Big Batch Cooking

April 8, 2015April 8, 2015 / ktbuchs87

While I’m working on coming up with a new video series for the blog (totally open to suggestions of what YOU want to see) I thought I would use the Wednesday post to share a few of the things that I do during the week to help make eating and being healthy easier.

Big batch cooking is one of the best ways that I save time and brain power when it comes to making healthy meals. It’s exactly what it sounds like; I cook a lot of food all at once. That simple. I do this with vegetables and grains/legumes. Sunday and Monday I will spend time washing, cutting, and prepping all the vegetables that I bought on Friday.

Parsnips cut and ready to be roasted

Then it’s time to cook it all.

My favorite way to cook my vegetables is to roast them. It tastes great and it’s an easy way to cook a lot of vegetables at one time. I roast sweet potatoes, parsnips, beets, cabbage, and green beans. I also saute a big batch of broccoli and sometimes throw a few carrots into the mix.

Broccoli cooked and ready to be added to meals!

While my vegetables are roasting I cook up quinoa, brown rice, and whatever beans I have on hand like black beans or garbanzo beans. I cook these on the stovetop. I know a lot of people like to use canned beans for the convenience, but I like to use dried beans because it’s cheaper than buying the cans. It takes a little bit of planning since you have to soak the beans before you cook them but other than that you just boil and simmer them on the stove for 20-40 minutes.

Once everything is done cooking, I put them into large glass containers, let them cool, and stick them in the fridge. Now I don’t have to worry about cooking them on a busy weeknight. I can just pull out the container warm them up, throw them into whatever dish I have planned for that night and get dinner on the table in a timely manner.

You can do this with other things as well. You can cook up big batches of chicken or pork, you can hard boil a bunch of eggs, or you can wash, dry and cut up leafy greens to be used for salads throughout the week.

Batch of my chickpea tofu ready to be added to stir fry

Cooking a whole lot of things all at once and having them ready when you want to eat takes the work out of planning a healthy meal. How many times have you come home from a long day at work and realized if you want to eat a healthy dinner you’re going to have to spend at least 40 minutes in the kitchen getting it ready? At that points it becomes much more tempting to just grab something at a drive through or get a frozen dinner from the grocery store, neither of which are that healthy of an option.

Do yourself a favor and give big batch cooking a try. I bet you’ll find that it saves you a bunch of time and helps you stick to your healthy lifestyle!

Transforming The Creature Of Habit

April 6, 2015 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

The idea of routines has been on my mind this week. You know from previous posts that I am a creature of habit. I like having a routine and doing certain things at certain times. I feel more in control of my day when I have a set out plan for what is going to happen. It also keeps me organized and on track to have a schedule to adhere to.

This past week I have been nowhere near my normal routine and you know what? I haven’t fallen apart. The days have moved on as they always do and time has gone by just like normal and I am still here and haven’t gone to pieces. In fact I have doing some great and inspired work. It might not seem like a huge thing to you, but to a control freak like me this is nothing short of a miracle.

There have been times where things have not gone according to my “plan” and I have completely lost it. Adam can attest to my horrible attitude when something out of the blue comes my way. I almost turn into a small child having a temper tantrum. I would always marvel at my husband’s ability to take everything that comes at him in stride. He knows that there are certain things that he can’t change and rather than let it ruin his whole day and turn him into a moody teenager, he works around it and figures out a new plan.

And I think that attitude is starting to rub off on me.

As time goes on I am learning that I am in no way in control of the things around me. Sure, I can have a routine and some semblance of order, but there will always be curve balls. Life in general is one big curveball. Letting my life come to a screeching halt whenever something goes awry is no way to live. In fact it isn’t living at all. I want to be able to say that I enjoyed life, that I was able to adapt and deal with any hardships that came my way. I don’t want to look back and see that I pouted my life away or flew to pieces because something happened that I had no control over in the first place.

In light of this revelation (that only took 27 years for me to even begin to figure out) I want to try and step out of my comfort zone a little more. I want to try things that aren’t in my routine. Let my schedule be more of a loose guideline than a strict plan I have to follow or lose all hope. I’m betting that amazing things will come my way and I will be able to seize them much better than if I had stuck to my rigid plan.

What about you? Are there things in your life that you can let go of? Are there changes you can make to your routine that might allow you to experience something new and amazing? If something has been holding you back or you have been waiting for a nudge, consider this it. Try something new, step out of your comfort zone, forget the plan for a little while.

I promise you that you won’t fall apart and you might even grow just a little bit.

Honey Roasted Almond Butter

April 3, 2015April 3, 2015 / ktbuchs87

You guys. This almond butter. When I found out that I would have access to a Vitamix for a few days the first thing I knew that I wanted to make was some kind of nut butter. I am a nut/seed butter junkie and I have some form of it everyday. The down side to this addiction is that it can get a little pricey. For some reason people seem to think that you need to add a bunch of ingredients to nut butter when in reality all you need is nuts and a little salt. You would think that the versions with less ingredients would in turn cost less but alas they are more expensive. Now I can still find peanut butter and almond butter for a decent price, but I can’t indulge in all the other awesome nut and seed butters out there unless there is a big sale.

It a lot more cost-effective to make your own nut butter, but I sadly do not have the proper equipment to do this. I tried once to do it with my food processor and I’m pretty sure I almost blew it up. That wasn’t the case with the Vitamix. In less than five minutes I had wonderfully creamy almond butter. It was magical.

I didn’t want to just do a regular nut butter for you today, I wanted to make it a little special. Celebrate high-powered blenders, ya know? So with just a few easy steps you can have this tasty honey (or maple) roasted almond butter to put on everything. And if you’re like me, you WILL put it on everything. Toast, oatmeal, celery, spoons, fingers…. Anywho, onto the recipe!

Honey Roasted Almond Butter

2 cups raw almonds
1/3 cup honey or maple syrup to make vegan
sea salt

1. Pre-heat oven to 375. Place almonds in a large bowl. In a small saucepan over medium heat, warm the honey or maple syrup for a few minutes. Constantly stir and make sure that you don’t let it boil. You just want to heat it up to a nice pourable consistency.

2. Pour honey/maple syrup over your almonds and stir to coat. On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, spread out the almonds into an even layer. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and place into the oven.

3. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove and shake the almonds a little to move around and place back in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes. Make sure you watch the almonds carefully so they don’t burn. You want them to be a nice golden brown not black.

4. Once done remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes. Once cooled, place all the almonds into your blender or food processor. Depending on the kind of blender you have this could take a few minutes and you might have to stop and scrape down the sides a few times. Just be patient and soon you’ll have a smooth and creamy nut butter.

That’s it! A few simple ingredients, a few easy steps, and you have yourself a nice treat! Make sure you store it in an airtight container and it should last you a week if kept in the fridge. Now go find things to eat with your almond butter. Remember fingers work just as well!

Weekend Fun and “Country” Livin

April 1, 2015 / ktbuchs87

Whew! What a difference a good night’s sleep makes! Monday I felt like I was a zombie. I told Adam that it felt like I had never adulted before. Yup, grammar went out the window after running on like 5 hours of sleep. But it was such a good weekend that lack of sleep was quite alright. Let’s get to this past weekend shall we?

Adam’s mom and stepdad came into Chicago for the weekend. They hadn’t seen our apartment yet and they wanted to spend some time with us in the city. On Saturday we met them downtown and took them to the Maggie Daley Park and Millenium Park so they could see the bean.

We then walked down to Columbia College to look at a photography exhibit featuring photos from local high school students. I love looking at photography mostly because I wish I could take pictures as well as some of those artists! I’ll just keep practicing. We then hopped on the red line for a quick trip to Chinatown so Adam’s mom could get some green tea.

Then we took them to Eataly. I love Eataly and like taking people there so they can see the awesomeness. If you don’t know what Eataly is, then come to Chicago and I will take you there! It is a store/grocery store/restaurants/gelato/beer/nutella bar that was started by an Italian business man, Oscar Farinetti, and is more popularly owned in New York by chef Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich. It’s kind of like a grocery store with tasting tables. Each part of the store is broken up into sections like cheese, meat, fish, pasta, bread, etc. At each spot you can by those things but also order food to eat from those sections. After walking around the boys got some sandwiches and declared them the best turkey sandwiches they had eaten. Eataly was definitely a hit because food is awesome.

We then headed over to Old Town because we were going to a show at Second City and we wanted to take them to our spice shop before hand. The Spice House is another place that I love and I have talked about them before. We heard about them a few years ago on Alton Brown’s podcast and that is now where I go to get the majority of our spices. Karyn had a hard time picking out which spices she wanted to buy but managed to find a handful she wanted, and now I get to bring her both fresh bread from Eataly and spices when I go visit!

After a brief rest at Starbucks we headed to the theater and saw the Best of Second City. It was a great show and this improv troupe were on top of their game. Anyone who can write a jazz song about a stethoscope on the fly gets major points in my book. After the show we went to the Italian restaurant, Topo Gigio, for dinner. Again the food won the day and everyone loved their meals. I had a really good salad with walnuts, raisins, olives, cucumbers, and tomatoes. It was drizzled lightly with olive oil and was delightful. After dinner everyone went home to rest after our big day.

A rare picture where I look like a weirdo and Adam is normal. Ok not so rare.

Sunday we took them to one of our favorite local breakfast places, Ann Sathers Bakery. Surprise, surprise they loved it. It really is true, people who like food are the best people. Later that day Adam and the rest of them were going to go see Blue Man Group, but I was off to Sycamore.

My view for the next few weeks

That’s right, I’m coming to you from our former home town these next few weeks. I’m currently house/dog sitting for the family I used to nanny for while they are on vacation. It’s kind of nice being back out here and going to all the places I used to go when we lived here. Plus I get to play in a HUGE kitchen and I get to use their Vitamix.

My buddy here in Sycamore

Yes people, I get to pretend I have a fancy high powered blender for the next two weeks. It really doesn’t take much to get me excited. Just a $500 blender.

Do you see the clouds parting and hear the angels singing? I do.

So that was my weekend. It was fun and awesome and I’m glad I’m back into a semi normal routine! I will be bringing you some awesome new spring recipes plus whatever I decide to blend in the Vitamix, which let’s be real is going to be everything.

Have a great Wednesday and I’ll see you Friday!

A Few Tidbits

March 30, 2015 / ktbuchs87

This weekend has been an awesome whirlwind. Adam’s parents came into town and we spent the weekend with them giving them a little taste of Chicago. It was great.

I’m also coming to you from a “remote” location for the next few weeks. No, I’m not on some wonderfully tropical island sipping mai tai’s, but I am enjoying a massive kitchen so it’s pretty much the same thing.

This post has been super short on purpose. I have been awake since 1 am this morning and I don’t think that I will be nearly as productive today as I had hoped. Oh well, sometimes you just have to give in to multiple naps. I’m cool with that.

I will fill you in on all the details of my weekend and what’s going on these next few days in my Wednesday post. For now I will leave you with these funny memes and go sleep for a few hours…..