I’ve been getting organized in my kitchen, including gathering and printing all my recipes in one notebook. I can see that I’m low in stir fry meals. So on Thursday, instead of following a recipe, I’m going to experiment with this stir fry tutorial on All Recipes (all the great cooks tell me that you can’t always rely on recipes, you need to learn the skills — I hate when they are right!).
I will probably use shrimp and broccoli, snow peas and red peppers and serve with some egg rolls and fruit (items my kids like). I use the frozen brown rice from Trader Joe’s. I WILL become a stir frying mama!
For more meal planning ideas, see Org Junkie.
What’s Cooking This Week?
Monday: Baked Burritos topped with guacamole.
Tuesday: Butternut Mac and Cheese, green salad and fruit
Wednesday: Kids’ Choice
Thursday: Stir Fry Experiment
Friday: Not sure yet — It’s father daughter dance at Big A’s school so it will be date night with my little guy (might just make pizzas and watch Cars 2)
Weekend (I’ve been cooking on at least one day) — This Peanut Butter and Chickpea Soup sounds good
More ideas from Cooking Light…
Cultural Heritage Day
Big A’s school celebrated cultural heritage day last week. The kids were allowed to dress up to showcase their own cultural heritage. The parents were also asked to bring food from their culture.
Big A is half Serbian and I’m full blown. Both of my parents came from the former Yugoslavia: my mom is from the town of Nis in what is now Serbia and my dad was from Montenegro. They had a sort of arranged marriage in America (a story for another post!) and proceeded to have 5 kids, of which I am the youngest.
I’ve been wanting to incorporate more food from my heritage so this was a great opportunity. Big A wore a Serbian vest to school and I made Serbian Pita (also called Burek).
The kids didn’t bring lunch that day – they just made a plate of the various cultural food items — Doma (meat-stuffed grape leaves), pancet, egg rolls, lumpia, jicama with lemon and Italian cookies.
They all really enjoyed themselves and I love when the kids all eat the same things. Research shows children are highly influenced by their peers in the food department. And it’s just fun.
How do you incorporate your cultural heritage into your cooking?
My meditation update
A couple of weeks ago I announced my goal to meditate this year, five minutes daily to start. I appreciate all of you who want to join me, so I will periodically update in my weekly meal plans.
I have been able to be still for 5 minutes most days. Some days it’s not until bedtime which is not ideal, and every once and a while I skip it. But overall, I try to sneak it in somewhere in my day, whether it’s the chapel at work or after working out in the morning.
It’s amazing how hard it is not think about all the things I have to do for 5 minutes! Those thoughts still come but I let them go instead of feeding into them. It does seem to be getting easier but I’m not ready to increase the time yet. At this point, I’m simply trying to establish the habit.
How is it going for you?
Each week one of us picks a country and on Saturday I make recipes that match. I usually Google “easy recipes from …..”.
That’s pretty adventurous Jennifer! Great idea!
We love to stir-fry. I use sesame oil and seeds, EVOO, Soy, and Hoision Sauce as the base, then add my potatoes, wait ten minutes, then add meat, cook halfway through and then add veggies. In the summer we use all farmer’s market veggies. Play with the seasonings and have fun!
Thanks for the encouragement Jenae!