HELFY

Back with Succotash

2012-01-16T20:47:00.000-08:00

I'm back! I've been brimming with HELFY inspiration, so I thought I may as well record it.

Tonight, I made Corn & Edamame Succotash, inspired by this post, which I originally found via pinterest (Have you discovered pinterest yet? Holy distraction... but it is full of all manner inspiration).

This salad was very tasty, and filling to boot. I was practically stuffed by the time I got dinner on the table (the succotash was accompanied by pigs in a blanket, which you won't see featured here, but were, of course, scrumptious). There's plenty left over, which will make for great snacks and lunches.

We didn't have all the ingredients called for in the original recipe, so I made it up as I went along. It's a very versatile salad, you could add different veggies (fresh peas! bell pepper!), black beans, or even omit the mayo for a lighter take. The original recipe calls for fresh ginger and fresh cilantro, which sound divine, but sadly I didn't have on hand. Added bonus: this was perfect for the freezer clean-out I did this afternoon, I used up all sorts of almost-freezer-burned odds & ends.

Corn & Edamame Succotash

adapted from the parsley thief

3 1/2 cups corn (I used an odd collection of frozen - a bit of roasted, a bit more unroasted, and some of southwestern corn/bean mix)
2 cups cooked, shelled edamame
2 green onions, finely chopped
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoon fresh lime juice (lemon would be nice too)
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper

Thaw corn - throw it in a colander and run hot water over it. In a large bowl, mix corn together with edamame and onions. In a small bowl, whisk together mayonaise, lime juice, coriander, garlic powder, salt & pepper. Stir dressing into vegetables. Yum!

Fried Rice

2011-03-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

The kids requested pb&j for lunch today, but I just couldn't face it. So I rummaged through the fridge and realized we had some leftover brown rice. Fried Rice inspiration struck and I whipped some up. Success!

Fried Rice is a HELFY all-star; my kids devoured it (so did I), it's very easy & quite healthy. On the frugal front - hello cheapness. It's a beautiful meat stretcher and uses up bits & pieces that may otherwise go to waste.

I didn't measure anything - just winged(?) it. I used stuff I had on hand, but it's open to crazy variation. Any veggie, frozen or fresh would work. Same goes for meat - any leftovers in your fridge will do. It would even be good vegetarian - just leave out the meat.

Here's how I made it:

Dice up 3/4 of a carrot and 1/3 of a red bell pepper.
Put a little veg oil in a skillet on med heat, add above veg with a little salt and saute for several minutes with the lid on. Stir occasionally.
Dice up leftover pork loin (maybe 1/3 cup?), add to veg mixture and stir. Saute for a couple more minutes.
Add leftover rice (I had about 1.5 cups), stir.
Add soy sauce - like 1 Tablespoon, or to taste, stir 'er up.
Crack 3 eggs in a bowl with a touch of salt and beat them up good.
Scooch all the veggies to one side of the skillet. Dump the eggs in the empty side and cook until done, stirring pretty often (this will take several minutes).
Chop 1 or 2 green onions, add them to the mix and stir.
Season with additional soy sauce or salt if needed. A teeny bit of sesame oil would be nice too.

That looks like a lot of steps now that I've written it out, but I promise it's easy! And quick - it took me less than 15 minutes.

Finally, here's a little breakfast flashback. Green pancakes look disgusting.

Green pancakes and green yogurt. I'm glad the kids liked them, cuz EEEWWW.

p.s. I managed to write all this while my kids played together peacefully. You have no idea how monumental this is.

Meal Planning Check In

2011-03-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

Meal Planning March is almost half over, and I'm here with a fascinating in-depth status report.

First, let's check in with each guideline:

1. Plan each dinner at least 48 hours in advance.
   Yep, I've done that! Buuuuut... well, I'll explain below.

2. Incorporate stuff from the pantry, freezer and garden wherever possible.
   Doing pretty well here.

3. It's OK to rearrange the plan!
   Yeah, there has been some rearranging, some OK, some well... see below...

4. "Leftovers" and "going out" are completely legitimate planned meals.
   Oooooh yeah they are. How I love Leftover night. "From the freezer" - also legitimate.

5. Once a week +, I will double up a recipe and put half in the freezer*.
Doing OK here, though we do have a tendency to leave leftovers in the fridge and pick at them. Nothing wrong with that, except that we don't end up with a stockpile for "From the freezer" nights.

6. Aim for HELFY meals, but dude, it's OK to bust out and have a steak or some pasta carbonara now and then.
A-OK!

All in all, it's going quite well... buuuut... we haven't totally stuck to the plan. I changed the recipe (day of) a couple times, ate leftovers more than planned (because I forgot to defrost our frozen meal), and we ate out one night (because we wanted to go out, not out of desperation) I'm all good with remaining flexible, but also don't want to slip so much that we're wasting food or spending time spinning my wheels in the search for a new recipe.

One issue is that I sometimes don't want to prepare the recipe I've chosen when I'm in overly-ambitious meal planning mode. It may be because the recipe is intimidating or because the food just isn't what I'm in the mood for. So the first tweak I'm making is to choose fewer new-to-me recipes - one a week is plenty! I'll include more tried-n-true's - recipes that don't intimidate me (anymore).

So keeping that in mind, I created this week's meal plan. Here she is!

Meal Plan 3/7/11-3/13/11

Ingredients to Use:

Pasta, sweet potatoes, salmon, spinach

Monday

Tuna cakes, spinach salad

Tuesday

Grown-ups out – Grama watching kids

Leftovers

Wednesday

Red Pepper Salmon Pasta (new-to-me recipe), salad

Thursday

St. Patrick’s Day!

Green pancakes for breakfast.

Corned beef & cabbage (also new-to-me, but Mr. Helfy will talk me through it. Or maybe he'll just make it.)

Friday

Pizza – pepperoni, mozzarella. Try thin crust recipe from CI (which is new-to-me so if I don't feel like doing something new, I'll use my old tried-n-true pizza dough recipe)

Saturday

From the freezer – mac n’ cheese

Sunday

Mr. Helfy's choice (seems like cheating, huh? I like to leave a night open in case, as often happens, Mr. Helfy gets inspired to make something specific)

There ya have it! Wish me luck!

Hang-ups

2011-03-05T20:28:00.000-08:00

As I was cooking dinner tonight, I was reflecting on some of my cooking hang-ups. I consider myself a new Cook - I really didn't do that much cooking until the last couple years. The more I cook, the more I understand what's been hanging me up all these years. Here, for your entertainment, I will ruminate about some of my issues & neuroses and propose some solutions.

Chopping onions. A task I detest - you get the eye burning, face melting drama coupled with stinky fingers... so unglamorous. Plus, I always seem to chop them too big (probably because I can't see through my melting face).
Solution: I may try food processoring them in bulk, then refrigerating them. I wonder if they'd freeze?

MIA Tongs. I like to use my tongs constantly, yet they're often missing as my children pilfer them.
Solution: Buy the kids their own tongs.

MIA Ingredients. I do a lousy job creating a shopping list from a recipe. I always manage to miss at least one ingredient. Like, for tonight's dinner, I chose the recipe earlier in the week, then went shopping, and failed to buy THREE inredients (just for the one recipe). I remembered the arborio rice the following day, when Mr. Helfy mentioned he was stopping by the store. I forgot about dried cranberries until yesterday, so Mr. Helfy made a special (expensive - he was hungry) trip today. And tonight as I was cooking, I realized we didn't have any white wine on hand! Luckily, Mr. Helfy was, at that moment, at the neighbors, so he got some from them (actually, we traded them a bottle of white wine for an acorn squash - perfect). Thank god for Mr. Helfy and his willingness to go the store.
Solution: OMG, read the recipe, woman! Maybe read it twice. Thrice even. THEN make your grocery list.

Raw chicken (and other gooeyness). Apparently I'm not a fan of slimey. It recently dawned on me that I go through ridiculous measures to avoid getting my hands gooey. I'll try to be all Edward Scissorhands with tongs and forks just so I don't have to use my fingers. Or I just totally avoid cooking meat dishes altogether because I don't want to touch the meat.
Solution: Get over myself already. My hands are washable.

Frozen meat. I always forget to pull stuff out to thaw! Total time killer (see below).
Solution: Ideally, the night before, I transfer meat from the freezer to the fridge. I think I'll add a note on my meal plan - like, on Wed's entry "thaw chicken for Thurs".

Time Management. I'm such a slow cook! 30 minute meal, my arse! I often end up frustrated and cranky towards the end of meal prep, because it's late, my kids are hungry and underfoot, and I just want to be DONE already.
Solution: Over-estimate the time it will take me to cook. My former boss Sue once gave me this advice about making time estimates: "take your first guess, then multiply by 2 and add 5". Love that.
Also, I know this is a matter of experience - I will get quicker and better at multi-task-cooking as I get more experience!

Messy Kitchen. A quandary for sure: I hate cleaning my kitchen and I hate cooking in a messy kitchen.
Solution: Clean my kitchen (duh), but don't get caught by the need to clean it perfectly. Just get it clean enough that I have room to make dinner.

I prefer cooking alone. I get irritated when there are kids/pets/etc underfoot when I'm cooking. I get testy when I have to constantly defend the carrots I've just chopped from small hands. My kitchen is small - a "one butt kitchen", no other butts allowed! I just want to put on some tunes, spread out on all the counters and focus on the recipe.
Solution: Yeah, I just need to give up on my dreams of solo cooking for now. Maybe I can keep the dogs out of the kitchen, but my littlest "helper" is going nowhere. As soon as I walk into the kitchen, she whips out the stool and plays with the water, pilfers carrots, dumps flour everywhere, stirs whatever onto the floor... all this within the first minute. I need to embrace this stage... somehow.

Fear of failure. The A#1 reason I didn't cook much for so long. "What if it doesn't taste good?" "What if I don't know what I'm doing??" For years, I never got beyond these questions, and I still get discouraged when something I make doesn't turn out well.
Solution: Just do it. Jump in there and try stuff. I'm not going to learn to cook unless I cook. And I will screw up sometimes - probably a lot. And that's OK! Mr. Helfy has been a good influence for me in this area; his motto: "if it sucks, oh well!" Tonight's dinner was a great example. I worked on it for 1.5 hours, and it was ... meh... only OK. But I didn't let myself get discouraged, and just let Mr. Helfy (the Flavor Wizard) have a go at it. He improved it a bunch, and shared his tricks (caramelized onions & garlic in this case. Often, the answer is butter. And/or bacon.).

So there ya have it, a little trip into my cooking head. Do you have any cooking hang-ups? Any solutions to propose for mine?

p.s. Meal Planning March is going well so far! Had I written this list in February, Meal Planning would've been included, for sure! I'll write a meal planning update soon...

Meal Planning March

2011-03-01T14:38:00.000-08:00

I am officially declaring this month Meal Planning March!

For a long time now, I've been simultaneously aware of and flummoxed by the need to plan our meals in advance. We've had small successes here and there, but have never stuck to it. Which is why I solemnly swear to plan all of our meals in advance during the month of March.

Here are the guidelines for Meal Planning March:
1. Plan each dinner at least 48 hours in advance.
2. Incorporate stuff from the pantry, freezer and garden wherever possible.
3. It's OK to rearrange the plan!
4. "Leftovers" and "going out" are completely legitimate planned meals.
5. Once a week +, I will double up a recipe and put half in the freezer*.
6. Aim for HELFY meals, but dude, it's OK to bust out and have a steak or some pasta carbonara now and then.

Doable? I think so.

How will I manage meal management? This is an area that has gotten me hung up in the past, as I tend to over-think. So I'm just going to keep it simple, and change it up when needed. Here's my first meal plan, for this week. Totally works, but I think I'll switch to paper, since my kids are fond of erasing...

It just lists each day of the week, with the main dish and possibly the sides. I'll also note other meal-ish to-do's - bake bread, soak beans for tomorrow, etc. It says "use up" at the bottom - that list will be inspiration for the recipes I choose. Also inspiring? The pictures at the top. :)

What will Meal Planning do for me? Several things, I think:

Sanity retention - I loathe that "what should we have for dinner" feeling I get at 5pm. Also, I hate feeding my kids late due to poor planning. And I'm guessing Mr. Helfy doesn't like coming home to hungry kids and a clueless Me.
Money savings. Last minute meal decisions lead to last minute trips to the store... impulse purchases are made...cha-ching, cha-ching...
We'll waste less food from our garden and freezer/pantry backstocks if we're consciously working it into our meal plans.
Greater variety. It would be OK to have quesadillas a little less frequently.
And finally, the driving factor behind needing a freakin' clue what I'm going to make for dinner. Every extra minute I stand with my pantry/fridge/mouth agape, wondering what to make, this one is tearing the place up.

She used to be content to rearrange the jars. Now she OPENS them. Yikes.

Joining us just in time for Meal Planning March is our new freezer* (I think I'll call him Hugh - whadya think?). We've been saving up for a while now, and this bad boy joined us on Sunday. It is enormous, intimidatingly so. 13.8 cubic feet didn't sound that big, ya know? I'm sure we'll have no problem filling it, over time. Freezer management will be a challenge, as it is deep - but it did come with some cool dividers, baskets and cute little labels to help. Having room to freeze meals will be awesome - we can pre-make meals for don't-wanna-cook nights. Also, we can bulk buy when stuff's on sale. And, it seriously expands our produce preservation options. Yippee!


Can you tell how big it is? Ha-uge!

So that's the plan, wish me luck. Any meal planning tips or insight for me?

HELFY Cupcakes and Hard Working Soup

2011-02-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

For your HELFY pleasure today, I bring you two recipes...

Spaghetti Cupcakes

For reals! These taste really good. They're a great way to use up leftover spaghetti & sauce. Bonus: they're quite portable - great for a lunch or snack. The other night we made spaghetti pie - same ingredients, but you dump it all into a casserole dish rather than using a muffin pan. Spaghetti Pie still tastes good, but definitely lacks the cute factor of the cupcake.

And now, we have a contribution from our own MooMoo. I haven't tried this yet, but I will, and soon. It sounds delicious. And my pantry could use a good clean-out (hey - know of any recipes that will get my laundry done??).

Clean-Out-The-Pantry Minestrone Soup CrockPot Recipe
From the Crockpot 365 blog.

3 cups chicken broth (canned or "fresh")
2 cans of whatever kind of beans you like (drained)
1 can tomatoes (and juice)
1 can corn (and juice)
vegetables (e.g. roasted broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, asparagus)
salt and pepper to taste

Drain and rinse beans; add to crock.
Add the juice and vegetables from the corn and tomato cans.
Cover with chicken broth. Unless you are vegetarian. Then I would imagine you'd not want to use chicken broth and opt for vegetable stock.
Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4.

In unrelated news, I made a web site! Check it out.

XOXOXOXO

We have HELFY!

2011-01-17T15:44:00.000-08:00

I figured I might as well put these in a blog so we could keep better track of them. For our first ever HELFY blog post, let's feed the Bab-E! I mean, Moo was asking for ideas for feeding a one-ish year old. Here are a few...

* Scrambled Eggs. In my HELFY top 10. They're so quick-n-easy, delicious, cheap-ola, and they make great finger food. We'll mix in deli meat, cheese, diced veggies, leftovers... whatever's laying around. A bit of toast (diced or "sticks") on the side, and you have yourself a complete meal. Bonus - they refrig & reheat well. I often make a bunch just so I have leftovers.

* Pancakes. Awesome finger food. I used to dice them or cut them into "sticks" for my kids. I like to make them from scratch because A) it's easy, B) you can get more variety, and C) I prefer to avoid weird ingredients. We had these, with whole wheat pastry flour this morning, and they were GOOD. You could not tell they were whole grain - really light, and the flavor was so great. These pumpkin pancakes from my pal Paula are divine too. Our favorite pancake topper/dip is plain yogurt mixed with a bit of maple syrup (not pancake syrup - that stuff makes me shudder). Yum yum yummmm.
Since I've always baked (not cooked), pancakes have never been intimidating for me. But if you're nervous about baking, pancakes are a great warm-up... some similar ingredients, but a bit less fiddly.

* Roast chicken. I never realized how easy roasting a whole chicken is - it seems kinda fancy, ya know? But it's so simple. I don't love the part where you have to pull the guts out of the inside, but I was able to do it with my eyes closed in a matter of seconds - didn't even pass out (so proud). Anyhoo, I recently used this recipe and it turned out great - I think I impressed Mr. Helfy! Shred up a bit of the chicken, and dice up some of the potatoes - perfect for the kiddo (and everyone else). And for future meals, leftover opportunities abound.
p.s. whole chickens are extra frugal when you make stock from the bones. Another suuuuuper simple process that I was unaware of til recently. Bones, bunch of water, chopped onion + other veg... crock pot on low all day... strain... voila! Stock!

* Tortilla Soup. This one looks intimidating because it has a long list of ingredients, and several "wait times" - but it's really not difficult to make. Most importantly, it's delicious! It's full of a wide variety of bits & pieces that are perfect finger food. My favorite garnish is diced avocado - the mother of all finger foods.

* Baking Bonus: graham crackers. It's a stretch to call these healthy (graham cookies might be a more appropriate name), but they have some whole wheat flour, so we'll go with it. Very, very yummy - they reminded me of shortbread. The kids LOVED them like crazy people. As for level of simplicity - they're similar to making a rolled cookie, but you cut out squares with a knife rather than using cookie cutters. If you've made sugar cookies before, this recipe will be straightforward... if you haven't, you should try! With this recipe, since it's healthy (we're still pretending here)!
Notes: I subbed whole wheat pastry flour for all of the whole wheat flour. And for the all-purpose flour, I subbed in 1/2 cup of whole wheat pastry flour. I used 1/2 cup brown sugar instead of 1/4 brown and 1/4 granulated (regular) sugar - mostly out of laziness, but also cuz I like the flavor of brown sugar. Next time I'll cut back on the sugar a tad... to up the healthiness a tad. Our dough was in the fridge overnight, and rock-hard when I took it out to bake, so I let it sit 20 minutes before rolling. When baking, these went from done to overdone QUICKLY - we had more than a few extra-brown (and yet still yummy) crackers. Oh, and my crackers were far from uniform shape/size, but that did not detract at all.

OK, you guys send me your recent HELFY's. I need new inspiration!

Happy HELFY-ing!

H*E*L*F*Y