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So! After JG and I have planned out our meals for the week with the help of our recipe binder, we execute The Plan with a few tricks and strategies that I’ll share today, in our third and last installment of “In the Kitchen with RA,” or whatever catchy title someone else can imagine.

I am a huge proponent of pre-portioning, and it works for us for several reasons:

• Have I mentioned that I love to eat leftovers?
• Neither JG or I minds eating the same basic lunch at work each day.
• By putting in the extra time in advance, we save time when we have less of it.

In the past, when we had a large dish for dinner with leftovers for lunches we used to just slap foil onto the casserole dish and slide it into the fridge. However, even the short process of digging out a container, dishing out a helping, and putting the casserole back in the fridge seemed like a struggle in the morning, so now we pack up serving-sized portions right after dinner. The serving dish gets washed that night (or maybe the morning after, ahem), and we have a stack of lunch portions that are all ready to grab when we need them.

JG and I are committed to packing lunches to work because the cost of buying food at work is too much for either of us to swallow. Plus, we know what we’re eating, instead of relying on the nutritional gods of institutional food preparation for any kind of dietary balance. For our lunches, we always have the following items on hand:

• Apples and oranges
• Goldfish
• Cheese cracker packets, the sandwich-y kind
• Strawberry applesauce
• Yogurt
• Granola bars
• String cheese

Between this list of staples and the pre-packed leftovers, we can pack our lunches really quickly. We can just go down the line and take a cup of yogurt from the fridge, an apple from the crisper, or an orange from the fruit bowl. There’s no thinking involved, which is great in the morning.

“But what about the Goldfish?” you ask. Ah, yes. That’s where the true commitment to pre-portioning comes to light. See, I make my own 100-calorie packs. I take a box of Goldfish (a size down from the giant cartons), measure out half-cup portions of crackers, and seal them up in snack bags. I usually get about a dozen servings that are significantly smaller than what I would take if I were left to my own devices, and I keep them in a basket next to the fruit bowl. A little excessive though it may seem, I’m willing to spend my time with a box of Goldfish and a measuring cup for the small reward of saving myself the trouble when I am groggy from staying up late to attempt just one more crossword puzzle.

When it comes to making dinner, our most helpful strategy is prepping lettuce for salad ahead of time. On most nights, our vegetable side dish is a salad. Tomorrow, we’re having steamed broccoli, but most of the time, it’s the same old salad of romaine lettuce, baby carrots, and cherry tomatoes, and maybe cucumbers, if we’re feeling wild. It’s not terribly exciting, but it helps take the guesswork out of that part of the meal, and that’s fine with me. Plus, JG is not big on cooked vegetables, so it satisfies everyone.

Maybe it was just me, but when I ate salad out of a bag regularly, I dreaded reaching into the bag only to emerge with a handful of soggy grossness. Though not as repulsing, but equally annoying, was having a salad full of unappetizing stalk, thanks to an undiscerning packing plant. Instead of succumbing to the overpriced convenience of bags of salad, we learned to prepare our own, thanks to the wisdom of Alton Brown and our trusty salad spinner. I urge every engaged friend to add a salad spinner to their registries for this express purpose, and I’ve compiled a quick tutorial for any salad aficionados out there.

Continue reading →

As I ride the pleasantly surprising wave of positive response to “Meal Planning: The System,” I feel the need to clarify and elaborate on one small point. That is, I don’t have to persuade JG to contribute to the meal-planning, list-making process. Since he cooks the majority of our dinners, he usually brings up the week’s meal plan; I’m merely the recorder. JG and I are on the same page about having a plan, being efficient, and shopping with an objective in mind. Sometimes, we differ on the how-to of the plan, but it really is a combined effort, and for that I am eternally grateful.

That said, if I had to take on the meal-planning and cooking all on my own (perish the thought!), I would be even more regimented. I imagine that I would cook a lot on the weekends, freeze, and reheat. Part of that comes from me coming home much later than JG, but most of it is my affection for casseroles. Thankfully, we don’t have to talk about this set-up, and JG is the chef of the house.

I will, however, take full credit for the magnetic caddy. That is all.

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Today’s topic is the much-loved recipe binder, for which I will also take the glory, thank you very much. Now, our binder is not for every single recipe that we use. I don’t cull from our collection of cookbooks to create a comprehensive source. The main objective is to tame and file loose recipes. Previously, we had a floppy pocket portfolio with pages flying about, and it drove me crazy. When I had finally had enough of the madness, I went out and bought a binder (green, of course), a package of clear, plastic sleeves, and a set of binder pockets. I stuck an index card in the cover so that I’d know which way was up and assembled my fledgling system. I’ve made minor tweaks to my original scheme, and the days of that messy folder are a distant memory.

I have four categories of recipes: entrées, pasta, sides/soup, and desserts. Each section is marked by a pocket that holds all of the recipes I have not tried yet. Once we deem a recipe good enough to join “the rotation,” the recipe goes into a plastic sleeve (two per sleeve, back to back), and hooked in behind the appropriate section pocket. The pockets facilitate easy filing, and I can flip through the clippings quickly while we’re brainstorming up the meal plan. I don’t bother to alphabetize or keep a specific order for the recipes because we usually just leaf through the pages, and we don’t have so many that things get lost in the shuffle. I have a supply of extra plastic sleeves on hand, as well as a spare pocket in case I want to re-vamp the sections. I like how the binder allows me to move things around as needed.

I don’t feel bad if I never try something and it languishes in the binder because I view it as a waiting room of sorts. I’m probably too aspirational with the recipes I clip, but I figure that they’re there for me whenever I get around to cooking them, and it doesn’t hurt to just file them away for another time. If I’m reading a magazine or a food blog, I don’t hesitate to clip or print recipes for dishes that sound tasty because I know that there’s a place for them to live. When the system breaks down and we are stuck for a meal, or we come home, starving, from a weekend away, we turn to the binder for salvation because it holds our take-out menus. It is a handy arrangement, to say the least.

Although it would have been nice to share the full contents of the binder, here are links to four recipes (one from each section) that have successfully made it into the rotation. I hope they make it into yours, too!

• Spinach Artichoke Calzones
• Penne with Pancetta, Spinach, and Buttery Crumb Topping
• Tuna and Chickpea Salad with Pesto
• Pumpkin Cookies

Tomorrow, I share about my deep love of the salad spinner. Exciting, yes?

Last week, Elise posed two scenarios to her fair readers, “to get your take on kitchen habits: what is normal, and what is not.” The first scenario included meal plans, a stocked fridge, and smooth kitchen operations, whereas the second painted a picture of late arrival home, no food in the house, and caving in to order take-out. After reading a handful of comments empathizing with the second scenario, I shamefacedly admitted that JG and I have a routine that resembles the first one, although I pointed out that we don’t always clean while we cook (at least, I don’t), and the non-cook of the night gets stuck with whatever mess is left behind.

Elise promptly e-mailed me in response to my comment:

Why wouldn’t you want to admit that? I am TOTALLY impressed by it! How do you do it? What do you buy? Who cooks? Can you share some recipes, or ideas, or SOMETHING?? I am desperate

I was stunned. The thought that anyone besides us might want to hear our extremely regimented method of meal planning, recipe filing, and grocery shopping was completely foreign to me. Sure, we can’t imagine living without it, but it’s an entirely different story to describe it to the outside world. After Elise’s encouragement, I present the first of a three-part series on how JG and I deal with meals. So, welcome to our kitchen!

My favorite parts of the kitchen are the gigantic refrigerator that we inherited from the previous owners, the wood floors they put down, our bookshelves of cookbooks, and my Kitchen Aid mixer. My least favorite parts are the little pockets of counter space (rather than a long, lovely expanse) and a complete lack of natural light. We haven’t had to make any major improvements, thank goodness, other than replacing a twenty-year-old dishwasher and stove hood. The kitchen isn’t huge, but it gets the job done. Eventually, I’d like to reface the cabinets and have a more cohesive shelving situation on the opposite wall.

Before I launch into the nitty-gritty (and thrilling!) details of our kitchen processes, I feel the need to disclaim myself to death:

I’m just describing how JG and I do things, and I understand that not everyone will ascribe to or even like how we do it. In fact, I will be pleasantly surprised if this little series does not land me in the So Square We Can’t Even Believe It category. So please do not interpret these posts as a prescription for your life.

So! The topic of this first installment is how we set up a meal plan and create a shopping list for the week. Continue reading →

Our neighborhood is full of dogs, and most of the time, I love it. It’s nice to exchange small talk with the other owners when it’s my turn to take Ted for his walk, and I have definitely fallen into the cliché where I know all of the dogs’ names, but not all of the owners’ names.

That said, in light of some rare and unpleasant encounters, this edition of Dogarazzi comes with a plea:

Please put your dog on a leash whenever it is outside your home or an enclosed area. Please encourage your friends to do the same.

Over the weekend, I was out with Ted for his afternoon walk, and I noticed a dog out in a front lawn while his owner was working out in the yard. I stopped for a moment, since I couldn’t tell if the dog was tethered; he was a black dog with a brown muzzle and ears, easily larger than our golden retriever friend, Friday. I stood in the sidewalk, trying to figure out if I should continue our normal route past the house. I probably should have turned around.

Right away, the dog came padding over to us. He wasn’t aggressive, and he didn’t bark, but he was very insistent to sniff out Ted. I restrain myself from picking up Ted in times of stress because I don’t want to reinforce reactive, excited behavior, but I could tell that he was a little scared of this very outgoing, much larger dog. He tucked his tail between his legs and proceeded to circle me and wrap the leash around my legs, while the bigger dog continued to sniff.

All the while, the owner was calling out, “General! General! Come here! Come back here! Oh, he’s friendly! He won’t do anything! General! Come back here!” My ire quickly rose.

It was not until I was fully incapacitated from the winding leash that the owner came over and put a hand on General’s collar, repeating that “he would never do anything, he’s friendly, see what I mean?” I unwound Ted in stony silence and walked away in the direction that we came.

Even though I so wanted to say firmly, “Your dog should be on a leash,” or even “Please control your dog,” I could not bring myself to do it. The words stayed, paralyzed, on the tip of my tongue, and I wasn’t able to spit them out. I felt as though I would be implying that he was a poor dog owner or that General really would have gone after Ted. No, nothing like that. I just think it’s common sense and courtesy to control one’s animals, and the easiest way to do that is with a leash.

Why is it so easy for me to refuse to start driving until everyone in my car is wearing a seatbelt? Because it’s my car. Within that steel cage, I am in control, and I am responsible for what happens, so you buckle your seatbelt if you’re going to ride with me. Out in the world, I don’t feel nearly as assertive. For instance, I believe strongly in sending kids to public schools, but I don’t go telling others that they should do it because it’s outside the bounds of my responsibility, so to speak.

Keeping a dog on a leash is part of being a conscientious owner. In our neighborhood, a dog can go from a front door to a front lawn, to a sidewalk, and then the street in a matter of seconds. I understand that dogs can get loose by accident, but having a dog wander in an unenclosed lawn within spitting distance of a road, even while the owner is in the general area, is simply not a safe practice, in my opinion. The dog could be distracted by a kid on a bike, a child in a stroller, or even a car coming down the street that is probably not following the speed limit of 25 miles per hour. The leash is a dog’s seatbelt, and it is a safety precaution for the dog.

And, yeah, I’m concerned because Ted is my dog, and therefore, within my domain of responsibility. Plus, he’s a small dog that will usually submit to larger or more vocal dogs. JG worries that, if Ted is overstepped by a much larger dog, like General, that he won’t know what to do, and heaven help us if he accidentally nips the larger dog. Even if Ted is perfectly at ease with another dog, what am I supposed to do if the situation gets ugly? Keep cooing that Ted was always such a nice dog until he thought he was in mortal peril? I don’t think so.

I’m not upset because General was a mean dog, because he wasn’t. He was really quite amiable, and not at all mean. I’m more upset because it seems like some owners don’t see a problem until something drastic happens, like someone is bitten or a dog is hit by a car. Just because there wasn’t an actual altercation does not mean that the situation was under control. Our pets are animals, and we can’t know what will trigger those instincts.

I wish I had been able to say, calmly and decisively, that General was not under the owner’s control, however I would have phrased it. While I work up that courage for the future, please accept this public service announcement:

Please put your dog on a leash whenever it is outside your home or an enclosed area. Please encourage your friends to do the same.

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