Stinkerpants

Meal Planning: Getting Organized

January 4, 2012 in Parenthood & Life • Cooking • Personal Projects • How To

Well hello, all! Fancy meeting you here in 2012!

Who else is ready for a fresh new year?! I am. I spent the last three weeks of 2011 binging on chocolate cake, cheese and chicken pot pies, and now I’m ready to give up dairy, for realsies.

I also spent those last three weeks assembling a bunch of recipes and meal ideas so that we have a higher chance of eating in instead of eating out. I’m hoping that these meals will be good enough to share with you guys. In the meantime, I'm going to share how I've prepped with you!

Just as a refresher, all of our meals are:

• Fast. 30 minutes or less, better yet 15 minutes or less.
• Completely dairy-free and usually gluten-free as well. If it’s not completely gluten-free, it’s something like falafel that can be served to C without the pita. The meals are also low in soy content because C is sensitive to soy. I am not a huge fan of meat, so some of the meals are completely vegan – but those have been harder to find. Our diet most closely resembles the paleo diet. 
• Contain whole foods – I really try not to cook with any processed foods, which I find is common with vegan meals. We aren't cooking with meat or dairy alternatives.
• Tasty.

I must say, figuring out ideas for meals has not been easy. Most “fast” recipes contain dairy and gluten, and most vegan recipes aren’t fast (and sometimes contain gluten or soy). Thank god for the paleo nuts out there (love you guys), because I've gotten a lot of inspiration from them.

Here's what I've done to prep.

Step 1: Find New Recipes (and hide my old favorites)

In doing research for this endeavor, I realized I needed to split my recipes into three parts: 1) Regular meals (which take some preparation, like veggie chopping or marinating), 2) Insanely fast meals (made from stuff on hand), and 3) Freezer meals (which may take a lot of time, but make enough for many meals). My plan is to make a different freezer meal every couple of weeks. Most of our nightly meals will be from the "Insanely Fast" category, and maybe one or two will be regular meals.

I found most of our new recipes by googling incessantly. I still haven't tried a lot of the meals I've found, so if there are especially good ones, I'll point y'all toward them as we try them. 

In the meantime, here are a few resources I found very helpful:

• Go Dairy Free (I've had the book for months - at first I didn't read it, because there are a lot of words for a not particularly interesting subject - but once I actually started reading it, it was by far the most helpful resource!).
• This list of 101 Quick Meals is awesome. Quite a few are dairy/gluten-free, vegetarian, etc. It's worth a glance, whatever your restrictions (or lack thereof).
• Cooking for Isaiah was recommended by one of my readers (thanks Caryn!)
• This gluten-free, dairy-free bread recipe is delish. It's the first bread C's ever had and she loves it!

Step 2: Organize Recipes

I printed out all of the recipes I found online, plus photocopied recipes from books. I know myself, and I know I won't look in those cookbooks! Then I took some file folders and sorted them: Insanely Fast, Regular Meals, and Freezer meals. I stored them in an acrylic recipe book holder (pictured below are actually my old folders - I've been using this method for awhile):

Step 3: Print Out a Quick Guide to Each Section

I created a new Word doc for each section, then simply listed the contents of each folder. This way, I can see at a glance what's in each folder without having to search through it. I also created a list of quick snacks (tortilla chips & salsa, hummus, carrot sticks, etc) for when I'm hungry and don't know what to eat. I don't do well with keeping stuff in my head these days - everything must be written down.

As an aside: the other thing I realized is that, once I start acquiring freezer meals, I'm going to need a white board that says what's in the freezer, or we'll never see it again (let alone eat it). This will also be useful for snacks. The less remembering/thinking, the better, I say. Let's reserve the thinking for world peace (or at least for remembering where we left our keys).

Step 4: Plan the Meals

Next, I printed out three months worth of calendars (I did this using iCal, but I'm sure you could figure out a way to do this another way). At this point, I was surprised how easy it was! I just filled in recipes for 5 days each week. At the beginning of each week, I'll compile a shopping list for the items I've listed, and I'm done! So far, so good! 

One day, I'd really like to get good at the whole "I cooked a pot of beans on Sunday, and I made 5 meals from them!" thing. But for now, I'm just going to try cooking anything, and go from there!

What do you think? Is this method sustainable?

Chrismukkah Decorations: Part 2

December 21, 2011 in Personal Projects • DIY and Crafts • Holidays

I realized last night that I didn't take photos of our decorations last year - or at least, I didn't share them with you. What the heck, Stinker, amIright? Especially since last year was the first year we hung our tree from the ceiling.

Yes, you read that right. We now hang our tree upside-down. See?

A few years ago, my friend Sarah shared that her grandparents have been hanging their tree from the ceiling for as long as she could remember. I loved the idea and decided to steal it (thanks, Sarah's grandparents!). Last year, we installed a hook in the ceiling. We save the eye hook each year, and simply screw it into the bottom of the tree and hang it. 

One of the main reasons I wanted to do this is because of Elvis Purrsley, who is disgusting and pees on tree skirts. An added benefit is that the tree is child-proof, because C can barely reach it.

But I digress. Here's the rest of the room. 

See the garland there? Up at the top of that photo? It's five separate strings, which run from the center of the fireplace to the back of the room, where they hang down above the Chanukah bags I made (for a new family tradition, which I'll get into later).

Here, let's turn on the lights:

The bags are made from raw silk. They were kind of a pain in my tuchas, but hey - they're done now and I love them.

My mom and I made the stockings last year. I love them. 

Next year, I'd love to make some better decorations for the mantel - maybe some glittery animals or something (or is that overdone?). We also need a wreath - our door is naked. 

So that's it - what do you think? Do you agree with Y? Is too much "crap" hanging from the ceiling? Or is he just a grinch?

Happy Chrismukkah! 2011 Decorations

December 20, 2011 in Personal Projects • DIY and Crafts • Holidays

Well hello, everyone! I hope you're all having a fantastic December!

I have been waiting to show you this year's Chrismukkah decorations, because a lot of our family and friends read my blog and I wanted it to be a surprise. :) But now almost everyone has seen it, so here we go! I'm going to split this into 2 posts. Why? Because I haven't taken a photo of the tree yet, and I can't exactly do it in broad daylight. ;) So the living room is next. For now, how about the rest of the house? 

{Confession: I went apeshit with garlands this year. I couldn't help it. Yorkey thinks I hung way too many things from the ceiling, but I told him to shut his piehole and put up another set of garlands in the living room. It's all about decorating vertically, people, I'm telling you.}

First up are my favorite OY letters. This year, I hung them from the ceiling.

I didn't think they were getting enough attention where they were sitting before. In addition, I re-glittered them, because they were damaged in our move last year and had been leaving a trail of glitter all over the house for years. This time I used Krylon's Glitter Blast - if you need to glitter anything, that stuff is AWESOME. Highly recommended. 

I hung the OY using Command Hooks (my mom's genius idea) so as not to ruin my ridiculously expensive and over-budget wallpaper (don't touch it!):

I also decided to frame the holiday cards we've been receiving - they're all so festive and beautiful! We have acrylic frames from Crate & Barrel - the photos needed to be updated anyway, so I emptied all of them and replaced them with holiday cards.

Then came my major project of this year: the holiday carol garlands:

I pinned this idea on Pinterest and obessed over it until it was finished (mine were less religious than the carols I found online). I cut the letters out of red foam sheets from the craft store, and strung them using baker's twine. I included a few Chanukkah songs (a must, of course!). The garlands go all the way down the hall and into the dining room:

I hung ornaments from our chandelier (I did that last year, too) by putting an ornament on either end of a string and draping them over each sticky-outy part (what do you call those? arms?).

My felt "Happy Chrismukkah" sign (third year running!) was hung in a new spot this year - and I think I like it. This is the entry to our sunken living room, and I thought it needed a little something.

All right, peeps! The living room (with tree! and stockings! and - you guessed it - more garlands!) is next. :)

I’m a Giant Challenge 2: In which I throw in the towel

November 16, 2011 in Personal Projects • DIY and Crafts

I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew (I think our wedding might have been an example of that), and after talking to my dad this weekend, I realized I'd done it again.

My old dollhouse, in my mother's words, is a "sow's ear," and I was trying to make a silk purse out of it. 

You see, when I was little I read a book called Midnight in the Dollhouse. The dollhouse in the book was a gorgeous house that was passed through generations, and I wanted my dollhouse to be as awesome as that one. I even had my (very accomodating) dad make extra rooms on the bottom because there was an addition on the dollhouse in the book, but...well, it just wasn't what I envisioned. At the beginning of this project, I think my emotions were still partially wrapped up in this imaginary dollhouse and wanting to give something that special to my daughter.

My Dollhouse: I’m a Giant Challenge

November 8, 2011 in Personal Projects • DIY and Crafts