New Normal

"New normal" is the code word around our house these days. Our older children have left for college. I've started homeschooling again with our five year old. The summer garden and all of its lovely fresh produce are dwindling. (The fresh eggplant in the picture is now only a memory.) The temperatures have finally started dropping to a comfortable temperature. I have purchased my fall vegetable plants and need to plant them. As I mentioned last time, our menu choices are changing as well. Less red meat, more seafood, chicken and meatless meals. I am also having to relearn how to cook for a small family. Change is good, but change requires adjustment - a new normal.

With the new school year also comes the return of after school activities. It makes it very difficult to find time to cook. Planning is important, but flexibility is also critical. Some nights you may have to eat the leftovers that you had planned for another evening. Try to keep a few quick meals in the freezer for times when starting from scratch is not an option. I know it isn't glamorous, but frozen pizza is something quick that everyone likes. I try to keep salad fixings on hand so I can always add a salad. Making something "semi-homemade" is usually healthier and less expensive than making a quick trip to the drive through. When I don't have homemade spaghetti sauce in the freezer, I buy a jar at the grocery store. Just watch the sugar and sodium! Another trick I learned from a friend is to do as much prep work as possible early. I admit that I am still working on this one. If everything is chopped and ready to go, sometimes it doesn't take that long to throw it all together.

As you may know, I always love finding new recipes. As we are exploring this "new normal" of eating less meat, I needed some new vegetarian cookbooks to peruse. However, cookbooks are very expensive. I picked up one in the book store and its listed price was $55.00! There are lots of places online to find recipes, but sometimes I just want to thumb through the pages. The local library has shelves and shelves of cookbooks! Of course you can check them out for free and find some new ideas. You can try a few recipes and then return them. If you love the cookbook, you could then buy it after you have already tried it out.

I spent a lot of time on tips, so I am going to simply hit some highlight meals.

My favorite new vegetarian recipe

Pasta with Sunday Ragu' (This was on page 354 of the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics Cookbook I checked out from the library. I couldn't find the recipe online.)
Tossed green salad
French bread
This "meat" sauce used a meat alternative. I used something I found in the natural foods freezer section. It was a fungi. It was good though. Everyone liked it. (No one was fooled that it was meat though.)

Short on time idea

I had to grocery shop late. Steamed shrimp at our grocery store is no more expensive than fresh at the fish/meat section. So I bought shrimp and had them season and steam it. At home I made a quick cocktail sauce out of chili sauce (ketchup works fine,) horseradish and lemon juice. That evening I had some leftover slaw in the refrigerator so dinner was on the table in a flash!

Comfort foods

Baked chicken
Barley Risotto (this wasn't as good as I had hoped, but it did have the comfort feature.)
Frozen green beans steamed and seasoned with butter and lemon.

Well, now is the time for me to plan my menus for next week. Keep up the good work in the kitchen!