One of the things we were excited about doing on a longer vacation down to see Eric's family was to cook them a meal.  I posted the 3 recipes we want to make on TheRedKitchen in preparation: Kristine's Ravioli Extravaganza, Vegetable Cheese Soup, and Yogurt Rolls.  We'll also do Apple Crisp, but I have that pretty down where I don't measure this new healthier version.

It's fun to write these up since I've been just going from notes on various pieces of paper up until now! :)

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Note: This is the second in a series of posts looking back at 2007, in some key areas of my life that were important to me. 

I cooked this year.

Food-081507

Even though I've been cooking for years, I had a very limited array of things that we ate.  A lot of boxed meals and frozen pizzas were the base foods of our diets, with a few other more special or homemade plans around them.  This year, I learned how to cook more things than the previous 5 years combined.  This came from reading cooking sites online and cooking magazines and books for inspiration. 

We got several kitchen tools that make it easier to cook - the George Foreman Grill - with different plates for waffles even - (post) and a blender that actually blends, as well as E's immersion blender he got for a gift.  New frying pans - they are purple - are a joy, too.

I have never been a big fan of vegetables, but some of the meal ideas really made for a yummy way to eat them that I wouldn't have thought to try.  I've worked with a variety of squashes, zucchini, onions, lots of broccoli, corn on the cob, parsnips, carrots, green beans, plenty of potatoes, various things with peppers, and more.  As part of an effort to appreciate the things available in the area, we went to the Farmer's Market to purchase fruits and veges locally grown.  We started spending more of our grocery shopping time in the produce section than ever before.    

Cooking meat has always been hard for me because I don't like handling it.  Since E is a vegetarian, this wasn't a big boundry for me, I just got prepackaged things or didn't eat meat in the home.  But when I think of the foods I enjoy eating out, I really wanted to try more to make some of them in the home instead, and started to learn to cook meat.  I still don't enjoy handling the meat, but I've gotten better at it.

This all meant we ate out less.  And we had specific meal plans, knowing what was going to be for which day, and planning for the freshs veges to be eaten first in the week, and so on.  Grocery night turns more into a fun trip when I have a list and a plan in hand, because it's less stressful, and that makes me happier.

All recipes

http://allrecipes...

"complete resource for recipes and cooking tips"

And I've started updating theredkitchen with the creations I've come up with.  That site has been neglected for too long, and I'm happy to see posts with this 2007 on them for a change.  I also made use of AllRecipes (profile) and their Recipe Box quite often to save lists of the things I've made or plan to make.  The Reiman magazines I receive - as well as the previous stockpile - were a big help (Simple and Delicious, Cooking for 2)

The Cake Mix Doctor

I've used several of my cookbooks this year, but Betty Crocker is still the most helpful.  Besides that, I've been making use of my Cake Mix Doctor book to think of new and creative desserts.

I haven't kept up with writing up all the meals I made on Vox like I had hoped, but I do have a pile of my weekly plans here in my office, and I'm going to use it to make a comprehensive list of meal ideas to help me in my planning this coming year.

My favorite new thing that I learned to make this year is actually making good homemade yeasty Dinner Rolls (on theredkitchen).  It takes a couple of risings, but it really takes a main dish and turns it into a meal.  Add that to some Mac and Cheese, fix up some carrots, and some sparkling cider, and I am a happy girl while cooking AND while eating (photo above from August).

Bonus, a Vox Tip: If you have a favorite recipe, add it as a link using Vox This! and put a tag for "recipe" on it.  Then you can browse other people's links tagged "recipe" in Explore.  Easy as PIE! ;)

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I have a giant pile of cooking magazines, some not even opened. Trying to find some inspiration for this week's meal planning. I scavenged every pile of mags in the house looking for them. They are too nice of magazines to throw away!

Cooking magazines

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Tillamook Mac & Cheese Contest

http://tillamookc...

The third annual Tillamook Macaroni & Cheese Recipe Contest has evolved from past years and will be held during the cold weather months when comfort food is on everyone’s mind. No longer seen as just a simple, family meal, macaroni and cheese has many gourmet varieties. Last year saw more than 1,...

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My favorite new trick for shopping and planning is to take a piece of printer paper and fold it in half.  On one side, I write my meal ideas, and on the other side, my grocery list.  The meal ideas are divided into boxes with the main dish and any side things that go along with it.  I try to write more ideas than I need and then E and I narrow it down, and then I have more for next week.  My grocery list is roughly written up like the order of the store, but that is easier said than done when filling it out. :)  In the middle of the page, I put my coupon envelope.  I've been trying to clip more coupons to save money, and the easiest way to keep track is to actually write the coupon list (with expiration) on the outside and then cross them off as I use them and it can be used as many weeks as I want.  Also, before I start writing my list, I evaluate what is most on sale that week at Safeway and try to plan meals around that.  Between that and the couples, it is a nice money-saving idea.  So this whole thing is working super!

• Pear Apple Omelets (allrecipes, added apples for some of the pears) with grilled hash browns on the grill.  Unique, but it got a little burnt on the bottom (my fault, not the recipe) so I'd be mre careful in the future.
  
• Mexican meal, including burritos with rice, fajita grilled veges (peppers, onions, bit of fresh garlic), grilled chicken for me/grilled fake chicken stripes for E, and homemade corn chips out of corn tortillas. Served with a pina colada like drink out of pina colada mix, pinnapple, and coconut milk
• Macaroni and Cheese (family fav on theredkitchen) with carrots (allrecipes, with lemon zest and plum jam instead)and rolls (allrecipes, added cheese). Gooey bars (allrecipes, modified for what I had on hand; less cream cheese, added sweetened condensed milk, added nuts and coconut, and less powdered sugar as suggested in the comments) for desert.  This meal took some coordinating, but it was sure good!
  
• Pita sandwiches. Muffuletta spread (previously tried from Simple and Delicious)and tofurky sausage for E, turkey sausage on mine.
• Big salads with lots of veges and meat, and pitas with cheese broiled on top
• Pasta salad (family fav on theredkitchen) with hawaiian cheesy bread (previously tried from Simple and Delicious) and raspberry smoothies (vanilla yogurt, raspberry/pineapple/orange sherbert, freshly frozen raspberries, and sprite).

For lunches, I've been eating fruits and veges or leftovers.  We did eat out a little more over the last week + because it was our anniversary and some other things went on.  We've got a nice stockpile of good leftovers because of making a bunch extra Pasta salad tonight, and one more big meal planned for this week.  Next week, or this weekend, I think we'll have a trip to Costco in store, and there is one meal in particular I like to have after that trip, and maybe I can find more good on-sale things and some new frozen fruit for smoothies too (besides the normal stuff we need to go for: laundry soap, TP, light bulbs, ya know)

I'm looking forward to continuing on with this (posts taggeed "meal planning"), it's really fun for me to look back at what I've made and share with my friends here :)

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One of my goals in being healthier includes getting back to eating breakfast.  I had been doing a pretty bad job at remembering to do that.  E sometimes comes home for lunch early, so if I get a late start on my day, I don't want to eat breakfast only to have lunch 2 1/2 hours later or something!  And I like having the time to eat lunch with E, so skipping that isn't as nice of an idea.

One thing I have found I'm enjoying, and it gives me more energy for the day, is a new one at our grocery store, Weight Control Oatmeal.  I really didn't get it for the weight-control reason, but because it's got 7g of protein and 6g of fiber, and one packet is 2 services of whole grains.  It's also got considerably less added sugar than their other versions.  That's pretty good stats!  My mom recently informed me that her doctor said cinnamon was really good for you (the paper she gave me says "one teaspoon taken with food can increase the metabolism several times over", and it's also supposed to aid in digestion), so I've been adding extra cinnamon to my cereal, along with a handful of raisins, both before it's cooked.  (this is not an ad by any means, just my experience!)

I'm still having a hard time getting downstairs and not getting caught up with other tasks I want to do early in the day, but I'm sure trying harder to remember.  Even if I can do this a few times a week, I think it will help with my overall health.

Do you have any good tips on your fav breakfasts on a week day? :)

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While my meal choices in the last few weeks haven't been quite as innovative as the last update, I've still been having fun with cooking.  This isn't in order, and I'm thinking I'm missing a few things.  We definitely have been eating in more than out.

• Big giant salad with veges and chicken for me and Hawaiian rolls on the side.
  
• Hamburgers (Griller for E) on the grill with basil garlic fries alongside.  I just posted the modified fries recipe on TRK :)
• Stir-fry with peppers, carrots, snow-peas, and broccoli, tofu marinated in teriyaki sauce, and pineapple, all on rice.  I added a bit of chicken marinated in teriyaki to mine.
• Spaghetti and broccoli, with meat sauce and mizithra for me and olive sauce for E. 
  
• Homemade Pizza on the pizza stone.
• Waffles on the grill (from the george foreman cookbook) with an apple sauce (from allrecipes) on top (yes, for dinner)
  
• something-like-lasagna for me, with ravioli for E.  I didn't have lasagna noodles so I tried with macaroni and the leftover meat sauce and a bit of white sauce with nutmeg and multiple cheeses.
• Fried Chicken soup (family favorite, on theredkitchen) with a baguette

I've had a couple of good lunches - the previously-photographed chicken salad sandwich, and a lot of veges and fruit meals including a day where I lightly grilled a small zucchini and multiple meals with cantaloupe (the ones with stripes are NOT as good as the regular ones, IMO)

My sweet treat on the "baking" front for last week was poop-drop cookies.  I say "baking" because they are actually no-bake cookies.  I like them a lot, E's always more for Chocolate chip cookies, but periodically, I have to make these.  Leonard and Sarah both lucked out at visiting around the day I made them and got to steal a few; this is a family favorite!  We also did a few smoothies throughout the other meals, our new-ish blender is super duper for smoothies.  And then we've tried grilling pears a few times now too - with brown sugar and seasonings in the core area and a jam glaze on top.  I need to write that one up still, but I keep improvising and not measuring!

When we have gone out recently it's been for good healthy food (Subway and Sweet Tomatoes).  Although every meal we've cooked hasn't been the ideal perfect health food, we are trying much harder, and that's going to really be good in the end, I do believe.

I'm working on my grocery for tonight now, so it was a nice chance to look back at the recent meals to see what we've had that's been good and try to think of more new ideas along with normal things.  I'd really like grilled polenta again like we had the first week we had our grill, that was really good.  We'll see how my list goes!

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We had a nice array of done to munch on at our park outing yesterday, yay for Sarah!

Park picnic

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I've been doing a lot of cooking the last two weeks.  Here's some of the more notable dishes:

• Spinach Casserole (family favorite, on theredkitchen) with Broccoli and Mizithra (ala the Spaghetti factory's great side dish)
  
• Corn on the Cob and Hawaiian Cheese Bread (from Simple and Delicious) The corn was a little tough, I need to get Sarah's tips on cooking corn apparently. ;)  We also did a pina colada smoothie to be on the hawaiian theme.
  
• Pita bread sandwiches (sliced Turkey sausage for me, Tofurky Italian sausage and muffuletta, an olive spread from Simple and Delicious, for E).  
  
• Burgers (chicken breast in lemon pepper marinate for me, garden burger for E) with grilled Potatoes (lightly oiled and a little fresh ground pepper)
  
• Polenta with fresh mozerella and basil, along with an array of grilled vegetables (green peppers, zucchini, carrots, parsnip, all slightly oiled with olive oil that had garlic soaking in it)

Of course, we've had other more simple and less healthy things in between and eaten out as well (the trip to CA was in between these two weeks). 

The Cake Mix Doctor

I also made a delicious cake last week - Butter layer cake with sweet lime curd from the Cake Doctor cookbook.  It was a little more work to make the lime curd, but it was SO very good.  I was inspired by the orange cake that E's mom made while we were in CA.  I probably should have made a half batch because it's a huge cake.  Luckily, it's lasting well even after 5 or so days!

IMG_2761

My goal is to find more vegetables and fruits that I enjoy eating and creating meals around them.  I'm not trying to complete turn around everything all of a sudden and loose a gazillion pounds, just make baby steps towards the right behaviors to start, and that doesn't mean cutting cake out of my life ;)  It does mean continuing to cut back the bad things and making smarter choices.

Added: This was the post I was writing during the power outage yesterday, luckily I didn't loose it and I realized the problem when it timed out uploading the cake pic!  Last night's dinner was Quesadillas on the grill and Green Chile Rice (theredkitchen), but with lowfat cottage cheese+lemon juice instead of sour cream, and it was really just fine that way.  Tonight, we'll go shopping again and hopefully I'll have a good list of things I want to make for us to shop for by that time :)

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When you go out to eat, how do you pick where to go?
Submitted by Kristine.

This is always a tough one.  E and I tend to go out once or twice a week, and so we sometimes have a harder time picking than others.  I was trying to think of somewhere to eat when I submitted the question idea :D

Unless I'm craving something... then it's easy ;)  Like the other day, I wanted a goldfinger sundae so bad I could taste the bananas.  That made it very clear that I had to go to Boppin' Bo's.

Other times, it's based on other things we want to do while we are out - if we are headed to the big library, eating downtown makes sense.  If we are headed to grocery shop, there's fast food near Safeway.

Sometimes, it's related to an event.  I'm very much for tradition, and so if I realize I went somewhere on a specific day the previous year, I just might want to go there again just for the sake of keeping the same patterns :)

Our favorite standby is always Red Robin - we go there a couple times a month probably.  It's right in front of the mall (and we live behind the mall), so it's convenient.  Olive Garden is equally close, but it tends to be harder to get in.  E always is suggesting Mexican food (Azteca is on the same corner) but I'm just not a big fan very often.  Old Spaghetti Factory is a little further, but worth the drive every time.

We've also been trying to expand our horizons and go to some new places.  Just recently, we found a second Thai restaurant downtown Vancouver that was really good (Thai Orchid is our normal one, the new one we tried is Tiger's Garden).  And in the last year, we've ventured to downtown Portland after finding that not only P.F.Changs is down in the Pearl district, but Macaroni Grill is down by Pioneer Place (before, we'd been going to Tualatin to our favorite outdoor mall for either of those).

Another way to expand our horizons has been to read the weekend section of the newspaper, where they spotlight restaurants.  We've seen some interesting stuff this way, and look forward to trying some of these, although we haven't been to many yet.  I've also browsed through CHOWHOUND's boards for the pacific NW on occasion, which gives some interesting ideas and reasons.

And I've been writing this post off and on all day, and I think I could write a book about my food dining behaviors, truly.  So I'll cut it off here before I get carried away!!!

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