Calming Back to School Dinner Time Chaos

June 28, 2012 By admin

Three tips to help you kick off your school year organized & with a well fed family!

I love back to school time. New clothes, new teachers, new friends. But, back to school also kicks off a myriad of after school activities, sports, car pools, school projects that need craft supplies and who knows what else. With after school chaos threatening to take over, dinner time becomes a free for all of frozen entrees and fast food. And sometimes, I even hit the drive through twice an evening to keep everyone fed. Fortunately, with a little advanced planning, you can stay ahead of the dinner time madness and keep your family well fed. With that in mind, I’ve put together a short list of tips to help keep your back to school dinner time under control.

1. Freeze One Entre Each Week Starting NOW If, starting this week, you double one recipe each week and freeze it, you’ll have at least 6-7 readymade, healthy, wholesome, not chemical laden meals on hand and ready to pop in the oven or microwave for dinner on any hectic night.

2. Majority Rules Oh how I wish I’d been a stickler about making my kids eat what’s put in front of them from the get go. If your family is like mine, one only eats chicken, one won’t eat red meat, nobody likes fish… If you can’t keep everyone happy with one entree choice, follow the majority rules philosophy and keep three out of four (insert your family size here) happy and make sure side dishes take the oddballs needs into account or let them other eat cereal…or PJ&J. For example, make Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole and let the one that doesn’t like chicken pick it out. Or, make Garlic Baked Chicken with a veggie filled quinoa salad/side dish so the vegetarian in your family will get the protein they need and everyone gets vegetables and whole grains.

3. Two for One – Always plan for leftovers! I always try to prepare a serving or two more than I need, so there will be leftovers for someone the next night. This works well for little football boys to eat as a hearty after school snack before practice or hold on to the left over servings for a day or two and make a full family “ala carte” meal out of them.

If you need a few family friendly, freezable entree recipes, I plan to post at least two or three each week as I prepare them for clients to help get you started. The Chicken and Wild Rice recipe, below, from FoodNetwork.com is a client favorite!

And, if you’ve got a recipe to share, send it in and I just may post it!

Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole

No cream of mushroom soup required! And, if you don’t want to use boxed wild rice, you can find unseasoned, un processed wild rice at Whole Foods and season the meal any way you like!

Ingredients

3 cups cooked, chopped chicken breasts
1 package quick cooking wild rice, cooked according to package directions
1 package frozen French green beans, thawed and drained
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup cream or milk
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup slivered almonds

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a buttered casserole dish. Combine chicken, cooked rice and green beans. In a saucepan melt butter over medium high heat. Stir in onions and cook for 1 minute. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute. Whisk in chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Whisk in cream or milk and return to a simmer. When sauce has thickened pour over mixture in casserole dish. Sprinkle with parmesan and almonds and bake for 30 minutes

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Learn to Cook: Healthy Fish Recipes, Guide to Buying Healthy Seafood and More!

January 31, 2012 By admin

I just finished up a cooking demo at Kathleen’s Catch in Johns Creek. The focus of the cooking demonstration was on healthy kinds of fish and healthy ways to cook fish. We made three recipes: Steelhead Trout Poached in Red Wine in the pressure cooker, Grilled Tuna with Olive Relish and Cod Filets Baked in Foil with Asparagus and Orange. I promised the group that I’d post the recipes and also some articles I found on healthy kinds of fish and healthy ways to prepare it. Here goes…

Articles
EatingWell.com Seafood Guide – This fantastic, all inclusive guide list most any kind of fish you might want to eat and includes health concerns, Omega 3 content and harvest notes. This one’s worth saving!

About.com’s Healthy Ways to Cook Fish – Great article detailing healthy ways to prepare fish. It also explains the why’s and how’s of each method.

Recipes
I didn’t create any of these recipes, although I did tweak a bit. With that in mind, I’m going to link into the original recipe and give a few of my thoughts on each. As always, if you’ve got questions or suggestions about any recipe, please ask! I love helping my readers prepare successful meals!

Steelhead Trout Poached in Red Wine – Prepared in the pressure cooker, it’s an easy recipe, but does take a bit of time to prepare. The original recipe calls for salmon, but I’ve made it several times with steelhead trout and it works beautifully.

Grilled Tuna w/Olive Relish – Nutritionally, this one is a real winner: low in both fat and calories. That said, I’d double the olive relish to make sure you have enough. It will add fat and calories, so take that into account, but this recipe is so lean that unless you’re carefully watching your intake you’re probably fine. Also, when I cook tuna, I watch the side to check for doneness rather than the clock. If you like your tuna rare for example, watch the edge of the fish and cook until it’s opaque about ¼ inch from each edge.

Cod Fillets in Foil w/Asparagus and Orange – You can make this in foil or parchment. I find foil easier to use, so I avoid parchment paper for anything other than baking. Always use fresh orange juice with this kind of recipe. This recipe, for example, needed the juice of one orange. Not a big deal and worth every second it took me to squeeze it. If you’re avoiding butter, you can make this one with a bland olive oil or use slightly less than the recipe calls for. You can also spray with bottom of the foil with non-stick spray like Pan rather than buttering it.

If you’ve got any great healthy fish recipes send em my way! I’d love to try them!

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Fresh Fish in Atlanta – Is Steelhead Trout the New Salmon?

January 22, 2012 By admin

Fresh from Your Kitchen Personal Chef Service Johns Creek Atlanta Roswell Alpharetta

I was testing out a recipe for a cooking demo I’ll be doing at Kathleen’s Catch in Johns Creek. Kathleen had asked me to make healthy fish recipes, but wanted to skip salmon since and try Steelhead Trout instead. She said it looked like salmon, cooked like salmon, tasted like salmon and like salmon was [...]

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Learn to Cook – Great Ideas to Build Your Cooking Confidence

November 7, 2011 By admin

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I found a great article Shine this morning, How to be a Successful Home Cook. Although it includes a ton of useful information, a few important areas weren’t covered, so I thought I’d add my two cents. Here goes… Recipes If you’ve been living on carry out and cooking for yourself is a perplexing, angst [...]

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Fall Soups – Perfect for taking the cool weather edge off!

November 4, 2011 By admin

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I love fall soups. Warm, rich and inviting, a comforting mug of cauliflower or squash soup is just the thing to take the edge off the Atlanta’s cool weather chill. Fall soups are easy to make, reheat well, healthy, and a fantastic replacement to the same old vegetable side dish. With comfort food in mind, [...]

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Special diets don’t have to be complicated – Making a gluten free or other allergy restricted diet work for you

October 12, 2011 By admin

When I took on my first gluten free client (who also happens to be dairy free, soy free and wine free), I’ll admit I was a little nervous. I knew it could be done, but also that it meant checking labels for terms I didn’t know, using unfamiliar products and probably building a new recipe [...]

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