recipes

Casseroles make my spine quiver.  It seems that every recipe exchange I participate in is laden with delicacies that follow the same basic principles:  chicken breast (or even can of tuna), a can cream of something soup (shudder), a cup or two of shredded cheese (gag), and topped with crushed potatoe chips or snack crackers (seriously?).   One such recipe even said, "I use cream of celery soup to add a vegetable."  Attention humans: cream of celery soup is NOT a vegetable! 

For someone who avoids casseroles like the plague, I surprise even myself by love love loving this recipe.  It is so earthy and homey.  For as simple as it is, it's complex and interesting.  And it's really as easy as slice, pour, top, bake. I make it in a 9x13 pan and increase this recipe by 50% so I can have some for lunch.  That's what I'm having today.  Hooray!  This will serve 4-6 adults.

Mediterranean Gratin

4 large russet potatoes, well scrubbed

4 tomatoes

1/4 to 1/2 yellow onion

1/2 c. low fat sour cream

3/4 c. skim or plain soy milk

1/2 tsp. garlic powder or 1 clove minced garlic

2 Tbsp. fresh thyme (yummiest) or 1 Tbsp. dried thyme (can also substitute Italian Seasoning)

1/2 c. crumbled feta cheese

salt and pepper to taste

I know after the last post you were all thinking, "Great!  I can [node:690,title="save money cooking from scratch"]!  Now what?"   Cooking in any way can be a daunting task, so here are some expanded suggestions to help.

As a young wife, I bought Bisquick regularly.  We were both in college and working, so it was a very fast "go to" for breakfast or dinner.   Then the cost of the stuff started gnawing away at my budget brain.  Ounce for ounce, it was one of the higher priced items on my receipt.  So I looked up "make your own Bisquick" online, and found some easy recipes for about 1/4 of the cost.  The best part was that I could even make it with some whole wheat flour.  But it required shortening, and that gnawed away at my healthy brain.  After making a couple of batches, I had a realization:  "Is this really worth it?"   

What was I making with Bisquick?  Pancakes, bisquits....  That's about it.  Do you realize how incredibly easy it is to make pancake batter from scratch?  I've got it down to about 3 minutes!  And biscuits are a cinch, too.  I've got a super easy drop bisquit recipe, and a more labor intensive one for when I have more time. So I quit buying Bisquick, and have never gone back.

You've been on the brink, I know.  I told you I'd write about meal planning, and it's been a while.  Sorry for the terrible suspense!

Meal planning is a HUGE help in making trips to the grocery store easier.  It also eases a lot of mental anguish around meal times.  As another plus, food does not go to waste, unused and rotting in the depths of your fridge.  You'll know exactly what you have and where it's going.

Over the last several years, I've switched up my meal planning strategies to keep things livened up.  Sometimes I have assigned every day of the week a "theme", if you will, and continued the themes for a month or two at a time.  Example:  Monday - Mexican, Tuesday - Italian, Wednesday - Soup,  Thursday - Sandwich, etc.  So the four Mondays of the month could be burritos, enchiladas, posole, and nachos.  I really love to cook and try different foods, so I like to throw in several nights a month for a new cuisine.  We'll have Greek, Arabic, Australian, or German recipes on occassion. 

That method doesn't always go exactly as planned, because sometimes I have something time consuming planned on a night that just isn't working out right.  So here's my new method:

1.  Meal list.  Easy as that.  On the computer I have a document entitled "Fave Meals".  On it, I list the things we like to eat.  If I try a new recipe and like it a lot, it goes on the list, along with the source for where I got it.  Recipes we don't like don't make it on the chart.   It started simple:  Breakfast, Lunch, Dinners.  It has grown to sections you'd find in a cook book: Chicken, Rice Dishes, Salads, Sandwiches, Soups, Eggs, etc.  This is just a simple reference list I can quickly skim over and see things we like that maybe we haven't eaten in a while.