My kids watch TV. Educational TV, of course, in limited quantities at appropriate times. But many experts say they shouldn’t be watching any television whatsoever, and the Smart Mom inside my head knows there is some truth to this. But early on a Sunday when my daughter wakes up, the coffee is not yet perked, it’s too early for the newspaper to arrive, and I don’t want her to wake everyone else in the house… I don’t much care what the experts say. I’m not ready to start coloring, play-dohing, reading, and puzzling my way through the 6 o’clock hour of our Sunday morning. So she watches some Elmo, and I try not to fret too much.

It’s the same with my weekly grocery run. I stroll through the produce section, working from my list, and note that I have written “fruit for snacks.” A bag of clementines, check. A bunch of green bananas, check. A half-pint of million-dollar blueberries, check. And then, I furtively glance around to see who is watching before tossing a plastic box of sliced, bagged organic apples into my cart. As I make my way to the cashier, the evil box grins up at me like an early 1980s styrofoam hamburger holder. I quickly cover it with the radishes. The Green Mom on my right shoulder gives a dirty stare to the Busy Mom on the left side. Miser Mom hides behind my shirt collar, whispering to me about how I could have just picked a bushel of apples for the same cost as that little box.

If I were my most amazing self, I would only buy organic, locally grown apples at the farmers’ market and slice them on demand for the kids’ snacks. But no matter how much lemon juice I squeeze or how cold I keep them packed in the lunch cooler, they still turn brown. No one wins in this situation, because I have wasted money and time, they don’t eat the brown apples, and they’re still hungry.

We’re working hard to “eat the rainbow,” and for a family on the go, sometimes shortcuts and convenience packaging make the choice between apple slices or animal crackers much easier. I toss a bag into my purse at 2:00 p.m. when I’m dashing out the door to pick up my son from school, with a toddler in my arms who is still half asleep from her nap. The apples will sit in my bag for almost two hours before she’ll ask me for them in the waiting room of the karate studio, and tah dah! They’re still crunchy, crisp, and white. I’m not sure what kind of magic fairy dust gets sprinkled on the slices before the bags are closed, but there is nothing suspicious on the label, so I don’t much care.

It is not always possible to make selfless choices. I’m buying convenience for a few extra dollars and I feel good about what the kids are eating. It’s not Jim Henson’s furry monsters that the experts have a problem with–it is their delivery method, their packaging, that is controversial. Choosing good health and convenience at the expense of six mini plastic bags in the trash and a plastic carton in my recycling bin every week does weigh on my conscience a little bit. Mother Nature is the only one in the equation who really loses out. I hope she’ll forgive me. Little bags of pre-sliced organic apples (the conventional ones do get mushy and slimy) are like precious jewels in my fruit drawer.

What are your supermarket confessions?

Read about Robin Horrigan

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kubina/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

There are times when I tried shopping the European way: buying only what I need and selecting the freshest foods that have traveled the smallest number of miles between their origin and my table. If I could make myself get used to this, I’d run into “the jicama problem” much less frequently. Inevitably, though, I find myself stumped as to what I’m going to do with the beautiful eggplant I brought home. Then I look at recipes only to find that I must go back to the store to make the eggplant dishes that appealed to me most. Now I’ve traded the jicama problem for an eggplant problem. But jicama/eggplant problems aside, it does work much better for my family if I plan first and shop later. Most of the time I am able to find the items I need.

A decade ago “going green” and buying organic or local seemed like more of a fad than anything; now these concepts are in the vernacular. Families are faced with even more product choices than ever, and the responsibilities can overwhelm the average shopper. Knowledge is responsibility, and I occasionally long for the days when I didn’t realize my mid-winter berry purchases had a true and lasting impact on so many aspects of the consumer food chain. Becoming a locavore has a certain amount of appeal, but I approach the idea with great trepidation as a New Englander used to long, cold winters, surviving on produce grown in warmer climates. I’m not really looking to become a pioneer woman.

I count myself among regular folks who are still a ways from making “eco friendly” our number one priority. I don’t know a single family that doesn’t worry about their two most precious commodities: time and money. My husband jokes that Whole Foods should be called “Whole Paycheck,” and although it is a mindset we are working to move past, he’s absolutely right. Stuff is pricey there. But it’s also the best shopping experience around with the highest quality product selection. Whole Foods’ marketing strategies make shopping with the earth and our health in mind very easy for us. I’ll pay a little extra for that inspiration. We’re on the waiting list for a local CSA farm share. I don’t know if I’m up for the challenge of being presented with a crate of produce every week and then figuring out how best to prepare and serve it. But I know I can use that bounty as the basis to plan my weekly shopping and feel good about it. I wonder if I’ll get any jicama…

On a lighter note, If you’re just in the mood to feel a little green this season, here are a few recipes that will inspire you with their verdant hue. A true vegetable hater tested the Spring Greens and Potato Soup, and he went back for a second bowl!  It would make a beautiful first course for a spring dinner party. Chocolate Cannoli Sandwich Cookies are dressed up with a sprinkling of lovely green pistachios. Lastly, when you have to buy a big bunch of cilantro for a single recipe (or are stuck with an exploded herb garden later next season) try Cilantro Pesto as a coating for simple grilled fish or shrimp or a light topping for pasta. If your vegetable drawer is overflowing with leftover arugula or flat-leaf parsley, try that instead for a different flavor.

The bar is rising every year. On the one hand, striving to be more eco-friendly is great for the earth–reducing the carbon footprint, supporting local agriculture and business and improving our health by limiting the chemicals we ingest. But on the other hand, it has the potential to leave us falling short of new expectations we set for ourselves and wondering if we’re really doing our part for this thing we like to call saving the earth.

Resolving to be a little eco-friendlier isn’t for everyone. (For many busy families, it’s often enough to get a healthy meal on the table, let alone worry about how to recycle the quart container the produce came in… and compost the scraps? Forget about it!) But if you have been dabbling in going green, read on.

Like with any resolution, if we set small goals for ourselves we are less likely to fail. Our kitchens and cooking lives are a good place to start. There are several places we can make a dent in embracing the eco-friendly: the way we do our grocery shopping, attempting to control our own wastefulness, recycling our food packaging and being conscious about our kitchen energy use.

For me, these are two environmental endeavors that are most sustainable (pun intended!).

Carnivore, Herbivore or Locavore?
It’s tough to find a sweet spot between shopping on a budget and buying local, organic or both. Ultra-fresh produce straight from the Farmers’ Market is umpteen times more sweet and delicious because it hasn’t had to travel from, say, Chile and/or be frozen and carted around in huge boxes.

Buying a few items from a local farm stand each week when fruits and vegetables are in season, and buying organic when we can will help both our local farmers and our health. I’m going to commit to two to three produce items each week this summer while my Farmers’ Market is up… strawberries in early summer and blueberries in late summer. My whole family will benefit (and so will the baked goods).

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Reusable grocery bags are so easy–if you remember to bring them with you. Try Envirosax or Baggu. They often come in sets of three or more, and they are so compact you can easily keep a few in your purse, backpack or car.

You’re ahead of the game if you have a recycling bin in your kitchen. If it’s out of sight it will be out of mind. Keep it close by, and know what is recyclable.

Tip: To get the plastic bags back to the grocery store to recycle them there, stuff them in your reusable grocery bags and empty them on your way into the store.

Stay tuned for more Eco topics this month.

Let me first tell you about how Dan and I usually get our meal on the table. Many of our dinners are planned over email with subject lines like, “What’s for din din tonight?” With both of us toiling away at our respective jobs all day it can be hard to plan our meals in advance. In an ideal world, I would map out everything for the week on Sunday, but The Dan Factor can often work against this since he enjoys the spontaneity of deciding a meal the day of.

This is where our planning and shopping styles begin to diverge—but for the sake of love, let’s say our differences complement each other perfectly.

Our trips to the grocery store are often met with this same challenge: I have my list mapped out by aisle, and Dan is spur of the moment—finding inspiration in the endless options in the produce and meat aisles and spontaneously adding them to the cart. (I do confess, however, that some of his best meals have come from this approach; the pork butt for pulled pork was probably my favorite.)

As the baker in the duo, everything to me is mapped out in advance and I know that an exact amount of each ingredient will yield a cake, or a bread–I think of it as a science, so I need to be slightly more planning-oriented. But as the chef, Dan doesn’t need to follow a recipe and feels comfortable experimenting.

Both self-taught, by TV and an endless supply of foodie magazines, we have managed to master what most couples often fear: cooking together.

As we thought about what to make for this year’s dinner I was reminded of the first dinner Dan cooked for me. The menu was delivered in advance via email, and I still have it. We thought Valentine’s Day would be the perfect opportunity to re-create that meal.

In the dessert department, I decided to create a surprise dish for Dan and he had to guess the secret ingredient. For Valentine’s Day I had to go with a decadent chocolate treat. The molten cake’s secret ingredient? Espresso powder. I’m pleased to say, I stumped Dan on this one.

We’ve learned to cook together and share the triumphs and failures that go along with it. This Valentine’s Day dinner was a success, but I’m sure we’ll have some more obstacles in the kitchen. And whether the meal is planned a week in advance or on the spot we aim to make it as delicious as possible!

Don’t forget the Champagne and the romance. These are both key ingredients.

Photos by Melissa Devereaux

Girlfriends will find any excuse to get together. And what better way to spend a cold Saturday than with food and friends. In order to justify our absence from our husbands and kids, we decided we’d better find a way to benefit them as well.

And girlfriends trust each other. Girlfriends share their opinions about everything–recipes and food are no exception. Most women I know are always looking for their next batch of great recipes, so we decided to get together and test some out.

The ultimate goal was to come home with four meals to enjoy throughout the week (or stash in the freezer for a busy night).

We accomplished several things during our three hours together this weekend: quality time, trying new recipes, and preparing meals to take home for our families. Here is how it went.

I invited 5 girlfriends who, like me, are busy moms who are into cooking and trying new recipes but are short on time. Six people was the perfect size. The dads planned on staying home for some quality time with the little ones.

I looked through my recipes on Plummelo for a few important criteria: little to no cooking on prep day; highly freezeable; no more than about 10 ingredients each; and using relatively inexpensive ingredients. We narrowed it down to 4. We wanted to start out with an attainable goal.

I saved these 4 recipes to My Recipes on Plummelo and emailed them to my friends so they could save them into their recipe boxes as well. I put the recipes into My Plans and then into My Shopping List.

Here was the part where Plummelo really saved the day in this planning process: Once the recipes were in my shopping list, Plummelo adjusted the servings for me!

For 6 people, we needed everything times 6 (for a grand total of a lot of food). The recipe showed number of servings as 4, so I entered 24 (4 x 6), and the Plummelo shopping list automatically changed all the quantities for me (for example, 1 1/2 cups of ricotta became 9 cups of ricotta).

I then hit “Email Shopping List” on Plummelo and sent the combined list to my friends. We divvied up the shopping by section of the grocery store (which was also easy because the Plummelo shopping list is divided by category, such as Meat, Produce), and each went grocery shopping on our own schedule and planned to arrive with the assigned items.

One friend and I hit Costco for all the meat, and the others went on their respective treasure hunts. I was surprised at how little effort went into the shopping when we divided and conquered.

The day of, I packed it up the food and a few essentials (including my favorite knife), ready to take to the hosting friend’s house. We allowed 3 hours for our cooking adventure, with some time built in for girl talk and munching on freshly baked muffins.

We started out with the Chicken Marbella. One team of two trimmed the chicken thighs, another team minced garlic (of course, with the garlic gadget!), and another team measured spices, olives, capers, and prunes. In no time our chicken was marinating in the bowl, and we divided the massive quantity into 6 Ziploc freezer bags for each family to pull out on the designated night.

The routine went like this for the remaining recipes. Chopping and dicing, dividing and conquering (and washing some dishes in between). Meal prep is much more fun when it is organized in advance and shared with good friends. It’s also more fun digging into a huge bowl of ground turkey when wearing plastic gloves! We had a lot of laughs about food favorites and not-so-favorites, cooking blunders, and each other’s techniques, and fed each other bites of blueberry muffin while we worked. It didn’t seem like work at all.

It took us two and a half hours and $37.50 per family (that’s less than $10 per meal) to make 4 delicious meals that are ready for our loved ones to enjoy. Economies of scale definitely pay off!

Now we each have 4 new recipes in our repertoire and 4 new meals for the week. And after receiving a big thank you from more than one of the husbands, I know we have a hall pass for another girls’ afternoon out.

Try planning a cooking day with your friends. Let us know how it goes.

That was the usual routine in our house.

Under my roof there are two working parents and three active kids (one with food allergies, which made finding recipes often tricky), for a total of five hungry bodies. Preparing for dinner–from thinking about what we wanted to eat to making a shopping list to getting to the grocery store to starting to chop the vegetables–was never easy. The “process” was disorganized and disconnected.

When you love to eat and you want to cook a delicious, healthy meal for your family but you’re short on time, you need a solution. We were in desperate need of a more efficient meal planning, preparation, shopping, and cooking process from start to finish.

That, in short, is how Plummelo was born.

I’m not only the founder, but I’m also a daily user. Not to mock the Hair Club for Men slogan, but Plummelo fixed just about all of our former problems in meal planning.

Here are a few of the major hurdles my wife and I were encountering (pre-Plummelo):

Old problem: My recipes are scattered. Some in a recipe box, some in the pages of an old magazine, some in miscellaneous computer files, some in my head. If I found a recipe online, I had trouble finding it again. New solution: My recipes are all in one place. Not only are they categorized, tagged, and searchable, but I can rate the ones we love and delete the ones we don’t.

Old problem: The hardest part is figuring out what to cook this week. New solution: I can quickly browse my recipes, look at what other people on Plummelo are cooking, and get new ideas.

Old problems: Making a shopping list from my recipes takes too long. New solution: Now I don’t even have to write out the shopping list. I can drag and drop my recipes for the week into My Plans and Plummelo automatically populates a grocery list for me. My wife can hit “Email Shopping List” and it comes to my iPhone and I can pick up the groceries on my way home! (Note: iPhone app to come in 2010!)

There is so much more Plummelo will be doing to help connect more of your cooking world and keep your kitchen life organized.

Give Plummelo a try this week.

They are right.

I’m not eating beets. I’m not eating cabbage. I’m not eating swiss chard. I am definitely not eating sardines. But I am eating cinnamon, pomegranate juice, dried plums, frozen blueberries, and canned pumpkin. That’s a start, right?

Back to beets. Beets have always been a very mysterious vegetable to me. I didn’t grow up eating them. Not that I’m one to garden (I live on a lovely patch of pavement in the city), but beets aren’t something I’ve ever grown or harvested myself. And how do you cook them? I know they are absolutely sweet and delicious–possibly nature’s sweetest vegetable–once I can get my hands on them (and they stain, so watch out!). But unfortunately, when it comes to beets and other such vegetables, intimidation gets the best of me and I’m usually afraid to attempt cooking them.

But in the spirit of healthy eating and conquering my cooking fears (see a prior post on this topic), I decided to give beets a try. I had collected a little bit of vague advice from a friend. I thought the hard part was actually getting myself to purchase them at the store. Once I got them home it would be cake.

(Humorous anecdote: The leaves were so long the whole beets didn’t fit in the standard size plastic vegetable bag at the grocery store, but, like a carton of eggs, I managed to babysit the unruly creatures all the way to the check-out line, gently place them on the rolling conveyor belt, and then–wham!–the otherwise very kind check-out bagger folded my beet stems to squeeze them into my reusable shopping bag! With a worried smile, I informed him that I wanted to photograph those beets. He rushed off to get another bunch for me.)

I thought maybe it was as easy as chopping off the stems and leaves and putting them in a preheated oven. I decided to make a few other vegetables at the same time, and threw in a sweet potato and a regular potato on the same cookie sheet. Maybe my attention wasn’t focused–I was just winging it. I pulled out the sizzling beets, oozing sticky juice, and let them rest for a while. They seemed tender when I pierced them.

I served them with our chicken dinner, proud of my accomplishment. But I needed a steak knife to cut them. I hadn’t cooked them long enough.

What did I learn? One, I am now capable of bringing home even the most intimidating vegetables. And two, I am now even more determined to give them another try–this time letting them cook until they are really done. A recipe like this Orange and Beet Salad would be a good start for me.

Are you eating beets? If you are a beginner when it comes to trying new vegetables, many stores, such as Trader Joe’s, sell beets pre-cooked in the refrigerated section.

Top photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/craigcloutier/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Second photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noshha/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Today I overcame one of my longtime cooking fears. I’m sure many of you can relate — I tend to shy away from (read: avoid like the plague) recipes with more than, say, 10 ingredients.

But I adore a good eggplant parmesan so much, and I needed to have it so much, that in the end I was willing to do what it takes to accomplish the homemade flavor. I had saved Bobby Flay’s recipe to my Plummelo weeks ago, but kept staring at it with intimidated eyes. No, not this week. Too many ingredients. But at a certain point, you just need to have the eggplant parm. I reached that point.

My husband had done the grocery shopping this past weekend. Somewhat surprisingly, he returned with two lovely eggplants (he tends to bring home about 90 percent of what is on the list). The pretty purple guys stared at me from their lofty shelf in the fridge for a few days. Too many ingredients…

But today was their day.

Let me digress. I live in the North End, a quaint neighborhood that is Boston’s Little Italy. It is a place where people still shop (and vendors still sell) for their ingredients separately… the meat from the butcher, the vegetables from another guy, the cheese and cold cuts from the salumeria. To me, there is so much joy and old-fashionedness in procuring my ingredients from the specialty sellers. They know their stuff, and they have the highest quality ingredients. Quite often, they are also at competitive prices. But today I spent $30 on cheese. Fontina, two types of mozzarella, and parmesan. As the cheesemonger was serving up my portions, he inquired as to their ultimate destination, “What are you going to make?” “Eggplant parmigiana,” I said. “How many are you cooking for?” And I sheepishly replied, “Two.”

I spent $30 on cheese? And so it goes.

With my 20 or so ingredients on hand, I began. It required a good deal more attention and stamina than my standard five ingredient recipes, but none of it was as difficult as I had feared. It was a journey, and I aimed to enjoy the whole process. There was dicing, slicing, boiling, dredging, whisking, stirring, layering, and baking.

And then there was eating. (We called over some friends to share in the eating.)

My conclusion? It was worth the investment of time, and I tasted each one of my 20 ingredients.

Do you have any cooking fears you want to overcome? Share them with us.

All photos by Sarah Fullerton

Does this sound familiar?

See below for photo source.

Note: Extra points for making enough to last for lunch leftovers, or better yet, putting a portion in the freezer.

This week my plan involves one pre-cooked rotisserie chicken. (In previous stages of my cooking life, I used to pass these birds by, writing them off as shortcuts for people who don’t cook. Now I run to them: “Please come home with me, delectable little bird!”)

On Monday morning, I walk to Whole Foods with the baby. I get a golden-and-crispy-on-the-outside, juicy-and-tender-on-the-inside rotisserie chicken, among other things.

Upon returning home, I first inform my work-at-home husband that there is a killed and de-feathered animal in the house, because he insists on picking off all the meat I discard as unusable. I am a meat snob.

I pull out a sharpened sudoku (no, not one of those puzzles from the newspaper) and a clean cutting board. For me, there is something therapeutic about chopping chicken.

I divide the chicken into two bowls. I put one bowl of diced chicken in the fridge and get to work on the first recipe, my adaptation of Everyday Food’s Broccoli Calzones (this recipe doesn’t include chicken; what a shame). The recipe makes eight calzones, so I always serve two and freeze six for later. It’s the perfect pull-out-in-a-pinch dinner or lunch. Whenever I make them, I pre-cook them (the recipe says not to) so I can just zap them in the microwave (on the convection/crisper function) and serve with some jarred pasta sauce on the side. I buy the pizza dough pre-made, which saves a lot of time.

On Tuesday, I doctor up Real Simple’s Chicken Curry in a Hurry. The chicken is already set to go! I alter many recipes, including this one, by adding some veggies (mushrooms, green peppers). I always add vegetables to any casserole-type dish that doesn’t call for anything green. If I’m feeling bold and wishing I was someplace tropical, I throw in some cubed pineapple. I serve it over jasmine rice.

What are your tricks for using one primary ingredient twice?

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevendepolo/ / CC BY 2.0

Sarah Fullerton is Plummelo’s editor. She enjoys cooking, knitting, skiing, and cycling. One of her favorite hobbies is sharing and talking about recipes and discovering shortcuts for healthy eating. She is especially enthusiastic about cooking for her baby girl. She can be contacted at sarah@plummelo.com.