When it comes to work, I'm a hard worker. But only when I have to be.
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In my Pizza Night meal planning book, there are 14 lunch/dinner meals that take 30 minutes or less to prepare. This is a decent time frame, but it doesn't account for cleanup time. Instead of taking 30 minutes of preparation and 30 minutes of cleanup (I don't have a dishwasher), using the following method I can cut preparation down to 30-45 minutes and cleanup down to 30 minutes for both meals. Instead of two hours of meal-related work per day, I can cut it down to an hour or so. That is like eliminating HALF of the work!

The Problem With Make-ahead Freezer Meals
Before I talk about 2-for-1 meals, let me tell you why I don't do crock pot freezer meals, or "dump dinners". I adore this idea. Healthy, yummy food and hardly any work! However, there are a few things with our lifestyle that make freezer meals not practical.

1. Not enough freezer space. Our freezer is already full of meat and homegrown vegetables during the winter, and during the summer I use it for farmers market ingredients.

2. A waste of plastic bags. I don't like the thought of going through so many plastic bags to save time, nor do I like the idea of washing those plastic bags. After a couple uses, the bags get holes punched in them anyway.

3. Not efficient for canned or frozen food. At this point, almost all of our produce and meat comes from the freezer or pantry. It wouldn't make sense for me to open three bags of frozen veg and four cans of meat/sauce, mix it all together, freeze it, and then have to thaw it again.

In fact, I tried making my own frozen stir-fry mix, but with the different seasonality of vegetables it wasn't worth my time to freeze the snap peas and take them out several months later to mix with other vegetables when they were ripe. Now I just keep large bags or each vegetable (sliced peppers, cauliflower chunks, peas, broccoli, etc.) and throw in a handful of each for a stir fry. It's less wasteful AND allows me to make a different stir fry mix every time. 

The Solution: 2-for-1 Meals
One solution I've come up with is a 2-for-1 meal. In short, I do a whole day's cooking at one time. Typically this is around 11:00 am. I'll do a lunch that is either on the stove top or baked in the oven, and at the same time I'll put something in the crock pot for dinner, or if it is an oven-baked dish I'll prepare it and put it in the fridge until an hour or so before dinner. 

For example, if I'm having ham/potato soup for lunch and roast/vegetables for dinner, I can peel and cut all of the potatoes and onions at one time. This means I'm only washing the cutting board and knife once, only wiping the counter once, and only dealing with vegetable scraps once. It also means I have a bigger chunk of time in the afternoon to do things I enjoy.

With some extra planning, you can do a 3-for-1 meal by cooking enough meat/veg in the crock pot for the next day's lunch. For example, using leftover chicken meat for sandwiches.

I don't do this every day, but it's definitely a useful tool, especially for gardeners/homesteaders. We do enough work with freezing and canning already!

Adapting Meal Plans
In order to implement the 2-for-1 idea, I've started to rearrange and adapt some of the Pizza Night meals. I'm also looking at a few seasonal meals/dishes to try, for when the garden produce starts coming in. After two years we're getting tired of some of the old standbys, and we now have different ingredients (like lamb roast!) to incorporate into the menu. Plus, with all of this new-found freedom from cooking, what better to do with my free time than cook new meals?!

Have you done batch cooking before? What are some of your tips or maybe things that didn't work for you?

I recently rediscovered an old Michigan favorite- pasties! A pasty is just an individual meat and vegetable pie. It's perfect for lunch on-the-go, frugal and relatively simple to make with frozen pie dough.

Remember back in November when we butchered our lamb? Well, we've discovered that ground lamb does NOT replace ground beef. It tastes awful in spaghetti, chili and other recipes I normally make. However, the lamb works perfectly in these pasties. After farmers market and Thanksgiving, I had a lot of small pie dough balls in the freezer, too well-worked for pies but still good to use for these pasties, plus the recipe uses several eggs (which we have in abundance now, thanks to tripling the size of our hobby farm).

Pasty Recipe

Ingredients:
1 carrot, diced
1 large potato, in 1/2" cubes 
1 egg
3 oz. ground lamb
1/2 tsp. salt
Dash of pepper
*****
1 lump (size of a small lime) of frozen pie dough, thawed
1 egg + water for egg wash
Spices to sprinkle on top

These ingredients make one serving size. You can double or triple the amount of these ingredients for more or bigger pasties.

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Mix first six ingredients together in a bowl. Roll pie dough out into a disk shape, then spoon veggie mixture onto dough circle.

Fold the dough over in half to cover the vegetables. Press around the edges to seal. A little moisture on the inside edge helps seal the dough, but I forget to do that and it still works for me.

Fold over the edges. You can trim the edges if this makes it easier for you, but I normally don't. It leaves more pie crust to eat!

If you have trouble keeping the edges folded, again, dip your fingertip in water and moisten under the fold. Then press down really hard. It should stay folded.

Transfer the pasty to the cookie sheet. Use a knife to make 2-3 slits in the top of the pasty for ventilation. Mix egg and some water to make an egg wash, then brush on the pie.

Before it goes in the oven, I like to sprinkle salt, italian or pizza seasoning and possibly garlic and onion powder on top of the pasty for decoration and flavor. 

Bake for about an hour.

If you will be taking these on a trip (or sending them with your husband when goes to work on a job site!), they can be made and stored in the fridge for a couple days, or cooked, frozen and reheated for 20 minutes at 300 degrees F when ready to eat.

What I like about this recipe is that most of the ingredients can be produced at home or locally. This means they will probably be healthier and inexpensive. You can use whatever meat you have, whatever vegetables you have and whatever spices you have. I love the flexibility of this meal.

The last reason I posted this is for the lack of "portable" meals in my meal plan. Being able to pack a lunch means being able to skip eating out and thus save time and money. This is NOT something I'm good at, so as you can imagine I was excited to rediscover this convenient old favorite.

In this article, I've skipped the most obvious ways to save money like buying in bulk, gardening, canning, and shopping sales. I know many people who do all of the above because they want to save money, but then go spend thousands of dollars on health foods. I'm not anti-health food, and some may read this article and think I'm a cheapskate for not investing in (spending a lot of money on) the health of my family, but that's okay with me. 

Trim & Healthy... if you buy the right stuff.

Several months ago, I finished reading "Trim Healthy Mama". This is the latest and greatest diet book written for Christian/homeschooling moms and their daughters. The diet is based on "superfoods"- er, super-expensive foods- that are full of nutrition and that help speed up metabolism. The book also focuses on stabilizing blood sugar and separating fats from carbs. 

What I liked about THM is that it eliminated junk food and most carbs, which in many cases are junk anyway. What I didn't like about THM is the regular use of artificial "foods" like fat-free cheese and whey protien powder... all stuff that you have to buy. THM also relies on the use of expensive superfoods like chia seeds and coconut oil, along with expensive substitute "flours" and "milks". Kudos to the authors for including a section in the book on how to cut costs and still stay on the plan, but is this even possible with so many expensive ingredients?

With any diet plan, there are methods and principles. My theory is to follow the principles, but fit the methods to your own situation. This takes some creative thinking at times. It also takes some cooking skills and knowledge. Before designing your own methods, you must realize that every diet book and plan out there is trying to make money. Most of them have specialized products that you can only buy from their website, and guess what? You will stay fat & sick unless you buy these products that are an integral part of the plan! So be wary of marketing. More than likely there are alternative ways to be paleo/gluten-free/low-fat/high-fat without buying a load of expensive health foods. I'm inspired by the diet of Native Americans, who lived entirely on what I have growing in my own figurative back yard. Deer, rabbit, maple syrup, cattails, sumac, and so much more. Certainly they managed to live and thrive without coconut oil or almond flour. Acorn flour, anyone?? Eh, there must not be any profit in acorns.

My "Plan"
I try to follow a diet with mostly homegrown/made un-processed foods. Ideally this diet has as little sugar and as many nutrients as possible. Believe it or not, a relatively Nourishing Traditions/THM/Paleo/Gluten-free/over all healthy diet can be followed on as little as $15 per person, per week, using the following guidelines. I'm not a purist and love McDonalds as much as anyone, but this is what I generally try to do for normal meal-planning and groceries.

#1: Stop Baking
I mean it. Just stop making meals that include bread. That way if you're gluten-free (BTW, how did we manage to live thousands of years on bread and now discover that 75% of the population has a "gluten sensitivity"?? Could it be the almond milk/flour companies pushing their agenda?), you don't have to buy specialty flours. This will cut out many, many carbs for most people (donuts, cake, cookies, pastries, sweet breads, white breads), if you are on the low carb diet. It will also cut out jam, peanut butter, and other fattening/expensive condiments. Baking sweet dessert-type items also uses a lot of butter, which is crazy expensive. I do buy or make tortillas for our sandwich-style meals, which can also be used for pizza. During the winter I do make pizza crust once a week, but that is about the extent of my baking.

#2: Stop Making Dessert
How are we going to survive without dessert? My husband complains about me never making dessert, but only when I mention the fact. 99% of the time he doesn't realize what he's missing because I cook good meals. Does this means that we never have dessert? By no means! Between church, potlucks, weekends away and now baking for the farmers market, we have plenty of dessert. It's just that I don't make cookies a part of my weekly meal plan. At $3-$5 per batch, that's up to $260 per year on only ONE baked good. If you're trying to follow a special diet plan, I'll guarantee that dessert is where you'll spend all the money. Honey, not to mention cane sugar, maple syrup, stevia, exylitol and other "healthy" sweeteners are very expensive, especially when you are using several cups' worth in one sitting. If you must have dessert, make it fruit-based. Actually, fruit all by itself makes a wonderful dessert, if you stop using it as a snack (see #8).

#3: Stop Using So Much Butter
Hubs and I use no more than a stick of butter per week on non-farmers market food. This is because I don't do any baking and use free animal fat (chicken, bacon grease) to fry things in. 

#4: Stop Using Nuts
And this includes peanut butter. Some groups claim that unsoaked nuts cause cavities anyway. Hubs likes almonds on his granola, but other than that I don't cook with nuts. Also not baking (see above) nearly eliminates my need for nuts. I know that trail mixes are popular snack foods, but apart from being unhealthy (M&Ms and pretzels?!) nuts and dried fruit are crazy expensive compared to more nutritious snacks like yogurt, carrot sticks, or even fruit smoothies (see below).

#5: Utilize Wild Edibles
Instead of buying kale for smoothies, walk outside and grab a handful of lambsquarter leaves or other wild green. Not only are these greens available April-October, but they are absolutely 100% free and are chock full of nutrients just like kale is. Greens, fruit, and herbs (for tea and medicinal use) can be found in abundance in the great outdoors. If you live in town, ask a friend or relative if you can "shop" on their country property. But even small yards in town will provide you with dandelions, plantain, chickweed, lambsquarter, and other nutritious "weeds". If your lawn isn't big enough for a garden, there is always room for a weed patch somewhere.

#6: Utilize Organ Meats and Chicken Feet
I know this is NOT popular, but that's why you can get organs and feet for so cheap. Nutritionally, they are a big bang for the buck. Organs can be ground up and added to sausage or other flavored meats, and feet can be prepared and made into gelatinous broth quite easy, for $0.15 per quart. Many people use the carcass for broth, but this pot-made cannot be canned like chicken-feet broth is. Find organs and feet at a butcher shop or find a chicken-butchering friend. Organs can sometimes be found at the grocery store.

#7: Drink Only Free Beverages
Most of the time this is water. It can also include milk if you have a goat or cow, herbal tea if you forage or garden, and possibly kombucha or other fermented drinks on special occasions. Kombucha costs something like $0.25 per quart to make. Only drinking free beverages completely eliminates soda, alcohol, milk, fake milk, juice and other expensive drinks. Most drinks that you pay for are horrible for teeth and waistline. Store-bought milk has had most of the beneficial enzymes cooked out of it anyway. At $3.75 per gallon, a glass of milk costs $0.47. Drinking two glasses per day, that's $171 per year... for one person. Imagine how much it would cost for a whole family! If you are going to buy milk, it is better used for making yogurt. 

#8: Only Eat Free Fruit
If you are getting free fruit, it means that you grew or foraged it yourself, or got it from a friend. This means the fruit was local, and possibly organically grown. Bonus points! Fruit is one of the more expensive parts of a diet. Most people consider fruit a "healthy" snack, but vegetables are better because they don't spike blood sugar or encourage cavities. Vegetables also contain plenty of vitamin C and other fruit-ish vitamins. Honestly, one can survive without much fruit. I use fruit for smoothies and dessert, but that is it. For our purposes, one strawberry patch can fill a year's fruit requirement, let alone all of the raspberries, mulberries, cherries, pears and apples that also grow on our property. I would rather sell the fruit (fresh or made into jam) and use that income to buy meat. If you can't find free fruit, only buy when prices drop below a certain price per pound- perhaps $0.50 per pound.

And don't be a sucker for the dried fruit in health stores. Dried fruit especially spikes blood sugar, and most of it has added sugar or sulpher in it for taste and shelf life. If you really want dried fruit, dry some from your garden. 

Less Spending = Better Health
The hardest thing here is letting go of the "poverty" mentality and the belief that you can never be healthy unless you have extra-virgin coconut oil every day, or use chia seeds on your organic oatmeal. Diet books and TV shows have duped us into thinking that we have to buy stuff in order to be healthy. When I go buy something from my favorite bulk food store, I literally feel healthy. I feel like I'm making a great investment in myself and my future progeny. Then the stuff gets hidden in the back of my cupboard and I never use it. But I still feel like I'm being healthy just for having it in my house. Isn't that crazy? Even if I never use the de-fatted peanut butter, xylitol, glucommanan powder, or almond flour, I've tricked myself into thinking it's an "investment", whereas a daily walk or bike ride can wait. Maybe I'll exercise after I'm done reading one more article about essential oils. Click, click, add to cart. $200 later.... time for a bike ride. Oh bummer, now it's raining. Time to read another article! It's too late to make a healthy dinner, so I might as well just have cookies.

Most people eat certain foods because they grew up eating that way, or because some health guru told them they would look like [insert celebrity here] if only they followed "the plan"- NOT because it is the least expensive, most healthy way to eat. It's important that you have some kind of meal plan, lest you end up eating $2 protein bars every afternoon because you don't want to cook anything for dinner. It doesn't have to be fancy. Take the protein bars off your grocery list and buy a dozen eggs instead. Boil them up at the start of the week. By default, you will end up eating the eggs instead of the protein bars. It will be better for you (no sugar, preservatives, or soybeans), and cheaper. Re-evaluate your eating habits and see if there are any other small changes to make. You could save hundreds of dollars (and maybe some teeth) per year by replacing a PB & J meal with a rice and beans meal. 

What are your tips & tricks to eating healthy without buying more stuff?

When I was working on Pizza Night, I came across a 1940's cook book at my mother-in-law's house. It was called The Day-By-Day Cook Book; Balanced Menus for every day of the year, with 1,037 tested recipes. I couldn't believe it! The authors went through an incredible amount of work to bring me a different menu for every day of the year. I was tempted to try it- eating like a 1940's woman for a whole year. It would be kind of cool.

The problem with this Julie & Julia-esque menu planning system is that my life doesn't revolve around cooking, messing up different recipes every day and scouring the ends of the grocery store to find things like apricot nectar or mock turtle soup. Even though that would be cool.

The other problem is that I've got a whole pantry of potatoes, pears, squash, and other home-canned goods. Not to mention a freezer full of chicken, venison, strawberries, corn, and other home-grown vegetables. Shouldn't my daily menus revolve around those items? Why would I buy grapefruit when I've got apples, or get a Danish coffee ring at the bakery when I'm perfectly capable of making my own (or even something less stellar, but just as sugary)? 

That being said, I commend the authors of this book for their mammoth work. Each menu is beautifully crafted with several different items (not just "pizza" like some people's menus) for every meal. Each meal is well-balanced for optimum nutrition by 1940 standards. Although- dessert almost every night of the week? Is that balanced?

Unfortunately I cannot find this cookbook for sale online, but I do know of another menu plan that is easier, simpler, a quick read, and includes exactly ONE dessert recipe for the expanding of your waistline.

For the past few days, I've been on the topic of decluttering; getting rid of unneeded "stuff" in your house or on your calendar. Many times we are making things hard on ourselves because of too many choices. It's too complicated and not simple enough. Another problem? Lack of planning ahead.

For example, making supper. It gets to be 4:30 pm and the family is beginning to get hungry. You should start making dinner, but you are in the middle of a project. Bummer. Quit the project, start looking through the fridge and kitchen cupboards to see what is there. Spaghetti? That would be great, except there is no spaghetti sauce. There are some carrots in the fridge. What about a nice roast? Too late for that. What about spaghetti noodles and carrots? There's got to be something to make with spaghetti noodles and carrots.

By this time it's quarter to five and you have no idea what to make. You're starting to get hungry yourself, and snack on some saltine crackers. Now everyone is hungry and begging you for saltine crackers. There is no time to make anything. Forget it, they can all have crackers and peanut butter. Or jelly. Or cheese. Throw the carrots in there, and it should be healthy enough.

Have you ever been in this place? It could have all been prevented with a plan.

My new book (yep, a little shameless self-promotion here!) can solve all of your meal problems. It's got a complete list of meals- breakfast, lunch, and dinner- plus ideas for healthy snacks and some ideas for potlucks and other I-forgot-about-that events. My plan includes a weekly grocery list so you'll never be stuck without spaghetti sauce, and even tells you when to start cooking, so the food is done before people get hungry. No saltines here!

Imagine this: you, rolling out pizza dough. There's no hurry because everything is under control. You've got some nice music turned on. Get out some ranch and barbeque sauce to spread on the dough. This is going to be a killer supper! In a good way. Sprinkle on some cheese, bacon (that was on sale!), green peppers and toss it in the oven. Set the timer for 20 minutes. It's early enough that nobody is clawing at you for food. 

Ten minutes later the house begins to fill with a delicious aroma of baking bread, melting cheese and bacon. So warm and good. Kids wander in the kitchen, following their noses. You set out some plates and fill the cups with water. One kid wants to help, so you have him set out napkins. Finally, the timer dings and you call everyone in to eat. "Man it smells good!" "I can't wait" and "I want the biggest piece" are heard from excited diners. You bless the food, cut a few slices and dig in. So delish.

Does the pizza scenario sound good? It probably sounds great if you have experienced the saltines-and-peanut-butter meal. Do yourself (and everyone else) a favor and buy my book,
Pizza Night; a Simple Meal Plan, available on Amazon. 

I know this plan works because I use it myself. It sure makes life easier!