Category: Tips

Light and Breezy Fare

The return of blazing hot summer weather has me looking for light and breezy fare. Not only do I want the food to sit lightly, I want the prep to be fast and the planning to be simple. That has left me looking for ways to lighten up things I eat regularly.

grilled vegetables on plate with fork on right

Here are ten tricks I use:

Skip the cheese. Yes, salads, sandwiches, pasta, and casseroles are delicious when smothered in cheese, but they can also be delicious without!

Forego the butter. A tiny touch of honey or jam on your toast makes it satisfying and lighter on the palette.

Use raw nuts. Without added oil, nuts bring a delightfully fresh crunch.

Reduce the dressing. I sometimes eat salad without any dressing at all, but there are many ways to lessen the amount you use. One is pour less on. Another is to dip each bite of salad in dressing after it’s on your fork.

But there are other dressing tricks too. You can make a vinegarette that uses no oil, squeeze lemon or lime juice over your salad in place of dressing, or dilute ranch-style dressing with salsa. Salsa can work as a dressing substitute as well. You can also hold the oil and use nonfat plain Greek yogurt as a base for creamy dressing.

Substitute ground turkey. Ground turkey makes a great beef substitute for burgers, meatloaf, and meatballs. A little Worcestershire sauce will beef up the flavor (see what I did there).

Ditch the gravy. If you’ve had to become gluten-free, you may have already done this just for convenience. But biscuits, roast beef, mashed potatoes, and hamburger steak can be enjoyed without gravy.

Skip the syrup. Use a single pancake as a shell for your eggs to create a breakfast taco.

Freeze out the frosting. Instead of frosting cake or cupcakes, sprinkle them with a light coating of powdered sugar. Okay, I don’t regularly eat cake or cupcakes, but if I’m served them, I remove the frosting right away because it weighs things down. I’d much rather have just a sprinkle of sugar or a light glaze.

I recently baked a birthday cake for a friend using applesauce instead of oil and glaze instead of frosting. It’s easy to turn canned frosting into a glaze by diluting it with water, milk, or even coffee. Keep the fun by lightly glazing and then throwing on a few novelty sprinkles.

Grill baby grill. An outdoor grill is ideal in the summer because it keeps the kitchen cool, but you can also grill on the stovetop with a grill pan. Grilled veggies are excellent and lighter than their sautéed counterparts.

Swap the slaw. When it gets hot, I swap out mayonnaise-based dressing for a vinegar-based one my mom preferred. To lighten the slaw even more, add some cucumber.

None of these changes require me to buy special ingredients, add prep time, or change my normal routine. That’s the kind of adaptation I love when turning meals into light and breezy fare.

Budgetween?

Hoping to make this year’s Halloween a Budgetween? I normally buy Halloween candy early because the specially bagged versions have always seemed expensive. I also mix less costly favorites in with pricier ones so that every child can grab a handful. In spite of this, and other penny-pinching measures, Halloween does not come cheap.

torso of child holding pumpkin with black tape creating a jackolantern face

The typical US household spends between $100 and $500 on Halloween. This year, many of us will need those dollars to cover the increased cost of necessities. This leaves us needing alternatives that keep the holiday fun for the kids and affordable for the adults.

Here are a few options to explore:

Shrink it down. Instead of buying pumpkins you won’t eat, make smaller jack-o-lanterns out of food you can use. Hollow out butternut squash, acorn squash, eggplant, or potatoes and use the internal meat in recipes.

Draw it on. Make cabbage pirates, aliens, or skulls using a nontoxic marker. Place on a clean, food-safe surface for Halloween night. At the end of the evening, peel off the outer two layers. Later you can cook the cabbage or use it for coleslaw.

Put creepy removeable makeup on your kids’ dolls. Add witches hats made from construction paper. Drape the dolls in ghostly gowns and hang them from the porch ceiling.

Draw a bat pattern onto black paper. Cut it out. Use fishing line to hang groups from the ceiling using removeable hanging strips.

Change it up. Instead of purchasing decorations, Line the sidewalk with Halloween luminaries made by the kids using paper bags. Hang a couple of ghosts made from balloons draped with white trash bags or use milk jugs, markers, and battery-operated tea lights to create porch ghosts.

Stretch it out. Buy party favors or fidget toys in bulk. Some assortments include 1000 pieces for around $24. The inexpensive toys will make the candy go further while still giving the kids a treat.

Party on. Consolidate the efforts on your street with a porch party. Everyone brings their own drink, a dish for potluck dinner, half the candy they’d buy for their house, and any decorations they have on hand. Party with three or four neighbors while greeting trick-or-treaters.

Halloween may not be the only holiday that’s different this year. When things are uncertain, we sometimes have to batten down the hatches and do what it takes to get by. There’s no shame in having a simpler, less flashy, more connected way of life.

In fact, if this sort of life were more common, we’d probably be healthier both physically and emotionally. The largest decorations, flashiest house, and most expensive candy don’t automatically signal you are a wonderful person who has a wonderful life.

Trappings are often deceptive and easily avoided. Perhaps foregoing the trappings is the fastest way to a successful Budgetween.

A Perfect Fit

Whether it’s clothes or meals, one-size-fits-all will never provide a perfect fit. From friends to salespeople, the obstacle most mentioned as forestalling adherence to dietary plans is fit. It seems it’s hard to visualize how required dietary changes will fit current lifestyle.

Fit is important. If you’ve tried to squeeze into clothes you want to fit into but can’t, you know how uncomfortable it feels when the fit is wrong. It works the same way when we try to visualize making changes to well-worn patterns that make life feel good to us.

Open spiral notebook with blank lined pages and pencil laying across one.

All change causes discomfort. Having a plan to move through that to find a new perfect fit is key to getting past the obstacles within our control.

No matter what sort of plan I’m creating, I begin with the part that is most foundational or most likely to affect everything else. While this is logical, it’s still worth mentioning. If you’re building a wall, you need to know where it goes, what size it will be, what weight it will need to support, and what materials are available long before you decide what color to paint it.

But choosing the color is the fun part. It’s natural to want to skip to the fun part but important to understand why it’s lower priority.

Common foundational priorities include time commitments, access to food, finances, family routines, and family objections. You may have others. Make a list.

Number the list beginning with the thing most likely to prevent you from following a prescribed plan. Once your list is numbered, it’s time to address obstacle Number 1. If it’s time related, explore ways to free up time. Can you delegate a task or reduce social media time? Sometimes, just opting out of notifications makes a big difference.

If food access is an issue, do you have an option to order online or grow food in a community garden? Can you periodically bake and freeze? Do you have neighbors or relatives who can pick up items for you?

Work your way down the list on paper before trying changes out in real life. Why? Because writing down a plan, numbering priorities, and revising the plan if you see obvious inconsistencies feels less daunting and has lower stakes than upending real life. A written process also gives you time to adjust to the idea of change so discomfort can begin to ease.

Once a plan for foundational outer obstacles is in place, address any internal resistance. Internal resistance may be present in expectations, attitude, emotional attachment, anxiety, physical addiction, and fear. Again, you may have other internal struggles that affect progress. Make a list.

Number the list in the order of whatever is most likely to prevent you from following a prescribed plan. Write it down. Again, the writing process slows things down and gives you an opportunity to feel and work through issues that hinder progress.

For internal adjustments, the writing may begin to take on a form akin to journaling. Pulling internal struggles out into the light has its own inherent healing property. Another benefit is you’re establishing a beginning point from which to measure change.

Through listing, prioritizing, writing, and rewriting, you’ll be able to develop a plan that removes some obstacles, works around others, and takes a shape that will eventually fit you well. The time you invest in the plan can help you stay true to your commitment when you integrate the plan into real life.

Life is unpredictable. A plan helps with focus and provides a way to deal with new obstacles when they pop up. Once you have a plan in place, put it to work. Determine a period of time during which you’re willing to commit to implementing your plan. Begin.

The line of progress may not be straight. The process may not look like you expect or hope. But it is possible to design a perfect fit.

ad

Hot Enough for You

When cooking, it’s important to know if it’s hot enough for you. I’m not talking about the weather. There’s no question there. The weather’s so hot that the patio may be as likely to burn you as the grill. I’m talking about the temperature of food.

Partially sliced cooked roast in front of roaring fire.

In order to kill bacteria that cause foodborne illness, foods need to be heated to a certain temperature. You may be familiar with the minimum safe temperature for hamburgers since some states have laws that require they be cooked well-done or 160°+ degrees. But other common cuts of meat and poultry have safe temperatures as well.

The easiest safe temperature to identify is that for eggs. When both the white and yolk are cooked firm, an egg is safe to eat. For dishes that contain raw eggs, a temperature of 160° is ideal.

Ironically, eggs are also the most common deliberately undercooked food. Right now, 7-minute, jammy eggs are popular. It’s routine to add raw eggs to protein shakes and hangover cures. And over-easy eggs have been a breakfast staple forever.

While there are some beef and fish dishes that are designed to be eaten raw, they require a higher grade of ingredients and careful handling that we may not choose to follow. For the general cooking most of us do, the following safe internal temperatures apply.

Beef: Ground 160°; Roast 145°; Steak 145°

Casseroles with raw meat or eggs: 165°

Chicken and Turkey: 165°

Eggs: Firm yolk and white

Egg Dishes: 160°

Fish: 145° or until flesh is no longer translucent

Ham: 145°; Precooked Ham USDA inspected 140°; Uninspected to 165°

Pork: Steak 145°; Roast 145°; Chops 145°; Ground 165°; Sausage 165°

Rabbit and Venison: 160°

Shrimp, Lobster, Crab, Scallops: Cook until flesh is pearly or white and opaque

Clams, Oysters, Mussels: Cook until shells open

The most accurate way to determine internal temperature is to use a meat thermometer. Many ovens include a temperature attachment for convenience. Thanksgiving turkeys often have a pop-up thermometer inserted when they’re purchased.

I have several thermometers. Only one of them is dishwasher safe. It’s the one that gets the most use for obvious reasons.

Burger on sesame bun with condiments, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, and cheese in front of roaring fire.

Do all cooks use thermometers? Definitely not. Some go by time or color. And some just go by feel. Grillers often use these techniques for determining when to remove food from the grill. Moms cooking frozen food that has a caution that it must reach a certain temp are likely to rely on the recommended microwave or oven time.

Consuming undercooked food or raw eggs won’t necessarily make you sick, but it does put you at greater risk of illness from Salmonella, E-coli, Staphylococcus, Campylobacter, Listeria, and Clostridium botulinum (botulism). If you’ve ever had one of these, you’re most likely already concerned and aware.

If you grew up in a family that has lax food safety, you can reduce risk from adopting the recommended standards and making sure the food is hot enough for you.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.cce.cornell.edu/attachments/19032/Game_from_Farm_to_Table.pdf?1481131140