Tips and Tricks for Busy People

I work from home now, so cooking is a lot easier. If I want to make something elaborate like lemon curd cupcakes with a blackberry cream cheese frosting, I can. But before the powers that be allowed me to work from home, I would get home at 7pm depending on traffic and be completely too tired to cook anything. So I basically, I ate fast food. It occurred to me that I should plan ahead, but on my days off, who wants to do anything resembling work? Not I.

Not everyone is a stay-at-home mom or dad, retired, or works from home. Some of you have to go into the office and not come home to a home cooked meal. So here are some tips and tricks to make your life a litter easier, a little bit healthier and a little bit of a food change.

• PLAN AHEAD
• Don't wait until the last minute to throw something together. Before you go grocery shopping, know what meals you are going to be making until your next shopping trip. Include everything. Including snacks. You don't have to make a schedule, but you should know what foods you are going to eat for the day, say on Tuesday.
• If you buy stuff like chips, baby carrots and other little snacks, separate your portions into a plastic baggy. Dedicate a section of your refrigerator and cabinet just for these little snacks. 
• Make for the week on your day off. I know, it sucks to do this on a day off, when you can be out at the beach having fun, but a little work during that day, can save you time for the rest of week. Make a batch of meat sauce (add in some carrots and zucchini) and freeze the entire batch. Make lasagna and put in the freezer uncooked. Season some boneless chicken breasts, bake, and chop them up, bag them up for quick chicken salads. Make a smoothie the night before so that you can drink on the way to work. There are tons of things you can do, to easy your work days.
• KEEP A WELL STOCKED KITCHEN
• Having the basics on hand means you can cook an easy meal in minutes. For example, the other day, I was just down to some frozen meat and the bare essentials, I was able to make a nice meal of blueberry pancakes from scratch because I had the basics. 
• Keep things that you can cook when frozen. For example, I love beef kielbasa and frozen mixed vegetables. I can chop up the frozen kielbasa and throw it in a pot in ten minutes I have a somewhat nutritious meal for lunch or dinner. 
• Freeze your leftovers. If you're getting sick of your leftovers, freeze them in single serving size containers. I save all of the sour cream, cream cheese, and other such containers just for these occasions. It's good for the environment, saves you money, and if something gets moldy, you can throw the container away without regret. 
• INVEST IN A CROCK POT
• I love my crock pot. I make soups and chili in it. I make overnight oatmeal in it. I throw a whole chicken in it, beef brisket, ropa vieja. The sky's the limit. The night before, I prep all of the ingredients so that in the morning before I've brushed my teeth, I can just dump them in, give a quick stir and set on low, and know that when I come home, a hot meal is waiting for me. 
• FYI: cooking in a crock pot is a great way to make a low fat meal. Make sure to use lean cuts of meat. Because the heat is low and the cooking is slow, the meat gets really juicy. With chicken, watch out, because when it's done, you can literally cut through the bone with a spoon.
• MAKE SOUPS AND SALADS
• Soups keep well in the fridge for about a week. They freeze well too. 
• You can cook up from chicken or steak on your day off. Slice them and freeze or refrigerate them. Add them to a salad. There are thousands of types of salads out there. I'm working on a recipe that involves watermelon and cilantro. Get creative. You can make your own salad dressings by experimenting with different types of vinegars and oils. I love fresh squeezed lemon juice and olive oil. 

Technique 1: Searing

You can learn a recipe and cook only that recipe and a few variations of that recipes. You can learn a cooking technique and create thousands of your own recipes. Searing is one of my favorite ways to cook a steak. It locks in all of the juices and I can finish up my steak in the oven.

You have probably seared meat before. Every time you "brown" a meat before cooking in another method, you are actually searing. Searing not only gives your meat a pretty color. But it takes more than simply throwing a slab of meat into a pan.

1. Your meat must come down to room temperature. This lets the meat's natural juices reabsorb into the muscle.

2. Season your meat with salt and pepper. You can also add other spices. The spices will create a really nice crust on your meat. If you are using a marinade, shake off the excess moisture. We do not want to saute or pan roast the meat.

3. Open a window and turn on your exhaust fan if you have one. Because it's going to get hot and smokey!

4. Make sure to use a pan that heats evenly and most importantly, make sure it is extremely hot. Medium-high or high heat! If your pan is too cool, you won't sear your meat it will be sauteing or boiling if you used a marinade. Make sure that pan is HOT!

5. Add a little fat to the pan to keep the meat from sticking. If you're cooking something that is fatty, you can skip the this step. Definitely add some fat to the pan if you're using lean meats. Do not use anything that has a low melting smoking point, like butter, extra virgin olive oil and so forth. Your butter will burn and the EVOO will really smoke.

6. Add your meat to the pan and watch it. It should brown pretty quickly and once it's brown it's a minute or two away from being burnt. If you're cooking something like a pork roast, or a round cut of meat, lean it up against the side of the pan, so it doesn't roll around.

7. Once your side is brown, flip it and brown the other side. Keep doing this until you've browned all sides of the meat. Even if you're cooking a steak, you want to sear those sides! Be careful searing the ends, you don't want the meat to fall back into the pan and splatter the hot juice all over you.

8. Now you have a piece of meat that is beautifully browned, but most likely is raw on the inside. This is where you would use another technique. You could roast the meat, boil it, saute it, put it in the slow cooker, braise it, there's a variety of cooking techniques you could use to finish off that meat.

9. Don't throw away those juices! The juices and the brown bits that are stuck to the bottom can actually be used to make a gravy! More on making gravy coming soon!

Green Blueberry and Green Tea Smoothie

This is a great way to add both fruit and vegetables to your breakfast or snack. This recipe is going to really give you a boost. It is packed with vitamins, minerals, good fats, and fiber. I pulled this recipe off of a Web. I changed it up a bit by adding 1 cup of raw spinach. To get the full benefits of the raw spinach and blueberries (if using fresh), make sure to use them as soon as possible. As the veggies and fruits decay, so does the vitamins and minerals. But some vitamins are better than none.

This smoothie works great as an after-workout-recovery drink. You can add a scope of vanilla whey or soy protein, some BCAA, and a teaspoon of linoleic acid to really help you with your recovery, especially if you're weight training. You might want to add in a few more berries to mask the taste. This smoothie is also made with green tea, which has been proven to speed up fax oxidation (making your body burn extra fat).

Blueberries are a super fruit and has tons of antioxidants that combat free radicals, which can cause aging. Looking to get rid of that belly fat? Blueberries can help with that too. Want to prevent cancer? Blueberries can also help with that!

Spinach, Popeye's favorite! Spinach doubles the benefits of the benefits of blueberries. It also is great to ward off constipation and helps with digestion.

What You Need

• 3/4 cup water
• 2 green tea bags (brew the tea the night before)
• 2 cups of blueberries
• 3 ice cubes
• 12 ounces of non-fat vanilla yogurt (equals 1.5 cups)
• 2 tablespoons of raw almonds unsalted (about 20)
• 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed
• 1 cup spinach, fresh or frozen, thawed

What To Do

1. Bring water to boil and pour over tea bags
2. Steep for four minutes and then squeeze the bags dry and discard. Let the tea chill overnight
3. Place chilled tea, blueberries, ice, yogurt, almonds, flax seed and spinach into a blender. 
4. If adding protein powder, add it in now.
5. Process until smooth. 

Shrimp with Rice and Peas

This is one my favorite dishes. This is a family recipe. My mom and grandma taught me how to make this. I changed it a little bit by adding peas. I'm always adding veggies to everything! I hope I do my mommy and grandma proud.

Whenever I have this dish, it reminds me of being a kid. It's my comfort food. I have a lot of comfort foods, but this is something that I make at least once a month. What's best about this dish is that it tastes better the next day. All of the flavors of the meld together.

This is they type of recipe that you can add anything you want to it and make it your own. My mom sometimes adds bay scallops. I've been known to add mussels. Go crazy!

What you need

1 pound of medium shrimp, peeled and deveined (see note)
1 large onion, chopped medium pieces about 1/2 inch
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 jar of your favorite tomato sauce
3 cups of cooked rice (see note)
2 tablespoons EVOO
Salt
Pepper
1 cup of frozen peas

What to do

1. Heat skillet on medium heat. Add oil and when the oil is heated, add onions and sweat the onions. Sweating onions, means waiting until you see little beads of moisture on the onions. They will still be crunchy. It should take about 2 to 3 minutes for the onions to sweat.

2. Add the shrimp and cook for about a minute. Keep stirring the shrimp. Add the garlic, salt, and pepper. Keep stirring. Just before the shrimp turn pink add in your pasta sauce and stir. You want to taste  the sauce to make sure that there is enough salt and pepper. Add them if you need to.

3. Add in the frozen peas. When the frozen peas are warmed through, the shrimp should be done. You can tell if the shrimp are firm. You can always cut one open and check. Pour the shrimp mixture over the cooked rice. Stir the rice and shrimp mixture together.

This makes 4-6 servings. Serve with a simple side for a complete meal.

Note: save the scales and head in a container and place in your freezer. You can make your own seafood stock for soups like clam chowder and so forth. 

How to Eat More Fruits and Vegetables Part II

Adding more vegetables to your diet is a lot harder, I think. I mean I'd rather have french fries then Brussels sprouts. However, Brussels sprouts are so much better for you. I'm trying to work them into my diet. We don't have a good history, me and the sprouts.

If you have children, then getting them to eat vegetables can be difficult, especially if you have picky kid. There are some sneaky ways to work vegetables and I'm not talking about broccoli, corn, or the other nice vegetables that most people like. I'm talking about that weird butternut squash, kale, cauliflower, sugar snap peas, zucchini and so forth.

1. Add vegetables to dishes with sauces. The sauce will cover up the flavor and you still get most of the vitamins and nutrients that you need. For example, instead of having just spaghetti with a meat sauce, chop up some carrots (which will cut down on the acidity of the tomato sauce), zucchini and summer squash. You're bowl or plate will look fuller and more importantly, the extra veggies will fill you up.

2. Add leafy greens to your soups and stews. Even if you buy can soups, you can still add kale, collard greens, mustard green, dandelion greens, spinach, Swiss chard, arugula, and other leafy greens to your soups. Soak the greens, if they don't come pre-washed in a large bowl of water. Stir it around once and then let it set for twenty to thirty minutes. Don't dump greens and water into a strainer, pick out the leaves and put them on your cutting board. Cut the greens into small pieces. Boil for a few minutes and with tongs or a slotted spoon, put the greens in an ice bath, so that your greens keep their lovely color. Pop the top of your favorite soup, pour it into a microwave safe container with a snug lid and add your leafy greens. There you have lunch.

3. Have two or three course meals. Your first course should always be your salad. In my previous post, you see that I on my two week menu, a lot of simple side salads. I skip the iceberg and romaine lettuce and grab the organic spring lettuce mix at my favorite grocery store. Surprisingly, it's cheaper than those Dole package ones. Add cucumbers, tomatoes, asparagus, beets or whatever you have on hand or in the mood for.

A salad doesn't have to have lettuce. You can have a Caprese salad which is just tomatoes, fresh mozarella, and basil with good EVOO drizzled over. There are thousands of salads you can try. Just keep your portion to about 1 cup. You don't want to fill up on the salad and not eat the second course.

You can make a big bowl of your favorite salad and it should last up to a week. With a fork, poke holes in a gallon size freezer bag and then add all of your salad ingredients, minus the dressing. See. Simple easy, no fuss way.

4. If you're eating something like mashed potatoes or ricotta cheese, you can boil and then mash up vegetables like butternut squash (you won't even know it's in your lasagna), parsnips or turnips and stir them into the mashed potatoes or ricotta cheese. Turnips and mashed potatoes go together very nicely as does potatoes and cauliflower!

5. Puree vegetables like spinach, carrots, broccoli and so forth and add them to your soup. You won't even know that they're there. More importantly, you're kids won't know.

6. Make green smoothies. Instead of relying on fruit only, add a handful of spinach to your blender. If your using blueberries, the color won't be green. The fruit will balance out the bitterness of the greens. You can also add a dollop of honey or vanilla yogurt to balance out the taste.

7. Make meat pockets. Take a chicken breast, slice it open on the side and make a pocket. Fill it with minced or pureed vegetables and cheese. Close it with a toothpick. Sear the chicken until brown on both sides and then finish off in the oven.

8. Make veggie omelets and frittatas for breakfast. Eggs for breakfast will keep you fuller longer, studies have shown. Throw in some vegetables, you not only get your morning protein, you also get some added vitamins and minerals. Make a sandwich with whole grain bread and have a glass of orange juice and you have a complete meal. You can add virtually any vegetable into eggs. There's the standard broccoli, peppers, onion, and tomatoes. Get exotic. Throw in some cubes of eggplant or zucchini. Make a nice spring brunch with asparagus and Gruyere cheese omelet. The sky is the limit when it comes to frittatas and omelets!

There seven ways simple ways to add more veggies to your diet!

How to Eat More Fruits and Vegetables Part I

Did you know that we're supposed to eat 1.5 to 2.5 cups of fruit a day? With 1/2 cup servings that's 3-5 servings a day of just fruit alone! Only 40% of Americans eat five or more servings of fruit and vegetables.

I recently lost 10 pounds by doing nothing. I didn't workout. I didn't diet. There was one day where I had several servings of french fries (homemade, of course!) throughout the day. One of the ways that I accomplished this weight loss is by adding more fruits and vegetables into my diet.

We know that fruits and vegetables contain all of the vitamins and minerals that our body needs, along with protein. It's actually better to get all of your vitamin and mineral needs from your diet rather than a supplement. Most of what you take from the supplement ends up in your urine and not in your body, while eating fruits and vegetables, your body hangs on to those nutrients.

Because of my "lifestyle" change, I'm more full. I crave food less. I have more energy. However, it's been tough adding in the extra fruit and so forth. First was the expense. Figuring out how to much to buy was tough for me. Sometimes, I bought too much and I ended up throwing away rotten fruit. Sometimes, I bought too little and ended up craving something sweet, so I would hit my local grocery store for overly processed cakes.

Adding more fruit to my diet was easier than adding more vegetables. I love for my snacks to be sweet. I have forgone my favorite snack of graham crackers with honey roasted peanut butter in order to eat more fruit. Because fruit is naturally sweet, it's a lot tastier than say Brussel sprouts.

How to Add in More Fruit

Fruits

Adding more fruit to my diet was easier than adding more vegetables. 

1. Instead of having adding the chocolate or caramel syrup to your ice or cake, try to add a fruit compote. Take some fruit, a little sugar, heat over the stove until desired doneness. Or you can recreate your own fruit sauce. Raspberry Sauce is delicious and takes five minutes to make. All you'll need is a 10oz bag of frozen raspberries or any other fruit, 3/4 cup of confectioner's sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon fresh squeezed lemon juice. Pop everything into a blender and blend until smooth. You can add it directly to your dessert or you can strain it so that the texture is a litter more smoother. This serves 4-6 people.

Another example is just adding fresh fruit to Angel Food Cake. Delicious! See tomorrow's post for Microwave Angel Food Cake!

2. Since we have to eat more whole grains, why not eat a bowl of oatmeal with fresh or frozen fruit? You can skip those boxes of instant oatmeal and buy a large canister of quick cooking oats. It's cheaper in the long run. I like to divvy 1/4 cups of oatmeal into little sandwich bags. I add a tablespoon of brown sugar to the bag and a pinch of salt. I can take these bags to work, just add water and there I have a quick breakfast. You can also add dried fruit like cranberries or blueberries.

3. Add fruit to your cereal. Liven up a those boring cornflakes with slices of bananas and strawberries. Take a risk with peaches and raspberries. If you're using frozen fruit, I would pour the milk in first and then the fruit, let the fruit thaw out a little in the milk and then add your cereal. This way your milk gets sweetened and you don't lose all of the flavor of the fruit.

4. Forget Jamba Juice! Make your own smoothies! While I personally prefer to eat my calories, you can make a satisfying snack and/or breakfast in a few minutes. Take some fruit, some yogurt or milk, blend and you're on your way. You can add in a tablespoon or two of almonds or ground flax seed. Or you can add in a scoop of whey or soy protein and have your smoothie as your recovery drink after a long and hard workout. Get creative.

5. The USDA says that 100 percent fruit juice and count as well. I personally think you lose a lot of the fiber and some nutrients by drinking juice alone, but it is something.

6. Instead of buying frozen waffles or pancakes, make your own. Skip the pancake mix. If you have a well stocked kitchen (see previous post) then you have all of the ingredients needed to make a batch of pancakes. Just add fruit to the batter. To save time, I like to make a big batch on the weekends and freeze them so I can have them for the rest of the week. While buying a box of frozen waffles costs $4 and buying all of the ingredients to make pancakes costs about $10. In the end, a box of frozen waffles or pancakes serves only four people. You can make a hell of lot more pancakes if you have all of the ingredients.

7. Another simple way to add fruit is to your frozen pancakes and waffles or to your french toast. Just plop your favorite fruit on top and cover with syrup.

See the next post for a great smoothie recipe!

Sample Menu

I'm posting a sample of what my week-long menu looks like. I meant to post this earlier, but forgot. I'm single, so I always have leftovers. I try to freeze some for the days where I don't feel like cooking. It's nice to have a meal that only needs to be nuked in the microwave for five or so minutes. I have really cut back on dining out and ordering takeout (Sorry GrubHub).

If you have a family of 4-6, you probably won't have too many leftovers. If that's the case, then you need to come up with about 18-21 meals for the week including snacks. If you have the time, try to cook most of the meals on the weekend. You can make a lasagna and not bake it. It will keep in your freezer for a few days. Just write the date and heating instructions for your kids.

I try to make most of my snacks ahead. I'm one of those people, if I eat it out of the box, then I eat the whole box so I have to measure out things before hand.