Cooking Traditional Foods

Cheap Eats- Budget Lunches I

admin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:38:26 +0000

I normally try to have enough leftovers from dinner to have lunch the next day, but sometimes that doesn’t work out. So on those days where I have to cook lunch, I normally turn to vegetarian meals with plenty of veggies. I like this one because it’s very quick to throw together. Since we normally eat meat at every dinner and we use a lot of stock, I don’t worry about an occasionally meatless lunch.

Lentil Dahl- from the Menu Mailer Volume 2 Week 7

Total cost for the meal $2.49, 63 cents per serving, not including the rice or $2.90 for the meal, 73 cents per serving including the rice. (more…)

Cheap Eats- Budget Breakfasts I

admin — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:13:42 +0000

It seems so many are struggling with their finances right now. My husband has been unemployed since May, so we know the struggle well. I’d like to share some of the recipes we use to help keep the food costs down. These prices are assuming that you are not buying in bulk and are shopping at a health food store. I will be posting a series of recipes over the next few weeks.

Latkas (from the Menu Mailer, Volume 3 Week 20)

Total meal cost $1.25, 31 cents a serving without applesauce or sour cream and not reclaiming the oil (more…)

What’s in Season- March

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:53:36 +0000

Produce is always cheapest when you buy it in season for your location. While I can not list every single area of the country and what is in season, this is a general over-view of what is currently in season in the United States. If you only buy local produce, not all of this will be available to you, but if you do purchase from stores, this is what should be the least expensive and the most fresh right now, even if it’s being trucked in from another state. Use this as a guide for purchasing large amounts from non-local farmer’s markets for canning, freezing, lacto-fementing, dehydrating and preserving. If you can purchase locally and it is within your budget, please do. However, if you are new to eating seasonally or don’t have a local farmer, this list will help you make the best purchasing decisions. (more…)

New Sample Mailer Available

admin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:03:50 +0000

We have a new sample Menu Mailer posted over on the forum. Come join us and take a look.

We’ve recently changed the Mailer format and it has received overwhelmingly positive feedback by our subscribers. As usual, we have maintained our goal to keep all meals under 30 minutes of hands-on time and have one meal a week that is meatless or meat-optional yet filling. Now we have added three new features to the weekly mailer. A Soup of the Week through the Fall and Winter, to help get extra veggies and bone broth into your family. I suggest you serve a small cup each night to your family as an appetizer, fifteen minutes before you put the main meal on the table. This allows you to use meatless soups and use up leftover veggies as a form of added nutrition, when your family normally would not accept a meatless soup as a full meal. This also gives you an option for a quick lunch on a busy day.

We have started prepping all of the onion, celery and carrots into one batch using the food processor, to cut down on your hands-on time in the kitchen each evening. Cooking them all at once then putting some in the freezer allows you to get meals on the table even faster on busy weeknights. Other veggies that can be prepared ahead are also listed. We have also listed all of the grain soaking and cooking and all of the bean sprouting/soaking and cooking ahead, so you don’t have to worry about doing it during the week. However, we continue to put that information on the weekly prep list in case you don’t have time to accomplish it before the week starts, in order to make sure you are covered either way!

Finally, we have started doing at least one batch-cooking meal a week to help you stock your freezer and give you an extra option for lunch. Depending on the week, we might do a completed main dish or a piece, such as BBQ sauce or a plain roasted chicken, that can be used in many different recipes going forward. Sometimes we also do both, as was recently seen in our week with BBQ chicken where you could put the BBQ chicken as a coplete meal, then the extra BBQ sauce and plain chicken into the freezer for other dishes, according to what would best meet your family’s needs.

We hope you like these new changes to the mailer!

The Harried Hundred Hats

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:28:10 +0000

Child of God, woman, wife, help-meet, mother, daughter, friend, cook.
Chief cook and bottle-washer, housekeeper, laundress, cook, maid and nanny.
Small business owner, author, forum admin, cook, homeschooling mom, celiac, church member, traditional foods advocate, Attachment Parent, gardener, cook, chicken-mama, hobby homesteader, homebirther, student of herbs, midwifery enthsiast, cook. Chelation patient. A survivor, not a victim.
Knitter, crocheter, scrapbooker, baker, cook, seamstress, facebooker, blogger, cook, and very soon we’ll add political campaign volunteer to that list as a dear friend runs for a local office.

And, today, I was a woman wearing entirely too many hats.

Some of these hats are permanent, some are temporary. Some of them look great on me; others, not so much. Some I’m more than ready to kick to the curb. Some of the hats fit too tight, some are too big and I still need to grow into them. Some I have a total love-hate relationship with. Sometimes the hats get stacked too high and become heavy, giving me a headache. And, sometimes, they all come tumbling down and I have to pick them up and start over again.

This week has been rather stressful. Taxes, mounds of business paperwork and a staggering amount of personal business were the focus as we try to wrap up a very difficult 2009 and move forward. All on top of what I normally do in a day’s time and the constant drum of, ‘what’s the next meal, what’s the next recipe, what needs to go into the mailer, mama I’m hungry again!’ I’ve been largely homebound for about a month thanks to the weather combined with my workload. Cabin fever isn’t pretty, but putting it on top of a stress-fest is really a bear. Earlier this week, hubby told me he wanted to take the kids out today for them to make me a Valentine’s Day gift, as we were not able to do so prior to the holiday thanks to the ~~nasty white mess that keeps falling~~ snow. I jumped at the chance for a little peace and quiet and gladly ~~shooed~~ helped them out the door at lunch time.

So today I have enjoyed several very quiet hours where I chatted with my mom on the phone without interruption. I did a little housework. I took an uninterrupted shower were I was able to shave both legs before either being pulled out of the tub because someone needs me or running out of hot water. Not once did I hear a little tap on the door with a small voice saying, “I need to go potty!” Then I sat down and read what I wanted to online to encourage me to be the best wife and mother I can be. I didn’t read about food, I didn’t think about food, I didn’t eat any food save some chocolate chips. I blissfully ignored the existence of recipes, taxes and paperwork for a whole four hours. I didn’t work while it was quiet, I plugged in my battery, turned the power button off and recharged myself.

I am very much a person who enjoys solitude and being alone to recenter herself and rub two synapses together and create a complete thought without interruption. When I’m worn down, just a small amount of quiet can put me in a good mood for the rest of the day. Now I’m ready to happily greet two smiling, paint-covered children when they walk back in that door to tell me all about how much fun they’ve had with Daddy and show me their creations. And I can do it with a smile because I took some time to do absolutely nothing but remove all the hats.

What is your favorite way to rest, recharge and remove your hats?