Reconciling scratch-cooking and the busy lifestyle, batch by batch

In my post, “Finding foodie fulfillment” , reader Angela directed me to Jamie Oliver’s TED speech, which is brilliant.  I have a lot to say on the matter, but I thought I’d focus on documenting my own strategy to make eating good, nutritious, delicious food a consistent part of my lifestyle.

Jamie’s speech (and his series’ such as Ministry of Food and School Dinners) reveal that for many American and British families (and I would argue that many Canadians are following suit here,) food is no longer a part of family routine and ritual.  Many children are not learning how to cook, and culinary traditions are losing out to fast foods and mass consumption that goes hand in hand with a need for instant gratification. Instead of cooking and eating together, families are alienated from one another as they eat in their cars or in front of television sets.  But another part of the problem is that working long hours are not always conducive to long hours spent in front a stove.  So for a while now, I’ve wanted to share my own strategy for making scratch-cooking and scratch-baking possible within the confines of a busy lifestyle and full-time work.  (And being single).

When I first heard about batch cooking, I pictured women slaving away in a kitchen all day, cooking a week’s worth of meals for a large family, and thought, “that’s not for me.” But now batch cooking is an integral part of my strategy to eat well.

Eating food that is high in taste and nutrition is important to me, and I don’t like relying on convenience foods, as my readers well know.  I prefer to skip buying foods that I can make myself, such as bread, cookies, crackers, cereal, desserts, dips, hummus, salad dressings, sauces, salsa, snacks, etc.  I know this sounds like a lot of work, but I’ve actually got it down to a fine art now, so that I spend minimal time in the kitchen and simultaneously reap the rewards of a DIY approach to food.

Batch cooking is usually touted as a way to save on your electric bill, because you use the oven to make multiple batches at once, and it’s also commonly argued to be a great way to save time.  I’d argue that batch cooking accomplishes both of these goals and more.  For one thing, it is a tremendous weight-loss aid, because it creates meals that are always on hand - quick, healthy, homemade convienience foods.  When I get home from work, I’m usually pretty hungry.  Rather than having to snack before I start the long process of making dinner, or giving into cravings and picking up fast food or junk food, I am able to heat up or prepare a healthy meal within minutes, subverting the instinct to give in to unhealthy cravings.  It’s hard to justify stopping at a fast food restaurant when I know that preparing my own meal at home would actually take less time than stopping at the drive through.  Most of my weekly meals require re-heating, or perhaps require me to just make some rice, cook some pasta, dress a salad, or make some kind of simple addition to the meal.

So, how is batch cooking accomplished? My strategy is to make a few meals and snacks at once on Saturday or Sunday.  I choose my meals based on what I have available to me.  If I have eggplant, tomatoes and cheese on hand, I might make spaghetti sauce, eggplant parmesan, vegetarian lasagna, and/or pizza, all which require eggplant, tomatoes, and cheese.  If I have a head of cabbage, I might decide to make a cabbage & white bean soup, and simultaneously make a minestrone soup.  I will slice the rest of the cabbage to make cabbage roll skillet, or add to a salad, later in the week.  If I make pizza, I almost always make two at once, and the same goes with quiche.  I eat one while it’s fresh, and the freeze the other.

Homemade spaghetti sauce with roasted garlic

If you think this means you’ll spend a week eating nothing but eggplant or cabbage, fear not.  My strategy is to keep a small portion to eat throughout the week and freeze other portions, so that I can enjoy more selection.  You can also come up with different ways to eat leftovers. (For example, leftover cabbage roll skillet is great when wrapped in a tortilla and served with sour cream; eggplant parmesan is delicious on a crusty baguette and served with extra marina sauce, just like you’d eat a meatball sub.)  When I make soup, I frequently make at least two soups at once, because they usually require many of the same ingredients, such as garlic, ginger, onions, celery, carrots, and potatoes.  But depending on the main ingredients (say, Butternut squash, or Carrot and Ginger, their tastes can be quite different.)

I’ve heard different things on the merits of cutting up vegetables in advance of eating them.  Some say that they lose their nutrition as they lose their freshness. Personally, I like to cut-up veggies and keep them crisp in water, because it means that I’m more likely to eat them as snacks or as an addition to a quick lunchtime meal.  If I have a batch of homemade hummus in the fridge, it’s easy to reach for the ready-to-eat veggies and enjoy a healthy snack. If I have to go to the trouble of cutting everything up, I likely won’t bother.  So you have to weigh the risk of a slightly-less nutritious carrot stick versus the risk of not eating the carrot at all, and reaching for some chips, instead.  For the same reason, I like to wash and tear my lettuce in one go, rather than a little at the time.  If I prepare a few days’ worth of salad and salad dressing, I’m much more likely to have a salad at dinner.  I look at it as protecting myself against my own laziness.

When batch cooking, remember to take advantage of the oven’s heat to roast some garlic.  If you love roasted garlic like I do, a great strategy is to roast it while you’re baking at a similar temperature (around 450).  When done, pop the garlic out of its skin and mix it with some olive oil right away.  Keep it covered in the fridge, and it’s an instant topping for pizza, pasta, garlic bread or flatbread, and also works well in salad dressings throughout the week.  You can also use the residual oven heat to dry tomatoes or herbs.  All of these tricks require minimal effort but make delicious additions to your meals, and are environmentally-friendly solutions to using less electricity.

The benefits of this strategy have been numerous - I maintain a healthy weight effortlessly, I enjoy great tasting food, I don’t have to rely on convenience foods or fast foods, and I eat foods that are very healthy.  If I had to start from square one every night and cook a whole new meal from scratch, I guarantee I wouldn’t have the patience to do it, and I’d be snacking on junk food a whole lot more.  The final benefit?  A low cost meal plan. For the last four months I’ve averaged $121 a month on food. That includes personal care items, and works out to be less than $30 a week!

What are your favourite strategies for saving time in the kitchen?

For the love of thrifting

One of my favourite things about thrifting is that you can stumble upon completely original and unexpected treasures, and you can splurge on fun items all you want, because they are so affordable.

This week I walked in to St. Vincent de Paul for the first time, and very pleasantly discovered two baking sheets, (a cookie sheet and a jelly roll pan) both new-looking, for 50¢ a piece.  Ever since I lit my good, un-godly expensive jelly roll pan on fire (a long, but hilarious story for another time) I’ve been in need of baking sheets. I’m glad I didn’t buy new when this practically new set cost only $1.

I also found these fantastic vintage faux-snakeskin bracelets for 50¢ each. I have a love affair with faux-snakeskin.

I also made a trip to the local Salvation Army, and found this cute and cuddly vintage sweater with 1% angora rabbit hair, for 99¢. I love everything about it - the bright colour, the pattern, the cut (love those slouchy, 3/4 length sleeves.) It fits perfectly and it is in impeccable condition; the owner must have taken great care of it. In fact, the only reason I know it is vintage is due to the Eaton’s tag. (Remember Eaton’s?)

Last week I had good luck as well.  Findings included a Mexican blanket for $5.  Mexican blankets are great.  In addition to their funky patterns and colours, they are extremely warm and durable - and transferable from snuggling on the couch to lying on the grass during a summer fireworks display or picnic. (Apparently cats are rather fond of them as well.)

I also found this vintage clock for $1.99. I love stylish vintage stuff like this; it makes a great addition to my kitchen.

Something I love about thrift store shopping is that you need to have a creative eye in order to do it successfully.  Maybe something that was dismissed as tacky or out of style by its previous owner, can be re-interpreted as hip and vintage, or kitchsy-chic.  You get to have fun, exploring new ideas about what fashion and interior design mean to you, and come up with a style that is all your own.

So, have you made any great thrift store discoveries lately that you are just itching to share?

Spring is on its way…

Making crackers, eating through the freezer, and generally being odd

So I’ve been challenging myself to eat through my pantry and freezer.  I’m waiting to go shopping until my next garden fresh box arrives at the community centre.  My best money-saving and waste-reducing shopping strategy is to wait until my garden fresh box arrives, and then plan my meals and pick out my items at the grocery store based on what food is in the box.  I’ve also been wanting to eat through the freezer/pantry because I don’t want any food to get feezer-burnt or stale, and as a single person who buys and cooks in bulk, it’s easy to let food go to waste if you don’t consistently eat up what you’ve got.

I’ve lost count of how long it’s been since I last went grocery shopping and I can’t believe how many meal ideas I’ve been able to come up with, solely focusing on what I have.  I’ve had lots of tasty, nutritious soups, lasagna, and cabbage rolls (all made from scratch by yours truly) and I ate up some meat and vegetables that I had preserved from January’s fresh box.

I also had plenty of baking supplies.  Why go out to the store to buy crackers, bread, and pizza dough when I had all the ingredients to make these items?  I made them all myself - delicious bread, outstanding pizzas, and Alton Brown’s seedy crisps.  These crackers are super easy to make.  I made a couple of mistakes - I used hard whole wheat flour, added a touch too much salt (I think Alton’s recipe is a tad too salty) and would probably increase the amount of sesame seeds and make extra sure to roll the crackers as thin as possible.  That being said, the crackers had potential, and were fun to make, so I will try making them again.  With some blue cheese and honey, they were still salvageable.

There is so much joy in using up what you have.  It really pushes you to try new things.  Another tasty gem was my homemade pizza, topped with roasted garlic and olive oil (my go-to substitute for pizza sauce when my pantry is devoid of tomato paste), with sweet corn, green beans, tuna and sundried tomatoes. Drool-worthy.

I also made up a couple of soups.  I discovered a container of frozen black beans in the freezer (I like to soak an entire bag of beans and freeze what I don’t immediately need for easy use - it’s much more convenient than doing it batch-by-batch) and turned it into black bean soup, a la Martha Stewart (omitting the garlic-pepper sauce for garlic, onions, and spices such as cumin, coriander, pepper and cayenne) and I made my favourite carrot ginger soup, using up January’s supply of carrots.

I’m probably an odd person.  Most people seem to crave convenience and choice.  Entire companies and industries are devoted to maximizing convenience and choice for consumers. For some reason, I seem to thrive by limiting both convenience and choice when it comes to cooking.  I guess I like the challenge.  I like being pushed into DIY, where I get to try something new, learn new skills, and use my creativity to come up with a meal seemingly out of nowhere.  Maybe that makes me a little strange, but it also means that I get to enjoy freshly-baked pizzas with roasted garlic, and “seedy crisps” with honey.

Humble ingredients make a delicious, nutritious, cheap and eco-friendly breakfast

I just love finding new DIY tricks to circumvent the need to buy overly processed, overly packaged foods, and this homemade granola is a perfect example.  Although I’ve rolled my eyes a few times at Amy Dacyczyn’s “recipes” I love her homemade granola.  As always, there are many different variations to making granola - see, for example, Chatelaine or Martha Stewart or Alton Brown. My conclusion from looking at all these recipes, as well as Dacyzyn’s own, is that any granola recipe includes three steps:

1. Combine dry ingredients - rolled oats, a little salt, some cinnamon and nutmeg if you like, as well as your nuts and seeds.  I added ground flax seed, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, and a walnut pieces.

2. Gently melt your liquids and sugars. For my recipe, it included 1/2 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of honey, and 1/4 cup of canola oil, but there are many other variations that omit the oil and include maple syrup, so check out the recipes posted above.

3. Bake in an oven (again, temperatures and times seem to vary a little, but just make sure your oats get toasted evenly until they are slightly crunchy.  I baked mine at 350 for about 15-20 minutes, stirring often.

4. Add your raisins or other fruits.  I had some cranberries in the freezer, so I used the residual oven heat to bake them.  The cranberries made an amazing contribution to the granola.

The great thing about the homemade granola is that it tastes delicious, and it’s also extremely healthy.  When combined with milk, you’re getting calcium, protein, and fibre as well as other benefits depending on what kind of fruit you add (and the variations are really endless.)  After eating a bowl of store-bought cereal I am usually hungry within an hour, at best.  After eating a bowl of this granola, I can actually get through until lunch time without needing a snack. It’s great!

But the benefits don’t stop there - this cereal is very eco-friendly.  You eliminate the waste that comes with buying boxed cereal, and if you buy your nuts, fruits and oats in bulk (and why wouldn’t you) and use re-usable bags at the bulk food store, then the cereal becomes even more environmentally friendly.

I store my granola (and other items, as you can see) in glass mason jars.  I realized a while ago that I was crazy for buying tupperware, which is expensive and wears out overtime, when I could buy glass mason jars, which will last forever, at the thrift store for 29¢ a piece.  Use a funnel, and glass jars are just as easy to use as tupperware.

If you want to reduce your cost and save even more packaging, use homemade brown sugar.  I stopped buying packaged brown sugar, and I am loving the switch.  Just combine a little molasses (I use about 1/2tbsp, but you can increase this amount if you want it sweeter or darker) to one cup of sugar.  Molasses is very healthy - it’s a great source of calcium, for example, and you will find that your sugar actually tastes a lot better. It’s cheap and far better than buying those plastic bags of brown sugar in the grocery store.  Plus, it reduces waste because you just make it as you need it, so it won’t dry out.

On the left you’ll see powdered milk.  I’m experimenting here.  Not just because powdered milk is a lot cheaper than liquid, but because I’m always looking for ways to reduce my waste.  My building does not recycle waxy boxboard, so milk cartons go in the trash.  My alternative is to buy it in bags, which also end up in the trash.  The days of plastic milk jugs seem to be long gone.  Dacyzyn recommends mixing powdered milk with a regular milk so that you can adapt to the taste, so I might experiment with that.  I am not particularly fond of the taste and texture of powdered milk. (If anyone has a solution I’d love to hear it.)

Please share your favourite breakfast strategies and recipes for homemade granola or other cereals!

5 simple things i love

For some time now, I’ve been meaning to thank Tracey McBride at Frugal Luxuries for mentioning me as one of “top 10″ bloggers who brighten her day. I’m terrible at following up with these things, but I did want to make my own list “ten things that make me happy.”  To begin, here are the first five:

1. kittens. more specifically, the sound my kitten makes when climbing into her fleece bed, which is right next to mine. She kneads and kneads before settling in, giving off this gentle noise of the fabric being pulled by her tiny claws. I usually hear it just after I’ve climbed in myself, and knowing that she’s tucking in for the night, right beside me, gives a wonderful feeling of wellbeing.

Butternut, when she was about 3-4 months old

2. pajamas. I love pajamas. I have heaps and heaps of them, and I keep them and wear them even when they are old and faded, because it seems that the more worn in the get, the more comfortable they get.  Soft cotton or flannel, elastic waist bands, childlike prints… what’s not to love?

3. saturday mornings.  I try to make sure that my house is clean and tidy in preparation of Saturday morning - or at least my kitchen and living room, which is where I spend said mornings. My ritual includes leisurely coffee in my gorgeous white robe, which is another thing that makes me happy all in itself.  I save my really good coffee for weekend mornings so I thoroughly enjoy it. I gaze out of my balcony, catch up on my favourite blogs, look through design books or magazines, and generally savour some time to be quiet and alone.

4. friends who inspire me.  The kind of friends who are out making a different in the world, innovating, thinking, creating. The kind of friends who inspire me to think differently, who challenge me, who listen to me, who spur my own creativity in new directions, who inspire me to keep going, keep creating, whose confidence gives me confidence in myself.

5. the public library. Specifically, I love the feeling of bringing home a stack of books and dvds from the library.  Each new batch has something different. I love discovering new books on just about any subject.  Many books I’ll take out just to gaze at their pictures on Saturday mornings (see above.) And I’ll take out old sci-fi or Star Trek dvds without feeling guilty for renting something I’ve already seen 100 times, because after all, it’s free!

What are some simple things that make you happy?

A not-so-obvious kind of beauty

The following is a guest post by my one and only twin sister, Camille, who is a fabulous writer.  In her thoughtful post below, she explores how we can appreciate the beauty that surrounds us, no matter where we are.

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In my work, I meet a lot of people who live in beautiful places – in small towns with picturesque rivers and pretty little forests, or on big, sprawling farms in the Prairies where you can watch the sun set or a storm come in for hours, or in places that are adorned with incredible views of the Rocky Mountains. Where I live, in Toronto, I don’t have the same kind of beauty around me all the time, at least not the big, obvious beauty that just comes to you – the kind you can’t miss.

I admit it, sometimes I envy them.

But I do love it here.

I love the way our neighborhood park fills boisterously with people on a beautiful summer day.

I love the community garden in that park that is kept up by volunteers. I love the patches of ‘guerilla gardening’ around the city, where someone has chosen to make an ugly spot beautiful.

I love the graffiti – the stencils, the statements, the way the artistic visions merge as the art changes.

The way the patios fill with people in the summer, the way we make room to share the space so we can all drink beer and enjoy the sun.

The collision of cultures of Kensington; the way the ethnic neighborhoods pop up and suddenly you are immersed. The way organic, vegan restaurants are housed next to punk bars. I love the Mexican tortilleria where the cooks make food just like they used to in Mexico, and I love that a few steps away is the family-run butcher shop that has been open for generations.

I love the University of Toronto campus, especially in fall when it becomes a vision in ivy and maple: all gold, orange, and red. And I love its stately buildings, their curved nooks and the secret spots you can take solace in.

I love the Hebrew writing on an Italian café near Chinatown, a remnant from the days when the neighborhood was filled with Jewish immigrants. The stunning historical church in a residential Portuguese neighborhood that you’d miss if you weren’t paying attention.

What I love about this city is the bus driver who kindly chats with the intellectually disabled person who sits up front.

It’s the person who walks carrying her stuffed Wal Mart bags on her head, rather than in her hands, because that’s the way she used to do it in her former country.

It’s the dad I see at the bus stop every day, with stretched ears and tattoos, who’s taking his little daughter to school and reads her stories on the bus.

I love that the kids in a local community centre (where I once volunteered) paint the windows during pride week to express messages of acceptance and love for all types of families and people. And I love pride week. Not just the parade but the way the city gets extra bright and colourful, even more welcoming and diverse than it is the rest of the year.

I love the food in this city, but it’s not just that I can have a good meal. I love the peace I feel on quiet Baldwin Street sitting on the picnic table in the front of my favourite Chinese lunch spot. I love that this restaurant is being passed on to the next generation; I watch the owner holding her baby granddaughter in her hands while the grown up daughter rings in my order. I love that when this restaurant announced it would be closing temporarily for renovations there was a flurry of questions from patrons, who eagerly filled out a guest book with stories of their experiences here and what it’s meant to them.

I love the little hole-in-the-wall places where, thanks to the commitment and passion of the people who run them, you can get the best of things. The best Trinidadian roti. The best long-pulled espresso. The best lamb kebabs.

I love the baristas, the chefs, the sommeliers, the optimistic and determined restaurateurs, the many people who bring us not just good food – who bring us the best food. I love that I’ve talked to some of the city’s best chefs, because they’re not hidden away, they’re serving food at festivals and charity events and willing to talk. I’ve eaten next to the city’s most celebrated, most famous chef in a small Vietnamese restaurant near my house, because he knows how good it is.

I love the people I’ve met here. I love the entrepreneurs – the people who are passionate about their businesses, who are excited about life, and the ideas and possibilities they are so eager to share. I love the friends I’ve made, the mentors I’ve found – the uniqueness of these people, the richness they bring to my life.

I love that this city is endlessly, hopelessly pregnant with possibility. It is the sweeping, satisfying turns my career can take, the amazing people I might meet, the endless opportunities for discovery, both large and small.

Things are big here, yes, but really it’s the little things. It’s walking home on a snowy evening while snow shovellers pause to let me pass. It’s stopping on a rough little street on a sweaty summer day to look at a mural I never noticed before. It’s drinking in the colour from the many bunches of beautiful flowers that small groceries put outside their shops, announcing it’s spring. It’s witnessing a simple kindness that passes between two people who look and sound so different.

Yes, sometimes I miss the quiet of the country, the deep, silent richness of a forest, the freedom of open spaces and of being profoundly alone. I do love the big, obvious beauty of the mountains, or of a picture perfect country farm.

But living here, I’ve learned that the beauty you have to work a little harder for – well, it’s not so bad either.