Salmon & Green Beans-Enter LEAN & GREEN

John has lost more than 20 pounds! He's doing Take Shape for Life and doing great!

So I've had a major change in the way I plan meals. Recently, I actually got my entire month planned! This was a huge milestone and I was very excited to not have to be planning all the time. But the reality is that the kids don't really eat my meals. Enter the BRAINWAVE-if they don't eat my meals anyway, why not cook for JOHN!? I can plan Lean & Green meals for his eating plan and they can not eat that!

So my new focus is to create a new meal plan for one month and just use it again and again. I'm guessing it will improve as we replace what we really like with the less desirable meals. John got the meat and beans and the kids ate a half of a baked potato and some leftover couscous. They didn't eat much, but DANIEL LIKED THE SALMON! Whooohooo!

These salmon patties were pretty good. Wild salmon patties from Trader Joes. I marinated in teriyaki sauce and pan fried them in some olive oil over medium heat for less than 10 minutes (about 4 minutes per side). Frozen green beans from Costco. Really easy meal!

I used the marinade from the PRISM cookbook (bottom of page). In 2004 I lost 40 pounds doing PRISM. I didn't cook in 2004 but I did try two recipes and they are really, really tasty!

Time Savor Gourmet Cooking Kit

Since John is doing Take Shape for Life , I need to fix him "lean and green" meals. The meals I've been preparing are NOT lean and NOT green! Enter a new tool to help me.

I ordered this "lean and green" kit from Time Savor Gourmet.

It includes recipes and some of her signature seasoning spices and oils. I'm planning on using these recipes as a tool to help me THINK GREEN. No, not THAT green...like lettuce is GREEN, you know, v-e-g-e-t-a-b-l-e-s...I think I've heard of them.

I'll let you know what recipes are from Time Savor Gourmet with TSG.

My Meal Planning Organization Philosophy

After I started my self-education in January I started getting curious about recipes-online. When I saw a pretty picture of food I thought I might like, I printed it out on a full sheet of blank paper.

This helped me start a notebook of possible recipes to fill in those days with no ideas.

There are so many different SIZES of paper and index cards. I just pulled the plug on the insanity and decided to organize everything on 8 1/2"x11" blank paper-hurrah! What to do:

1-purchase a ream of blank computer paper
2-purchase a box of 100 semi-heavy clear page protectors (don't bother with the flimsy cheap ones, they rip!)
3-purchase 2 at least 1" 3-ring binders

This will allow you to have a RECIPE BOOK for your favorites (tape those index cards from your recipe box on a blank sheet and put in a page protector-or better yet, copy the card onto a document and print it out-then toss the card in the recycle bin!) Your 2nd binder is your "home" for your planning sheets...I keep my main monthly plan in a page protector where I can add to it and reference it for grocery lists, blank plans and blank grocery sheets in this binder. I also put recipes for the month into this binder. So now you have a RECIPE BINDER and a MEAL PLANNING BINDER. All nice and tidy and in one place...my cookbooks (all 3!) are on the same shelf with the binders.

I have friend who have shelves and shelves of cookbooks. Might  I suggest SELLING them on eBay?! There's so many, many recipes to be found online, why waste your shelf spacing STORING cookbooks? Put your favorite recipes into your binder and get rid of the rest of the cookbooks! (Unless a book has many favorite recipes, then I suppose it would be worth keeping).

Favorite Flank Steak & Roasted Asparagus

This terrific flank steak marinade is my mother-in-law's recipe. So easy!
3T olive oil
3T soy sauce
1T ketchup
1/4t oregano
garlic of your choice
Marinate for 12-24 hours.

We've discovered fresh asparagus-not steamed-but cooked in a super yummy way. Roasted on a foil-lined cookie sheet for about 15 minutes at 350ish. Sprinkle olive oil and kosher salt and a splash of balsamic vinegar before cooking. YUM!

Wrap a poked potato in plastic wrap and microwave for 5 minutes. Viola! I made another dinner!

Chicken, Couscous & Way Too Much Spinach!

Ooops, this was a made-up dinner. A little chicken, a box of couscous and frozen broccoli and a few carrots. I thought I'd be "healthy" and add some green since John can only have "lean and green" for dinner...I used a box of frozen spinach. This was the SPINACH dinner...too much! I could have just used a half of a box and that would have been OK.

Finally-A Month Of Meals!

John started a new job recently. At John's old job, he stayed late at work Mondays and Thursday nights, so I did hot dogs and macaroni & cheese for a quick dinner for the kids since he wasn't home. When I started planning meals, I only did Tuesday and Wednesday because we had our Tuesday group and on Wednesdays we went to church. So though time was tight, we had family dinners two nights per week. I soon added Saturday and Sunday to my plan because, well, we need to eat dinner on those days, too!

So I just recently finished my MONTH! WOW, all these meals are real meals that I would eat!

Now that John is working a new job (very close to home!) he is home every night for family dinner! This has been a life dream of mine...family dinners! I'm pinching myself! Not only is John HOME at dinnertime but I have dinner ready! Mind-boggling the transformation I've gone through! Thanks to Lifestyle of Learning!

A practical note: I've been using blank paper and a 3-ring binder for my planning. It is SO much easier to keep things simple...from my planning sheet to my grocery shopping list to printing out recipes from the web...FORGET 4"x6" recipe cards! I have found if I keep everything the SAME SIZE, my life is just BETTER!

Five Bean Soup

Five Bean Soup with chicken was delicious. Sadly I was the only one who liked it. You won't be seeing this dinner again!