Meal Prep in 1-2 Hours a Week

You all know I hate cooking and yet value nightly family meals immensely. So I am always trying to hack my way through it! 

I feel like I am finally almost in a rhythm. Each Sunday, I start meal prep at 3:30pm (with the goal of being totally done by 5pm). It helped to give myself a specific time. Prior to that, I would sort of spend all day Sunday dreading the start of meal prep. Now--not so much! 

We cook five meals a week at home (and eat out on Friday and Saturday nights). This week we are having:

1. Mac-n-cheese (homemade, not from a box)
2. Enchiladas
3. Crispy tacos (yes, we have to eat a lot of Mexican food for all the gluten-free and vegetarian restrictions around here)
4. Indian curry in the Instant Pot
5. Spaghetti with lentils

I get the boys started on their lunches while I start meal prep for the week. Tate has to do two components of the lunch, and Henry does the other three. We do things like hard-boiled eggs, cucumbers, freeze-dried fruit, applesauce, lunch meat, popcorn, pretzels, etc. 

Meanwhile, I get to work on meal prep for the week. This week, I made the entire mac-n-cheese meal + the enchiladas + the crispy tacos (for dinner that night). The other two meals will be super quick and easy during the week. 

It feels so great to head into the week with so much ready to go! 

Share |

New Meal Planning Website

Have you all seen this new meal planning website yet? I got a free subscription because I work in education, and I love it! It lets me specify what kind of restrictions and preferences we have (not only related to ingredients but also about how much we want to spend and how long we want the meals to take). And then you can order the ingredients via Instacart, if you want (which you know I already love).

For updates in between blog posts, check out Instagram! 

----------------------------------------------

JOIN US!: Registration is currently open for the next Purposeful Conception Course: Preparing Your Mind, Body, and Life for Pregnancy, which starts on January 8! Register now! We'd love to have you join us!

Share |

Hiring Help in the Kitchen

When we found out about all of our food sensitivities a couple months back, I immediately posted on our neighborhood list-serv to see if anyone was interested in coming over on Sundays and helping me do meal prep for the week. I was thinking it would take 1-2 hours per week (depending on whether we worked together or they worked alone). 

I was able to find the most amazing woman, but we weren't able to make the first couple weekends work with her schedule, and then I fell into a groove on my own. 

But then I went to my friend's house and learned that she also hires someone to help her prep meals for the week (which she explained as she served us the most delicious Indian meal!).

So I'm back to being eager to get help with meal prep. I think it will help us make more interesting meals. I can find more complicated recipes that can be made on Sundays and heated up throughout the week (such as recipes from this book!). 

Share |

My New Favorite Snack

Stocking our pantry with gluten-free, vegan, and dairy-free treats is no easy feat. It helps that we found Larabar: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Here are the ingredients: cashews, dates, chocolate chips, sea salt. 

It takes so indulgent! 

I'm probably one of the last people to discover these bars (I really shouldn't be a blogger--I'm not trendy at all!), but if there are any of you who haven't discovered them yet, I highly recommend them! 

Share |

Montessori Advice: Packing Lunches

Despite the fact (or maybe because of the fact?) that Henry has been involved in the kitchen from a very young age, he doesn't enjoy helping in the kitchen. Sure, he'll jump on the bandwagon if we're making something like brownies, but he really doesn't want to be involved in the day-to-day: dishes, setting the table, helping with dinner, etc.

However, I want him to contribute to our household and our family as much as possible. I want him to understand that each person has a role to play in helping our household run. 

I returned to the handbook from a private Montessori school for guidance. Here's what it says about how to involve children with preparing lunches over the years:

2 years = Talk with your child about preparing their lunch while the child watches. It will make more sense to your child if you prepare it slowly and methodically. 

3-4 years = Your child can help by handing things to you or getting things for you, such as a towel, cutting board, etc. Your child should stay with you until the task is complete.

4 years = Show your child slowly and carefully how to prepare one part of the lunch. 

4+ years = Now your child can prepare the part of the lunch that they were shown. This continues for about three weeks.

4.5 years = Now show your child how to prepare a second part of the lunch. 

5-6 years = You and your child work together to prepare the lunch.

6-7 years = Your child can now prepare the fruits and the vegetables while you prepare the sandwich. 

7-8 years = Your child watches how to make the sandwich and how to clean up afterwards. They take on this task, while you switch to the fruit and the vegetable. You prepare lunch together.

8-9 years = Your child can now prepare their entire lunch while you are nearby for supervision.

9-10 years = Your child continues to prepare the entire lunch while you are doing another task in close proximity for company and acknowledgement. 

I read the handbook in front of Henry, so now he is invested in preparing the fruit and the vegetables. We do things like snap peas, cucumbers (he can peel and cut them), dried raspberries, red bell pepper, etc. It's been working well! 

Share |

Facing the Food Insensitivities

A post shared by Matthew Bradford (@mattyrunrun) on Mar 6, 2017 at 3:17pm PST

I'm finally getting to a place where I think I can tackle all the food sensitivities around here. Between my three guys, we are trying to minimize gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, and citrus. 

I tried brainstorming different categories of food, with the idea that the categories would help me search for recipes. Here are the categories I came up with:

1. Rice and beans
2. Curry
3. Tostadas
4. Tacos
5. Enchiladas
6. Veggie burgers
7. Pasta
8. Chili
9. Sushi
10. Fried rice

So for this week, here are the five recipes we are going to try: 

• Rice & Beans: Braised Coconut Spinach and Chickpeas with Lemon
• Tostadas: Black bean with quick pickles and soft-cooked eggs
• Pasta: Creamy Avocado pasta
• Veggie Burgers: Quinoa and White Bean
• Curry: Golden Red Lentil Dal

Fortunately I'm feeling excited and optimistic about the challenge! I've been wanting to minimize gluten and dairy in my own life anyway. 

It definitely takes a lot of time to find recipes, but my hope is that we will build up a good reserve over time and it will get easier.

----------------------------------------------

JOIN US!: Registration is currently open for the next Purposeful Conception Course: Preparing Your Mind, Body, and Life for Pregnancy, which starts on April 3! Register now! We'd love to have you join us!

Share |

Some Good News and Bad News

I finally made an appointment to hear the results from my food sensitivity testing. I'll admit: ignorance was bliss. I honestly didn't want to know. If I knew that something was causing an immune response in my body, then I would have to do something about it. 

The good news is that my test was pretty clear. Nothing was in the 4 or higher range. The things that got the highest were milk, whey, and brewers' yeast. 

On the other hand, Matt's results were terrible. He is sensitive to most of the staples of an American diet, including many different forms of gluten and dairy. 

I know lots of people are skeptical about the validity of this kind of testing, but we are four for four when it comes to results matching up to issues. Matt has lots of stomach sensitivity, so his diagnosis makes sense. Tate's sensitivities match up to his eczema issues, and Henry's gluten issue matches up to his self-regulation issues. It's been an interesting journey for us! 

I'm honestly not sure what the future holds for our how we are going to meet our dietary needs. For a while I tried eating meat through our Sunbasket meals, but I just couldn't stomach it. Then I started pulling together really fast meals for the boys (pre-prepared meat, frozen peas, and applesauce) while Matt and I went back to the vegetarian Sunbasket meals (our favorite). But now that doesn't work for Matt. 

We'll see what we do!

----------------------------------------------

JOIN US!: Registration is about to close for the next Purposeful Conception Course: Preparing Your Mind, Body, and Life for Pregnancy, which starts today! Register now! We'd love to have you join us!

Share |

It's Time for a Change

Now that we are using Sunbasket for three meals a week, I hardly ever have leftovers for lunch. I've been resorting to grabbing a protein bar and a piece of fruit. That was bad enough. Then I stopped having time to make my green smoothies for breakfast and starting grabbing the same kind of protein bar for breakfast. What?!?

I have to stop. I need more veggies and more fiber. Enter the work day salad...

Inspired by Kelsey, I am going to start making a work day salad the night before. Here's what I'm aiming for:

• Crunchy lettuce
• Farro
• Boiled egg
• Peas
• Carrots
• Cucumber
• Red pepper

I'm going to try her strategy of salad dressing at the bottom, then grain. I'm excited! 

Share |

"Make These Today" Energy Balls

In my search for gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, peanut-free, and egg-free recipes (it's humorous just writing out that long list!), there have been some hits and some misses. These energy balls are definitely a hit! 

The ingredients are simple: chocolate chips (we get vegan ones that are delicious, in semi-sweet), fast cooking oats (we get gluten-free), flax meal (so healthy!), chia seeds (again, so healthy and you can't even taste them), almond butter, and maple syrup. The first time I made them (pictured above; I've gotten better with practice), we didn't have maple syrup so I used honey. I prefer the maple syrup, but honey works in a pinch. 

You mix everything together, form into balls, and then store in the refrigerator. Even I can do that! 

You can find the full recipe from Show Me the Yummy.

----------------------------------------------

JOIN US! Registration is now open for the next Purposeful Parenthood course, which starts on February 6. Register today! We'd love to have you join us!

Share |

My New Meal Planning System

For those of you who know me, you know I have been through multiple iterations of figuring out the meal planning approach for my life. My last iteration was amazing for our family, until I stopped going to the grocery store and started using Instacart. Instacart is a godsend for us, given where we are in our lives right now. I actually spend less money (I guess because I'm not tempted by things that aren't on our list). 

My online meal planning system was kind of annoying because it meant that I had to go back and forth between tabs. It also meant that I no longer needed to organize my list by aisle of the grocery store. 

So instead, I now input my recipes into my Instacart account, using the "List" feature. I still keep the actual recipe in a binder (I hate cooking off of my phone or iPad, which constantly turns off), so I only input the ingredients. When I need to select meals for the week, I click on which meals we want and then select "Add All." All of the ingredients are automatically added to my cart. I also have a "Standard" list for our regular ingredients. Now meal planning and food ordering are completely integrated. Voila!

----------------------------------------------

JOIN US! Registration is now open for the next Purposeful Parenthood course, which starts on February 6. Register today! We'd love to have you join us!

Share |

Exciting New Dinner Options!

I'm about to confess something I'm not proud of: We've been trying out Sunbasket, one of those businesses that delivers meal ingredients with corresponding recipes every week. First, I'll tell you why I love and then I'll tell you why I hope we stop using it as soon as possible. 

Basically, we are in a big rut when it comes to cooking and eating at the Cotner-Bradford house. I do not have time to scour Pinterest for new recipes. When I do make time for it, it's a frustrating experience. I struggle to find vegetarian recipes that require few ingredients and are fast. 

I have about 30 recipes in our Meal Planning system, but I am so, so tired of them. When I buy the ingredients for them, I have to force myself to make them. 

Aaahhh! 

Enter the convenience-based economy. Sunbasket delivers the recipes and ingredients for three different meals to my house each week. The meals take about 30 minutes, which is fine for our life right now (during pool season, I need much faster meals so I can get out there with the boys as soon as possible). There is still prep work to do (chopping vegetables, stirring things, cooking things, assembling things), but everything is already measured and laid out. And the quality of the recipes is delicious! They include all sorts of innovative spices and flavors. It has taken my culinary skills up one or two notches (that's not hard to do because I'm really not a good cook!). In short, I love how Sunbasket increases the quality of our life! 

But I cannot bear the environmental waste that it produces each week. There's a giant box, lots of insulation, two disposable ice-packs, and plastic bottles and containers for every.single.ingredient. I cannot justify all that waste just for my own convenience. 

In my ideal world, I would find four friends who would want to create our own little Sunbasket club. We would each pick one recipe and pull together five sets of the ingredients (in reusable tupperware). Then we would meet at a central place to exchange the ingredients. I think the likelihood of finding four other people who want this kind of commitment in their life (and it would have to be vegetarian, no less) is very, very low. I need to dedicate some time to figuring out a plan for the new year! 

Share |

Healthy Eating for Kids

I believe that food is fuel, and I worry that Matt and I aren't optimizing our children's health through the food we offer them on a daily basis, specifically around breakfast. Matt handles the breakfast routine for us every.single.day (thank you, Matty!), and he usually defaults to peanut butter and jelly. I guess I wouldn't feel so bad about peanut butter and jelly if we made sure the ingredients were all healthy. As it is, Matt is picking up these items separately (from Target) instead of including them in our weekly Whole Foods trip. I realize that's what I'm struggling with. If we made sure the bread didn't have any nasty stuff in it and we used natural peanut butter and jelly, I'd feel better. I think the problem on the natural peanut butter front is that we need one of these so we can keep it mixed. That's why Matt reverts to unhealthy peanut butters. Maybe we could even get the boys to switch over to banana instead of jelly? I'm not sure how that would go at this point...

I also think I should start making green smoothie popsicles for the boys. I would love for them to get a daily dose of calcium (from plain yogurt) along with the vitamins and minerals from spinach and mango. I'm going to try these silicon push pop things to see if I like them. 

I also think it would be good to make some of these egg sandwiches in advance and store them in a freezer. This jumbo muffin tin will help. Henry loves egg sandwiches! 

I'd feel better if they took a multivitamin on a daily basis, too. I just did some quick research and landed on this one. The boys are going to love having four pieces of "candy" a day.

One final thing: I want them to eat more veggies at dinner. I really need to add more meals to my repertoire. I'm getting so bored with what we have day in and day out. I'm going to work on gathering more ideas right now! 

Share |

Canning Pizza Sauce

I'm finally going to do it! I'm finally going to can something. 

I talked about it last year or the year before. But then life got in the way--per usual! 

I ordered this canning kit from Amazon and these jars. They are only one cup serving sizes because we don't need that much pizza sauce at once. I think the cup size will be the perfect amount. We eat easy homemade pizza once a week or once every other week. I simply smother pizza sauce on naan bread and add toppings like broccoli and mushrooms. #quickdinnersforworkingmoms

I found a recipe that does not require me to peel the tomatoes. I just couldn't bring myself to have to do that much work. #lazygirlcanning

Aside from the fact that this recipe will take a long time to cook (about 90 minutes), I don't think it's going to be too much work. Hopefully it's easy enough that I can do one batch at a time, as we harvest tomatoes out of the garden. I need to be sure to find an easy place to store the canning stuff (it all nests inside the big pot). There won't be a convenient spot in the kitchen--it would have to be stored up high and behind a lot of things. Maybe I'll store it in the bathroom closet for easier access!  

I'm finally getting closer to fulfilling the vision in Barbara Kingsolver's memoir about turning her home into a mini-farm--Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. By the way, Barbara apparently sent her children to Montessori school and had this to say about how it helped shift her parenting paradigm:

There’s something I have said so often to my children that now they chant it back to me: “You can do hard things.” I sent my kids to a Montessori preschool, and thank heavens I did, because most of what I learned about parenting came from those wonderful Montessori teachers.  They straightened me out about self-esteem.  There’s this myth that self-esteem comes from making everything easy for your children and making sure they never fail.  If they never encounter hardship or conflict, the logic goes, they’ll never feel bad about themselves. Well, that’s ridiculous.  That’s not even a human life.
Kids learn self-esteem from mastering difficult tasks.  It’s as simple as that. The Montessori teachers told me to put my two-year-old on a stool and give her the bread, give her the peanut butter, give her the knife — a blunt knife — and let her make that sandwich and get peanut butter all over the place, because when she’s done, she’ll feel like a million bucks.  I thought that was brilliant.  Raising children became mostly a matter of enabling them and standing back and watching.  When a task was difficult, that’s when I would tell them, “You can do hard things.”  Both of them have told me they still say to themselves, “I can do hard things.”  It helps them feel good about who they are, not just after they’ve finished, but while they’re engaged in the process.

Share |

Delicious Chocolate Smoothie Recipe

While the Henry and I were making our favorite healthy pancake recipe, Tate was doing a little food preparation. Children can start with basic preparation around 18 months-old. If you're wondering where to start, I recommend the book that Kylie from How We Montessori and I produced together called Kids in the Kitchen: Simple Recipes that Build Independence and Confidence the Montessori Way. It has step-by-step directions about how to set up the kitchen to support children, how to introduce basic skills to them, resources for where to buy child-sized supplies, and simple recipes that support children to cook independently. Henry and I make the bread recipe nearly every single week. It's so simple and delicious!

Tate was cutting bananas and arranging them on a plate for us to freeze, so that we could make my new favorite healthy chocolate smoothie recipe.

All of my new favorite healthy eating recipes come from this book.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup almond milk
• 1 T chia seeds
• 2 soft Medjool dates, pitted (or 1 T of maple syrup)
• 2 T raw cacao powder or cocoa powder
• 1 frozen banana
• 1/4 t vanilla extract
• ice

Directions:

1. Combine the almond milk, chia seeds, and dates in a high-speed blender.
2. Add the cacao powder, banana, vanilla, and ice cubes and blend again. 

Share |

How to Batch Process Lunches

 

Despite the fact that people got really upset about how much money I intended to spend on purchasing 10 eco-friendly, health-friendly lunch containers in order to make my busy life a little easier, I wanted to share an update about how it's going for us. 

I started by purchasing two of these, based on a recommendation from my friend who says she has used hers for years, in addition to the many positive reviews on Amazon. 

Once I realized they worked for our family, I purchased eight more of them. On Sundays, I set aside 1-2 hours to prep as much food as possible for the week. Last week, it took Henry and me two hours to:

• Make ten school lunches
• Chop broccoli and mushrooms and shred cheese for a vegetarian pizza on naan bread
• Make a healthy carrot and cauliflower soup with cumin
• Bake a loaf of fresh bread using the recipe from the book that Kylie, Angie, and I made
• Chop broccoli and juice/zest lemon for a whole wheat penne pasta one-pot meal

The lunch containers (you could do the same thing with a much cheaper plastic version) stack really easily in our fridge and don't take up much space in our fridge all week. It's incredibly fast to lay these out and populate them with healthy, balanced things (the little container is applesauce).  

Prepping as many ingredients as possible for our weekly dinners means that I only need to spend about 15-20 minutes pulling together dinner each night. It's the only way we have time for playing, eating together as a family, bath time, books, story time, and bed time. 

It's a stressful time of life, but we're making it work!

Share |

Healthier Pancakes

As part of my quest to be a "present parent," I try to make pancakes with the boys from time to time if I can squeeze a little time out of my morning. Since I'm trying to balance that goal with my goal to focus on "Health & Wellness" in 2016, I went looking for a healthier version of the recipe and landed on this one from Everyday Detox. I was able to find it online and wanted to share it with you! 

I haven't yet tried it with coconut flour, but it works just fine with wheat flour! I love how this version of the recipe minimizes the flour and maximizes the eggs and bananas. 

Enjoy! 

Share |

New Plan for School Lunches

It used to be that Matt made the boys' lunches every day. And I loved him for it. But my efficiency brain kicked into high gear when I noticed how long it would take him to make the lunches each night or how stressed he would be if he waited until the morning. 

My good friend and organizational muse, Maia Heyck-Merlin, introduced me to the concept of "batch processing." The idea is so simple. Instead of making 10 separate lunches 5 separate times, you make 10 lunches all at once. You save an immense amount of time because you only have to take everything out and put it away 2 times instead of 10 times. You only have to open and close everything 2 times instead of 10 times. 

Because I am at the very edge of my capacity in general right now (my organization is still in start-up mode! I have two young children! I'm trying to exercise! I'm trying to make time to talk to my husband each day!), I've been doing batch processing in the laziest way possible. Here's what I've been sending to school:

• Ethically sourced turkey for Henry; chickpeas for Tate (in a Tupperware container)
• Cucumbers (in a plastic baggie)
• Cheese stick
• Applesauce (in a container)
• Crackers (in a plastic baggie)

It's been super fast and convenient this way, but I can't continue contributing to the land fill (and general demise of our world) in this way. It's time to invest in container. Ten containers, in fact. 

I know. It's going to be expensive. I recently read that the average woman has 27 pairs of shoes. I have about 4 (two for the summer and two for the winter). So at least I'm saving money in the shoe department? 

I'm going to try out the LunchBots Bento Cinco. We don't send a lot of liquidy stuff, so it should be okay. I'm going to start slicing the cheese instead of sending individually wrapped cheese sticks, so that will reduce the waste some. I like that the product doesn't contain any plastic at all. 

 

Share |

Cookbook Recommendation

I'm not one to buy books these days. The library is my friend. I love how it's free and it keeps clutter from piling up in my home. 

But I had to make an exception for this book. I know it seems weird to buy a cookbook in the age of Pinterest, but I've been searching high and low for clean recipes on the internet, and I'm not having much luck with finding things that appeal to me. 

The book Everyday Detox is awesome! I learned how to make a pizza crust out of cauliflower (the recipe involves thawing frozen cauliflower) and an easy and delicious frittata. I'm eager to try the Southwestern sweet potatoes, banana pancakes, salt and vinegar Brussels sprouts, and more. If I weren't a vegetarian, I would enjoy the maple-glazed salmon and the fish tacos (with a lettuce tortilla).  

Meanwhile I'm reading Unprocessed: My City-Dwelling Year of Reclaiming Real Food. It's a personal narrative about eating only whole foods for an entire year. It's inspiring me to look more closely at the foods we eat as a family. I'm considering signing up for a local CSA to support neighborhood agriculture and keep money in our community. 

I'm also planning to make sure the boys' breakfasts and lunches are as whole and healthy as possible. Matt is in charge of breakfast, so the boys get a lot of instant oatmeal (with an unnecessary amount of sugar already in the packages). My colleague recommend the website, 100 Days of Real Food, and I'm eager to check it out!

Hooray for my year of "Health & Wellness!"

Share |

Montessori Bread Recipe

I remember reading an article one time that was written by a mother who was committed to teaching her teenage son how to cook and do laundry before he went off to college. While I wholeheartedly agree that young adults should be prepared to take care of themselves, I believe that teaching independence, self care, and care of others should start much, much younger. In the Montessori tradition, these "Practice Life" activities start around 18 months of age. 

Children learn so much from engaging in Practical Life activities. They build their focus and concentration, strengthen their fine- and gross-motor skills, learn how to hold multi-step directions in their heads, and--most importantly--build a deep, internal sense of confidence that is attached to their own sense of competence.

Henry was so proud of making a loaf of bread from scratch. And it was delicious! We used Kylie's recipe from the book we co-authored called Kids in the Kitchen: Simple Recipes That Build Independence and Confidence the Montessori Way. What a brilliant recipe, Kylie! It was so easy and delicious. Henry is learning how to follow the recipes by looking at the pictures. 

Ingredients:

• 1.5 c of warm water
• 1.5 T dried yeast
• 4 c whole wheat flour
• 1/4 c olive oil
• 1/4 c honey
• 1.5 t salt

Directions

• Add yeast and honey to warm water
• Mix to dissolve and set aside
• Measure and add flour to bowl
• Add salt to bowl
• Mix
• Make a well in the center of the bowl
• Add oil
• Add warm water, honey, and yeast mixture to bowl
• Mix well until the dough forms a ball
• Flour the counter (or work surface)
• Place dough on floured surface and knead for approximately five minutes
• Add dough to bowl
• Cover bowl with a warm towel and leave in a warm place
• Set timer for 20 minutes and check dough until it has doubled in size
• Remove risen dough from bowl and briefly knead the dough
• Shape the dough into a loaf
• Place the dough on a baking tray
• Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees
• Allow to cool and serve

Share |

Another Review of Instacart

A while back I confessed that I had resorted to doing my grocery shopping online because I was overwhelmed with work and parenting. At the time, the extra expense seemed worth it because I'm still trying to "make a clearing" in my life to fit in everything else. 

But the reality is it's actually not more expensive for me to use Instacart. I'm really not sure why. At first I thought they might be tricking me as a way to get me to come back again (since the prices on every item fluctuate). So I tried it again. And again. And again (basically every week since I wrote that last post). It might be because I'm not walking by unnecessary items and tossing them in the cart. That would make sense, except I'm not really that kind of grocery shopper. I go in with my list and pretty much stick to it. 

It might be because some of the items are actually less expensive on Instacart, especially store brands (which I buy as frequently as possible). Regardless of the reason, I am hooked. Spending ten minutes to order groceries from the comfort of my home is a real godsend right now. Parenting is so hard! Tate is two and Henry is 4.5. I know I don't have any right to whine about it. My mom was a single mom when I was Henry's age. I can't even imagine what that must have been like. Or what it would be like to have to parent and work two jobs or worry about having enough money to pay bills or put food on the table. 

But regardless, I'm eager to take things off my plate when I can. I've also been sticking to super-easy meals for our family (like penne pasta bake) and prepping as many ingredients as possible on Sunday. Sometimes I'll make a whole meal ahead of time and pop it in the fridge, or I'll just do all the chopping and shredding so that during the week I can simply toss it together. It's working out for us! 

Share |