New Years Resolution

Psst: I've been slacking lately so be prepared for a long post!  I will have an update on the basement soon and on a few other homemade projects that were given as Christmas gifts.  In the meantime, you can drool over my Christmas morning creation.  It took a lot of skill :)  Justin stuck toothpicks in a styrofoam tree form and I put a doughnut hole on each toothpick.  My contribution to Christmas morning breakfast for the family...Easy and I think it's festive (and tasty)!

It's that time when everyone starts to take a look at their life and evaluate how they want to be better in the following year.  Some make resolutions to lose weight (doughnut trees don't help this cause) and vow to quit smoking, others promise to ban McDouble's from their life (my Aunt did this 2 years ago), and some plan a "six-pack by September" (Justin's New Years Resolution). 

I need to work on my planning.  Meal planning to be exact.  I hardly ever eat lunch because I'm usually on the road for work, so come 5 o'clock I'm starving.  It's at this point that I find myself thinking "what should I make for dinner?" This is when I open up Safari on my phone while sitting in the grocery store parking lot and do a quick search for "salmon" or "chicken" on www.EatingWell.com.  I will run into the grocery store and get ingredients for that night.  After the leftovers are gone, the horrible cycle starts again within a day or two.  My last minute meal planning sometimes leads to that "I'm not in the mood to cook" mood and then we find ourselves eating an unplanned and probably unhealthy meal.

If you haven't figured it out already, I am the sous chef in this house.  Justin always offers to help, and I might hand him the spoon or knife to do some hard labor but for the most part I am left to do all the planning and preparing of meals.  Besides, I like to have dinner ready about the time he gets done with work.

Back to my New Years Resolution....I have no plans to start eating lunch anytime soon.  I might save that for next year.

My 2013 New Years Resolution is to plan our weekly meals so I can make one stop at the grocery store each week and create less waste.  Since I take the time to plan meals, I can also plan to cook several meals that use similar ingredients, therefore saving me waste.  For example, I purchase the Organic Chicken Broth in the 32 oz carton.  The broth comes in a handy resealable container and is good for 2 weeks after being open if stored in the refrigerator.  I hardly ever use the remaining amount.  I know I could freeze the remaining amount, but I know me and I know I'll never use it.  Instead I stash the remaining amount in the refrigerator and I make a little promise to myself that I'll use it before it goes bad.  Sometime after the 2 weeks I'll open the container and do a "sniff test" and assume that it's not good anymore.  The same thing goes with fresh herbs.  I'll purchase a bunch of basil and may only need a little.  By the time I need it again the basil has wilted and gets tossed.

I love to cook so I keep a well-stocked pantry. And outside of milk, eggs and snacks (fruit, cheesesticks, yogurt, etc.) I just don't stock much perishable items that are staples in most entrees (meat, fresh herbs, vegetables, etc.) so I'm left to picking these up weekly or daily at the local supermarket. Unfortunately, with my current last-minute-meal-planning I do end up with a lot of waste leftover from partially used items.

Justin and I usually have plans to eat out at least once a week together.  We may have dinner plans with friends, a "girls" or "boys" night with out eachother, or we'll have softball, flag football or maybe trivia night.  Today, if either of us has to eat alone we are usually left to our own devices or hoping there are leftovers from the night before.  With my weekly meal planning, I vow to take into consideration those nights we have off from dinner-making to avoid over-planning and wasted perishables. 

I am excited to start this resolution because I have two new cookbooks that I can't wait to work my way through!  I cook something new almost every night to keep it interesting. I only cook the same thing twice when it's an absolute favorite. This means that I often forget what I've made and what we thought of it. My aunt taught me a little trick to help keep track of those recipes tried and when they were made. I keep a fine-tip sharpie in the kitchen so I can easily add notes to the recipe and also add a rating system and a date.  This helps me remember what I thought of it and if it's worth another try...basically if it doesn't say "Not Good" it's worth another dinner night.  I've only had a few recipes rated "Not Good!"

As a sidenote, my rating system (from best to worst) is:
1) Excellent
2) Really Good
3) Good
4) Not good

 And sometimes I forget to add a date.  This rating I found perusing my old cookbooks is for a Pasta & Chickpea Soup I made for the first time in 2002.  I remember this because I made it in my first apartment right after I started receiving Eating Well magazine.

I plan on using recipes from my favorite cookbooks (The Simple Art of Eating Well,  Eating Well One Pot Meals, and Eating Well Serves Two), www.eatingwell.com, www.allrecipes.com and some random magazine finds.  As always, I will try to keep the recipes healthy and I will stick to my Meatless Monday tradition (sorry J-dog...you can't get away from that).

Overall, this plan to plan weekly meals will:
1) allow me to make one stop at the grocery store each week
2) create less waste and save money
3) reduce the chances of not being in the "mood" to cook
4) provide lunch for Justin the following day - I always cook for 4 so Justin can take leftovers for lunch the next day
5) work my way through my favorite cook books

What about the 6 o'clock exhaustion that hits and the last thing you want to do is cook? I've thought of this too!  I may have the ingredients and a plan for a meal but don't feel like spending an hour chopping, slicing, baking, simmering or sauteing...So I vow to prep the meals in the morning while I grab my morning coffee.  It's much easier to take 5 minutes in the morning to chop the onions, mince the garlic and cube the chicken.  If I prep dinner in the morning then I just have to throw everything together after work.

Won't this get boring and repetitive? I hope not!

I started my resolution on Wednesday, December 26th since Monday and Tuesday were planned holiday meals with family and I didn't have to cook.  So I sat down and flipped through my cookbooks and snapped pictures of each ingredient list and headed out to the grocery store during the snowstorm yesterday. 

 Thankfully, I have several choices of grocery stores within a 2 mile radius and I opted to visit the market about a 1/2 mile away.  Which is small, pricey and not well-stocked, but I didn't want to get on a main road with the conditions being as they were.

I stocked up for Wednesday, Thursday, and Monday knowing we would have enough leftovers for Saturday and Sunday and we expected to go out to dinner on Friday.  I had most ingredients on hand so this is all I had to get:
- Bone-in chicken thighs
- Boneless skinless chicken breasts
- Red Pepper
- Jalepenos
- Marsala (This is nice to have on hand - the one bottle should last a long time)
- Quick-cooking brown rice (I normally cook with quinoa, so I did not have rice on hand)
- Mushrooms
- more onions (I always keep atleast one onion on hand)
- another head of garlic (I also keep one head of garlic on hand)
- Bay leaves (a staple I would normally stock)

Arroz con Pollo (I'm a day behind so this was dinner last night)

Marsala Chicken Stew (which was served with mashed potatoes and green beans tonight):

I knew that I would be home from work right around 5:30, so tonight I prepped the Marsala Chicken Stew early this morning by chopping up the onions, garlic and chicken, covering them and placing them back in the refrigerator. I loved tossing everything together in the dutch oven after work today and not having to chop onions (worst. chore. ever). It made dinner NOT a chore!   

There was enough leftovers of both the Arroz con Pollo and Marsala Chicken Stew that we can eat leftovers this weekend.

 

Monday night we will have:

 

Black Bean Soup (with out the ham hock!) 

I'm already planning our meals for next week!  Hopefully this is one resolution that becomes a habit in this house.

Have you planned a New Years Resolution yet? What are your resolutions? Are you going to participate in my "weekly meal planning" resolution (I think you should!)? Maybe you already have a meal planning program that works...please share!

Mary