Toddler Food

If you are anything like me, finding good, quick, healthy meal options for your toddler aged children is really hard. I find it especially hard living overseas where pre-prepared food and fast food (although not the healthiest) is not even an option. Keane and Gracie actually eat dinner before Ryan and do and then we put them down around 7 pm and we eat after they go to bed. So that poses another problem because I often don't have dinner completely prepared before they go to bed.

When we first returned I would make a lot of mashed potatoes, beans and vegetables and keep them in the refrigerator but often the food would go bad before I was able to use it all. Anyway, I was looking and looking for ideas for what to do to always have good, healthy food on hand for them in a way that was convenient to prepare and wouldn't go bad. I don't remember where I read it but I read about putting food into muffin tins and freezing them so that they are good sized portions for toddlers and then popping them out of the tins when they were frozen and storing them in Ziploc bags until they were needed. So, that is what I have been doing and it is WONDERFUL! Whenever I need a quick and healthy lunch or dinner I just pop a few cubes in the microwave and a hot, healthy meal is ready within minutes (often we don't have electricity and the cubes warm up fine in a sauce pan too). I have put spaghetti and meat sauce into the cubes, chicken pot pie filling, Shepperd's pie, apple sauce, vegetables and mashed potatoes. Often I take left-overs from Ryan and my dinner and put them into the cubes. It really cuts down on waste and I always have food on hand for them. I am SO thankful I found out about this idea. Hope it helps some of you!

Do you have other ideas for quick and easy toddler food that is not pre-packaged or pre-prepared? I would love to hear them!

Spaghetti and meat sauce

Chicken pot pie

A hot, healthy meal within minutes and 2 happy kids!!!

Chicken Panini Recipe

After my last post on Meal Planning, one of my friends asked for the Chicken Panini recipe. Well, I don't really have a recipe but I made them the other night for dinner and they were delicious so I will try and explain them below:

Chicken Breast sliced long and thin
Spinach
Tomatoes
Your favorite cheese
Honey mustard dressing
A good, fresh bread

I grilled the chicken and used a little chicken seasoning, salt and pepper. Then I sauteed the spinach with onion, garlic and salt and pepper. Then I made the light honey mustard (light mayo, yellow mustard, honey, vinegar, salt and pepper). I then got out my grill pan (since I don't have a panini maker) and I brushed honey mustard on a bread slice and laid it in the grill pan. I then added the tomato, spinach, chicken and cheese. I then brushed honey mustard on the second piece of bread and then topped the sandwich with it. I used a plate and a large heavy bowl to put pressure on the sandwiches as they grilled so they could "smoosh" together in a more panini style. I served them with baked french fries on the side and they were hot and delicious! Enjoy!

Meal Planning

We have been back in Nepal for almost 4 months now. These past 4 months have been so busy and every week I have told myself that I need to sit down and create a weekly/monthly meal plan/schedule because if you are anything like me, each morning you are trying to figure out what you have in the fridge and what you can get at the market in order to create a good dinner for your family. Living like this (especially in Nepal and other countries where there is no option for fast food or delivery or microwave meals or frozen pizza, etc) is stressful and time consuming.

So, I finally did it!!!!

I finally sat down and planned out dinners for the next three weeks. Everything we make here has to be made from scratch (thankfully we can get canned spaghetti sauce, canned beans, and have now even started getting a few frozen items such as french fries and tater tots and things like that most of the time) so these menu ideas are all things that can be made without many imported items. Also, a complete grocery list is not included here. Here in Nepal we have a few grocery stores where I do the bulk of my shopping and then we have small markets/shops that sell fresh vegetables, fruits, flour, sugar, butter, bread, salt, etc. everywhere. So my market lists are not grocery lists...they are simply a list of what I need from my local market each day. If you don't live near a market you could total up the vegetables you need each week and just buy them in one day and use them all week but because my little market is just 100 meters from my house I like to buy them each day.

So far (these past 2 days) having this planned out has made life so much simpler. It is one less thing I have to think about each day and it is so good to know that I have what I need in my fridge (except for my market items) for at least a weeks worth of meals...that means no last minute running to the grocery store and that means less time and less spending money on little things I find here and there. I would love to hear what you do each week for meal planning. I would love some meal ideas and always love to hear ways to make life easier.

September 2009
Monday 7: BLT and Tater Tots

From Market:
Lettuce
Tomatoes

Tuesday 8: Pot Roast (Buffalo or Beef) with Carrots, mashed potatoes and green beans

From Market:
3 Carrots
1 kg potatoes
300 g green beans (use some of these vegetables for Thursday’s pot pie for K and G)

Wednesday 9: Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

From Market:
2 large tomatoes, tomato soup packets

Thursday 10: Chicken Panini’s with Spinach, Tomatoes and homemade honey mustard and Baked french fries
(use extra chicken and make pot pie cubes to freeze for K&G)

From Market:
2 large tomatoes, spinach, fresh bread


Friday 11: Pineapple Pizza
w/carrot and cucumber sticks

From Market:
1 carrot, 1 cucumber, 1 onion, flour


Monday 14: Chicken Burritos and Mexican rice

From Market:
2 green peppers, 2 onions, flour

Tuesday 15: Shepherd’s Pie

From Market:
2 tomatoes, 2 carrots, 200 g green beans, 1 onion, 1 garlic, 1 kg potatoes
(use extra potatoes to make mashed ones for K and G)

Wednesday 16: Chicken Noodle Soup and Biscuits

From Market:
2 Carrots, 2 onions, 1 Garlic, flour

Thursday 17: Banana Pancakes and Eggs

From Market:
6 Bananas, flour and eggs

Friday 18: Pineapple or Veg and Olive Stromboli with raw carrots and cucumbers

From Market:
2 Carrots, 2 Cucumbers, vegetables for pizza

Monday 21: Chicken Fingers with mashed potatoes and green beans

From Market:
1 kg large potatoes (use some for Tuesday night), 200 g green beans

Tuesday 22: Chili and Baked Potatoes

From Market:
½ kg tomatoes, 1 onion, 1 garlic

Wednesday 23: Pancakes or Cinnamon Toast with Eggs

From Market:
Eggs, bread

Thursday 24: Spaghetti with meat sauce and Garlic Bread

From Market:
1/2 kg tomatoes, Bread

Friday 25: Chicken Panini’s with Spinach, Tomatoes and homemade honey mustard and baked french fries

From Market:
2 large tomatoes, spinach, fresh bread

Our favorite meal...

Do you have a meal that you love to make? That your family loves and you make all the time? At our house we do! About once a week we make chicken fingers, mashed potatoes and green beans with honey mustard and barbecue dipping sauces. It is SO yummy!

First we make the chicken fingers:
1. Buy chicken breast at the grocery store (thankfully we can buy some frozen meat here. The packages only come in one weight (a little over 1 lb).
2. Cut it into long strips.
3. Dip strips first into eggs and then into some flour with some Italian seasoning in it to coat the entire outside.
4. Pour about 1/2 inch of vegetable oil into a frying pan.
5. Fry chicken one side at a time (about 4 minutes each side. Don't make the oil too hot or the outside will burn before the inside is cooked).
6. Lay chicken on paper towels to absorb extra grease.

Then we mash the potatoes and cook the green beans. Did I mention I LOVE the pressure cooker these days??? The pressure cooker makes AMAZING green beans in no time at all.

Delicious Green beans in the pressure cooker:
1. Cut fresh green beans
2. Add to pressure cooker
3. Cover beans with water about an inch above the beans.
4. Add garlic powder, dried minced onion, salt and pepper to taste.
5. Close pressure cooker and cook on high heat
6. You have to wait until the pressure cooker "sounds" 4 times (about 15 minutes)
7. If you want the green beans to be REALLY tasty then add some butter (we usually eat them without the butter but either way, they taste great)

The barbecue sauce we actually can buy here imported at our grocery store but we make the honey mustard from scratch.

Delicious honey mustard recipe:
(I actually just guess at the amounts of each but I will try to give you a better guide here)
1/4 cup mayo
1/4 cup yellow mustard
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp white vinegar
pepper to taste
Simply mix all ingredients together.

I'd love to hear about your favorite meals and how you make them. In Nepal you have to cook most everything from scratch. It has been a challenge by through it I am LEARNING to be a better cook and I love it. I am excited that I get to eat my favorite dinner in just about 3 hours!!!

What's for dinner?

Tonight I tried a new recipe. It was really good. I found it on http://www.betterrecipes.com/ and modified it a bit. If you are looking for a good chicken stir-fry you should try this one out. It is really simple (especially if you use pre-cut veggies (which we don't have here but I have a wonderful girl who helps me in my home so that makes cooking (and living) in South Asia much more do-able so she helps me with the prep work for cooking). Here it is:

What you will need:
Olive Oil (I like Extra Virgin)
Green beans or Broccoli, cut into bite size pieces (200 grams or 1 16 oz bag frozen)
Carrots, cut long and thin 3 large (or 1 16 oz bag frozen)
Onions, 2 sliced thin
Garlic, 3 cloves
1 cup sliced pineapple
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1 lb chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces
1/4 cup water with 2 tsp corn starch
salt and pepper to taste
Cooked Rice (white or brown)

How you make it:
Turn stove to medium heat. Add a little oil to the pan. Add veggies and cook 10 minutes or until tender. Remove from pan and set aside. Add a little more oil to the pan. Add chicken, garlic, soy sauce, pineapple juice and salt and pepper. Simmer 10 minutes. Add veggies, water and corn starch mixture. Turn down heat and simmer 4 minutes or until sauce thickens. Add pineapple. Serve over rice.

Enjoy!

Did you try it? How did you like it? Did you modify it at all? I would love to hear from you and hear about some of your favorite recipes!