Save-It-Forward Suppers: A Simple Strategy to Save Time, Money, and Sanity
Book Preface
Recently I had one of those unexpected blessings of motherhood, one that I could not have envisioned as I was slogging away in the gritty (but joyous!) muck of raising young kids. My daughter, newly married and budget-minded, was preparing lunches for her upcoming work week. It was hard for me to believe that the kid who had stood on a chair next to me stirring muffin batter was now the one bustling about in her own kitchen. But then she stumped me with a simple question. “Mom,” she asked, “do you like to cook?”
I was flummoxed. Hmm . . . do I like to cook? Do I? Like it? I finally concluded that the answer was “not really,” which shocked me a bit. As a homeschool mom of four who has religiously cooked three meals a day for decades now, I would have thought I could have managed a “By golly, I do, dear!”
I think I could have managed a yes if I had felt like a pro in the kitchen. Though my food is tasty, my kitchen is always a mess by the time I’ve cooked a meal, and my Fitbit registers like I’ve run a marathon.
However, here’s what I do like: the payoff. It is more than just the pleasure of eating yummy food. It is the joy found in providing the countless meals that have prompted my family to gather around the table to share a moment in our day. And around that table, a life has been built. A life that my daughter now wants to emulate. Wow, that’s beyond gratifying . . . I find myself a little teary as I write this. I didn’t know precisely what the result would be; I just knew that as a young mama, I had read that kids who had regular dinners with the family were happier, healthier, and more successful. I adopted meal prep as a sacred obligation, not allowing myself to think about whether I liked it or not. I just knew that I wanted that life for my kids.
But that commitment didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t terribly dexterous or efficient at cooking. I did have one advantage, though, as I was trying to get my family fed: my mother was a child of the Depression, and her mother was a widow with four kids to feed. My mother learned resourcefulness when stretching meals, and mercifully, I inherited this ability. This book is the culmination of watching my mom effortlessly create inventive meal plans, combined with my own modern spin on feeding my family for more than three decades (yikes—where have the years gone?!).
WHAT DO I MEAN BY “SAVE IT FORWARD”?
It’s exhausting to cook an entire meal from the ground up every night. Stop that! I have a better way—an efficient method of creating healthy, tasty family meals even if cooking is not your thing. For this book I’ve created fifteen separate weeks of meals in which every time you cook a dish, you’ll be saving ingredients forward—that is, preparing some of the components in a way that will let you use them to make an entirely different meal later in that week. I don’t know about you, but my family is not overly excited about warmed-up leftovers, and this method reimagines the components in ways that never seem like last night’s rehashed seconds. But, if thinking about an entire week of meals sounds too ambitious for you, no problem—each recipe can stand alone! That said, I hope I can persuade you to try my method, even if it might seem tricky at first. I’ll be with you every step of the way!
Though this book contains more than one hundred forty recipes in this book, it’s really more of a method—or a mindset, to be more precise. I’ve tried to think of the various moods and situations a family might encounter and provide a weekly game plan: summer grilling, winter comfort foods, pantry items, shortcuts, belt-tightening—I’ve got you! Your family will have its own quirks, but I believe that this save-it-forward method will give you some tools in your culinary toolbox to help solve your unique mealtime problems.
Here are my goals for feeding my family. Are you my culinary soulmate? Hope so!
- Delicious—well, of course! (Though some days, I’m just shooting for getting people fed.)
- Kid-friendly but adventuresome. My adult kids eat just about everything. When they were smaller, I didn’t insist that they clean their plates when I served them something new, but I asked them to try it. I purposefully cooked a variety of cuisines in order to broaden their palates. I will admit, though, that when I knew a dish would be a little weird for them, I’d try to make sure there was something in the meal that I knew they liked, like buttered bread or fruit.
- Healthy. I’m not the kind of gal who throws chia seeds into everything, but I slip in veggies when I can and keep simple carbs to a minimum throughout the week. My husband is a gluten-free guy, so I generally cook something that is either GF or can be made so with an easy modification. I’m often following one plan or another to lose a few pounds, so most of the meals can be modified to suit my current dietary shenanigans.
- Budget-friendly. As I mentioned, my mother was a child in the Depression, and that mindset is in our family DNA. In other words, I’m a cheapskate! I am conscious of our food budget, and if an ingredient is expensive, I stretch it with less costly components in that meal or later in the week.
I am hopeful that this book will make your family deliriously happy, and that you’ll be building family memories as you gather around the table—with less stress and effort on your part. Let’s do this thing!
Love,
Cyndi
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Foreword by Ree Drummond
Introduction
Week 1
Simple Meats and Veggies Week
Week 1, Day 1: Roasted Everything—Chicken, Broccoli, Onions, and Potatoes
Week 1, Day 2: Roasted Salmon, Green Beans, and Crusty Bread
Week 1, Day 2: Brown Rice Pilaf
Week 1, Day 3: Great Northern Beans
Week 1, Day 3: Sautéed Spinach
Week 1, Day 4: Hearty Chicken Stew
Week 1, Day 5: Almost Niçoise Salmon Salad
Week 1, Day 6: “Easy Like Friday Evening” Personal Pizzas
Week 2
Surf ’n’ Turf ’n’ More Week
Week 2, Day 1: London Broil
Week 2, Day 1: Oven-Roasted Potatoes and Onions
Week 2, Day 2: Shrimp Packet Dinner
Week 2, Day 3: Beef Fried Rice, Two Ways—Fancy or Simple
Week 2, Day 4: Cajun Chowder
Week 2, Day 5: Shakshuka
Week 3
Big Ol’ Honkin’ Ham Week!
Week 3, Day 1: Baked Sunday Ham
Week 3, Day 1: Scalloped Potatoes
Week 3, Day 2: Chicken Salad Board
Week 3, Day 2: Roasted Asparagus
Week 3, Day 2: Roasted Grapes
Week 3, Day 3: Scalloped Potato Soup
Week 3, Day 4: Breakfast-for-Dinner Eggs Benedict
Week 3, Day 5: Jambalaya
Week 3, Day 6: Dude Ranch Beans
Week 4
No Time to Spare Week!
Week 4, Day 1: Chipotle Chicken
Week 4, Day 2: Cheater’s Posole
Week 4, Day 2: Jalapeño Poppers (or Mini Pepper Poppers)
Week 4, Day 3: Open-Faced Bacon, Tomato, and Cheese Sandwiches
Week 4, Day 3: Cucumber Salad
Week 4, Day 4: Skillet Smoked Sausage, Cabbage, and Potatoes
Week 4, Day 5: Breakfast-for-Dinner Burritos
Week 5
Get a Grip Week
Week 5, Day 1: Grilled Turkey Burgers with Grilled Veggies
Week 5, Day 2: Italian Meatball Soup
Week 5, Day 3: Asian Lettuce Wraps
Week 5, Day 3: Garlicky Bok Choy
Week 5, Day 4: Thai Basil Chicken
Week 5, Day 5: Sweet Sriracha Salmon
Week 5, Day 5: Yellow Rice
Week 5, Bonus Appetizer!: Sriracha Salmon Spread
Week 6
Ancient Grains Week
Week 6, Day 1: Chicken Milanese
Week 6, Day 1: Lemony Arugula
Week 6, Day 2: Chipotle Beef Tacos
Week 6, Day 3: Chicken Parmesan over Creamy Polenta
Week 6, Day 3: Creamy Polenta
Week 6, Day 4: Beef, Black Bean, and Quinoa Enchiladas
Week 6, Day 5: Italian Sausage Marinara over Pasta
Week 6, Day 6: Sheet Pan Tilapia, Browned Butter Corn Cakes, and Roasted Veggies
Week 7
Effortless Party Week
Week 7, Day 1: Chicken Nachos with a Twist
Week 7, Day 2: Buffalo Chicken Taquitos
Week 7, Day 3: Open-Faced Pimiento Cheese Sandwiches
Week 7, Day 4: Grilled Kebabs
Week 7, Day 5: Effortless Summer Party
Week 8
Grill Week!
Week 8, Day 1: Pork Spiedies
Week 8, Day 1: Garlicky Lemony Grilled Shrimp
Week 8, Day 1: Grilled Corn Salad
Week 8, Day 1: Grilled Pork Tenderloin
Week 8, Day 1: Asian Flank Steak
Week 8, Day 2: Garlicky Lemony Grilled Shrimp and Quinoa Bowls
Week 8, Day 3: Cuban Sliders
Week 8, Day 3: Watermelon, Feta, and Arugula Salad
Week 8, Day 4: Asian Flank Steak and Quinoa Summer Rolls with Peanutty Dipping Sauce
Week 8, Day 5: Barbecue Pork Sandwiches and Oklahoma Slaw
Week 8, Day 5: Oklahoma Slaw
Week 9
Comfort Foods from Across the Pond Week
Week 9, Day 1: Sunday Gravy and Pasta
Week 9, Day 2: Lentil Soup
Week 9, Day 2: Easy Cheesy Spaghetti Squash
Week 9, Day 3: Irish Corned Beef, Cabbage, and Potatoes
Week 9, Day 4: Shepherd’s Pie with Browned Butter Mashed Potatoes
Week 9, Day 5: Reubens Your Way
Week 10
Pantry Item Week
Week 10, Day 1: Salmon Patties
Week 10, Day 1: Marinated Artichoke Salad
Week 10, Day 2: Chop Mein or Chow Suey
Week 10, Day 3: Hoppin’ John
Week 10, Day 4: Tuna Melt
Week 10, Day 5: Pantry Minestrone
Week 11
Shortcut Week
Week 11, Day 1: Italian Beef Tips over Rice
Week 11, Day 2: Stromboli
Week 11, Day 3: Mexican Beef Stew
Week 11, Day 4: Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup
Week 11, Day 4: Toasty Pinwheels
Week 11, Day 5: Seared Scallops with Basil Pesto Cream Sauce and Orzo
Week 12
Veggie-Forward Week, Spring-Summer Edition
Week 12, Day 1: Summer Salad Supper
Week 12, Day 2: Impossible Zucchini Pie
Week 12, Day 3: Farro Fried Rice
Week 12, Day 4: Vegetarian or Omnivore Wraps
Week 12, Day 4: Nancy’s Roasted Carrot Salad
Week 12, Day 5: Tomato Tart, Two Ways (and a Salad Challenge)
Week 12, Bonus: Roasted Carrot, Coconut, and Raisin Muffins (with a Little Zucchini)
Week 13
Mediterranean Week
Week 13, Day 1: Mediterranean Platter with Roasted Veggies, Halloumi, Hummus, and Pita Bread
Week 13, Day 2: Pressed Italian Sandwich
Week 13, Day 3: Pasta with Ricotta, Peas, and Bacon
Week 13, Day 4: Shrimp BLT (or BLJ) with Bacon-Tomato Jam and Basil Aioli
Week 13, Day 5: Mediterranean Pasta Salad
Week 13, Day 5: Caramelized Onion and Bacon Tart
Week 14
Veggie-Forward Week, Fall-Winter Edition
Week 14, Day 1: Mujadara (Lentils, Rice, and Caramelized Onions)
Week 14, Day 1: Feta Turnovers
Week 14, Day 2: Two Potato and Chickpea Curry
Week 14, Day 3: Brandi’s Veggie-Forward Hash with Balsamic Reduction
Week 14, Day 3: Butternut Squash Dutch Baby
Week 14, Day 4: Black Bean and Butternut Squash Tostadas
Week 14, Day 4: Spanish Rice
Week 14, Day 5: French Onion and Lentil Soup
Week 14, Day 5: Veggie Paninis
Week 15
Mad Skills Week
Week 15, Day 1: Grilled Pork Loin and Tangy Potato and Green Bean Salad
Week 15, Day 2: Chicken Quesadillas
Week 15, Day 3: Stuffed Peppers over Pasta with the Simplest Tomato Sauce
Week 15, Day 4: Asian Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Week 15, Day 4: Asian Cabbage and Noodle Salad
Week 15, Day 5: Italian Frittata
Week 15, Day 6: Chili with a Twist or Two
Essentials and Extras
Acknowledgments
Universal Conversion Chart
Index
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
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