crunchy parenting

I recently came across a couple that was so confused about what to feed their 3-year-old that they were pouring a commercial brand of stage 3 veggies over his rice and meat. Entirely well-meaning, they also had an ample supply of canned food that they ate as standalone meals. They also were on a tight budget and had concerns about the rising cost of food in the supermarket. The father asked my advice on what we feed Spice and Ginny.

I took a deep breath. Where to start?

I pointed out the grocery mailers sitting on their coffeetable. “Here’s the price of the prepared foods,” I said, showing them the ads for canned and boxed meals. “And here’s a pound of organic carrots for $.88.” Read the rest of this entry »

This article is part of what I hope to be an ongoing series here on crunchy parenting, Kitchen Shortcuts.

I’ve given a nod to freezer cooking before, but those of you who have seen my house or watched me cook know that I’m probably not an expert on the planned-way-in-advance cooking. I’m one of those home cooks that can start with some potatoes, a couple of old carrots and a handful of lentils and turn it into a pretty decent dinner in about 30 minutes. Which just means that I cook fast and casual and think it up as I go.

Apparently, this is not the way freezer cooking, or Once A Month Cooking, is supposed to go.

Every time I’ve looked into this previously, I’ve been daunted by the amount of organization that goes into this thing. First, there’s the recipes. You can’t know what to shop for, and therefore to cook, if you don’t know what you’re cooking. So first you gather your recipes, and draft a complete shopping list of everything you need. (This alone freaks me out, since I would need to make a master list of every ingredient for every recipe first and then double-check things like spices, or cornstarch, on top of crossing-off if I need more garlic or zucchini. Maybe an hour to do this, tops?)

Then, you need to do the shopping bit. Let’s see, I shop at my local farmer’s market, which means that I don’t know if I’ll still be able to get okra for gumbo this late in the season. I might, I might not; how screwed would I be if it’s one of my recipes and I either need to scrap cooking that meal, or drive around town looking for okra? These are the types of questions I can’t find answers for online, at least not on the blogs glorifying this whole cook-once-save-time approach.

Assuming that I do what I do when I’m having a bad week, let’s say I do a bit of combo shopping: Amazon for hard pantry goods, farmer’s market for fresh veggies, grocery store for the other odds and ends, like dairy or cheese. Now, I have a ton of stuff that needs cooking and I’ve got to set aside a whole day to cook. Umm. Yeah, so not going happen with two little kids and a spouse. Needless to say that as much as I LOVE cooking, there is no way I have the patience to stand around all day, while the spouse-unit wrangles the kids, as I yell from the kitchen “Just one more hour, hon!”

Nope. No can do, baby doll.

There’s more reasons I’ve had a problem making this work for me, like the fact that the spouse-unit is vegetarian, and I’m practically there myself. We really like our fresh vegetables cooked fresh (which is the healthiest anyway), and to be honest, most veggie dishes don’t come out of the freezer with that same crunchy crispness as a fresh cooked meal does. If you look at most vegetarian freezer cooking recipes, either they’re something unhealthy and over-baked, like mac ‘n cheese or veggie lasagna, or they’re boring and generic like tomato sauce.

I know a handful busy moms that wonder how I cook at home so often for our family, with resorting to take-out, delivery or eating out only when we actually want to, rather than for a lack of time or resources to cook. Personally, it helps to actually like, or even just have an interest, in cooking. (As one mom told me, “Nuh-uh. I HATE cooking.”) For me, I like eating, and I’m a bit geeky, so I often eat something good and then spend a ridiculous amount of time breaking down how it was made so I can duplicate it, or make it even better. And I have some health rules, like how I’m not allowed to buy cookies – if I want them, I have to make them. Trust me, you get good at making cookies fast with a rule like that.

But the main reason I feel that cooking, as opposed to something like cleaning or laundry, is the easy part of home management is that I have lots and lots of shortcuts in the kitchen. From freezing half of meal and preparing the other half fresh, to homemade spice blends, I hope to cover the best of them in this series.