My Key to cooking fresh food

Key to cooking fresh food along with stressful work life is advance preparation and getting up early.

Early morning Brown Rice(in electric cooker) and Dal/Lentil(pressure cooker)/Soup are kept before starting morning rituals.

Frozen cut veg or quick cutting vegetables are stir fired with very basic seasoning and put the lid with low heat. So by the time Im ready for work my half cooking is done.

Evening when I enter home all I do is make hot Roties (Phulksa)/Tortias/Indian Bread and Season the boiled dal (lentil)/Soup.

Stock Dosa batter/Indian Pancake batter

Make some chutneys/sause/dips in weekend

Stock cut salad so you save some time.

Use tomato paste & tamarind paste, ready seasoning like McCormicks spices, or make your own combination to accelerate cooking.

Youve to give up traditional cooking and stick to very basic cooking to keep up with healthy life style.

If healthy fresh cooked food is not in kitchen Junk food find its way.

Just wake up 20min early than your daily routine and try whatever I suggested.

Cooking is rapid & swift in the morning than evening. By end of the day we are really stressed and tired. We can get more mileage out of ourself only in the morning.  Planning and preparation will keep our diet on track and we can stick to healthy life style.

By: Reena Sharma

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Slow Cooker BBQ Ribs

Guys! I have been cooking so much lately that I havent had time to post all my meals to the blog. Im going to try to get caught up so you all can see how amazingly well my husband has been eating :) This one that your about to see was good, but Im not a huge meat eater so it wasnt anything special to me really. However, my thoughts dont really matter to me... its Dan opinions that count.

Slow Cooker BBQ Ribs (www.budgetbytes.com) $10.98

Ingredients

• 1 med yellow onion
• 1 rack (2.5 lbs.) pork spare ribs
• 18 oz. bbq sauce
• 1 cup apple sauce
• ½ cup apple juice
• to taste salt and pepper 

Thinly slice the onion and place it in the bottom of the slow cooker.

Cut the ribs into two rib portions. Season with salt and pepper.

Arrange half of the ribs in on top of the onion in the slow cooker. Cover with half of the BBQ sauce.

 Place the rest of the ribs on top and cover with the rest of the BBQ sauce. 

Pour the apple sauce and apple juice in around the edges of the ribs so it fills in the spaces between meat without washing off all of the BBQ sauce.

Secure the lid tightly on the slow cooker, turn on low heat and let cook for 8 hours. When the ribs are done, carefully remove them from the pot. They will be very tender and can fall apart easily so lift gently. 

 Fish out the onions and serve on top of the ribs.

Dan rated this meal a 4 out of 5 stars. It was good and easy, but not something I would crave.

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Baby Shower with my Residents

For those of you who know me well, know that Im not into being the center of attention. You could probably tell that by how I did my wedding... super small and low key! So having a baby has been an adjustment for me since I know that I need to have baby showers to help with all the "things" that a baby needs. I will be having several baby showers coming up in the next few weeks that I will share with you, but the first one I had was very heartwarming for me and one I will remember always.

My supervisor planned one which included all my residents at Aspen Trace. I had 45 residents show up for the shower which was a great turn out and made me feel super loved. The room was packed full with my ladies smiling faces. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.

Now, there will be very few pictures since I am not allowed to post pictures publicly of my residents but I will try to include what I can for you. No presents were given since it is company policy that residents are not allowed to give employees gifts. But... what there was a lot of was punch, cake, games, laughter, love, and support from these ladies I have come to love much like family.

Party favors with the "HE" or "SHE" colored in!

Baby Rhoton cake!

Punch!

Room decorations!

Games! We played a games where the residents had to make a list of A-Z girl and boy baby names, finish off the nursery rhyme listed, and baby items price is right.

Me and my supervisor who threw me the shower :) I look horrible in this picture... uhhhgggg!

The one gift I did receive "from my residents" was a book called The Real Mother Goose. Inside they had all signed their names and written me little notes. I will cherish it forever! It truly was a very special time with some very special people!

Very thankful for all who shared it with me!

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New RECIPES page on my blog!

I admit, the addition of a "just recipes" page to my blog is mostly selfish but I really think it could help other people like me too.  So many nights I make these recipes in my own home and end up saying to myself, "what temperature was that again?" or "how much cumin was that supposed to be?" well now instead of booting up the laptop to search my blog because searching it with my iPod results in a lot of squinting and whining, all of my recipes will be on one page - no searching, just scroll!  I hope everyone enjoys this feature.  Ill continue to post recipes in my blog updates and also add them to the recipes page to be part of the big list for easy finding later.  Tell me what you think... I thought originally that Id be able to do multiple "posts" on the 2nd page but that doesnt seem possible so Ive just made it into a big list to scroll through.  The recipes will basically be listed in chronological order with the newest one on top.  Tell me what you think!  :)

Oh!  Also, Ive added the email addresses of a few people who read regularly/subscribe to a distribution list.  For some reason this notification will only allow me to send to 10 people so if youre on the list and dont want the notifications please let me know and if youre not and you want to get on the wait list for being one of those 10 people, let me know too!  lol

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Week 7

#52weeksofRoarke

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Remingtons Rundown My Day with Dad

Hey Doodle Lovers! Its Remington Bear here!

Both Mom and Dads schedule have been all over the place lately. This has been hard on me, because it often times means I have to be crated while they are working. Mom and Dad hate doing this too me so one week when I had been crated for three days while Mom and Dad both worked, Dad surprised me and came home and brought me to work with him!

Dad had been working with some of the new recruits coming in to their police department. Everyone was outside that day so I got pretty much free reign of the area they were in! 

All you gotta do is give me my Frisbee and Im a happy camper!

A bunch of the officers were playing football and tried to teach me how...

But I was much more into my beloved Frisbee to really care!

So instead I taught the officers how to play my kind of game instead!

Throw it for heavens sake!

Dont worry! I got it!

Boy was it a fun day with Dad and all his friends! But I was so tired afterward :)

Time to sign off... WIGGLES!!

~Remington Bear~

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Look Ma My Bread is Famous

 Photo by Steve Apps of the State Journal.

The interview I did with my foodie friend Lindsay for the local newspaper here in Madison just went up today.  As you may know May is Gluten Free Awareness month so she talked to me and a couple other people in the Madison gluten free community about our experience of going without wheat.  And the most important part of the whole thing of course was the food. 

I cooked four different very photogenic loafs of bread that the papers photographer did a great job of capturing.  Ill post the recipe for the banana cardamom bread I reverse engineered from the fellas favorite gluteny recipe next week.  The other three recipes are from some of my favorite gluten free bloggers so be sure to check those out in the article as well.

It was a fun experience.  Now that people know what Im doing over here I better get back to some serious blogging.  But after all that baking I need some time off from making bread.  Im all breaded out.

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My Decision to be a SAHM

It took Dan and I a long time before we were able to get pregnant, but during the time we were trying we had many conversations about how we would handle having a child. Both of our work schedules had been kind of crazy since we started our careers... especially Dans... and we just never could figure out how we would juggle our work schedules with a baby. And since neither of us had close family that lived nearby we knew that our child would be in daycare during the weekdays and we would even need someone to watch him or her some evenings, weekends, and holidays with little to no notice. YIKES! Good luck finding someone able to do that. Plus, a daycare in the Indy area would have taken pretty much my entire paycheck to pay for. We knew that if we were to have a family then things would be changing drastically in our household... and they did.

So when we finally did become pregnant we quickly decided to see if we could live off one income. Every paycheck I received went directly into our savings and we totally lived off Dans income. We did this for my entire pregnancy. So, by the time I needed to make my decision on whether to continue to work or stay home with our baby we knew that we could survive off just Dans income if we changed our lifestyle a bit. Plus, we had a nice savings racked up from 10 months of not using my income at all. 

You see where this is all going right?  It wasnt a hard decision. I put in a 2 month notice at work to give my employer more than enough time to find my replacement and started planning for the hardest but most rewarding job Ill ever have. Being able to stay home (at least for a while) was the greatest gift Dan could have ever given me. Even though I have moments where I just need to get out of the house for a little while, I continue to thank my husband daily for making it possible for me to be with our son everyday and getting to watch him grow up before my eyes. It isnt a lifestyle that everyone would choose or want... and that is okay... but it is the lifestyle that we decided on and Im so glad we did. 

I am so very blessed!

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Easy Baked Salmon My Favorite Meal So Far!

If you didnt know... Im a huge salmon lover. When I go to a restuarant and the salmon isnt too pricey I will almost always pick it! I love it so much and its also healthy for you! When I came across this recipe I thought to myself... "it doesnt get easier than that!" And that is how this became my most favorite meal I have tackled so far during my cooking experience.

Easy Baked Salmon (www.sixsistersstuff.com) 

Ingredients

• 1 large salmon filet
• 1 bag of frozen brussel sprouts
• 1 bunch of thin asparagus
• 2 Tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 Tablespoons of butter
• Garlic salt, salt and pepper, fish seasoning

Place the salmon skin side down in the middle of the pan.

The trick for cooking brussel sprouts is to buy them frozen in the ready to steam bag. Cook them as directed on the package. Once they are cooked put them on one side of the salmon. Place the raw asparagus on the other side of the of the salmon.

Drizzle olive oil over both vegetables and sprinkle with garlic salt.

Sprinkle your salmon with salt, pepper, garlic salt, and fish seasoning. 

Cut your butter into small chunks and place it all on top of your salmon.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes (or until salmon is cooked through - check the thickest spot).

Now you have salmon, and two veggies for dinner! So yummy and good for you!

Dan rated this a 4.5 stars out of 5, but my rating is what matters on this one and I give it a 5!

Try it! I promise you wont regret it!

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Quick Healthy Recipes Part 1

Mango Salsa Recipe
1 ripe/raw mango, peeled, pitted(without skin and seed)), and diced (about 1 1/2 cup)
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
1 Green Chilies/ Jalapeño, minced (include ribs and seeds for a hotter taste if desired)
1 small cucumber, peeled and diced (about 1 cup)
3 Tbsp. fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

3 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
 

Salt as per taste
(I even add little Carrot/Beetroot/Tomatoes. More the merrier)
Mix all and serve with lunch or dinner. You eat as salad or topping for Papad or topping for any chat items.

Stuffed Pita:Get Whole Wheat Pita Bread 1 Packet
Pressure Cook 1 & 1/2 cup Black beans with 4 Cup water, 2tsp salt and 2 Garlic cloves.
Drain water and keep Boiled Black beans aside. Add little salt again.
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
Raisin Grapes finely chopped
1 Tomatoes finely chopped
3 Tbsp. fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

Cut Pita into Half, pan grill till it turns golden throughout.
Open half cut pita like a pocket Fill it with Boiled Black beans, little cut onions, Grapes, tomatoes and Cilantro. Its ready to eat.
Vegetarian Lettuce wraps recipe is quick and easy to make. Serve the filling on a platter with whole lettuce leaves on the side, and let your friends and family wrap their own. Theyll love the combination of crisp, cold lettuce with the warm, flavorful filling.
head fresh iceberg lettuce (this type works best for this recipe)
1. Cooking oil: 3tsp
2. Finely chopped onions: 1½ Cup
3. Minced Garlic: 2 Tablespoons Cup
4. Finely chopped ginger: 1"x1"
5. Soy Chunks: 1½ Cup (Put Soy Chunks in Boiled water for 4min and drain the hot water by putting in colander and squeezing out all the water)
6. Mutton Masala/Garam Masala 1 teaspoon
7. Cumin Powder: 1 teaspoon
8. Coriander powder: 1 teaspoon
9. Red Chili powder/Lal Mirch powder (Cayenne): ½ teaspoon or to taste
10. Salt: ½ teaspoon or to taste
11. Tomato Paste/Mango powder(amchur): 2 tsp.
12. Defrosted green peas: 1 Cup (Optional)
13. Chopped fresh Cilantro: 2 Tablespoons

Method1. Heat oil in a heavy bottom pan/nonstick pan. Add onions and sauté onions till clear about 5 minutes. Add Garlic, Ginger. Continue Sautéing about 90 seconds.
2. Add Boiled & Drained Soy Chunks. On medium heat continue cooking and till all water is dried and the Soy has turned light brown.
3. Add ingredients Mutton Masala, Cumin Powder, Coriander powder, Red chili powder, Salt. Sauté about one minute.
4. Add Tomato Paste Continue sautéing till it forms a mixture (shiny).
5.  Turn down heat to medium. Cover. Simmer covered for 7 minutes or till done.
7. Add Green peas. Shut off heat. Do NOT cook peas for long time, they lose color and become mushy.
Garnish with fresh chopped Cilantro.
Now take 1 leaf of iceberg lettuce and put 1tbs of Soy Stuffing in the center, wrap it up and eat.
You can use some tamarind chutney or any ketchup to make it more interesting.

By: Reena Sharma

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New PHOTOS page on my blog!

Since I made a page just for recipes, I thought it was only suitable to also have a page dedicated just to photos of my progress... well and a few funny old Halloween photos for reference!  Enjoy the Photos!

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Week 12

#52weeksofRoarke

(this is by far the best #52weeksofRoarke pic so far)

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