Reinventing the "What's for Dinner?" Wheel

What can I say? I'm not easily satisfied with preparing and eating the same o', same o' dinner fare every night. I like variety. I like to use what's in season. I like to use what's on sale. However...it is not always an effective use of my time. Definitely time to reinvent the dinner wheel yet another time. Sigh.

But this time around, the effort I put into this little project will be there for me to fall back on anytime I need a break from being overly creative or frugal in the kitchen.



This is what I did:

I went through my recipe collection and pulled out 20 different main dishes that my family will eat without a lot of complaining, that don't require a ton of effort, that contain a variety of proteins, and are fairly inexpensive to prepare. In addition to that I pulled four crockpot recipes to use for Sundays. I spread them out over a four week period of time taking into consideration that we might not want to eat something with burger in it three nights in a row. I also arranged them so that an extra chicken could be baked or grilled providing the leftovers necessary for the next night's meal of say, enchiladas. Saturdays were reserved for trying out something new.

I starting using BigOven.com to type my recipes in several years ago, and I love it. But that would be another whole post. Anyway by having the recipes readily available to me, I used BigOven to put them together into a menu plan by week and created a master grocery list. From there it was simple to print everything out and place it in a binder with four tabs, one for each week. The first sheet is the menu plan by day of the week, the next is the master grocery list, and then come the individual recipes. I am beginning to fill in the side dishes that would be standard to include with each meal as I follow through with this plan.

It's a no-brainer to realize that with a plan in place, I will follow it. I won't stand as perhaps many others do before the refrigerator at 4:30 p.m. and wonder why I forgot to defrost this or that. I won't have to wrack my brain for something different that we haven't tried for awhile. I will have already made those decisions in advance for my tired little brain.



And so far it's working. By making notes on each master weekly plan as I go along, I will be reminded to pull out the steak for the fajitas the night before, to start the pizza dough in the morning, or to soak my beans overnight. A welcome relief for my worn out thinker as of late.

Perhaps after I've spent some time following this plan I will be ready to head back to my old ways, but in the meantime, I will relish the fact that I know what's for dinner today, tomorrow and for the rest of the week. Yeah!

The Return of the Swallows

There are some dates on the calendar that deserve annual recognition every year such as birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. And then there are those dates that just mean something special. As my kids would say, I'm dorky enough to get excited enough to remember every year the date on which the swallows return from the southern hemisphere to our property...March 28...give or take a few days and then later in the year the day they will depart.

March 28 represents the end of their six month absence. Every fall they mass together above the house for one last swoop and dart session catching up whatever mosquitoes or flying insects are available before they take off heading for warmer climates, all reminding me of the six months of cold and gloom to come.

Regardless that the calendar recorded the coming of spring a week earlier, spring doesn't really come for me until they make their appearance. Much to the rolling of their eyes, my children have usually been dictated to include their arrival in their nature journal as part of their homeschool studies. It is just one of those predictable phenoms of nature; their God-given instinct to migrate at the same time each and to return back to their homes six months later. They are such fascinating little birds that I've done a little research on their annual return which is celebrated the end of March in California at the San Juan Capistrano mission at which their return has been recorded for the past two hundred years.

Today I've kept my eyes trained upward hoping to catch them as the return. Perhaps they will still make their arrival later on this afternoon or perhaps it will be tomorrow or the next day. But you can be sure, they will be here. And they will make me smile.

Have You Had Your Fruit Today?

I had an unusual thought the other day as I was staring at our diminishing fruit bowl...I wonder how much fruit our family of six should actually be consuming on a weekly basis. I wonder how much fruit I should actually be purchasing each week to have on hand for our family of six. Hmmmm.

So a quick check with an on-line food pyramid shows a recommended 2 to 4 servings of fruit per day. Based on one active teen boy (4 servings), an exercising husband (3 servings), two adult women who are fairly active (2 and 3 servings), a teen girl who seems to live on air (so let's call her 2 servings) plus an 8-year-old (another 2 servings), we should be eating 16 servings of fruit per day. That would be 112 servings per week! With that in mind, I am pretty sure we are not eating enough fruit. Reports from cardiologists and oncologists even recommend 5 servings of fruit per day. And they should know!

With this startling information, I'm going to take a stab at guessing how much fruit we have been consuming based on my casual, oh-that-looks-like-enough approach at the grocery store.

A couple bunches of bananas, sometimes actually only one - 12 servings
A bag of apples - 8 servings
A bag of oranges - 6 servings
Maybe a couple of grapefruit - 2
Pre-packaged Dole-type fruit cups for lunches - 6 servings
A couple of frozen containers of 100% juice - 12 servings
A berry dessert if we're lucky - 8 servings
Dried fruit for granola - 8 servings or so

If my mental math is correct, that's about 62 servings...only about half of what we need. Yikes! So now what?

If we each ate a banana, apple, and orange or 100% juice per day per week, that would be 126 servings and more like the recommended daily requirement. Throw in a fruit dessert and perhaps dried fruit with breakfast cereal, we might actually exceed the minimum amounts and approach more healthy levels. Is it doable? It certainly looks like it on paper. If you're filling up with whole, unprocessed foods that are hopefully taking up stomach space and cravings for those other things that aren't so good for us but still call out our names, we've got to be pursuing a more healthy food intake.

But I'm not sure if I'm ready for the data: the grocery list this coming weekend would have to have a staggering 42 bananas, 42 apples, and 42 oranges. Well perhaps some of those could be minused by the fruit cups sent in lunches and dried fruit with breakfast cereal. But still...that's a whopping lot of fruit! The scary thought is that I haven't even thought about the veggie aspect yet...there are more recommended servings per day there than for fruit.

What do you think? Is it worth your health and the eating habits of your children you are responsible for to make such an effort? Is it overkill? Does it really matter what you eat? And how much would that add to the grocery bill? It sure looks like I've opened up a can of worms for myself to deal with. In the meantime, tell me your thoughts. I really would love to find out how others ensure their families truly are getting a balanced diet.

I Sure Do Miss Blogging...

I really do. I have missed blogging, twittering, catching up on my favorite blogs, and in general, being part of like-minded individuals who find a certain release in journaling on-line.

So...what has been going on since June of 2010 when my poor blog seemed to drop off the face of the earth? Well...too much, as each individual item would be worthy of its own post. And in reflection, I should have somehow carved out the time to chronicle each event. I think I would have benefited from it.

I tend to be one of those who feel that if they can't get it all caught up, then don't start anything. Perfectionism at its worst, I know. Sometimes the 'just do it now' mantra should become mine to live by. I just need to pick up where life is now and march forward.

It is interesting to look back and realize that my farm blog Abernathy Creek Farm started to deteriorate about June, this blog started running downhill in July, my 365 Project did not get updated after August, and Twitter fell out somewhere around September. Sigh. I did find more time to connect with my 'face' friends on Facebook which has been wonderful though.

I've decided less lofty goals would benefit me perhaps. Maybe start with posting monthly...sad, I know, or bringing myself to publish a post without **gasp** a perfectly edited photo. Doing a 52 week Photo Project instead of beating myself up for not capturing and uploading a photo every single day. Going back to Tweet Deck to incorporate Twitter and Facebook simultaneously because I do so miss the camaraderie of the contacts I made on Twitter...wonderful people who share similar passions as mine.

So here goes. I'm off to upload Tweet Deck to my netbook. Perhaps I'll see you on Twitter soon!

Truly Not Enough Hours in the Day

I could just post this title and then sign off. Many of you would understand. It seems lately that I just can't even find the time to sign on lately. Homeschool has started along with charter school classes. It's high school varsity football season with its booster club responsibilities and playing injuries. There are an additional three to four hours of work I now do for the care of the ten horses next door at the training barn. It's truly a case of dropping into bed exhausted.

It seems that in order for me to take the time to get on here, I had to have a two-hour window while our son had a Lisfranc fracture surgery due to a football injury during the first game of the season and the luck of having wi-fi at the hospital.

So...I haven't forgotten my little blog here. I promise to be back as random as ever. I didn't think I would miss my time here as much as I have. Perhaps giving myself another week to help rehab my 16yo who will not be able to bear weight on his foot for six-plus weeks, and perhaps another week to see what's left in the garden to eat/take care of if the rains dissipate for the fall, and perhaps yet another week for whatever life throws at us, and then I'll be back to posting with gusto.

Until then, enjoy whatever free time you have to be online. You never know when life will throw you a few good curves.