I am very much an introvert. I'm high-energy enough that I can come across as an extrovert, but I actually will get more and more drained the more I interact with a large number of people. I like my "me" time.
So this is the kind of advice I love: Evangelism for Introverts
And as a companion to this article, some great advice I've heard recently: "Let God do the heavy lifting."
Showing posts with label advice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advice. Show all posts
Friday, May 1, 2009
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Ideas for quick, frugal, filling meals
I occasionally write up my ideas for cooking on a budget - both of time and of money. As a geek, I love lifehacks (tricks that make life just a little bit easier), and as a working mom short on time who used to be a SAHM short on money, I have experience with both frugality and saving time. So I have a nice little bag of tricks by now.
Rather than continue to re-write this, I thought I'd throw a list of thoughts for recipe ideas and cooking lifehacks onto my blog. These are quick notes - leave a comment if you want a specific recipe in detail, and ask for as many as you are interested in. I will post them in the comments as they are requested. I may take as much as a week to get back, if I've lost the recipe and need to recreate it and test it on my own family first. I only get time to cook on the weekends.
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I like marinades, personally. Cut meat into small pieces, and soak over night. Or make lots of marinade at once and then freeze several batches of meat, to save time. The marinade soaks in as the meat freezes and thaws.
Then you have many choices:
- Saute; Put the meat on pasta and use the marinade in the pan as sauce.
- Saute; Add pasta sauce - white sauce or tomato - for a more standard pasta.
- Saute; Put the meat on rice and pour the marinade in while the rice cooks to add flavor, or use marinade as a sauce.
- Pour your marinade mix, raw, into a crockpot with vegetables, beans, barley, etc. and some extra water or broth to make a stew. If you leave extra cooking time, the meat can even be frozen. Serve with bread.
- Saute, ideally in a wok; add veggies to make a stir-fry. Serve with rice.
- Cool sauteed meat in the fridge and throw it into a green salad with nuts and red onions, plus any other salad stuff that sounds good (cheese, peppers, fruit). The extra marinade makes a wonderful salad dressing.
Since lots of small pieces of meat add a lot of flavor to a dish, marinades of small pieces of meat work great for frugality (meat is the most expensive part of our grocery bill).
Marinade ideas:
- Olive oil, oregano, basil, garlic, balsamic vinegar, diced onions, and maybe a little red wine (alchohol will cook out) works on almost any meat (but mediocre for tofu, and use white wine w/ fish).
- Hoisin sauce, green onions, oyster sauce, soy sauce, vegetable oil, and sherry or white wine vinegar works great for a stir-fry or asian food - this works for chicken. beef, and tofu - but I am not sure about pork (might be too salty) or fish (*should* work).
- Olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, tarragon, white wine vinegar, and pepper works great on chicken and probably would be good on fish.
To make your own marinade recipe, use an oil, include a vinegar, citrus juice, and/or alcohol to help dissolve flavors that won't dissolve in oil, and add spices and veggies or fruits with strong flavors like onions, peppers, and citrus. I did a strawberry-balsamic vinegar marinade once (when strawberries were on sale, of course!) that worked well with beef :-)
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You can buy bulk freeze-dried veggies online at http://www.honeyvillegrain.com , and I've found these useful for prepping gift meals or cooking ahead. Give meat in a freezer bag and a mix of dried veggies, spices, beans, or stew-grains like barley and cracked wheat in a ziploc bag with instructions on how much water to add. That way, the meal doesn't take up as much freezer space but still lasts until they need it.
Lentil soups, for crockpots. Barley-lentil is filling, has complete protein (grain + legume), and you can make a soup with only dried ingredients. Add beef, ham, and/or mushrooms for more flavor; shitake mushrooms can be bought dried, although you may need to price-hunt to get a decent price - I see them for 5 times as much in some stores as in others.
Bean chili - mix spices and beans ahead of time and store on a shelf. Add additional veggies or meats day-of if desired. Try using cinnamon, sliced almonds, and mixing in lots of black beans and some raisins for a different type of chili (ask if you want a recipe). Skip the tomato and use lots of white beans, peppers, onions, and chicken broth with your chili spices for a white chili.
Potato soup, with green peppers and left-over ham or bacon.
Fried rice - left-over rice fried with veggies, ham or pork (other meats can work too, just add more salt or soy sauce), and eggs cooked in veggie or canola oil (garlic and onion recommended). Add a little soy or other Asian sauce for flavor, or sesame oil, depending on preference.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Casserole ideas:
Farmer's Breakfast: Use tater-tots, hash browns, or diced fried potatoes as a base. Layer bacon or ham on top. Pour uncooked scrambled eggs (mixed w/ milk, pepper, salt, etc) on top. Bake in oven.
Meatloaf - stretch the meat by adding more eggs and grains (we use oatmeal and the heels of bread that no-one wants). For variety, try adding spices to give it a different "feel" - we do fajita seasoning for Mexican, and oregano, basil, tomato, garlic for Italian.
Bread pudding, for breakfasts. Or cobblers, if there is a good fruit on sale. Mix quick-cook oatmeal, dried fruit, spices, and dried milk for fruit-and-cream oatmeal mix.
Crust-free quiche. You can mix up the dried ingredients ahead of time and just throw eggs, leftover meats and veggies, and maybe some cheese in, and then cook. I think Rikki-san is the one I learned this from.
Stuffed green peppers can be frozen ahead of time and microwaved before serving.
Shepherd's Pie is ground beef & veggies with mashed potatoes on top and freezes wonderfully. Thanks to Annaberri for letting me on to this secret.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Other thoughts that have helped us save money:
- If you have friends in the restaurant business, try asking them where they buy their food - our local restaurants use "Cash and Carry", and that's where we now buy our bulk goods (wish I had a good alias for this person so I could thank her without giving out her name!).
- Use eggs, tofu, and milk or cheese to make meals more filling without expensive meat.
- Check out http://www.allrecipes.com and try an ingredient search whenever you have something you want to use up, but don't know what to do with it. Epicurious.com has similar functionality, but tends to use more expensive gourmet ingredients.
Rather than continue to re-write this, I thought I'd throw a list of thoughts for recipe ideas and cooking lifehacks onto my blog. These are quick notes - leave a comment if you want a specific recipe in detail, and ask for as many as you are interested in. I will post them in the comments as they are requested. I may take as much as a week to get back, if I've lost the recipe and need to recreate it and test it on my own family first. I only get time to cook on the weekends.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I like marinades, personally. Cut meat into small pieces, and soak over night. Or make lots of marinade at once and then freeze several batches of meat, to save time. The marinade soaks in as the meat freezes and thaws.
Then you have many choices:
- Saute; Put the meat on pasta and use the marinade in the pan as sauce.
- Saute; Add pasta sauce - white sauce or tomato - for a more standard pasta.
- Saute; Put the meat on rice and pour the marinade in while the rice cooks to add flavor, or use marinade as a sauce.
- Pour your marinade mix, raw, into a crockpot with vegetables, beans, barley, etc. and some extra water or broth to make a stew. If you leave extra cooking time, the meat can even be frozen. Serve with bread.
- Saute, ideally in a wok; add veggies to make a stir-fry. Serve with rice.
- Cool sauteed meat in the fridge and throw it into a green salad with nuts and red onions, plus any other salad stuff that sounds good (cheese, peppers, fruit). The extra marinade makes a wonderful salad dressing.
Since lots of small pieces of meat add a lot of flavor to a dish, marinades of small pieces of meat work great for frugality (meat is the most expensive part of our grocery bill).
Marinade ideas:
- Olive oil, oregano, basil, garlic, balsamic vinegar, diced onions, and maybe a little red wine (alchohol will cook out) works on almost any meat (but mediocre for tofu, and use white wine w/ fish).
- Hoisin sauce, green onions, oyster sauce, soy sauce, vegetable oil, and sherry or white wine vinegar works great for a stir-fry or asian food - this works for chicken. beef, and tofu - but I am not sure about pork (might be too salty) or fish (*should* work).
- Olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, tarragon, white wine vinegar, and pepper works great on chicken and probably would be good on fish.
To make your own marinade recipe, use an oil, include a vinegar, citrus juice, and/or alcohol to help dissolve flavors that won't dissolve in oil, and add spices and veggies or fruits with strong flavors like onions, peppers, and citrus. I did a strawberry-balsamic vinegar marinade once (when strawberries were on sale, of course!) that worked well with beef :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can buy bulk freeze-dried veggies online at http://www.honeyvillegrain.com , and I've found these useful for prepping gift meals or cooking ahead. Give meat in a freezer bag and a mix of dried veggies, spices, beans, or stew-grains like barley and cracked wheat in a ziploc bag with instructions on how much water to add. That way, the meal doesn't take up as much freezer space but still lasts until they need it.
Lentil soups, for crockpots. Barley-lentil is filling, has complete protein (grain + legume), and you can make a soup with only dried ingredients. Add beef, ham, and/or mushrooms for more flavor; shitake mushrooms can be bought dried, although you may need to price-hunt to get a decent price - I see them for 5 times as much in some stores as in others.
Bean chili - mix spices and beans ahead of time and store on a shelf. Add additional veggies or meats day-of if desired. Try using cinnamon, sliced almonds, and mixing in lots of black beans and some raisins for a different type of chili (ask if you want a recipe). Skip the tomato and use lots of white beans, peppers, onions, and chicken broth with your chili spices for a white chili.
Potato soup, with green peppers and left-over ham or bacon.
Fried rice - left-over rice fried with veggies, ham or pork (other meats can work too, just add more salt or soy sauce), and eggs cooked in veggie or canola oil (garlic and onion recommended). Add a little soy or other Asian sauce for flavor, or sesame oil, depending on preference.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Casserole ideas:
Farmer's Breakfast: Use tater-tots, hash browns, or diced fried potatoes as a base. Layer bacon or ham on top. Pour uncooked scrambled eggs (mixed w/ milk, pepper, salt, etc) on top. Bake in oven.
Meatloaf - stretch the meat by adding more eggs and grains (we use oatmeal and the heels of bread that no-one wants). For variety, try adding spices to give it a different "feel" - we do fajita seasoning for Mexican, and oregano, basil, tomato, garlic for Italian.
Bread pudding, for breakfasts. Or cobblers, if there is a good fruit on sale. Mix quick-cook oatmeal, dried fruit, spices, and dried milk for fruit-and-cream oatmeal mix.
Crust-free quiche. You can mix up the dried ingredients ahead of time and just throw eggs, leftover meats and veggies, and maybe some cheese in, and then cook. I think Rikki-san is the one I learned this from.
Stuffed green peppers can be frozen ahead of time and microwaved before serving.
Shepherd's Pie is ground beef & veggies with mashed potatoes on top and freezes wonderfully. Thanks to Annaberri for letting me on to this secret.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Other thoughts that have helped us save money:
- If you have friends in the restaurant business, try asking them where they buy their food - our local restaurants use "Cash and Carry", and that's where we now buy our bulk goods (wish I had a good alias for this person so I could thank her without giving out her name!).
- Use eggs, tofu, and milk or cheese to make meals more filling without expensive meat.
- Check out http://www.allrecipes.com and try an ingredient search whenever you have something you want to use up, but don't know what to do with it. Epicurious.com has similar functionality, but tends to use more expensive gourmet ingredients.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
ASL Vocab 1: Daily activities - milk, eat, bed, play, more
Welcome to week one of our family's ASL vocabulary building! I chose to start with words describing daily activities for our babies - drinking milk, eating, sleeping, and playing - and doing more of all of these!
I am using http://www.mybabycantalk.com/ for the Windows Media Player version, and http://commtechlab.msu.edu/Sites/aslweb/browser.htm for the Quicktime version.
MILK (quicktime)
MILK (WMP)
I'm guessing that this sign will be a favorite with the under 1 crowd. I know it's popular with my girls. And it's so easy to sign!
EAT (quicktime)
EAT (WMP)
BED (quicktime)
BED (WMP)
'Bed' is a little simpler than 'sleep'.
PLAY (quicktime)
PLAY (WMP)
I use this a lot when offering the girls choices. For example, "eat or play?" when they start throwing food off of the high chair, and "milk or play?" when they start wiggling around a lot on the nursing pillow.
MORE (quicktime)
MORE (WMP)
The word "more" can also be used with any of these words and is one of the top words recommended to me by parents who use sign language with their children, so I threw it in here as well.
ACTIVITY: Storytime! Tell your child a story about their daily routine, using the signs whenever possible. For example:
"Once upon a time there was a smart little baby named Iliana. Iliana woke up each morning in her bed, where she had slept all night long (bed). Iliana's mama would lift Iliana out of her bed and carry her to a chair to nurse her (milk). Once Iliana drank enough milk, her dada would carry her to her highchair to eat breakfast (eat). After breakfast, Iliana would play with her sister Lenora and have lots of fun (play). Then Iliana would get sleepy, and would need to get some more rest (more bed), so her mama would nurse her to sleep (milk) and she would take a nap (bed)." You get the idea.
If you are really creative and have the time, you could even create a short book, complete with photos of your baby. An easy way to do this would be a photo album that has one page on each side. Use one side for photos, and the other for the story text. That way, you could change the pictures occasionally. Another way to make a book would be to print out half-sheet sized pages with a photo and text, and then "laminate" them with packing tape so they can withstand a little drooling or chewing.
DOES ANYONE KNOW . . . any guidelines for signing names? I'd like to make up a sign for each of my girls' names, but can't come up with anything. If you have any ideas or know of any rules or guidelines for ASL names, please comment!
I am using http://www.mybabycantalk.com/ for the Windows Media Player version, and http://commtechlab.msu.edu/Sites/aslweb/browser.htm for the Quicktime version.
MILK (quicktime)
MILK (WMP)
I'm guessing that this sign will be a favorite with the under 1 crowd. I know it's popular with my girls. And it's so easy to sign!
EAT (quicktime)
EAT (WMP)
BED (quicktime)
BED (WMP)
'Bed' is a little simpler than 'sleep'.
PLAY (quicktime)
PLAY (WMP)
I use this a lot when offering the girls choices. For example, "eat or play?" when they start throwing food off of the high chair, and "milk or play?" when they start wiggling around a lot on the nursing pillow.
MORE (quicktime)
MORE (WMP)
The word "more" can also be used with any of these words and is one of the top words recommended to me by parents who use sign language with their children, so I threw it in here as well.
ACTIVITY: Storytime! Tell your child a story about their daily routine, using the signs whenever possible. For example:
"Once upon a time there was a smart little baby named Iliana. Iliana woke up each morning in her bed, where she had slept all night long (bed). Iliana's mama would lift Iliana out of her bed and carry her to a chair to nurse her (milk). Once Iliana drank enough milk, her dada would carry her to her highchair to eat breakfast (eat). After breakfast, Iliana would play with her sister Lenora and have lots of fun (play). Then Iliana would get sleepy, and would need to get some more rest (more bed), so her mama would nurse her to sleep (milk) and she would take a nap (bed)." You get the idea.
If you are really creative and have the time, you could even create a short book, complete with photos of your baby. An easy way to do this would be a photo album that has one page on each side. Use one side for photos, and the other for the story text. That way, you could change the pictures occasionally. Another way to make a book would be to print out half-sheet sized pages with a photo and text, and then "laminate" them with packing tape so they can withstand a little drooling or chewing.
DOES ANYONE KNOW . . . any guidelines for signing names? I'd like to make up a sign for each of my girls' names, but can't come up with anything. If you have any ideas or know of any rules or guidelines for ASL names, please comment!
Weekly ASL for babies
After our small recent successes with ASL with Lenora, Bjorn and I have decided that we want to increase our vocabulary. Our goal is to learn five words a week and get into the habit of using those five words around our babies.
I've decided to post our vocabulary words for the week on my blog, in case anyone else wants to follow along. I'll just post the words, links to videos of the ASL word, and a short activity or two you can do with your baby to help you learn the words (and maybe your baby as well). I'm hoping that including an activity to do a couple of times during the week will help my husband and I get used to the new words. Not to mention that it will provide some fun "quality time" with our babies - time that is educational for us!
I will try to post every Friday before midnight. That gives those of us who work during the week the entire weekend to really work at learning the words before going back to work. Then we can use the work week to just practice them a bit more and get used to fitting them into our lives before moving on to the next set of words.
I've decided to post our vocabulary words for the week on my blog, in case anyone else wants to follow along. I'll just post the words, links to videos of the ASL word, and a short activity or two you can do with your baby to help you learn the words (and maybe your baby as well). I'm hoping that including an activity to do a couple of times during the week will help my husband and I get used to the new words. Not to mention that it will provide some fun "quality time" with our babies - time that is educational for us!
I will try to post every Friday before midnight. That gives those of us who work during the week the entire weekend to really work at learning the words before going back to work. Then we can use the work week to just practice them a bit more and get used to fitting them into our lives before moving on to the next set of words.
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