket because you’ve run out of sugar (again),

• Never saying, “There’s nothing to eat at home, dagnammit.”

• Impressing the hell out of your parents, who will thank the good lord that they’ve raised such a prepared, forward-thinking child.

Since there are roughly half a million Plan Your Pantry guides, all aimed at folks of varying socio-economic classes, let’s start with a few good ones for perusal:

• Food Network has a bare-bones compilation.

• Like the magazine itself, the Real Simple pantry is geared toward middle-class couples with kids, but they’re the undisputed high priests of organization, so it’s worth a look.

• AZCentral’s list is a way long, but still fairly realistic.

• AllRecipes doesn’t just have a basic American pantry, but Chinese, Italian, and Japanese ones, as well. Sweet.

• Reluctant Gourmet has a good example of a list that’s crazy thorough, but maybe a bit too expansive/expensive for the average bear. I’m not sure how many folks need to keep clam juice and dried currants in the house. If you do, more power to you.

Though these pantries differ pretty widely, there are a few foods they have in common (rice, beans, etc.). To make life easier, I comped all their contents (minus the Chinese, Japanese, and Italian lists from AllRecipe) into one Master List, then sorted the foods to see which appeared most often.

The following appeared at least three times, which means it’s probably a good idea to have them available:

Beans: White, Black, Kidney
Broths & Stocks
Canned Tomatoes (whole peeled)
Chiles
Dried Fruit
Dried Mushrooms
Herbs & Spices: Basil, Red Pepper, Chili Powder, Paprika, Oregano, Black Pepper
Ketchup
Lentils and/or Split Peas
Olive Oil
Olives
Onions
Pasta
Rice
Salsa
Soy Sauce
Tuna
Vinegar
Worcestershire Sauce

If you’re going for an even better-stocked pantry, each of the following appeared in two lists:

Bread Crumbs
Capers
Chutney
Coconut Milk
Corn Meal
Corn Starch
Crackers
Egg Noodles
Flour
Garlic (fresh)
Herbs & Spices: Bay Leaves, Cinnamon, Rosemary, Thyme
Honey
Hot Sauce
Mayonnaise
Nuts
Pasta Sauce
Peanut Butter
Potatoes
Salt
Sugar: Brown, White
Tapenades
Vanilla Extract

Personally, I would switch sugar, flour, cinnamon, garlic, and OH MY GOD SALT with lentils, dried mushrooms, dried fruits, Worcestershire sauce, and chilies, while banishing mayonnaise to an unmarked galaxy. If you use honey during teatime or hot sauce on everything, go ahead and stick those up in List #1, too. It’s all about personal preference, baby.

When stocking your new, fabulous pantry with all this new, fabulous stuff, there are three things (some would say “tips”) to keep in mind:

• Though most (me) use the word “pantry” to refer to dry goods, lots of people/publications expand it to include key frozen foods and vital refrigerator items, as well. Eggs, milk, unsalted butter, frozen meat, and frozen fruit are always a plus to have around, and make for colossally healthy meals.

• Don’t be afraid of stocking oils, pestos, and other higher-fat items. Used in moderation, they can lend flavor and substance to food without making it a triple bypass bomb.

• When you see any pantry items on sale, it’s always a good idea to stock up, especially if you use something freakishly often. When penne’s priced at two-for-a-dollar, I buy enough to last until I retire.

Remember, folks: your pantry is your friend. Fill it with food and it will treat you better.

Cooking for Small Children: 15 Hows, Whens, and … Honey, Please Put That Cleaver Down

Yesterday, I asked parents* how they managed to cook with small children around the house. See, I babysat my two young (adorable, crystal-eyed) cousins last week, and couldn’t figure out where you might fit any slicing, sautéing, or saucing into the schedule. How did they not starve? How did their mom maintain her sanity? Is it okay to sit them in front of Snow White while you chop a cucumber?

Sweet readers, you came through like gangbusters.

As of this morning, we had 41 voluminous, information-packed comments from a plethora of parenting experts (a.k.a. parents). I included as many as I could in this post, editing only for length. The funny thing is, I’d give this advice to anyone, old or young, childless or childful, who is attempting to eat more wholesomely and frugally.

So, here they are: 15 strategies for feeding your small children without resorting to GoGurt or checking yourself into an asylum. As always, the comment section is open if you’d like to add anything.

1) Follow the Annie Jones Rule.
Many readers agreed with our first commenter, Annie Jones, whose advice could be summed up in a single sentence: “Basically, you just do it.”

• Hillary: What Annie Jones said…
• Shris: Yeah, what Annie Jones said.
• Gabrielle: I agree with Annie's comment. You just do it, and you make it a priority.
• TJ: I agree with the ‘just do it’. The first battle starts in your head, so don’t defeat yourself before starting!
• Heather: Ditto to Annie Jones.
• Kristen@TheFrugalGirl: I have 4 kids and I ditto Annie.
• Todd: The "just do it" answers speak to the reality of parenting. … There are nights where we eat cereal for dinner (which is also fun), but for the most part, you find ways to integrate your family into "life"; it's no fun keeping them separate.

2) Don’t worry about entertaining.
Babysitting and parenting are very different, in that moms and dads don’t have to supervise their children every second.

• Amiyrah: I think when you are a babysitter compared to a parent, you think you just have to make it all work for the kid and move as fast as possible. When you are a parent, that ain't the case.
• Kate Krebs: It's not your job as a parent to entertain your kids 24/7. Your job is to raise healthy, capable adults. That means providing good meals for your kids, and teaching them to entertain themselves quietly while you cook.
• Amy: When they're in their own space, they can play unsupervised with a toy for a while from an astonishingly young age. Kids don't spontaneously combust when not directly observed, most of the time. :)

3) Keep ‘em where you can see ‘em.
Of course, if your children are younger and/or prone to hitting their heads on pointy things (*cough cough*), it helps to have them in your view.

• Rapha: I set up a play area in the kitchen - my daughter plays with her tool bench and the lazy susan is full of her cups/bowls as well as her kitchen toys.
• Lacey: We have a chalk board in the kitchen, which helps.
• Jennifer: The little baby usually sits in a bouncer in the kitchen (& at this point is usually sleeping). Also crayons at the table generally keep my older daughter occupied for a while.

4) Immobilize them.
By this, I mean “put them in a high chair,” not “shoot them with tranquilizer darts."

• Anonymous: The high chair - she can come in the kitchen, sit in her chair and "chop" ingredients, and be out of harm's way.
• Hillary: My babies played on mats nearby when they were tiny and then in the kitchen "cooking," and now, sometimes my toddler watches or cooks with me on a chair strategically placed away from knives and the stove.
• Shris: As they get interested, you perch them on a stepstool/highchair in a safe spot so they can watch. Give them a little bite or pinch or taste of whatever you're adding to the dish to keep their interest.

5) Cook when you can – especially naptime.
Ahh … those blessed two hours when children are totally unconscious. You can breathe, go to the bathroom, and maybe even chop a vegetable.

• Kate E.: Nap time (or a quiet time when the child gets older) is essential for getting things done.
• Jen: Nap time is mostly dedicated to prepping dinner. Or making sauces to freeze, etc.
• Amybee: One thing that works for me is to cook after my kid is in bed for the evening. … I'll make the next night's supper, then all we have to do when we get home from work and school is pull it out and pop it in the microwave.

6) Get the timing down.
Every family lives by its own schedule, but setting a routine when a spouse is around and the kids are sedate (Note: not sedated) will help everyone in the long run.

• Erinlaughs: I think the most important thing is knowing what you can accomplish. We get home at 5:00 and need to be eating by 5:30 or so.
• Gabrielle: I aim for dinner on the table between 5:30 and 6, when my husband comes home. This insures that we'll be finished with dinner by 6:30, the kitchen will be cleaned by 7 (or earlier), and my child can be in bed between 7:30 and 8. But we're flexible when we want to be.
• Hannah @CookingManager: Use a timer, not only to remind you when food is done, but for the next step. (and reset the timer if the food isn't done yet!)

7) Get the kids involved.
It ain’t no urban legend: When children pitch in with their own food prep, they’ll be more invested in their eating. Plus, it’s a good babysitting trick.

• Julie: Get them involved in safe but meaningful ways during meal prep. It is worth the extra time it WILL take to do it.
• Debbie: My 4yo does pretty well with a butter knife and a pile of mushrooms.
• Lindsey: The older one likes to hold the recipe card and pour out what I measure. I can also have him fetch ingredients from the pantry and lower shelves of the fridge.
• Todd: My 9-, 7-, and 5-year-olds all love to help in the kitchen. One will pour bread crumbs while another cracks an egg into the ground beef that the third is mixing with her hands (and they LOVE getting in there with their hands).

8) Enlist your spouse or a helper.
Four hands are better than two. Unless they’re all coming out of the same person. Then it gets kind of weird.

• Marcia: At 18 months...yeah, I wasn't doing much cooking. I waited until spouse got home to start it.
• Shris: If you have a housemate/partner/spouse/other, enlist them in kid-watching while you cook. … [Or] make *them* cook.
• Rachel: What works for me is serving the kids early - around 5:30 or so - and cooking our dinner after and eating later. That way my husband is home and he can hold the baby while I focus on the food.

9) K.I.S.S.
If brevity is the soul of wit, than easy meals are the souls of parental sanity. Keeping things simple and quick will make everyone a little grinnier.

• Milehimama: I have 8 children, age 1-12 … I don't prepare dishes that require constant, lengthy supervision. So I'll make rice - but not risotto. It's not difficult to find 5 minutes to measure water and grains and put it on for a boil, but standing at the stove for a long period of time just isn't going to happen.
• Debbie: Develop an arsenal of super-quick recipes. Bonus points if they're pantry based.
• Jen: I do a lot with roasting vegetables, things I can start on the stove quickly and let simmer.
• Anonymous: Frozen spinach cubes (cooked spinach and cream cheese blended to puree) and sweet potato cubes, perfect for adding to sauces, in pizza or pasta, quesadillas, etc. for a little added boost of nutrition and no added cooking time/effort.
• Anonymous #2: Breakfasts are the hardest. Everyone is hungry RIGHT NOW and even cooking an egg takes too long. We keep it simple and marginally healthy - yogurt, cereal, toast, etc.
• Amy: Lunch is a sandwich and chips and fruit, or mac and cheese, or soup and grilled cheese.
• Katie Krebs: We keep alot of fruit on hand. It makes a good, healthy snack and doesn't require cooking.
• Lyn: I make a Kiddie Sampler Platter, which takes 5 minutes. Basically, little bits of things I know she will like on one plate and mostly finger food: rolled up slices of deli turkey or ham, pieces of fruit, a little bunch of grapes, applesauce, grape-size tomatoes, baby carrots, slices of bell pepper, avocado, cheese, a mini bagel with cream cheese, crackers, etc.

10) Don’t cook separate meals for them.
As a non-parent, this one surprised me the most, but in a good way. Bring on the osso bucco, junior.

• Gabrielle: I refuse to serve one dinner to my toddler and another dinner for my husband and I. I don't purchase fish sticks, chicken nuggets, and french fries because these become the fallbacks of many families with picky children.
• Ashley: I'm a registered dietitian who works with families on limited incomes … Definitely only make one meal, not two separate meals for kids and adults. Offering kids "adult" foods over and over is helpful for dealing with picky eating behaviors.
• Rapha: If we were eating something like sweet potato curry, she would eat the sweet potato pureed. Now at age 3 she always eats what we eat - and she's an amazing eater as a result because she knows if she doesn't eat dinner she doesn't get anything else.
• Jen Blacker: I have a 19 month old … When we go out to dinner, if the place has crappy food to choose from on the kids menu, I just order off of the adult for him ... He eats what he can, then the rest is for leftovers.

11) Embrace the slow cooker.
All the flavor of braising with only a fraction of the mess. Plus, you can walk away from it for eight hours.

• Kathleen Bakka: I make my homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs in the evening after he goes to bed so that I can just turn the crock pot on in the morning for a fantastic homemade dinner meal.
• DRosa: Good easy slow cooker recipe - slice up some chicken strips, pour in a can of coconut milk and a little thai red curry, let cook all day, serve over rice with steamed spinich. Get a rice cooker with a timer and you are golden.

12) Explore big batch and weekend cooking.
Have a few hours to yourself? Start making some kid meals. It’s like meditation, but with meatballs.

• Anonymous: I do the time consuming meals on the weekends when I'm not working. And I make enough so we can eat it one night during the week.
• Anonymous #2: Sunday afternoons are a nice quiet time for me to help do some prep work.
• Anonymous #3: I can slow cooker a pork shoulder with some salsa and we have several nights of burritos, nachos, tacos, etc.
• Anonymous #4: [We] plan to have leftovers revamped from our weekend cooking … We may roast a chicken on Sunday and then plan to have chicken quesidillas one night (super quick to throw together) and chicken soup another (stock made over the weekend after roasting).
• Heather: I would do an entire box of whole wheat pasta tossed with olive oil and store it in the fridge. I could scope out as much as I needed for a meal and add goodies like chopped veggies, cheese, etc.
• Myrnie: We make a batch of goodies every week- cookies, brownies, muffins, etc. for snacks and when they're gone, they're gone. 
• Sarah May: I often use church potlucks or family gatherings as an excuse to prepare something new or special. This lets me satisfy my fancy-cooking urges without stressing about it every day!

13) Menu plan.
It works for everybody, whether you’re a single Brooklyn blogger or a ma of eight.

• Jen Blacker: I plan what my family eats on a menu and stick to it. It saves us money and I create the menu with the sales going on at the grocery store. It's not difficult at all to feed your kids the right way.
• Erinlaughs: Menu plan! I can't stress that enough. It saves me every night.
• Kristen@TheFrugalGirl: Menu planning seriously saves my sanity.
• RaeBerry: Menu planning is the only way to survive.

14) If all else fails, turn to Nickelodeon.
This does not make you a bad person. If anything, it makes you a really good person who wants to feed your kids right.

• Marcia: At age 3 ... I used Dora the Explorer. I admit it. 1/2 hour is all I needed to get things going.
• Shris: Turn on their favorite video or TV show or whatever, and let them zombie-fy for a half hour while you get the dinner done. This is, of course, the least favorite option, but it works really well.
• Craftevangelist: All these other moms are super heroes. My TV goes on to a kids' station at 4:00 if I need to focus on making dinner. Often, I'm still interrupted and the kids love to "help" (usually in an effort to get a snack of what we're preparing).

15) Don’t panic. It gets easier. I think. Maybe not.
I’ll let the commenters take it from here.

• Kathleen Bakka: I remember feeling very overwhelmed when he was first born and my husband feeling slightly jilted when it came to meals- but you get used to it and you begin to streamline your prep and meals.
• Amy: Seriously - kids start off small and immobile and sleepy, and they very g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y get mobile and require higher levels of attention. It's not like they're born needing help with their homework. You come to that over a period of time, and there are lots of stages in between.
• DRosa: It isn't like it gets better. Monday night tennis, Tuesday baseball, Wednesday tennis, Thursday baseball, Friday the inevitable sleepover. By the time we pull in from work, we often have 45 minutes to eat and be out the door. And we only have two.

ADDITIONAL REFERENCES

• Heather: The book Child of Mine, Feeding with Love and Goodsense changed my life. I am so glad I found it when my son was an infant.
• Lindsey: For little little ones, realbabyfood.info is a good resource.
• Gabrielle: I used a cookbook that a friend gave me, called Cooking for Baby, a Williams Sonoma publication. I also referred to Wholesomebabyfood.com for ideas and recipes (and a great chart with age appropriate foods).
• Also, look for Debbie’s cookbook, due next year from Harper Collins. Her blog, Words to Eat By, is one of my dang favorites.

And that’s it, everybody. Thank you boatloads to those who wrote in with advice. This is a subject I couldn’t even touch, and now I have a vague iota of a semblance of a clue.

Again: Best. Readers. Ever.

*Uh, actually, when I initially wrote the question, I addressed it to “moms” instead of “parents.” I try to keep it gender neutral here, because men and women should be equally invested in child raising and home affairs. That was just a huge oversight, and I apologize.

~~~

If you like this piece, you might also enjoy:

• The Hour: How 60 Minutes a Week Can Save Hundreds of Dollars on Food
• Need a Weekly Meal Planner, a Grocery List, or Price Books? We Have 36 of ‘em.
• Understanding the Childhood Obesity Epidemic, Part 1: Causes and Effects

Saturday Throwback: Frugal Food Hacks - 10 Tricks to Simplifying Online Recipe Searches

Earlier this year, Casual Kitchen (my new favorite blog) posted a stupendous essay called How to Tell if a Recipe is Worth Cooking with Five Easy Questions. A phenomenal guide to recipe analysis, CK’s tips are invaluable whether you’re reading a cookbook, browsing the web, or picking through Grandma’s age-old dessert file. The post was so good, in fact, it inspired me to write a sequel of sorts – one focusing on simplifying online recipe searches.

See, combing the web for recipes can be a tricky venture. Between quasi-independent monsters (AllRecipes, Chow), corporate mega-sites (Cooking Light, Food Network) and neato personal blogs (The Wednesday Chef, A Good American Wife), there are literally millions of dishes to pick through. As taste is totally subjective, and reviews range from right-on to catastrophically misleading, there’s no easy way to discern the bad from the good.

Since I tend to take most of my food from the ‘net, I had to learn how to pick through the labyrinth quickly and efficiently. What follows, then, are a few self-spawned tricks to navigating the endless internet recipe abyss – guidelines to help you choose the cheapest, healthiest, er, good-est recipes ever. Hope they help. (And feel free to add more in the comments section!)

1) Be specific. Whether you’re googling a Coq au Vin or trying to pinpoint a butternut squash soup on AllRecipes, specificity is key to finding exactly what you want. Lots of the larger sites have some method of narrowing down the parameters of your hunt – an Ingredient Search, a Collection Search, or some way of marking off categories (Healthy, Course, etc.). If you’re starting big with Google or Yahoo, try to enter particular terms – the ingredient list, the preparation method, “light,” etc. The more specific you are, the more accurate the results will be.

2) Check the number of reviews. A recipe with 1,436 reviews and 1228 comments is infinitely less scary than one with two reviews and no comments. A large pool of reviewers means the dish has been around awhile, and it’s at least vaguely working. Helpful serving suggestions and/or useful substitutions are likely included within the comments. (This isn't to say, "Don't try new things," but rather, "If you're looking for a sure bet...")

3) Choose a recipe with a high rating. I find regular ol’ people (as opposed to high-falutin’ pro critics) are much more lenient on food. They’re just as likely to give five stars to a merely edible dish as they are to a meal that really knocks their socks off. So, when sampling from the AllRecipes, Epicurious, or Food Network sites, try not to use a recipe that has less than four stars / three forks. If you’re entertaining, make sure it has at least 4-1/2 (but it’s never a good idea to try a dish for the first time on guests, anyway).

4) Follow all Casual Kitchen’s advice. Once you find a tantalizing-looking recipe, read through it. Make sure you like and/or are willing to experiment with all the ingredients. Then, check to see if each one is readily available, either on hand or at the local store. After that, ensure you’re comfortable with both the prep time and the techniques employed. Finally, consider price and ease of big-batch cooking. If your potential meal hits all of these qualifications, it’s probably a winner.

5) Take suggestions to heart. If two-thirds of 254 reviewers think the sugar should be halved in a certain dish, go for it. Recipe writers can make mistakes sometimes, and reviewers are just the folks to correct them. But remember – majority rules. If Megdoodle from Monkeybutt, Kentucky likes quadruple the amount of red pepper in her chili, but 200 other commenters say the spice is just right, side with the 200.

6) Read/consider the available nutrition information. No one wants to serve their kids a lard casserole. When you’re scouting recipes, check to see if the calorie, fat, and fiber readings are included on the webpage. AllRecipes and Cooking Light do this consistently now, and you can occasionally find them on Epicurious and Food Network (with Ellie Krieger and Kathleen Daelemans, in particular). If dietary info isn’t available, try scanning the list for key words – “stick of butter,” “1/4 olive oil,” “fried,” etc. It’ll do your health better in the long run.

7) Stick with a chef you trust. If you’re a frequenter of the Food Network site or a big fan of Lidia Bastianich’s online collection, hang out with her cuisine for awhile. Make her classics. Work your way through her oeuvre. The same goes for personal blogs. I love and dream of emulating Orangette’s writing and cooking skill, and her food photos are absolutely to die for. Yet, I’ve tried a few dishes from her site (Butternut Squash Puree, Chickpea Salad, and Green Beans) and I don’t think our palates quite match up. On the flip side, Deb from Words to Eat By totally works for me. Her Amazon Cake, Pumpkin Bread, and alternate glaze for Barefoot Contessa’s Turkey Meatloaf put me squarely in her culinary corner. The moral is: all in all, finding a cook you trust is worth his/her weight in meatballs. That said …

8) Maybe avoid Sandra Lee (and other cooks who use too many prepared ingredients in their recipes).  Um ... Kwanzaa Cake. 'Nuff said.

9) Link baby, link. Cooking bloggers, in particular, are excellent sources for … yep, finding other excellent cooking bloggers. Once you find a chef/site you like, scroll through their link list. Odds are, someone just as awesome lies at the other of that URL.

10) Bank recipes. Find a recipe you like, but don’t have the ingredients on hand right that very minute? Start a Word file. Over time, you’ll amass dozens of dishes that caught your eye at one time or another, and it’ll make for easier rummaging down the line.

Have more ideas or suggestions for simplifying online recipe searches? The (comment) lines are open! We’re waiting for your call advice!

(Photo courtesy of Flickr.)

Veggie Might: How to Care for Cast Iron Cookware

Penned by the effervescent Leigh, Veggie Might is a weekly Thursday column about the wide world of Vegetarianism.

Yesterday, Kris floored us with her Top 10 Kitchen Items list. So much good stuff—I use 6 of the 10 (pepper grinder, kitchen scale, food processor, bulk storage containers, tongs, and slow cooker) weekly, if not daily.

My choice of skillet, however, is cast iron all the way, and if I keep treating them properly, the two I have will be my nonstick pan of choice forever and ever, amen.

Growing up Southern, every kitchen I knew had a cast iron skillet for frying chicken and baking cornbread. It’s a versatile piece of cookware, which makes it great for tiny New York apartment. Once I started cooking again, after a long hiatus of take-out and junk food, the cast iron skillet was my first purchase.

Seasoning a Cast Iron Pan
If you’re starting out with a new cast iron pan, you’ll need to “season” it. Seasoning is essentially baking on a layer of oil to fill in any nicks or divots in the surface of the pan and create a protective layer that prevents rust. Season your new pan, even if it is “pre-seasoned.” If you’re salvaging an antique, seasoning will restore the beauty to its former glory.

The InterWeb is rich with tips for seasoning your cast iron pan. My tried and true method is a combo of Grandma/Dad/Mom’s and a trick I picked up on What’sCookingAmerica.com.

1) Clean the pan with a mild soap and hot water. Use a fine-grade steel wool, salt, baking soda, or this handy potato method from TheKitchn to remove rust. (See below.) Rinse and dry completely.

2) Pre-heat the oven to 350°. Line the bottom of the oven with a baking sheet or foil.

3) Coat the entire pan, inside and out (Thanks, WCA!), with vegetable shortening (or any neutral cooking oil). Wipe off the excess.

4) Turn the pan upside-down and place it in the oven. Bake for 45 minutes.

5) Remove the pan from the oven and wipe off the excess oil. Give the cooking surface (and sides) another coat of shortening, wiping off any excess. Return to oven for another 30–60 minutes.

6) Turn off the oven, open the door, and allow to cool a bit before removing the pan.

7) Again, wipe off the excess oil. Your cast iron pan is ready to use.

Seasoning can be repeated anytime your pan is getting a little sticky or funky. Acidic foods, like tomatoes, break down the coating. Also, water is the enemy. Case in point:

Last week, I left my 5” cast iron skillet on the counter next to the sink for a couple of days. In that time, I washed a couple of sink-loads of dishes and made several pots of tea, which I spilled repeatedly. (I’m a klutz.)

When I went to use my little pan for a quick egg breakfast, the entire underside was covered in rust. I cut a potato in half, sprinkled a little baking soda on the rusty area, and gave it a scrub. Seriously, I don’t know what it is about the potato, but combined with baking soda, it only took about three passes (slicing off the used bits of potato each time) and 10 minutes for all the rust to disappear—even from those little grooves. (Tip: If you’re in the market for a cast iron pan, don’t get one with little grooves on the bottom.)

Even though the cooking surface looked okay, I re-seasoned the pan anyway (coating the inside AND outside). Now it’s back in action, and the outside is way more rust-resistant.

Cleaning and Maintaining a Cast Iron Pan
There is much debate over whether or not to use soap on a cast iron pan. It all depends on your comfort. I am squarely in the no-soap camp, but do what feels right for you. You just may need to re-season more frequently.

1) Clean your cast iron pan immediately after cooking. Letting food sit, particularly acidic foods, will break down the coating you’ve worked so hard to build.

2) Rinse with hot water and remove any debris with a natural fiber or plastic scrub brush. Do not use metal on cast iron—scrubbers or utensils. You can prevent metal on metal crime.

3) Dry immediately and thoroughly. Lingering water = rust. I usually put the pan back on the stove for a minute to cook off any renegade droplets.

4) Since it’s back on the stove, apply a thin, thin, thin layer of oil to the cooking surface. Heat for a few minutes; wipe off the excess; and store in a cool, dry place.

Cooking with Cast Iron
The more often you cook with your cast iron skillet, the more nonstick it will become. Eventually, you’ll only need a little bit of oil for even eggs to just slide right off the pan.

Plus, as I said before, cast iron cookware is versatile. It can go from the stovetop to the oven and handle both like a champ: sauté up a mess o’ greens and then bake a batch corn bread. You can pretty much do anything with a cast iron pan.

Cast iron cookware may seem like a lot of work, but the investment in time and care is worth the return you’ll get in durability, functionality, and longevity. This is cookware you can pass down through generations.

Can I get an Amen?

~~~

If you liked this ditty, you may like

• 10 Essential Kitchen Items for the Healthy Cook
• Desert Island Gadgets
• HOW Old Is That Oatmeal? When to Clean Out the Pantry