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.

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. 

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.

Shami Kabab

SHAMI KABAB RECIPE

Ingredients:

500 gms minced mutton/lamb
2 Eggs
1 meduim sized chopped Onion

2 green chilly chopped
100 gms chickpeas soaked overnight
10 cloves of garlic 

1 tsp cumin seed
4 Cardamoms
1 tsp ginger paste 

1 tsp coriander powder

Oil for frying the kabab

Boil minced meat in 3 cups of water and a teaspoon of salt till water is absorbed and meat is tender.
Grind the meat into a fine paste.
Take garlic, cumin seeds, cardamoms,  ginger, and soaked chickpeas and grind into a fine paste.
Mix both the pastes well.
Now mix well beaten eggs and prepare a uniform dough.
Add finely chopped green chillies and onion to dough and mix well.
Shape the dough into small round flattened patties or kababs.
Heat the oil and deep fry kababs till golden brown and serve hot with sauce or salad.

Hide Some Veggies

Picky Eaters!

When I did not have children, I always thought that children can easily be taught to eat what you are eating, but as I found it is not as easy as that. 3/4 of my children are in that stage of their life that they are able to eat anything; however, it is not easy for me to convince them to eat healthy food.

Their favorite food are pasta, rice, potato fries, and some meat. What is a mother got to do to get these fussy and picky eaters to swallow one bit of veggies?

 I had to come up with some ideas to get my picky eaters eat something other than those above mentioned food. As they love pasta and spaghetti and do not mind some soup, I decided that I would sneak some vegetables in the spaghetti/noodle soup.




 So I get all the vegetables I can think of and cook them in pressure cooker and add some vegetable broth; after they are a bit soft I put them in my food processor and voila a thick mix of veggies ready for the soup.

I use pressure cooker because I do not want all the nutrients to fly away with the steam while boiling and I do not think wasting too much water in the steam cooker is a great idea either.

As I am a mom of four and I also have a job plus the house chores, I prefer to have some food ready in freezer in case I do not get time to cook; I cook a lot of veggies and I use what I need and the rest are put in freezer in containers for future use.

Less Frying

Bake instead of Frying!

We generally spend quite a lot of money on many items in our kitchen and fridge that literally go down the drain. Among such items is cooking oil.

Once we fry some food, then the oil is basically useless cause it is burnt and it has some small piece of the food left in it which can't be mixed with other food either it does not set well with other food or someone is allergic to the food or some other reason. So we have to basically throw the oil away.

For me the best solution is to bake everything that needs frying, so it is healthy and environmentally friendly and does not break the bank.

Here I share one of my favorite recipes as an example: Chapli Kebab/Kabab

Original recipe and cooking style here and the following pictures are my own recipe and cooking style:

So I have minced beef, coriander, onions and tomatoes (as you can see I am trying to have equal amount of veggies as the beef, as I prefer healthy food).

For spices I choose white pepper, cumin seeds and coriander seeds (cumin seeds and coriander seeds I blend myself in blender as they keep their beautiful fragrance when you blend them yourself, I use my coffee blender for blending). You use as much as you like, I put enough to give a nice taste to my food and still not scare anyone away from the table ;)

Another ingredient to the food is ginger paste, I use a teaspoon. Some people prefer a lot of ginger, but I got picky kids and husband so I stay on safe side.

And then all your spices and meet and veggies to bowl and add three eggs or more (depending on the amount of your food) and salt and mix well. (Eggs help keep all your ingredients together.)

Voila your mix is ready!

Put aluminum foil on your baking tray and oil the foil so that your kebab does not stick to it once it is done.

Now make your patties out of your mix (any size or shape you like). Then just coat them with some oil, this helps them give that golden color that fried kebabs have (it gives the impression that you have fried them :D).

Depending on your oven (mine is a grill oven so it warms up faster and I put it for around 25 minutes depending how thick the patties are and how hot the oven is). You will notice that patties release water during the time it is in the oven, I suggest that you drain that water and then put them back in the oven (if you leave the water, it will burn around your patties and it looks as if the patties themselves have burnt.)

VOILA! Your kebab is done :)

Note: If you are dieting and do not prefer to eat any meat, I suggest you use bread instead of meat. I have tried it and it tastes good.