Keep a Snack and Recipe List and Save Time!
Something I have done for years now is to keep a favorite snack and recipe list tucked into my recipe folder. Whenever I find a particularly wonderful recipe or snack idea I jot it down on the ever-expanding list. Then, when I am at a loss for what to plan for the week I can just get this out and pick a few.
I got the idea from a roommate back in my days as a summer intern in college. She was second generation Chinese and boy could she cook. She mostly cooked Chinese dishes, all of which were super-tasty, but could also wow us all with her American cuisine as well. One time she even went out picked wild rasberries to top off a pie that she had basically just whipped together from what ingredients were on hand. That’s some major skill for a 20 year old and all the rest of us were definitely appreciative.
Anyway, she kept a recipe box with 3×5 cards. Everytime she made up a new recipe that she liked, she’d write down the ingredients and a few notes about how to cook it and file it away. She explained that if she didn’t then she would forget what she had done.
My system is not nearly as fancy. A lined sheet of paper torn out of a spiral notebook from about 5 years ago that is labeled “Food Ideas.” There’s 4 different colors of pen ink on there and a few scribbles from the kids.
Here are some of the things that are on my list:
- Jiffy apple-cin muffin mix - make the coffee cake
- Lasagna with shredded carrots in filling
- Cinnamon sugar toast
- Sauted veggies with basil and goat cheese
- Focaccia bread w/ roasted garlic and sundried tomato on top, goat cheese on side
- Re-fried bean and cheese burritos
- Fruit salad with yogurt, honey, and chopped walnuts on top
- Krusteaz pancakes
- Scrambled eggs w/ ham and cheese mixed in
- White cheddar popcorn cakes w/ peanut butter on top
- Blackberry Chicken (recipe in New Basics cookbook)
- Green bean casserole
- Fresh broccoli steamed w/ a little cheddar on top
- Bagels w/ strawberry cream cheese
- Chile from “Pasta, Grains,…” Cookbook
- Phad Thai - Box, quick fix
- Sandwiches: pesto, tomato, goat cheese, and prosciutto
- Smoothies - fruit, yogurt, oj, etc.
- Cous cous
I wrote those exactly as they appear on my list. What’s on your list?!
July 9th, 2008 at 6:11 am
I’ve been using index cards for my recipes for a while now, but recently started to actually go through my cookbooks, find the recipes I like and write them down. My goal is to have a full-fledged recipe box by the end of it, instead of a million cookbooks out of which I only like a few recipes. I’m hoping that’ll save me some time when it comes to cook them, because I don’t search the books, and it’s already made grocery shopping a lot easier.
Some of my favorites are:
mini pizzas made on english muffins - so easy and tasty!
tuna noodle casserole from an old recipe from my dad’s family
chocolate chip cookies that I wish I could give you the source for, but all I remember was that it was a cookbook for kids. Those things are delicious!
Do you have any ideas/books for foods that you can make ahead of time and freeze, to actually cook and eat later? That’s what I’ve been looking for lately, and haven’t been able to find much.
btw, sorry I just wrote a novel in your comment space….
July 9th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Hi Sarah - I love English muffin pizzas too!
Try “The Once a Week Cooking Plan” by Joni Hilton. This book has 14 weeks of dinner recipes with grocery lists. You are supposed to make all the food during one marathon day and then freeze it to enjoy during the rest of the week.
I only did week one (the fajita salad with goat cheese is awesome) because quite frankly it took like 4 hours of HARD LABOR to prepare all the meals for the week and I was so exhausted and stressed afterward that I never ventured to make another week’s worth.
That said, however, you should pick up the book anyway because it has a ton of great tips on how to freeze food. And you might find that you have more stamina than I (or are a faster cook) and that the cooking spree isn’t so bad for you. Let me know if you venture down this path!
July 9th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Thanks for the tip! I’m headed down to the library soon to return some books, so hopefully this one will be available. We’ll see about the stamina… I always THINK marathon cooking days sound like a good idea until I start doing them… and I’m always missing a key ingredient, somehow