Making Life Simpler

Life can be complicated. Schedules are crazy - while I know that neither of my parents ever kept a calendar, I can't function without mine - and I try to limit activities so that we all have some down time. So when I find an action that makes my life easier, I make it a habit!

Here are ten things I've done that simplify my life:

1. cooking oatmeal overnight in the slow cooker, so that busy school mornings don't also involve cooking. I have to use a timer to turn it on around 3am - all night cooking results in a crusty mess.
   
   
2. using small, ~8"x10" plastic cutting boards that can go in the dishwasher. We eat a lot of produce, and I prefer not to wash dishes every time I cut something. I have multiple cutting boards and several paring knives for this purpose.
   
   
3. minimizing cleaning solutions. I use vinegar and a dish detergent solution for kitchen and bathroom cleaning, baking soda for scouring. Easy, nearly free, and they take up a lot less space than all the stuff that the chemical manufacturers want to convince people are necessities.
   
   
4. handling paper once only - then filing, shredding, or recycling it - and minimizing incoming paper with e-bills and electronic bill payment.
   
   
5. the pantry and freezer. No need to run to the store in advance of a snowstorm or anything else - we can easily eat for two weeks without any grocery runs.
   
   
6. buying gifts ahead - when I see them at good prices. I hate going to the store to look for "a gift for (insert name)." So I don't do it. When I see something that is appropriate, I buy it - even if the occasion is nearly a year away.
   
   
7. masking tape in the kitchen. It's the all-purpose tape: adhesive, label material, etc.
   
   
8. I don't dust on a regular basis. Seriously, what's the point? I sneeze less when I leave it alone, and it doesn't grow to infinite thickness. When it bothers me, I remove it with a damp rag. I think that happens about twice yearly.
   
   
9. reusable cloth bags for all shopping and gifts within our household. I do truly find it easier - not to mention easier on my conscience - to take my bags to the store than to have 20 flimsy plastic bags of heavy groceries to juggle and then recycle.
   
   
10. thinking of the store as a storage facility. I don't need to buy Item X now, because it is always available at the store should I need it - and the store has far more storage space than our house. Ditto for the library: I don't need to have this (book, CD, etc) in my house permanently, because the library will shelve it for me.

What tricks do you have to make your days easier?

Buckwheat Crepes with Various Fillings

Buckwheat flour is readily available at most natural foods stores. These can easily be made gluten- and dairy-free. We eat these for supper, but in smaller quantities, they could also be a snack or an appetizer, or even a dessert.

This is modified from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

For about 14 crepes:
1 c buckwheat flour
1/4 c all-purpose flour or other flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp sugar
2 to 4 eggs
About 1 1/2 c milk + water - at least 1/2 c milk (nondairy subs are fine)
1 tbsp canola oil

Whisk ingredients together to make a thin, pourable batter (adjust consistency as needed). Let rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to the lowest temperature and put an oven-proof plate in it to keep the crepes warm.

Heat a 10" skillet over medium heat, then add a small amount of butter or canola oil. Swirl to coat the pan and then immediately ladle in about 1/4 c batter. Swirl the pan to make a thin pancake. When it is dry on top, flip and cook the bottom briefly. Stack on the plate in the oven until all the crepes are cooked.

To eat: spread entire surface with filling and roll up.

Filling options:
Savory:
1. Spinach with or without cheese. Heat frozen, chopped spinach in a small pot, uncovered to evaporate excess moisture. Season as desired. Spread on crepe and top with grated or crumbled cheese of your choice (pepper Jack, goat, feta, swiss, etc), or sunflower seeds.

2. Spreadable cheese.

3. The pea-and-potato combination that is used in Indian samosas (recipes readily available online).

4. Other vegetables, chopped as needed, and steamed, with or without cheese, cubed, baked tofu, sauteed mushrooms, etc.

5. Cooked beans (with or without cream cheese), lentils, or leftover dahl.

6. Caramelized onions with or without vegetables as above.

7. Spinach with curry spices and cashew cream.

Sweet:
1. Cooked fruit/vegetables such as apples (e.g. homemade applesauce), cranberries and sweet potatoes, gingered sweet potatoes with or without pineapple, etc. Add nuts and/or cinnamon if desired.

2. Jam or cooked dried fruit, with or without nuts or cinnamon.

3. Cream cheese or tofu "cream" with any of the above, or cinnamon/sugar.

Black Bean Enchiladas

Modified from Vegetarian Classics by Jeanne Lemlin

8 servings

Filling:
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 small onions, diced
2 bell peppers, diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
other vegetables as available: corn, zucchini or yellow squash, spinach
1/2 pound dried black beans, sorted, rinsed, soaked, and cooked
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp oregano

Sauce:
2 c salsa
1 c milk or 1 c tomato sauce, depending on the type of sauce you prefer
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano

16 corn tortillas
Neufchatel cheese, optional but very good
Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, grated, optional

Heat sauce ingredients. In separate pan, saute the vegetables in the olive oil. When tender, stir in the black beans and spices.

When ready to prepare enchiladas, microwave about 6 tortillas at a time between 2 plates to soften them for rolling.

Ladle a small amount of sauce into the bottom of a baking dish. Spread about 1 tsp neufchatel cheese down the center of a tortilla, add the filling, roll, and place in baking dish. When dish is full, add more sauce on top of enchiladas, and top with a small amount of grated cheese, if desired. Additional enchiladas can be placed in another layer or in a different baking dish.

This can be prepared early in the day and refrigerated until dinner. When ready to cook, bake, covered, at 350F, for about 30-45 minutes, until steaming and cheese has melted.

Reusable Gift Bags

Last year I decided to turn various bits of fabric that were leftover from projects, and which had been taking up space in my craft corner for at least 5 years, into gift bags.

I love them.

No paper to buy, wrap, and trash. No tape. The gift bags fold and take up very little space when stored. The ones I've made are lined and have a nice weight to them; lining fabric can also be scrap fabric, or from something like an old sheet (the flat ones never wear out like the fitted ones do). Bags can be pieced to highlight particular fabrics as well.

I've tried several different methods, including these:
Simple bag with ribbon tie
Unlined Drawstring Bag
Lined drawstring bag

Making one bag, from cutting the fabric to completing the drawstring, takes about an hour. Wrapping a gift takes 10 seconds.

Dairy-Free Meals

This is for my friend Jennifer, who has to cook dairy-free for a while due to her infant's potential allergies. These are some ideas for easy dairy-free meals.

Breakfast:
Just about anything you might have other than breakfast cereal, which you can of course prepare with soy or rice milk. Read labels as some nondairy "milks" contain a lot of sugar.

For pancakes or waffles, you can sub prepared nondairy milks in the recipe, or you can blend some cooked oatmeal or cooked rice with water and use that instead.

Lunch:

• Use bean spreads such as hummus for sandwiches or wraps; bean spreads can be made from almost any bean with varied seasonings. For instance, try black beans with cumin and salsa, or white beans with lots of parsley. Add your favorite veggies.
• Avocado sandwich
• Hard-boiled egg or an egg sandwich
• Leftover roast chicken or turkey sandwich
• Bean and grain salads
• Leftovers from dinner

Dinner:

• Beans and rice (Use canned beans, or cook a big pot of beans and use it for several meals). There are many ethnic variations on beans and rice.
  
• Pasta with sauce and veggies (Sunflower seeds or pine nuts add a big burst of flavor if you miss Parmesan).
• Tacos or burritos, just as good without cheese. I like to make a big batch of taco filling and freeze it in meal-sized containers. Making your own beans is easy, too.
• Stir-fry, and then fried rice with the leftover rice.
• Roast chicken and some veggies. Try quinoa for a change of pace side dish.
  
• Chili, stew, or soup and bread. If a soup recipe calls for lots of milk or cream, look for another recipe. Veggies have sufficient flavor on their own. My favorite veggie chili is from Cary Neff's book Conscious Cuisine, which our library has.
  
• Make-your-own pizza. Pizza is different, but very good and a lot less greasy, without cheese. Call it if focaccia it doesn't look like pizza to you.
• Sweet potato, white bean, and pepper tian. This is delicious.
  
• Moosewood's Chili Burgers and some whole wheat rolls
• Chicken sausages, sauteed peppers & onions, and rolls

Snacks:
Fruit
Veggies
Muffins (use juice or water in place of milk, applesauce, pureed white beans, or pureed oatmeal/rice in place of thick dairy stuff).
Hummus and pita bread

As I noted in a previous post, baking can be the most difficult. Try those substitutions, or look for dairy-free recipes. Oatmeal cookie recipes usually are dairy-free, for instance. Quick breads and muffins often use oil and no butter. If you need a cake, try making Six-Minute Chocolate Cake for the ultimate in fast and easy - seriously, it's easier than waiting in line at the grocery store.

Now - start experimenting!

Slow Cookers - Design and Cooking

One way I like to make my days easier is by not having to worry about dinner when I'm exhausted. Slow cookers seem to have undergone a revival in recent years, but, unfortunately, the design of 20 years ago seems to be better than today's.

I have a 5-quart Rival Crockpot that I purchased in the mid-1990s. It has a solid glass lid that is fairly heavy. I never knew how important that lid was until I decided to buy a smaller slow cooker for our 3-person family (the cooker must be filled at least halfway, or food will burn; 2.5 quarts is a lot of food, and I don't always want to fill up the freezer).

Today's slow cookers generally have glass lids as well, but they are not all glass. Most have a plastic handle that is attached with a screw, and the thin glass lid is framed by metal. The weight of the lid is significantly less than the old style, and presumably the cost to manufacture and ship is reduced, because this design seems to have been universally adopted.

The problem is that this new lid design does not seal as tightly as the heavy glass lids. Slow cookers spit out water and the lids rattle around as the steam pressure builds. Spilling water all over my counter is not something that I consider desirable in an electrical appliance!

A review of some slow cookers can be found on Slate.com . Cooks Illustrated has some commentary that is available without a subscription, and test results that require a subscription or a trip to the library.

After unsuccessfully scouring thrift stores for a model of the old design, and learning that my mother-in-law is planning to make use of the one that's been sitting in her basement for a few decades, I tested several different new models. I've finally located one that is acceptable, with only minor spitting of water, and only on the high temperature setting after several hours. The design to look for is a crock with small grooves in the rim where the glass lid rests, that allow the accumulating water to stream back into the crock. Also, the width of the slow cooker has an impact; I think it is likely that a round crock will spit less than an oval crock due to a heavier lid per unit area.

The one I found happens to be branded as a Rival, but not all Rivals have this crock design. I also located a smaller, house-brand cooker that has the same crock design and the same insignia on the bottom of the crock (and which does not spit at all, despite heating to the same temperature). I suspect that there is a huge factory in China that makes most of these appliances, no matter what the brand.

For the record, my favorite slow cooker cookbook is Beth Hensperger's Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook; she includes many reasonably healthy recipes, as well as many vegetarian and vegan recipes.

A few things that I like to cook in the slow cooker:

• Beans. Soak overnight, start on low in the morning, done for dinner.
• Soup. Get all the dinner prep done before noon and have some great soup for dinner. I like to do this when I have a busy afternoon scheduled.
• Chicken stock/soup. After roasting a chicken, I put the carcass in the slow cooker and cover with water. I leave it on low overnight, and strain it in the morning. If we will eat chicken soup for dinner that night, I add vegetables and let it cook on low all day, adding brown rice about an hour before dinner. We buy free-range, natural poultry, and I find them to be very low in fat, so stock made with the bones and skin is not greasy at all.
  

Reducing Meat & Dairy Products

You can read elsewhere all the reasons (take your pick: health, budget, environment, animal rights) why you might want to reduce meat and dairy products, but here are some things I've learned.

I was vegetarian and off dairy for about 10 years... now, I use small amounts of free range poultry in meals. I still prefer my vegetarian cookbooks, though: recipes that are designed to be vegetarian have a lot of flavor on their own, and it's easy enough to add tofu, poultry/meat, or nuts if a heavier meal is desired. Some of my favorite veg cookbooks:

*Jeanne Lemlin's Vegetarian Classics; her recipes are quick and tasty.

* Vegan Mediterranean Kitchen by Donna Klein (I like this better than any other vegan cookbook I've seen because it just includes recipes that are vegan without making substitutes for everything. Most vegan cookbooks rely too much on soy, in my opinion.)

* How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman (many vegan recipes)

* Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison (many vegan recipes)

Here are some websites with vegetarian or vegan recipes:
http://vegkitchen. com/recipes- galore.htm (by cookbook author Nava Atlas; most of her books are predominantly vegan)
http://www.molliekatzen.com/ archives. php (Mollie Katzen wrote the Moosewood Cookbook & others; her newer recipes use less dairy)
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/ recipes/ (searchable for vegan and other types)
http://www.drweil.com/drw/ecs/ common/recipe. html (mostly vegan)

I prefer ethnic vegetarian foods rather than ones that are modified meat & potato meals - for instance, a meal such as Greek salad and falafel with hummus vs something like a vegetarian version of meatloaf (however, homemade veggie burgers can be quite tasty). You can get a lot of ideas for veg food from ethnic cookbooks that aren't labeled vegetarian; some of the recipes might call for meat, but many cultures have a lot of traditional vegetarian meals, and when they do use meat, it tends to be in vastly smaller quantities.

Vegan is not difficult to do if you're already used to cooking without meat. When I was learning to go without dairy, the most difficult aspect was baking without milk products. Most vegan cookbooks sub soy or rice milk and other soy products. I don't like that for multiple reasons: first, it's a hassle to make soy milk; if you purchase it, the containers it comes in are non-recyclable. Second, I don't want to OD on soy. Third, it gets expensive to have all those subs on hand. We do eat soy, but I prefer to have it in its less processed forms, such as tofu and miso.

Here are the substitutes that I prefer:
EGG: 1 tbsp flax meal in 3 tbsp water. Mix and let sit for a few minutes. It will become somewhat gel-like and works great in baking.
MILK: Cooked rice or oatmeal, pureed with water to a smooth consistency. These work well in baking, in smoothies, in soups.
YOGURT, SOUR CREAM, ETC: Pureed silken tofu. Pureed white beans (yes, even in sweets).
BUTTER: Use oil in about half the amount. You can experiment with mixing the oil with some flour and freezing it for recipes that require solid fat. (Non-hydrogenated, vegan shortening is available, and most vegan cookbooks call for this, but I prefer my method.)