Whole Foods Fast: Sugar Free Taco Seasoning Mix

Everyone is happy on Taco Day in our house.  I am happy because it is a healthy meal with little prep work or clean-up work that can be made ahead that our kids love to eat.  The kids are happy because they love the taste and have fun making their own tacos.



Sugar Free Taco Seasoning Mix
Adapted from Family Feasts for $75 per week

1/2 cup of dried minced onion
1/4 cup sweet paprika
1/4 cup organic corn starch
3 Tablespoons Chili Powder
2 Tablespoons of Salt
2 Tablespoons of Garlic Powder
1 Tablespoon of Ground Cumin
1 Tablespoon of Dried Oregano

1. ) Place all the ingredients in a pint-size canning jar.  Put lid on and shake to combine.  Use 1/4 cup for every 1 pound of ground beef.

Notes:
* You will thank yourself over-and-over again if you cook 4-6 pounds of ground beef and use what you need the first day and put the rest in freezable Pyrex containers (I find the 3 1/2 cup rectangular size is the perfect serving size for our family of four)
* This is my go-to meal when we get a last minute invite out on an afternoon when I haven't made dinner yet, but I want to eat at our usual 5/6PM time.  I pop one of these out of the freezer, take the meat out of the pyrex, put it in my slow cooker on high, chop up some tomatoes, shred the cheese and go have some fun.  Then when we get back home a dinner everyone likes is waiting for us.
* If you want to have this every week, alternate between tacos and taco salads every week.  That way you won't feel like you are serving the same thing every week.

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Preparing & Freezing Meatballs for Use Through the Month, with Video

One thing I have been trying to get better at doing is double prepping my meals.  There are so many things I like to do in summer that do not involve being in the kitchen cooking.  So I try to double every freezable recipe that I make so I cut my cooking time for the month in half.  For example, this week I doubled and froze everything I made so that the week of June 20th, I won't have to cook at all, I just have to pull things out of the freezer and heat them up.

Today I made and froze my meatballs.  These will actually serve us for about 4 meals.  Here is how I make them with the ingredients shown below.


1. Mix the eggs, sprinkle parsley, salt and pepper over the top.


2. Put in 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder.


3. Put in 1 cup of breadcrumbs in the mixture.  I make my breadcrumbs by saving the ends from my Food for Life Sprouted bread in a freezer bag for a couple months, then once I have enough, I chop them up in the food processor and put them back in the freezer for use when I need them.


4. Mix that up well.


5. Add your meat into the mixture and bring it all together with your hands.


6. Line a baking sheet with foil, parchment paper or plastic wrap and shape your meat mixture into balls.  I like to use a melon baller, but your hands work just as well.  Note: I have never tried it, but I think if you really wanted to prep a lot of meat, this mixture would probably work well for burgers.  You could double the recipe and pre-shape and then freeze some burgers to have on hand as well.   







7. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the freezer.


8. Once they are frozen, take them off the tray and put the meatball in a bag.


What are your favorite dishes to use meatballs in?  I usually use mine for pasta or Italian Wedding Soup.

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Whole Foods Fast: Learn to Cook Without using Measuring Spoons

Learning to cook without using measuring spoons can save you time in the kitchen, because you can quickly dump in your herbs, spices and seasonings without having to worry about finding or cleaning your measuring spoons between ingredients.

Below I created a video Whole Foods Fast tip that I picked up from The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper book on how to teach yourself how to measure without measuring spoons.  A text description follows for those of you who prefer text.

First, Grab your measuring spoons

Measure out your ingredient with the measuring spoon and then put it in your hand.  Note what each volume looks like in your hand.

For the next couple weeks measure the same way; into your measuring spoon, then into your hand, and then into your pot.  After awhile you should get the hang of what each measurement looks like in your hand.  

Whole Foods Fast: Double the Recipe

One technique that I use frequently in order to have real food on hand in a hurry is to double up on things that freeze well.  We usually have soup for Sunday evening dinner.  Generally we have a bigger lunch, so we aren't too hungry for dinner, but still need something to fill our bellies until the morning.  Tonight it was Lentil soup.  Instead of making just once batch, I doubled the recipe and put the extra in a pyrex to freeze for next Sunday's dinner.

Two tips when freezing soup:

• Store it in a shallow container.  The soup will cool down faster because it is spread out thinner and you have less risk of food spoilage.  For the same reason, it will defrost faster when you are ready to heat it up again.
• Know how many ladles your soup bowls can hold.  My soup bowls hold 4 ladles of soup for adults, and 2 for the kids.  When it comes time to freeze the soup, I know that I need to ladle out 12 ladles of soup into the storage container (4 for me, 4 for hubby, 2 for daughter, 2 for son).

No Frills Pressure Cooker Lentil Soup:

1. Put all of the ingredients below in pressure cooker and bring to high pressure for 10 minutes.  Let the pressure come down naturally.

1 lb dried lentils, picked over to remove stones

4 carrots, sliced (I cut the carrots in half lengthwise, and then slice them with my 2mm food processor disc.

1 and 1/2 onions chopped

4 cloves of garlic minced

1 quart of homemade chicken stock

2 cups water

1/4 teaspoon rosemary

1/4 teaspoon oregano

4 bay leaves

optional: a few slices of chopped bacon.

2. Open Pressure Cooker up.  Salt & Pepper to taste, add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste.  

3. Ladle in bowls and drizzle with olive oil.  

NOTE: Ideally you soak the lentils the night before you make this.  If you soak them, you probably won't need to add the extra two cups of water.  If you open it up and your soup looks too watery, turn up the heat and boil it down a bit.  If it looks to thick, add some boiling water.

Do you have a favorite soup to freeze?

Cooking Whole Foods Fast: Mise en Place

Today I am introducing a new series on aMichiganMom: Cooking Whole Foods Fast.  A series that will focus on different tips and techniques for cooking real, whole foods fast.  You can find all the posts under the tag Whole Foods Fast.


First tip, dinner.  I get home at 5PM from work and we like to eat at 6PM.  I also like to try and rest for 15 mins while the kids was Caillou.  So I usually have about 30-40 mins to prepare dinner.  With a little preparation I can easily make a fast whole foods dinner in this time, or less.  How?  Mise en place.  I try to prep the ingredients the night before.  For example, Tuesday we were having the quick noodle stir-fry from the Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.  So Monday night as I was cleaning up dinner, I chopped up all the veggies for Tuesday's stir-fry, layered them in the order I needed to add them, mixed the ingredients for the sauce, and put it all in a container.  So Tuesday night, all I had to do was boil the noodles and fry up the already cut veggies.  The dish was excellent (it was the first time I made it), and it was ready in just 10 mins.  I used two pans, but I could have easily made it a meal with a one-pot clean up by draining the noodles and stir-frying everything in the pan the noodles had cooked in, while the noodles were in the colander.


Do you have a Cooking Whole Foods Fast tip for the new series?  Email me at jmagro@gmail.com with your tip (and ideally a picture) for consideration.