Meal Plan and Meal Prep

In the world of high-speed internet, we sure do spend a lot of time either in the kitchen cooking food or at restaurants waiting for someone else to serve us.

Those who cook at home, also spend a considerable amount of time, at stores. A majority number of us, spend a lot of money on groceries and a huge amount of those groceries go to waste. Not only we are wasting resources, but also throwing our money in trash (money spent on trashed food).

We can all benefit from a bit of planning. Meal planning and meal prep are amazing ways of saving time, money and last but not least; our sanity.

Meal plan starts with checking our pantries, fridge, shelves etc. We have to make a list of what we have.

After we have a list of items at hand, we start a meal plan for a week. We usually don't plan for more than a week. Weekly plan gives us a chance to see what was eaten, what we didn't eat and what could be taken off menu/swapped.

Once meal plan was done, we make list for the missing ingredients.

It is good to meal prep once a week. However, we can also do food prep night before and thoroughly cook the food the next.

Following is an example of what I am cooking next week. Some recipes get repeated each week, as my kids love to eat them repeatedly. Others change each week. However, I make only lunch and we eat the leftover for dinner and following day, we make fresh food. Also I incorporate leftovers in my following day meals.

Turmeric/Curcumin as Burn Scar Removar

When I was 11 years-old, I was given the job of cooking. I was short and the stove was quite high, so every time I burnt my arms and wrists.

My mom, being a concerned parent, told me that the scars need to be taken care of as soon as the skin is not sensitive. She made me a paste of Turmeric and put a thin layer on my skin and let it dry and told me to wash it afterward. The process was repeated about 3-4 times. Now I am in early 30s and I see no scars, in fact scars were gone within a month of the treatment. When you treat your skin with anything, it is better to do it during the night as skin gets sensitive after treatment and sun can damage the treated skin.

Turmeric needs to be pure and not mixed with any ingredients and if it is raw, that is even better. Most turmeric are fried before turning into powder. If you can find raw and make your own powder, more power to you.

Vegetarian Oven-Baked Potato Dumplings

My kids are picky eater, so trying to come up with something they will eat, is more challenging than I could ever imagine. 

They eat a few things: rice, boneless chicken meat, beef patties, beef steak, pasta, fish and chips, potatoes and pizza. Meat pieces should be like meat, if it looks like anything else, it won't be eaten. 

So I get creative with our food in order for them to eat more than just a few items. This is one of the few things that my lovelies eat.

Ingredients:

2 large potatoes

1 medium onion

1 tbs oil

1 ts salt

1 ts garlic powder

Other ingredients could be 1 teaspoon black pepper if no one is allergic or picky on spicy food.

1 pack of Medium Wonton wraps (these you can find in most of the Asian grocery stores in the frozen/fridge aisle).

Instructions:

Boil the potatoes until they are soft enough to be mashed.

Grade the onions or chop them into very small pieces.

Mix onion, mashed potatoes, oil, salt, garlic and pepper. Set the mixture aside. 

On a dry plate/serving plate, open the Wonton wraps. 

Put one wrap (or as many as you want) on the plate and with a food brush, make the corners of the wrap wet with water (this will make it easier to stick the corners of the wrap together). 

Then get a small spoonful of the mixture and place in the middle part of the wrap and and then fold the corners together to create the shape of a triangle with the wrap (the mixture will be locked inside of the fold). 

Put your folded wraps on a non-stick paper on the baking tray.

Turn your oven on and set the temperature to 375 Fahrenheit

Continue making the wraps.

Once you are done with wraps, brush the wraps with some oil (very gently and lightly). 

When the tray is full and the oven is preheated to 375, place the tray on the middle rack and  let it bake for 10 minutes.

Once it is done, serve it with Chatni or greek yogurt or any other sauce that you like.

The pictures will give a better idea of what steps you are supposed to take.

Enjoy!

Healthy Way to Reward Your Child

As a parent, we all go through the ordeal of how to reward/discipline your child without giving them bad habits or breaking their spirit.

Many parents, even at current day and age, use food as punishment/reward. Wrong! Food is a basic need; it should never be used against a child. Either a child gets a dessert sometime or s/he does not, it should not be the result of some action/inaction.

To argue/shout/yell/scream/get angry, does not help much either. Many times, I feel like I am just getting angry at the wall, as children do not respond at all. 7/10 times, it backfires... Keeping that in mind, I have been going around and attending some parenting classes to learn from teachers/experts who deal with children as part of their profession and have years of experience in their back pocket.

In one of the classes, a model was given to us. The idea of the model was to teach children kindness. However, I am using it for more than one purpose.  We have discussed at home that whoever gets the most hears on their tree in a month, s/he gets a surprise from mommy beginning of next month.

This is a very cute and creative idea. Basically you print a tree and print 'heart' leaves on another paper and use Velcro as needed.

I add 'hearts' for the times, they do what they are supposed to do and obey the rules and are being kind and do good without being told. And I take heart away for each time they do not listen/ignore/hurt someone. So far, it has worked very well and I intend to keep using it as long as it works. 

Thrifty and Vintage Finds

I have seen quite a few blogs posting about thrifty and vintage finds and reading more and seeing Dagmar's blog, I wanted to share what I found in my today's search.

I saw this and I wanted to buy it right away. It reminds me of old-fashioned bath tubs and also gravy bowls. 

I needed something for our dried fruits and now it is sitting on our dinning room table holding the dried fruits and nuts and hubby seemed please as he was snacking through the evening.

Homemade Air Freshener

Homemade Air Freshener

I have been thinking for quite awhile about making some air freshener, but I did not get around to make any. It is very handy for a family with small children, specially if you are still potty training a couple of the babies.

So today needing a gift for a birthday, I got the courage to make a batch. So far, I have to admit it smells and looks good.

Materials needed:

Small jars (I have plenty of babyfood bottles, so I used those. A good way to recycle ;) )

Wooden spatula (I used waxing sticks)

Measuring spoon 

Ingredients:

Unflavored Gelatin (I use Knox gelatin)

Food coloring

Water

Essential oil (I used lavender )

Preparation:

I put my bottles out and open the tops (don't through the caps away, you will need those). I opened my gelatin packages and emptied one in each bottle. 

Then poured 60ml of boiled water (had just boiled in teakettle) in each bottle and quickly stirred the gelatin in the boiled water (if you can get all the gelatin mixed, it would be good. I got some lumps in the water, I could not melt all the gelatin in the water. I think next time I might use a small whisk or fork for mixing). 

I put three drops of food coloring in each bottle and stirred. And added 60ml of cold water in each bottle and stirred some more with spatula. 

As you can see from the picture, there are some lumps in the liquid. 

Since the mix is not too hot and not hard, it is the best time to add the essential oil. I added 10 drops of lavender in each bottle. Then I placed my bottles on a tray and put them in the fridge as I needed them to cool off and get jellied sooner (the upcoming party in about 2 hours).  You can just let them sit over night and it would be jellied in the morning and ready to use.

Now you can see, the mix is jellied and staying in its place, put the cap back and package it however your want it. I just wrapped a strip of gift wrap around the bottle to make it more presentable. 

When you want to use it, you can just make holes on the cap for the scent to spread around your bathroom etc or you can just take the cap off.

Psyllium Husk Seeds (Ispaghol Husk)

So as a young adult I had seen my mom and other use Psyllium husk as remedies, but for the sake of sanity I still can't remember what it was for.

I recently saw the husk at the local Afghan store and thought to give it a try and I saw some information on the back of the container which read:

Ispaghol husk is a gentle Natural fiber to effectively check constipation, acute thirst, bowl irregularities, piles, ulcers, acidity, dysentery and obesity.

Now I know it sounds too good to be true, so I did a quick search on the internet and I found out that at least a couple of the claims on the package are backed by research.  Wikipedia has a few things to say about Psyllium husk; it helps to reduce cholesterol and balance bowl movement though long term effects are not studied. 

Many of the over the counter digestive products seem to contain psyllium husk. You can look at the ingredients of Meta Fiber here.

I have been using this for a few days and I plan to keep using it for as long as I can handle it as it has improved my digestive health. I am not a big fan of artificial fibers which are added in the food. So this is a jackpot, as two tables spoons has as much as 36% of our daily requirement. Next time you are in your local Indian/Pakistani/Afghan store, you can pick a pack for yourself at a very reasonable price.

Note: One of the readers said that she used the husk and it caused her severe constipation. As the direction on the bottle says, it has to be taken with plenty of water else it will cause constipation and discomfort.
Also, it is wiser to start with small amount, for example use half a teaspoon first week and slowly add more as you and your body gets used to it.