We all have that sort of day where cooking is hard, and that day for me was yesterday.

As a meal planning coach I preach the art of cooking and planning ahead, and so it happened to work out in our favour last night, and I wanted to share a couple of tips to help make sure it works out most of the time for you too. Because it's unrealistic to assume that we will always feel like cooking. Am I right?

Convenience will always win over intention. We can have the best intentions ever but still find it hard to make them happen when we're *that* exhausted. Here are a couple of food rules I live by:

• Freeze cooked proteins in meal-sized bags. Sliced meats become stir fry, sandwiches, soup, salads, wraps, and so on. Frozen beans can translate to meatless chilis, soups, casseroles, burritos, bean bowls, and so on.
• Keep enough useful items in your pantry that you can throw something together in under 15 minutes that makes a meal but doesn't take a lot of effort.

It's the little things that slip us up when we try to stay on top of meal planning and eating at home. It doesn't take long for actions to become habits, and when we start making take-out or fast food the default choice, that begins to creep into other meals besides our exhausted ones, and that's when our nutritional balance begins to suffer.

Consider what you can do to make life easier for yourself tomorrow, and start doing it. One baby step at a time will completely change your life.

Have a great day, friends!
Stacy
You may also like:
Freezer Meals- Getting Started

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• How often do you have the time or energy at the end of the day to pull a meal together from scratch? Every night? A few times a week? Once or twice a month? Never?

In our fast-paced lifestyle, eating a traditional meal of "real food" seems to have been left behind. We're simply too busy, too tired, too overwhelmed, too overextended to get it done. We are shown ads constantly (just watch for it the next time you're watching live TV- you'll be amazed) about how wonderful it is to be eating out instead of cooking at home. There are ads for junk food, diet food, weight loss programs that include the food, and fast food. The themes continue in sitcoms and books. Cooking at home is a dying art.

Our recent Canada Food Guide, unveiled in January, places a high importance on eating with others, enjoying whole foods, limiting processed foods, and so on. But there's not a lot of awareness put into the "how" of home cooking. In fact, it's laughable, and it's exactly the kind of information I found when I was a new mom and trying to sort out meal planning for my life with a squalling infant, no sleep, no energy, and healing a post-partum body. It didn't translate then, and it doesn't translate now.

How do you implement it when you are literally away from home more hours than you sleep? When you've got a household to run and a million things on your "to do" list?

The thing is, it's complicated and different for everyone. No two people share the exact same meal planning complications. But here are a few ideas to start you thinking, and I'm just a phone call away if you want to get serious about cooking at home.

• Begin with your "why". Why do you want to meal plan? Why do you want to eat at home? Why do you want to cook more or eat out less? If you don't really care, you won't do it.
• Decide "when". Make it specific. Once a week? Twice? Five times?
• Pick and plan meals appropriate to the time you have. You can't serve a 5 course meal when you have very little time to do it in. Can you plan a more intense meal when you've got some vacation lined up? Or some half days at the office?
• Make a list of what you need to buy for those meals- check your pantry, fridge, and freezer first
• Just buy those things, and use them. (Even if you don't cook what you planned initially, use it for something!)
• Consider freezer meals, "meal starters", and meal planning strategies such as leapfrogging and piggybacking.

For more information on meal planning that suits your life, let's talk.

​All the best, friends! Stay warm!
Stacy

If this is what I do for a living, I'm never going to "fail", right?
Wrong!

I'm human, with a chaotic family and life. Sometimes I fall off the wagon, too. I know you know what I mean- all of us have done this proverbial "falling of the wagon", in relation to any number of things.
It's human to stumble, and it's ok- forgive yourself and move on. Get up and keep going.

Meal planning on its own is easy. It's a list of foods you want to eat, and that's usually a pretty easy list to make for most people. It isn't a cure-all, fix-all, one-size-fits-all sort of deal.  What makes meal planning magical is the execution of it. It's a process of life-changing proportions, constantly changing and evolving with you as your life shifts and evolves. It's a constant leaning in, figuring out what trips you up and what works; what you can keep in your toolbox and what needs to be replaced. The biggest shift I've had to do to make meal planning work for me consistently is to change how convenient I make it for myself.

Let me encourage you today to take a look at your meal planning skills and find one thing you can shift to make it easier for yourself. What works for one situation may not be what works for another, and it may take some trial and error to figure it out, but when you do I can promise you that your life will change.

Have a great week, friends!
Stacy

I remember a few years ago having a text conversation with someone while I was cooking dinner. I was having a rough day, mentally and emotionally speaking, and was trying to explain to my friend why cooking dinner was helping. "It's my therapy," I finally wrote. "I find it helps to settle my mind, the repetition of chopping and measuring, stirring and mixing calms me down and makes me feel better. It puts my head in a more settled state. I can make clearer decisions".

This statement probably won't resonate if you're not a cook, if putting dinner on the table is a chore right up there with scrubbing toilets or mirrors, and that's ok. But for those of you out there who "get" me, those of you who find a simmering pot of something savoury a comforting and peaceful thing to enjoy making, know that we are not alone in this.

There have been studies done to confirm why this is so, apparently. And it boils down to something called "behavioral activation", according to this article. 

The next time you're having a rough day and find yourself cooking something to settle your mind, know that you're not alone. I'm probably doing the same thing, too.

Until next time, friends!
​Stacy

Fall in central Alberta means crunchy leaves and crisp evenings. It's not quite winter but you can feel it in the air. The geese rise up suddenly from the river, honking their way overhead as they travel to warmer climates, and you realize suddenly that as quickly as it came, it's on its way out.

Fall in Alberta means apples and cinnamon, pumpkin spice, roasting turkey, and cheerful cups of steaming hot chocolate while warming up from an evening stroll. It's heart-to-heart quiet conversations with friends and shared meals. It's getting ready to settle down for the cold embrace of winter.

Last weekend I spent some time walking as the sun was setting. It was beautiful, and I was grateful to see it before the snowfall over Sunday night. While the eastern half of Canada still sits in summer weather, we're back to winter already. This morning, for example, windchill makes it feel like -12!

Over Thanksgiving weekend I cooked a chunky applesauce in my slow cooker alongside the turkey dinner, and now I get to enjoy applesauce for a few days. It smelled delicious cooking and cooked down beautifully. If someone gave you apples from a backyard tree, this is the perfect way to use them up. If not, use whatever apples you've got and see how it goes!

Enjoy your week, friends.
​Stacy

​For most of my life I've been constrained by food rules. Do you know what I mean? Some foods are good, some are bad, don't eat after dinner, skip breakfast, avoid the carbs, eat the carbs, low fat, no fat, full fat, sugar alternatives, calorie restricted, etc. This is why our food-obsessed culture still struggles with body image, weight related, lifestyle diseases. We put so much emphasis on rules but not enough on individual needs. The majority of our healthcare system treats symptoms but not the root causes, so we end up in this spiral of temporary fixes. I love nothing more than hearing about doctors and naturopaths who work with their clients to treat the causes of these physical symptoms. My hope is that more and more medical professionals will incorporate this sort of holistic treatment going forward.

Over the last few years, and especially in the last few months, I've been taking back control. It's my body- and my needs. No one else can really tell you what you should and should not do with your relationship with food. This intuitive self-awareness is a skill that takes practice. I'm asking myself what I actually want to eat rather than eating just because it's time to eat- does that make sense? The beauty in this is that our bodies are always changing- our needs shift from day to day, and forcing ourselves to follow rules that don't serve our needs may end up doing more harm than good. Here's a wonderful article that communicates exactly what I mean.

Right now it's practiced daily with my lunch salads- what do I want to eat, and how do I want to top it? I'm giving myself free reign to eat what I feel like I need, and it's a refreshing place to be. By stocking my fridge with nutritious choices I know that no matter what I choose my body will be served, nourished, and satisfied. There are no "right" and "wrong" choices here, and that is so freeing and amazing.

Some of my clients are working with their doctors and naturopaths to help sort out and find what food needs they have, with the training to set you on the path you need to go, and I am a partner with them to help you along that journey.

No matter where you are in your journey with food and nutrition, you need to know that you can have that freedom too. If you're ready to eat for yourself, for your health, and to learn to trust yourself one baby step at a time, I'm here to have that conversation with you. With a variety of packages and services to choose from, we can talk about what foods to buy and how to use them, how to build meals based on nutrition and time/budget constraints, and how to make yourself feel amazing. We can cook together, develop recipes specifically for you, or clean out your pantry by doing a kitchen audit. There is no overnight quick fix in the world that actually works, but steady and consistent nutrition will change your life.

Enjoy your day, friends! I look forward to meeting you,
Stacy

I love summer!

I love the blue skies, the sunshine, the warm breezes, and the bird song. I love the lazy days, the play outside, the lack of routines. I don't love heating up the house with cooking, however, so now is the time I start cooking ahead to make summer easier for us at meal times.

I realized today that we're well into summer weather already, and I'm fortunate to have had a jump start in freezer stocking, but it's never too late to start planning and executing some of these tips and tricks for yourself. Here's a short list on ways to get started planning for your own hot-weather meal ideas.

1. Make a list, brainstorming all the foods you like to eat in the summer
2. Separate that list into its cooking needs- grill, slow cooker, stovetop, oven, no cooking, etc.
3. Note what requires cooking, and research if (and how) it can be done ahead of time.

• Can it be partially made and frozen, then reconstructed when you want to eat it?
• Is it something that can be fully made and reheated in the microwave?
• Is there a ready-to-eat substitution you can budget for?

4. Start cooking and stocking your freezer.

• Double your usual meals (as applicable) and package the second half
• Plan on some days being less nice than others, so you can re-stock your favourite freezer foods
• Cook ahead pizza, burgers, meatballs, casseroles so they can be reheated when needed
• Small, individual sized meals reheat quicker than large ones, so consider miniaturizing your favourites- meatloaf muffins instead of meatloaf, for example.

5. Consider how to move your cooking outside.

• Grill
• Slow Cooker or Induction Stovetop on your deck
• Fire pit
• Other people's homes (pot luck meals, neighborhood progressive dinners, etc)

As a family we like to eat a lot of fresh fruit, vegetables, and sandwiches in the summer, but we also enjoy "bowl foods", such as chili and meat sauce and pasta.

Having lean proteins cooked and sliced in our freezer means sandwiches are easy to pull together, and by consciously doubling our chili, meat sauce, casseroles, and meatballs now means there's a supply of meals ready to pull out and reheat. I plan on roasting chicken this week as well as cooking a pork loin in the next week or so in order to put away extra cooked meat for summer. It also makes sense to batch cook rice and quinoa to keep in your freezer so your side dish is ready to serve or turn into something else, such as fried rice, filler for meatloaf, or a salad ingredient.

Recognizing that sometimes summer isn't hot in Alberta, there are also frozen portions of cooked soup ready to reheat on those dreary days or for quick lunches or dinners to serve with salad and sandwiches.

Did this jump start your ideas? I hope you have found some inspiration to keep summer happy and carefree. Cooking doesn't have to stress you out, and I'm happy to offer you custom-built solutions for your situation. Email me here to learn more about my pre-summer cooking mini session.

All the best today, friends!
Stacy

You may also like:
​Fish Taco Recipe
Cool Summer Meals
​Planning Meals in the Heat


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Having a stocked fridge is more complicated, because it has a lot more to do with knowing what you have and using it before it rots then the pantry or freezer.

Our fridge has a lot of condiments- different types of hot sauce, bottled salad dressings for when I'm running low on ingredients or time to make my own, and flavourful sauces for stir fry's and meals such as soy sauce, rice vinegar, maple syrup (the real stuff!), and dijon mustard. I think condiments could take over the world if we let them, and they are one of the groupings in a fridge that can definitely get out of control. If you haven't looked at your condiments lately, spend a few minutes getting rid of expired, old, or moldy items. I've seen jarred garlic, ginger, and jam go moldy, so never assume it's ok if it's been a while since you've opened it.

We have grapefruit accessible as my husband eats that every day for breakfast and they are too big to fit in my fruit crisper. I have the baby carrots my son loves ready to go and easy to see in a container on the lower shelf. I've grouped all my dairy together in 3 places- cheese strings in the pull out drawer on the bottom for the kids to grab for their lunches, coffee cream and milk in the middle, and cheeses, yogurt, and sour cream on the lower shelf next to the carrots.

All our leftovers are hanging out together by date- yesterday's leftovers on the top, and previous ones in the middle. Today I'm assembling the leftover moussaka ingredients to make one for the freezer, and that will clear out the middle space to leave room for any other leftovers we make.

My crispers are full of vegetables and fruit. We generally plan our meals around what's living in these drawers, because if something is going to go rotten and get thrown out, it's vegetables and fruit. We have lettuce, beets, carrots, parsley, and celery in the one...apples, oranges, clementines, and kiwi in the other. Before I buy more vegetables and fruit these need to be substantially emptied. I have a butternut squash living up on the top of my fridge with leftovers, and that is going to be roasted tonight for dinner, and we'll eat steamed beets as well.

I'll share a couple of ideas to make the most out of your fridge space. Please don't hesitate to connect with me if you need some more personalized help :)

• Repackage food into stackable containers if space is an issue. Rectangular and square are more easily fit then round.
• Group like items together, and pay attention to their dates. Plan to use what you can before you know it's going to go bad. My big challenge this week is coffee cream. It's in my fridge from our dinner party, but we usually drink black coffee, so we need to be creative to use this up.
• If you want to eat more fruits and vegetables, plan stir-frys, salads, and soups. I keep a plate out on my table because I don't like eating cold fruit (tooth sensitivity). Figure out what's keeping you from eating more, and try to find a way to fix it.
• Watch the added sugar component in condiments. Sugar is found everywhere, especially in condiments like hoisin sauce, ketchup, and sweet chili sauce. If you're trying to cut out added sugar- start with these items, and develop recipes to make your own flavourful sauces from scratch.

A stocked fridge is more personal, depending on what you like to eat. A wide variety of fruits and vegetables, dairy, and condiments are my main go-to's when planning meals and snacks. The point of shopping for fresh food each week is to eat what you buy, so plan your meals and stick to your list. It's so easy to go overboard with good intentions when shopping, especially when you've got people with you or you're hungry to begin with, but that's how food waste happens. 

Your fridge and freezer are the perfect places to put together flavourful, healthy meals that make your tastebuds sing. You can make your food budget go so much further when you cook for yourself, and I encourage you to find a way to incorporate more of this in your own life. Not only will your wallet thank you, but your body will as well. I offer a meal-planning service that can be personalized to you, your time, your tastes, and your fridge/freezer/pantry. I'd love to chat to see how I can help you use what you have!

Enjoy your day friends! If you enjoyed this post, please share it. I'd love to see you hop over to my Facebook page, where I post almost daily tips, tricks, recipes, meal plans, and interesting news from the world of food and nutrition. Come "like" me so you don't miss anything!

Stacy

For many years, my fridge freezer was all I had. It was a typical top freezer and it was a struggle for me to know what was in there because I was too short to get into the back of it.
This fridge was a huge improvement for us- I wanted the pull out drawers and I love them still. We bought a small upright deep freezer for the basement just a couple of years ago, and the majority of my uncooked meats, ready-to-eat meals that I've cooked ahead (chili, meat sauce, shepherds pie, etc), extra vegetables, dinner rolls, containers of soup, and bones that I'm keeping for stock live in it. I routinely bring up food from that one as I meal plan each week so that I don't have to run down to the basement to grab the food I need each day.

Right now my freezer isn't as organized as usual because I'm in the middle of using up what we have so we can restock for the fall, but in this small snapshot you can see leftover rice, leftover navy beans, a bag of perogies, bagged vegetables and fruit, whole tomatoes, sliced ham, cooked chicken and meatloaf, a ginger nub, vegetable scraps, a couple of baggies of soup stock, and several freezer packs of various sizes. The kids lunches also live in here- in the top right compartment (where my vegetable scraps are right now) is everything I have made for lunches- meatballs, burgers, cheese strings, and muffins. When I get organized I also like to roll and freeze wraps so they can just grab and go.

I consider my freezers reasonably well stocked. But why? What makes it stocked? Why does it matter?

1. Having a stocked freezer makes the difference between ordering in and picking up take out, or being able to cook a meal from scratch. With the meal starters I've got upstairs in my fridge freezer, I can whip up dinner in a few minutes that will satisfy our bellies and wallets. For example, I can make a rice and bean dish with the ham and frozen tomatoes to eat as is or stuff in peppers for baking. I can make chicken fried rice, ham and bean soup, chicken and rice soup, meatloaf or ham sandwiches, pierogi soup, fried ham and perogies with steamed vegetables.
2. Having a stocked freezer makes grocery shopping quicker, cheaper, and more efficient. If you have food in your freezer that you routinely use and restock, your grocery shopping will reflect your efforts. It will be easier to put a meal together when you stock up on proteins and other items that can be frozen for those weeks you run out of time to shop.
3. Knowing you can cook or prep once and eat twice will put a smile on your face. If you make a batch of chili, why not make two? Double up on that shepherds pie, slice that second meatloaf and freeze the slices for quick meals, marinate your chicken and beef for a super quick stir fry that flavours as it thaws, and freeze your extra grains such as quinoa and rice. 
   
4. Having a well-stocked freezer creates time, space, and happiness for one of the most stressful tasks for most people- dinner time and meal planning. Having less stress makes meals automatically more enjoyable, no matter what food you end up making. You will save money in your grocery budget by reducing waste (leftovers get used rather than tossed) and help ensure you are feeding yourself (and/or your family) food that supports your health so much more then fast food ever will. 

Here is the best article I've ever read with tips and suggestions on correctly stocking and organizing your freezer. I've done most of these things, myself, and if you want to start getting the most out of your freezer space I recommend you start with this resource.

You can always call for a companion to help you out if you're ready to do a fridge, freezer, or pantry audit. The big jobs are easier with a helping hand, and I'm just a message away.

Did you enjoy this article? Please share!
Have a great day, friends!
Stacy

Over the years I've observed that I have a well-stocked pantry compared to many people, and I'm often surprised by what's NOT in people's pantry's. Let's chat about a well-stocked kitchen over the next few blog posts and see what all the fuss is about!

Keeping a well-stocked pantry can be the difference between whipping something up for a meal and ordering in (or going out). It's not a big deal if you don't think it is, but if you feel guilt, shame, or regret every time you go out when you would rather not, this is one of those things you can do to take control and find some satisfaction and happiness in your kitchen.


Keeping your pantry stocked enables you to run a more efficient and organized kitchen. It makes your meal planning and grocery shopping easier and quicker, and by keeping everything organized and knowing what you have means less time and money is wasted.​ It's so important, in fact, that I offer pantry audits as one of my services, because it's one of those places in our homes that seems to encourage chaos. I encourage you to do your own pantry audit before you run out to shop for your staples- you may find things in there you forgot you had!

We'll go over fridge and freezer stocking another time, and at the end of it all we'll put together a list of a few ideas of meals you can throw together with what you have.

Some standard pantry staples:

• Tomato Paste
• Diced Tomatoes
• Rice 
• Pasta
• Quinoa
• Canned Beans and Lentils
• Bagged Beans, Lentils and Split Peas
• Salt and Pepper
• Oregano, Basil, Thyme
• Cumin, Chili Powder
• Italian Seasoning + 1 other blend of herbs and spices
• Onions
• Garlic
• Potatoes
• Olive Oil
• Coconut Oil
• Rice Vinegar
• Chicken, Vegetable, and Beef Broth
• Salsa
• Coffee, Tea (including herbal)
• Flour and Cornstarch
• Rolled Oats (or steel cut, whatever you've got!)
• Brown Sugar
• Molasses
• Peanut butter and peanuts

​My stocked pantry includes items most people would probably not consider as basics, but we don't let ourselves run out. These items include all of these above plus:

• As many nuts and seeds as possible (cashews, walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds)
• Flavoured olive oils and balsamic vinegars
• Dates, raisins, and dried figs
• Many, many herbs and spices

There are overlaps, of course, between fridge and pantry. If we open the salsa, for example, it lives in the fridge. And we keep our ketchup in the fridge too, though I hear it's shelf-stable and refrigeration isn't required.

Here's a recipe using basic pantry ingredients to create baked beans in the slow cooker- a perfect recipe for the weather we are enjoying today in Fort Saskatchewan!

Have a comment? Want to tell me what I missed (or added) that makes my stocked pantry different than yours? Feel free to leave a note for us here or hop over to my Facebook page and start the conversation there.

Have a great week, friends!
Stacy