Weekly Cookup: May 26th

As a management consultant, I travel a lot for work however I try to minimize disruption to my household.  When I am home, I enjoy cooking for my family because I think it is healthier and I like to try new things.  So, when I am away I don't want them to revert to takeout for dinner every night.  Not only would this be expensive, it would not be nearly as healthy as the organic farm fresh food I typically prepare.  This week, I will only be out of town for a couple of days so I prepared a couple of dishes.  I made lasagna roll-ups when essentially have the same ingredients as regular lasagna with a slightly different prep.

Rolling lasagna noodles filled with ricotta and shredded cheese

I also cooked curry chicken which I threw in the crockpot as we were on our way out the door to a Memorial Day cookout.

Though I cook a lot, I have a general rule that my time in the kitchen should not exceed 30 minutes for a meal unless it is a truly special occasion.  So the crockpot is a perfect solution.  My weekly cookup includes meals that reheat well and make good leftovers.  Let me know if you have any suggestions to add to my repertoire.

Lazy Sunday morning and iced coffee

I turned my Memorial Day weekend into 5 days of downtime thanks to vacation days on Thursday and Friday.  I've taken on additional leadership responsibilities at work so I really make an extra effort to be fully present during family time which means unplugging and relaxing.

I started if this morning with iced coffee and mango pancakes (my hubby is the Pancake King!)  Normally, I eat protein, fruit and veggies for breakfast but I could not resist these awesome pancakes.  The mango carmelized as they cooked....yum!

Then I spent some time on the patio with my daughter as she planted her taco and pizza gardens.  My hubby and son had a tee time at Turtle Creek so it turned out to be a Girls'' Day In.  We relaxed and gave ourselves pedicures on the patio.  It turned out to be a perfect holiday Sunday.  Feeling blessed!

Christmas DIY: Sugar Scrubs!

The holidays are upon us and if you’re like me, you’ve had your moments of being overjoyed and also moments of being overwhelmed. Like every year, I started off by declaring that my gift list would be short and only include a few children. And like every year, the list grew to include adult relatives, teachers, and friends. I decided to make gifts more meaningful and inexpensive this year by creating some of them myself. I recruited my children to help make their (numerous) teacher gifts.

I am not the most creative person in the world, so I recycled a recipe I learned from the fabulous Karen Peters at one of her blending workshops. We made candy cane scented sugar scrubs for the teachers and packaged them with a little poem that explained how to use them and also some chocolate covered peppermint sticks. We used finely ground pure cane sugar purchased from our local grocery store and added a blend of olive, grapeseed, and avocado oils. Then we scented the scrub with a couple of drops of candy cane fragrance oil. It smelled absolutely edible! The teachers loved the unique gifts and I can defintely say that they were a hit!

Home/Work Basics: Starting the Day Off Right!

As each year begins, I promise myself that I will be diligent in my meditation. When I meditate at the beginning of the day, I feel more calm, peaceful, and focused. However, I always seem to get off track and let my quiet time fall to the wayside. This year was no different. I started off meditating and journaling. However, as I got busier with work and family obligations I found other things to do besides meditate.

Reading one of my favorite blogs, Moptop Maven, inspired me to get back on track. Her insightful article on meditating made me realize how valuable that time is. I took her advice and found my "peaceful place" and now I meditate at least three times a week after my jog over this bridge.

I sit in a picnic area at the base of the bridge and just spend some time focusing on me.

Meatless Monday! Angel Hair Pasta

It’s amazing to me that so many of our meals center around meat. I was a vegetarian for about a year and struggled to create meals that did not center around omelets or salads that left me hungry in a couple of hours. My family is very active so Meatless Mondays need to have enough substance to make them feel satisfied when dinner is over.

One of our favorite meatless meals is angel hair pasta w/tomatoes, basil, and garlic served with a big salad. The pasta is a simple recipe from an old school cookbook, In the Kitchen with Rosie, created by one of Oprah’s former personal chefs.

Here’s the super simple recipe:

1 teaspoon olive oil

2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced

½ cup dry white wine

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 cup chopped tomato (1 medium tomato)

8 oz angel hair pasta

¼ cup chopped fresh basil

2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to boil over high heat and maintain at a boil.

Put the olive oil and garlic in saute’ pan and cook over medium heat just until garlic begins to brown. Remove from heat and pour in wine. Return to heat. Cook another 1 to 2 minutes, until wine has been reduced by half. Stir in lemon juice and tomato. Remove pan from heat.

Place pasta in boiling water and cook to desired doneness. Drain the pasta and put it into warm serving bowl. Add the basil, Parmesan cheese, and black pepper, along with tomato mixture. Toss and serve immediately.

Cutting Expenses

Saving money does not always have to be the result of a detailed, time-consuming plan. Sometime, it can be as simple as picking up the phone.

During a peculiar incidence of late night insomnia, I was watching Suze Orman re-runs (for some reason I never watch the actual show). She was giving a caller advice about cutting all of her expenses by 20%. I thought to myself, “easier said than done”. However, sometimes it really is just that easy.

The next day, I called up my trusty cable company to discuss the ridiculous price of our cable, internet, and telephone package. I was totally prepared to leave the cable company and go back to the phone company for the same services.

It was surprisingly easy to get them give me a “special” which cut my bill by $41 – a little over 20% . Hmmmm…..who can I negotiate with next?

Meatless Monday!

In an effort to incorporate more veggies into our diets, my family tries to go meatless at least one night per week. Meatless Mondays are a great way to get kids involved in coming up with dinner ideas that do not involve meat. They love the theme and have actually tried to put a theme on every night of the week (Taco Tuesdays, Soup Sundays, etc). The weeklong themes are a bit much and I don’t even attempt them but Meatless Mondays are going strong.

Our last Meatless Monday meal was a grown-up twist on one of the kids’ favorites – smoked gouda mac and cheese which also has a little spinach in it. I served it with a beet salad. For some reason, my children really like beets. They don’t eat the blue cheese, and walnuts in the salad but they do eat a lot of beets.

This meal was quick and flavorful and made great leftovers.

Home Basics: Getting out of Debt!

It is easy to pretend all is well when money is rolling in. However, the less than stellar economy has revealed that most Americans are living well beyond their means. Highly leveraged individuals are finding it hard to make ends meet. Now is the perfect time to start paying down debt.

Now, I am not talking about paying minimum balances. We all know that approach does not work at actually getting rid of debt. My tried and true approach is the snowball method, a term coined by personal finance guru Dave Ramsey. I did not create this method however I can say it works!

Here’s what you do:

· List all of your loans/credit cards along with their respective balances and interest rates (full disclosure is key!);

· Arrange them from highest to lowest interest rate;

· Start making payments as much above the minimum as you can afford on the highest interest rate loan/card while still paying the minimum on all other debt;

· Once that loan/card is paid off, use the money that was going towards that payment and ADD it to the minimum payment you were making on the card/loan with the next highest interest rate;

· Continue until all debt is paid off;

· Stay out of debt!

Some recommend paying off the debt with the lowest balance first regardless of its interest rate just to get a sense of accomplishment. That, of course, is your personal choice. You may have to make some sacrifices, create another stream of income, and/or live well below your means (which we should all do anyway) until you are debt free. But it will be so worth it!

Here are some handy calculators to help figure out how long it will take to get out of debt:

Bankrate.com’s credit card payoff calculator

CNN's debt planner

About.com's snowball payment calculator

Home Basics: How Do You Keep Track of Household Finances?

As a a carefree, single person I did not track my finances closely even though I should have. I had a good paying job and only a few bills and no problems paying them. However, once I got married I realized that the merging of my husband's and my student loans, scholarships, and work study money (we were both in post graduate programs) needed to be monitored. And now that we have re-entered the workforce we still watch our dollars.

We have evolved from a basic Excel spreadsheet to Quicken to Mac Moneydance and back to Excel again. One of my closest friends swears by the Home Budget app to sync her and her spouse's finances.

What works for you?