simplifying meal planning

Lately, I've been thinking about (and have started using) a simple and old fashioned approach to meal planning--having a designated meal for each night of the week. I've resisted that in the past because it sounds so dreary (meatloaf on Monday, casserole on Tuesday. . . ) but in reality it's close to what we do anyway, so why not formalize it and make meal planning really easy on myself?

Actually, what really made me decide to take this approach is something I read in Simplicity Parenting (which I checked out from the library a month or so ago). The author advocates simplifying everything in family life--from getting rid of most of the toys and paring down to just a few books, to cutting back on kids' activities, to simplifying meals. The meal thing really stuck in my mind. The author said, why is it that we feel like each family member is somehow entitled to eat his favorite food or meal preference pretty much every night? Why does every meal have to be exciting? I do well with rhythm and routines and his points made sense to me, so I decided to try the system.
Here is what I came up with at first:
Monday--beans
Tuesday--pizza
Wednesday--soup
Thursday--Subway
Friday--burritos
Saturday--pasta
Sunday--"Sunday Dinner" (such as steak or a roast)

After reading this post on monthly meal planning I decided to add in a bit more variety. I think this will work better:
Monday--beans/or pasta
Tuesday--pizza
Wednesday--soup
Thursday--Subway
Friday--burritos
Saturday--chicken/or casserole
Sunday--"Sunday Dinner"

The thing I like about this is that there's a lot of flexibility within the categories and yet when I do sit down to make a weekly menu and grocery list I can do so pretty quickly and without a lot of "what do I feel like making" kind of pondering. Another thing I've been thinking about quite a bit lately is eating simply--with an emphasis on healthful foods and not trying a bunch of new recipes all the time that call for a bunch of different ingredients that I might not ever use again. I'm also more into using produce from the garden than I used to be in years past.

I would love to hear your experiences with using a weekly meal plan. Is it a comforting rhythm or does it turn into drudgery? Does the family complain? I've been doing this a few weeks now and so far no one has noticed or said anything. The big challenge for me (still) is finding things to make that everyone will eat--little ones included.

(By the way, my kitchen counters are something I do not love, but I am tickled every time that Faith says "I love our kitchen counters!" She's a true independent thinker--I love that about her).

a list of 50 things I like

I've been working on a list of things I like--just jotting down things as they come to me. I think it's fun to see what others think of as their "go to" products and entertainments and just stuff they like. Here are some of mine.

1. Prints in general--art prints like the one I just bought. I'm so enchanted with decorating in this way. Beautiful real life print inspiration here.
2. Harvest Whole Wheat Bread (from Trader Joe's). Store bought bread is a necessity in our family, but it's so hard to find one that isn't either unappealingly soft and flabby or discouragingly dry and dense. This one is not only a satisfying medium texture but has such a nice flavor, too--it slightly tastes of honey.
3. Mason jars. So homey and comforting in all their forms. Jar inspiration here.
4. My Little Otsu planner, which has been working so well for me this year.
5. The Habit. Better than In-n-Out, I swear, but much less crowded.
6. Planet Box. So sensible and convenient.
7. Cooking dried beans from scratch. I feel like such an earth goddess when I do this. Highly recommended if you haven't tried it yet. Put in an inch of kombu for enhanced flavor.
8. My canning funnel. It comes in handy for so many things throughout the year besides canning.
9. Fly Lady. More about that this week.
10. Making log cabin squares. So fun to put together and such a great way to use up some scraps. I love combining the fabrics.
11. Overtired and Cranky bubblebath. It smells SO good. I'd buy it even if I didn't have little ones. It has a good safety rating, too.
12. This American Life. Love to listen to it on my commute.
13. Envirosax. Mine are still going strong and I think the roll-up style of bags is the most convenient of the reusable bag types (as opposed to the scrunch style).
14. Mollie Katzen. She just seems so down to earth in her cookbook style. We have The Moosewood Cookbook and several of her children's cookbooks.
15. Amazon. I just love the convenience of it and the basic concept.
16. Netflix. Ditto the above.
17. I Capture the Castle. The book, not the movie. I love its main character, Cassandra Mortman, and the early scenes in the castle--the the summer solstice scene too.
18. Radiolab. Such a wonderful podcast about science.
19. Green smoothies.
20. The smell of rain.
21. The mail. I still love it in its snail form.
22. Walking.
23. Making lists.
24. Lemon zest drink.
25. Giving jars of homemade jam at Christmastime.
26. Homegrown food.
27. Soup for lunch.
28. Postcrossing.
29. Handmade quilts.
30. Coffee.
31. Stargirl. The first book, not the sequel.
32. Making things.
33. Ikea.
34. Sweet-savory combos.
35. The Secret of Roan Innish.
36. Morning light filtering in through the windows.
37. Mark Bittman.
38. Cinnamon Altoids--in both the gum and mint form.
39. Lisa Leonard's blog. I love her positive outlook and her love of simple pleasures. She is super inspiring.
40. And her jewelery.
41. Angry Chicken. For all her creativity and her original style.
42. Blogging.
43. Nigella Feast. I own many of her cookbooks. This one is beautiful, with a great style of photography, and even though the cookbook is about feasts, she includes tons of food for everyday "feasts" as well.
44. Apples for Jam. I love her emphasis on everyday cooking for the family. The photos are amazing too.
45. Love Actually. We watch this every year on New Year's Eve.
46. "Sugar" lip balm. My absolute favorite, and I am really picky about lipbalms. I love the lemony scent.
47. The Genius Playlist feature on my i-pod. I use this all the time and I'm never disappointed.
48. My Grey's Anatomy soundtrack. So many great songs on here.
49. Trader Joe's.
50. Flair pens.

That's my current list. What's on yours?

my new favorite bread recipe

Lately I've been making these lovely dinner rolls for weekend dinners. They come from a newspaper cut-out recipe that my mother gave to me a long time ago. I've modified it just a bit to make the rolls more wheaty, but I left a lot of the white flour too, to keep them light. These are super easy and quick, and what I love about them is that you can make little sandwiches with the leftovers. It's so fun and somehow comforting to have a midweek sandwich on homemade bread.

No-Knead Dinner Rolls

2 1/4 t. yeast
1 1/2 c. warm water
1 T. sugar
2 T. melted butter
1 1/2 t. salt
3 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
1 c. whole wheat flour

1) Combine the yeast, warm water, sugar, butter, and salt. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in flour until well blended. Cover bowl and let rise 1 hour.
2) Punch down. On floured board, cut dough into 16 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball. Place 2-3" apart on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cover lightly and let rise 10-20 minutes (until almost doubled).
3) Uncover and bake in a 400 degree oven until golden brown, 15-18 minutes. Serve warm or cool.

only apples

I've been trying to eat only apples whenever I feel like snacking. I can't say I've entirely stuck with it, but it has made me think twice or thrice before mindlessly eating crackers, chips, or other less desirable snacks. What do you eat for snacks? Or do you avoid snacking altogether?? My ideal snack would probably be a slice of some rustic homemade cake with a cup of tea on the side.

about that puzzle

Some of you have been asking about this puzzle. It's the octagon blocks from The Wooden Wagon. Love love love this toy. Although I have to warn you, I bought this for Rainer at Christmas, for his under the tree gift, and he has taken little interest in it. He likes it a little bit now, but didn't like it at all at first. Dieter and all the adults and teens love it, though. There are so many designs and patterns that can be made! (By the way, it comes in two sizes. We have the big one). I love how it is super fun but also a nice decoration for our little bookcase.

more corners of my home

I freshened up some of the 'corners of my home' today. First was the mantle. I got a new print that I am loving so much (I am a spending freeze failure at the moment, but vow to go back on!). Anyway, when I saw this print I had a very strong emotional response to it and just had to click through and order it. It is from here.
I also changed some other things around. That mantle clock was made by Jacob in eighth grade woodshop. It gives me a very warm feeling, knowing that he made it.
Also, I rotated in my favorite piece of children's art ever--those funny red cats, also by Jacob, grade four or five. Love love love. That squirrel nutcracker is from my mom's house a couple years ago. I only get it out in fall and I will buy the children some nuts to crack in it.
Other corners: we got out the autumn books and rotated the summer ones out.
And I changed the nature table a bit. We are waiting for the leaves and acorns to start falling so we can add those.
And this is not exactly a corner, but I couldn't help but photograph the boys coloring. They spent nearly the whole weekend doing so and were enthralled. Dieter and I picked up some coloring books Friday afternoon and they have been loving them all weekend. So fun. I'm not anti-coloring book.When coloring, although they are not creating their own drawings, at least they are producing not consuming and learning their way around the art supplies. I think it's good.

up next

Having a crafty to-do list posted in my studio is helping me be so focused about what my next project will be. I'm really loving that because I'm a person who tends to overthink these types of decisions when what I'd rather be doing is just starting in. So next up is a queen sized comforter cover for our bed. I really like the idea of this and have been wanting to make one for so long. This weekend I assembled the fabrics and started cutting the first few squares.
I'm getting a lot of inspiration for the colorway from this photo. I love the way that soft blues and natural linens are paired with black and white prints.
The photo comes from this book, which I am loving so far. I haven't made anything in it yet, mind you, but I'm loving pouring over it. Faith got this for me for my birthday in June. Everything in here is my taste.
Love this little cloth for the coffee table. I hope to make this at some point.
Also loving this wintery garland. I don't feel the need to buy every beautiful craft book that comes out these days because there are just so many of them (and I have so many want-to-make projects lined up in my existing craft books) but this one I just love owning and I hope to make many of the projects "someday."

drives me batty!

Dieter and Rainer love to make "forts" with the couch cushions. It drives me batty! We live in a smallish space, and when the living room is all torn apart like this I feel like the whole house is in chaos.


But aren't they so cute and happy with their forts? So I let them. And at a certain time of day I say "enough! No more forts today!" That is a good compromise that works for me. I like it when they are building and helping each other and managing on their own.

Another "drives me batty!" complaint: making lunches! Grr! Most dreaded and hated chore. I actually get a kick (still) out of filling their little Planet Boxes. It's the fact that I have to make FIVE lunches a night that drives me nuts. When it's all said and done I've spent a good half hour to nearly an hour in the process. Can't get around it, but oh how I love summer for its lack of lunch packing.

Ok. Those are my two complaints of the moment. What's driving you batty right now??

such a mellow Sunday

I used to try to rush-around every Sunday, doing multiple loads of laundry and cooking a bunch of meals for the coming week. I've re-arranged a lot of those things and now, at least as long as this new plan keeps working, our Sundays are much more open. Ken always goes to school and works on Sundays (a teacher's job never ends!), so I hang out with the kids. On this day all the kids were home--teens included. We are a mellow bunch--Jacob was on his computer, Ben read a book, Faith and I analyzed our colors. The boys and I did some extensive coloring and drawing too.
Leaf rubbings were a huge hit with both boys.

I got out my mostly neglected sketchbook and found I really did like reading back through whatever was in there. So I added some September thoughts.
Faith and I had much fun looking through this catalog which had arrived the day before. It is so fun to have a teen daughter to curl on the couch with and peruse catalogs!
I completely fell in love with the styling of these clothes and so many of the settings of the photos. I love this long sweater and that long sleeved shirt with thumb holes.
Love love love everything going on in this photo. Of course I am partial to stripes and the colorway here is so pretty.
More stripes and a fun scarf. Loving all the wrist warmers too. I want to make some this year if I ever finish my little knitted shawl.
Very cute sweater coat. The website for all this is here. It's all pretty pricey but we just had so much fun being inspired by it.

So, week three of school starts tomorrow. I'm getting into the groove of things and it's all feeling pretty good. I will be taking Rainer to chemo on Wednesday, so there is that. He has OPS this time. I've been developing all kinds of ways to tweak the Flylady system to keep the household running smoothly during the schoolyear/workyear. I'll post soon on how all that is going so far. It will be interesting to see if I can keep all the balls in the air. Which reminds me, I have to go start a load of laundry right now!

a little project

I love a small fast project that has a lot of bang for the buck. I threw together this little garland for the mantle last weekend and I couldn't believe how fast it went. I made it super simple by not finishing the edges whatsoever and just folding rectangles of fabric over some store bought bias tape and stitching down the row. I was going for a fallish color scheme, but I think it would be fun to make more of these in all different colorways. Picking and combining the fabric is the funnest part.

freezing food for winter

I am very interested in preserving some of our garden produce for winter, but canning much just didn't work out this year. We did make a few batches of jam here and there, but oh my goodness, canning is just a lot of work, isn't it? Easy, yes, but very time consuming. Hats off to all of you who can do a lot of canning and involve the children, but I'm just not at that level yet. Rather, I'm inclined to make jam at night when they are asleep, which means that I'm tired too.

So I decided to look into freezing a bit more. We don't have a big freezer, but we do have some freezer space. Doesn't it make sense to use it for home grown produce? To me it makes a lot of sense. We have a ton of tomatoes, so I decided to start with that.
I googled instructions, and found out that it is super easy. All you do is dip the tomatoes into a pot of boiling water for 1 minute, peel them, halve them, squeeze out some of the seeds (there will still be plenty of seeds in there, but you can get out some by squeezing), and then freeze. They'll be good for homemade tomato sauce and anywhere you'd use canned tomatoes. I'm excited about this and have put up two big batches so far. It feels really frugal and homesteady. Love that feeling.
Tomatoes in a jar are nice, but using these ziplock bags is much more practical for my freezer. I have some jars of pesto in there too, and I plan to freeze some grated zucchini too, for zucchini bread in winter. I love observing the seasons this way. Yes, the winters here are mild, but we really do have a particular growing season and the plants will die back with the first freeze, so I feel good about that. I long for four seasons and have to observe them any way I can.

late summer bag

I finished my new bag this weekend. Oh, how I love the sense of accomplishment that finishing a sewing project brings. This is a slight variation on the mama bag from Handmade Home. My other mama bag has been such a big success, I wanted another for a more summery/early fall feel. This is made from a thifted piece of fabric (I think it was half a tablecloth) that I think has such a vintagey feel to it.
I added a top piece of dotted fabric (also thrifted) and some vintage buttons. I like the extra roominess that top piece provides. I added extra pockets in this one too. I find I really need them so as not to lose essential items in the bottom of the bag.
Modeling the new bag in the studio.
In other news, I got a haircut over the weekend (much needed!) and wore a new dress. And I twirled. And we went out for frozen yogurt as a family. And I took Jacob, my oldest, out to lunch, just him and me. And on Sunday I went to the zoo with all four of the children I gave birth to (my "loin fruit" as Faith insists on calling herself and brothers!), plus I went to Trader Joe's with all of them as well, and they all selected bottled smoothies, and that night we had cheese fondue--all 7 of us, together as a family. And I harvested tomatoes and squash from the garden. And I knit two long rows. That was a lovely long weekend.

helping

Two weeks ago I decided to let the little boys "help" with the weekly cleaning hour (the "white tornado" in our family). As you know, I've been super enthusiastic about doing the "Flylady" system for cleaning around here, and this weekly white tornado is a fairly new thing. I love it (really!), but I'm very much the type of mama to want to do such a thing on my own, move through the house quickly, with much focus and intent, and not to include the little ones. The first few weeks, that is how I tried to do it--I would ask Ken to take the boys outside or to the park so I could clean. But on the other hand, didn't I say back in January that I want "helping" to be the family theme for the year? And didn't I say that I want the boys to have more opportunity to make and do for themselves? And wasn't I just thinking that I want to teach them to do real things? Yes to all of these things. Moreover, Dieter was really asking me if he could help. And Rainer always wants to do what his brother does . . .

So, I let them help. And you know what? It has been awesome. Not only did they enjoy themselves, but it turns out that they can really help me! Dieter's favorite part was cleaning fingerprints off the wall with a Magic Eraser. Both boys like running the broom and the dry Swiffer. Both boys retreat when I run the vacuum, then come back out again when I'm done (they dislike the noise). Both boys are enthusiastic about dusting and batting down cobwebs. I am so surprised--both by how much they can really help with and also that I was able to pull it off personally. I think letting them help more, even though it takes longer or I might not get the house as clean, is a huge growth area for me. And I'm proud of myself for moving in the direction I want to be moving. And to celebrate and encourage their continued helping, I bought them both little brooms. They arrived this week, and oh how excited they are! It will still be nice, I suspect, to do an occasional White Tornado all on my own, but how sweet it is to have my little ones by my side.

Editing to add: ack! I just read the package and realized those Magic Erasers are toxic! I know some of you might be concerned. No, we won't be buying those any more. It's a shame because they work so well and are fun to use. Dang!

~~~~~~~~~
And also, thank you so much for your warm response to my article in Rhythm of the Home! It felt fantastic to find that others are like-minded. I suspected there were others out there that share my situation and have similar feelings about it all. It's so nice to find such support in all of you.

Rhythm of the Home

I am super excited to let you know that I have an article in the current edition of Rhythm of the Home! It is such an honor to be included! I wrote about a topic I am passionate about and have been giving so much thought to lately--making a lovely, comfortable home for ourselves and families. My article is here if you'd like to check it out!