The Food Nanny has changed my life

A few weeks ago my sister Mitzi called asking if I had any food/dinner prep system that could help her feel more organized. I had little to offer and told her to share with me if she found anything good because I needed help too! Fate was listening because just a moment after our conversation, she was at a friend's house who told her about the using Food Nanny's meal planning system. Mitzi quickly shared with me what she learned and within a few days, I had started a new meal planning system. I am so grateful we had that conversation because I feel so much less stress about dinner now!

My new meal planning system
I took the Food Nanny's basic ideas (using a 2 week meal planner with themed nights/meals and a shopping list) and changed it a bit to fit our family.

While I do like using my iPhone for lots of organizational things like to-do lists and calendar items, I have so far really enjoyed printing hard copies of these lists and putting them on a big clipboard to keep at home and when I go shopping.

As you can see, I have left some room to add more recipes as we try out new things.

1. The very best thing I did was make a list of all of our favorite meals. I made a list of basic themes that our meals generally fall in to and then went through all my recipe boards and cookbooks and added our favorite regular meals to the master list. This is the most important part of my new meal planning system because having all our meals in our list is so helpful! I've done various types meal planning before but was always having to flip through all my books and boards to find what we like and would get overwhelmed very quickly. Now I can scan through our favorites easily since they are all in one place!

I need to start doing this in pencil!

2. After using her meal plan once, I made my own to fit my big handwriting. :) It's actually exactly like hers, just less fancy.

This list is about halfway done.

3. Again, after using her shopping list once, I made my own shopping list too. After a couple of years of going to the same grocery store, I have a pretty set pattern that I follow. So having my own categories made more sense. 

The result? I have meals planned out 2 weeks in advance! I grocery shop less. (One big trip every two weeks and 1 smaller one each week for produce, milk and eggs.) I'm not panicking every afternoon about what we are going to eat for dinner. I just look at the plan and set out anything that needs to thaw. I even plan out our "simple nights" of grilled cheese or whatever, thus there is no guilt that I'm not feeding my family super well because I know that tomorrow night will be fancier/healthier. And if I don't feel like making the meal I have planned for that night, I have several others to choose from. So I don't stick exactly to this plan, but I know I have everything in the house I need for all the meals on the plan. I feel so much less stress about meal planning now! The next things I want to add to my system are a weekly planned baking day for bread and granola, a planned day to do in-advance meal prep like frozen dinners etc and a night for Nate to cook :).

What things have helped you feel less stressed about dinner and meal planning?

Jeni's Homemade Granola Bars

 My sister-in-law gave me this recipe a few years ago and I must have made it wrong back then because I never really liked it. Luckily, Nate talked me into trying it again recently and now we love it! This has replaced store-bought granola bars in our house (normally a staple for every grocery trip). I love being able to make these! And they are delicious! The best thing is, you can tweak the recipe to fit the tastes of your family.

Jeni's Homemade Granola Bars

(my edits in italics)

Makes about 12 2.5"x 5" bars

2 C oats

1/4 C brown sugar (I use 1/3 C)

1/4 C wheat bran or flax seed (optional, I've only tried wheat bran)

1 C flour

3/4 t salt

1/2 C honey (I use 1/4 C)

1 egg, beaten

1/4 C olive oil

1/3-1/2 C applesauce (depending on how moist you want your granola. I use closer to 1/2 C)

2 t vanilla or almond extract (Not a fan of almond, so I can't comment on that)

2 t cinnamon

Mini chocolate chips, M&Ms, raisins, nuts etc to taste (We're boring and have only ever added chocolate chips but we use 1 C or 1/2 a bag).

Mix all dry ingredients together by hand. Then form a well in the center and add all the wet ingredients, mix by hand. Then add your chocolate chips or whatever else. Pat onto a greased cookie sheet. 

Bake at 350 for 18-22 minutes, depending on how hard or soft you want them. Let cool. Cut up and freeze extra. (We store our's in a large Ziploc in the cabinet and they're usually gone within a couple of days!)

***

Honey is expensive, so I add more brown sugar and less honey. Thus, I need to add a little more applesauce to make up for the moisture lost with half of the honey. Make sense?

Let me know if you try these and what you add in! I need to try some more fun add-ins!

**06/29/14 UPDATE: By adding 2 heaping tablespoons of peanut butter, you can take out the egg and I guess that makes these vegan! Also, we have since added sliced almonds, rice krispies and walnuts which are all great.

Breadcrumbs

I bought a bag of bread ends at Kneaders a couple weeks ago and didn't know what to do with all of it. It's a HUGE bag. Most of it really aren't ends. They're just near the end of the loaf so we've used those for sandwiches. But the real ends I made breadcrumbs with. So easy. Why have I bought breadcrumbs all this time? Plus, I know what's in them!

Here's what I did:

Chop bread into little cubes (like the Sacrament!)

Bake at 350 til toasted

Blend in blender (or food processed if you have one)

Store in an airtight container.

I used them last week to make chicken parmesan and they were great! I just added seasonings to taste.

Food for Bridger

We've talked about how Nate and I are trying to eat better, but what about Bridger? The first 4ish months of life are so easy in the food department. All he needs is me. We occasionally gave him formula, but 99% of the time it was just breastmilk.

When we were in Florida for Christmas, my mom practically made me start giving Bridger real food. He was 4.5 months old, so it wasn't a bizarre idea. I just wasn't ready for it. Which is weird I know. But it's a mom thing. I LOVE our nursing time and I wasn't ready for that to start slipping away! (And it won't, I'm not planning on weaning til about a year). Again, I'm just weird.

Of course Bridger loved getting solids. While in Florida, he had rice cereal, pureed apples as well as pureed bananas. He loved it all. Each new thing takes him a few bites to get used to and then he's all over it.

Since we've been home the past month, I have tried to make my own baby food. We have continued with rice cereal, usually mixing in applesauce. But I ate giving him such bland food. How boring! So I steamed and pureed a bunch of carrots the other day. As well as some butternut squash (that I roasted first). I froze most of it in ice cube trays and then placed them in a plastic bag, so I can pull them out of the freezer as needed. Suuuuper easy.

I read this article about baby-led feeding and felt like I should give him the reins. Wrong. He's not quite there yet. I placed some mashed up avocado on his tray hoping he would stick some of it in his mouth. Haha! It just turned into sensory play :) So I have taken the spoon back! The last couple of days he has loved mashed up avocado (I just do this with a spoon or a fork) and a fresh (mashed) banana.

Now that I am over my weirdness, I love giving him new things to try! It's so fun to see him reach out and get so excited to eat. And he still is getting most of his nutrients from nursing and I'm happy we don't have to give that up for a while :)

Do you have any tips or ideas for good baby food? I'm so glad I can make most of it myself! It would be so expensive otherwise.

**Here is a great resource for making your own baby food.

As fresh as it gets

While I am going through all of my holiday photos, I thought I would share one real quick...

What do you do at the Aukema house when you run out of milk on Christmas morning? 

Go straight to the source of course!

Yes, I drank it. 

Yes, it was delicious.

Acorn squash

Have you ever eaten acorn squash?

For most of my life I thought they were inedible.

Ya know, just for decoration around fall time.

So silly of me.

They're delicious. I licked my fingers after gobblin' these up.

Go stock up!

And use Sheena's recipe.

Recipes: Butternut squash pizza recipe

Thought I would share a recipe for butternut squash that we ate recently. I could have eaten the whole pizza! It makes my mouth water just thinking about it...

Based on this recipe from The Endless Meal.

Butternut Squash Pizza

Ingredients
1 pre-baked 9 inch pizza crust
1 butternut squash, peeled, gutted and chopped (1/2 inch cubes)
1/2 large onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic
3 T butter
2 T flour
1 C milk
5ish oz cooked sausage (We use 1/3 of a package of Jimmy Dean)
salt and pepper
olive oil
1/2 C mozzarella

*Vegetarian option:
substitute 1 can black beans drained and rinsed for the sausage
1/8 C brown sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Toss butternut squash with a splash of olive oil and salt and pepper. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place butternut squash on top. Bake for 10 minutes and then check them. They should be fork tender when done. May take about 30 minutes total.
3. Saute the onion and a splash of olive oil until tender. 
4. Then cook the sausage until crumbled and no longer pink. 
5. If you are going all veggie, cook the beans with the brown sugar on medium heat until cooked through.
6. Sauce: Melt the butter in saucepan. As is melts, slowly sprinkle in the flour and whisk as you go. Keep whisking as you add the milk. Press the garlic and add to the sauce. Keep whisking until it thickens. 
7. When the sauce is done, spread it over the crust. Spread the squash, onions, sausage (or beans) over the sauce. Top with mozzarella.
8. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes depending on how brown you like the crust.
9. Enjoy!

Note: We have eaten it with the meat and vegetarian and both were delicious!

Eating better: Goals

Yesterday I listed some things we have done in the past and continue to do in order to eat better. Here are some goals we have as well:

1. Eating local. Mass distributed food often travels hundreds or thousands of miles to arrive at the grocery store. While I'm not the best at lowering my carbon footprint, I think this is a good place to start. We have a goal to eat more local produce and meat when we can afford it. Local produce is usually cheaper and always tastes better. We have a few farmer stands still open so we will purchase from them until they run out! Obviously, we can't keep it up during the winter but we will start again in the spring.
2. Less sweets. I have such a strong sweet tooth! We don't buy cookies or anything like that regularly so what sweets we eat, I have to make. That usually keeps from eating too much except recently I re-discovered the ease of no-bake cookies. Soooo...I'm going to try eating sweets just on the weekend. Hopefully that keeps from doing too much harm!
3. More greens. That's hard during the winter, especially since I want to eat more local. But we can't live on rice and squash through the whole winter.
4. More water. Enough said.

What would you add? Do you have any eating goals you try to stick to?

On eating better

I mentioned recently that I would talk more about how I am changing how I think about food. Most of you reading this probably have really good eating habits. I'm not trying to change anyone's minds about food, just sharing my thoughts and evolving habits. Posting about eating better is a good way for me to evaluate my own thoughts and habits about food.

Let's face it. I'm Southern. Food is a big deal to me. Food has dominated family and church gatherings my whole life. And I love it! Food affects my mood (just ask Nate!). Obviously, it affects my health too. And ever since Bridger was conceived, it affects him too. I don't think I've ever had eating problems or issues. But as I've gotten older, my attitudes about food have changed. Thanks to books like Animal, Vegetable Miracle and Food Matters, my food and eating philosophy is evolving. But even before those, I made some changes thanks to the issues presented in the documentary Food, Inc., (watch it on Netflix!)  and shows like Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Some of these are listed here:

1. I rarely drink soda. When we do, we make our own ginger ale, which tastes so much better anyway! The fact that I don't like soda really should be attributed to my mom. She rarely bought it and taught us that it wasn't healthy. We always had Kool-Aid instead, which now that I think about it probably had as much sugar as soda but we won't get into that ;) 
2. We don't buy hamburger meat. This is partly a choice made by our budget, but I don't agree with the way most beef is raised in the U.S. It's unsanitary and cruel to the animals. Learn more about that on Food, Inc. When we do buy beef, I plan on buying it from local producers with ethical practices. I love eating beef when I am home in Florida because I know it came from across the road at my dad's farm where cows are respected and grown ethically. (I'm not extreme about not eating beef. Recently a relative gave us a great of meat from her own freezer to help us out. We ate it gratefully.)
3. No junk food. If you knew me in high school, you might remember my love for Little Debbie's Swiss Rolls. I ate them all the time. It's still a little hard for me to pass by them in the grocery store. But I can't even pronounce most of the ingredients, much less know what they really mean.  I don't need that junk in my body. Like with meat, I'm not extreme abou this. We occasionally buy a candy bar as a treat. And I make cookies almost every week, but I know what is put in those because I make them myself.
4. We don't eat out. Eating out is a rare treat for us. While it is a decision based partly on budget, it also has to do with health. It's no secret that the majority of fast food is not good for you. And eating it occasionally is just fine. Restaurant (not fast food) may be slightly better, but I feel better about making my own and know exactly what's in it.

My basic philosophy about food is to eat things that make me feel good. Not just what tastes good. I want to live a long, happy and healthy life. That begins with eating consciously. One thing that helps me do this are making a weekly meal plan, at least for dinners. Then I use that plan to make my grocery list and take that with me to the store. (Here is the meal planner one I use. I use the second one in that post.)

So. That's basically what I am currently doing about improving about how I eat and feed my family. Next up are some goals to eat better.

What is your food philosophy? Has your attitudes towards food ever changed or evolved? I'd love to hear!

UPDATE: Sometimes being healthy is overrated and we have to break the rules. Like last night when my brown rice & lentil soup was yucky. So we ate Five Guys burgers instead!

Food: Homemade Pumpkin Puree

Since reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I am excited about making some changes in the way I think about food. I'll talk about some more specifics tomorrow, but for now I thought I would share my experience with making my own pumpkin puree. I used Ree Drummond's recipe.

The prep was a little harder than I thought it would be! I guess my pumpkin was a little too big! The guy at the pumpkin patch convinced me to buy a big huge one. Next time I'll try a little one like in her recipe. 

 I worked my poor blender to the bone. She is a tough one but this was no fruit smoothie. 

 Don't forget to save the pumpkin seeds! Can't wait to roast them :)

**I used this puree to make pumpkin bread this weekend and it turned out great! It was just as good or better than the canned stuff!

New favorite snack

Lately I've been enjoying fresh strawberries almost everyday at lunch. But this week I was getting a little bored with them, so I tried something new.  I found that they are delicious partially frozen and topped of course with a little Nutella. (I stuck mine in the freezer for about 3 hours and they were perfect).

Grapes are delicious frozen as well. Just make sure you eat them right away. They are no good soggy ;)

P.S. Unrelated, but cool, is this great post about supporting your man.

Gratitude

Today I am grateful for...

...the sun peeking through the gloomy clouds.

...pretty tulips on campus.

...Nate doing the dishes and taking out the trash today. What a stud.

...BYU Creamery Old-Fashioned Cake donuts. You know what I'm talking about.

...signing in to Facebook after my week-long Facebook fast,  and realizing I wasn't really missing out. Ya know?

...homemade strawberry-banana smoothies!

...and this cool little tassel I picked up today :)

Happy Wednesday :)

P.S. Photo edits created on Pic Monkey.

This week was a success

simply because of this salsa.

You see, I've never made salsa. Seemed intimidating. What on earth was I thinking? This recipe was the easiest. I added a few of the jalapeno seeds and a bit more salt and it was perfect. We didn't have any chips so we just fried up slices of the flour tortillas we had on hand. (I glanced at this recipe to make sure I didn't ruin 'em!) Perfect nighttime snack.

Also, I took a nap yesterday after subbing and Nate woke me up by gently shoving some cookie batter in my mouth. He knows how to keep the Grumpy Lacey away after waking up :)


Quick tip: the last time I made cookies, I realized in the middle of the recipe that we didn't have any eggs. With some quick research, we found that 2 tablespoons of cornstarch can be replaced for 1 egg in cookies. Sweet. And now we can eat all the cookie dough we want without any worries about salmonella. :)

Have a happy weekend!

Root beer floats

A much needed reward after a particularly tough day of substitute teaching. 

My hats goes off to M-F teachers. I just want to collapse after 2 days of it each week.

The Pioneer Woman

Did you know I love her? Her cookbook is my go-to favorite when I want to eat something delicious (which is all the time of course). Our most recent favorite was her Chicken Pot Pie. (I couldn't find it on her website to give you a link, but this Leftover Turkey Pot Pie of her's looks pretty close).

We went back for seconds and thirds! We couldn't get enough. The pie crust (Perfect Pie Crust) is a little tricky to roll out. Maybe I'm just not used to pie crusts at all, but it took us a couple of tries to get it rolled out just right. Also it didn't help that we had to use a square pan. Oh well, it all tastes the same in the end! And since the recipe in the book makes two crusts, I made this again last night because we had not had enough!

As you can see, mine had a little too much liquid. Maybe it's the altitude we are at, but I have learned with a few of her other recipes as well that she adds too much liquid. Especially when it comes to heavy cream. So I've started using about half of what her recipes say. (Her creamy bacon cheese grits are another culprit). Has anyone else had this liquid problem with the Pioneer Woman's recipes?

P.S. I am substitute teaching for the first time today! Wish me luck!