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    Cook Once A Week: Eat Well Every Day
    Cook Once A Week: Eat Well Every Day
    Cook Once A Week: Eat Well Every Day
    Ebook320 pages3 hours

    Cook Once A Week: Eat Well Every Day

    By Theresa Albert-Ratchford

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    About this ebook

    Guaranteed to silence the dreaded 5:00 p.m. “What’s for dinner?” wail—not to mention a solution to the “pizza or burgers?” dilemma—Cook Once a Week is the innovative cookbook whose easy-to-follow system delivers a week’s worth of meals in a single, one-stop planning, shopping and cooking session. This is a book that takes into account what every mom knows: family schedules and budgets are incredibly tight; not everyone will be eating together every night; convenience foods cost; and kids are picky eaters. With Cook Once a Week, Theresa Albert-Ratchford, a personal chef, cooking instructor and food columnist, has done the impossible—she’s turned dinner-hour insanity into an enjoyable, family-friendly time. Here’s what’s inside:

    • From Better Basics to Vegetarian Visitors: 12 balanced, weekly dinner menus, plus a bonus week for the pickiest of kids
    • Step-by-step recipes that allow you to prepare the whole week’s meals in the same amount of time it would take to make just your Sunday dinner
    • Budget $100 or less for food each week: there’s no waste, just lots of great eating
    • Detailed, photocopy-ready weekly shopping lists that eliminate waste, impulse buying and multiple trips to the grocery store
    • Breakfast and lunch plans for families on the go, including 10 lunchbox ideas
    • Grab and go: handy tips that incorporate leftovers into fast and tasty all-new meals
    • Invaluable advice: on nutrition (each recipe has a complete nutritional analysis), getting the kids involved, pantry must-haves, and freezing and serving tips
    • Over 25 two-minute ideas to make entrées, side dishes, snacks and desserts
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 15, 2010
    ISBN9781443404266
    Cook Once A Week: Eat Well Every Day
    Author

    Theresa Albert-Ratchford

    Theresa Albert-Ratchford is a personal chef and owner of Thyme for Supper, a company devoted to making clients' lives easier by teaching them, in their own homes, how to cook once a week and eat well every day. She has appeared on Cityline, Canadian Living Television, Daytime, and Canada AM. She also teaches classes at Loblaws Cooking School, and runs Kids Can Cook, a popular after-school program for children aged 6-14. She lives with her family in Toronto.

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      Book preview

      Cook Once A Week - Theresa Albert-Ratchford

      THERESA ALBERT-RATCHFORD

      Cook Once a Week

      And Eat Well Every Day

      Dedicated to Guy and Jameson. From my first disaster, Jerk Tofu, through breast milk, baby food and Red River Cereal, all the way to Sushi for fireside supper–both of you have tried every bite, gave honest opinions and gave me the courage to go on.

      CONTENTS

      Cover

      Title Page

      Introduction

      WEEK 1

      WEEK 2

      WEEK 3

      WEEK 4

      WEEK 5

      WEEK 6

      WEEK 7

      WEEK 8

      WEEK 9

      WEEK 10

      WEEK 11

      WEEK 12

      WEEK 13

      WEEK 14

      Desserts and Snacks

      Index

      Acknowledgements

      Why We Love to Cook Once a Week

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      Introduction

      Here’s the secret to a meal planning system that will save you hours thinking about meals, grocery shopping and the kitchen. Cook Once a Week simplifies things by providing you with a weekly meal plan of surefire family pleasers. Most recipes are designed to be successfully doubled and the balance frozen for future use. Suggestions for making leftovers into brand-new meals (these are the Grab and Go part of the recipes) are included to stretch three cooked meals into five–one for every night of the workweek. The best part of the process is that each weekly plan is designed to be cooked all in one afternoon. Using no more than three hours on a Sunday, you can prepare not only that night’s dinner but also the meals for the rest of the week. The economy of motion never looked so good. The idea is to get as much done as possible. If you have to be in the kitchen anyway, why not let it be the only time you lift or clean a pot all week!

      All of your nutritional wishes have been considered. Cook Once a Week has few trans fats, has lower starch and carbs (we use whole grains) and keeps healthy fats in healthy proportions.

      Cook Once a Week is designed not only to simplify and make meals healthful but also to reduce the cost of doing so. Buying only what you need reduces the feeling-guilty cycle of buying with the best of intentions, letting things rot then throwing them away. Our shopping lists include everything you need to get the job done (deliciously!) and nothing more. This is a much smarter way to shop.

      We know that today’s busy schedules have you at home for supper about three nights per workweek and the rest are grab as you can, so we have planned for exactly that with a little for leftovers. A quick, nourishing lunch or two is just one of the bonuses of our system. Everything is based on a family of four, which is a round number, so you can scale up or down as needed. Kids under eight usually eat half portions, kids between the ages of eight and 12 can count as about three-quarter portions, and kids over 12 are anybody’s guess from zero to two portions. You’ll have to figure out the adolescent stomach as you go along–just like their clothes and music.

      We have included an entire chapter of recipes for kids to make with you (see Bonus Kids Week). If you’ve got little ones, we suggest that this meal plan be your first foray into your new system for two reasons: the meals are utterly kid friendly and the recipes are the easiest of them all! Some families will use the Bonus Kids Week over and over again, venturing only into the other chapters when they have company or host a big family dinner. For fussy eaters, perhaps your best bet is to make these kids’ meals and freeze everything in single-serving sizes. Kids can microwave them only after they have tried the rest of what is put on the table. No hassling or arguing; simply suggest that they get one of the meals that they made and microwave it. As long as your microwave oven is within reach, any child over three can do this—with supervision.

      Our experience with kids tells us that they are much more likely to eat something that they have invested in, and we do suggest that the Sunday cook-a-thon include them as soon as they can hold a knife—whether you’re making the Bonus Week meals or any others. You can start them around age two with a plastic lettuce knife and let them cut up salad greens, then graduate to a serrated bread knife, which is easier to handle and harder to cut oneself with. By age three, they can handle a small paring knife if watched and guided well. I have taught many six-, seven-and eight-year-olds to use a ten-inch chef’s knife safely as long as they are the kind of kid who can keep their eye on the job.

      How to use this book

      Each week has a work schedule that outlines how you are going to accomplish a week’s worth of healthy cooking in three or so hours. Getting everything prepared on Sunday so that cooking the evening meal on any day later in the week is a simple, one-step process is the foundation of this book. The work schedule will help you plan the preparations, and the end result on a busy week night will be almost like stopping for take-out on the way home and warming it up in your own oven. Except cheaper, healthier and yummier!

      Here’s how to get going:

      When starting a meal plan, set out all recipe ingredients in groups around the kitchen. You don’t need any special equipment or a large space by any means. The idea is that you use your space well: one side of the sink for veggies, one side for raw meat; one side of your stove for cooking one dish and the other for cooking the second dish or prepping something else.

      The recipes are in order of what you start first so you can read each week’s recipes from beginning to end and just keep moving until all of your ingredients are off the counter and in the pots. Once you get going, it will become clear what needs to happen next. For instance, when you hit a point in the first recipe that says simmer for 20 minutes you can move on to the next recipe and get it started. By having stations around the stove, you can see what goes where and you won’t have to keep checking the recipe and running to the fridge. Your first attempt will be the clumsiest but don’t give up! Like anything, the routine will become, well, routine. Each week is designed to ease you further into the process, starting with the simplest and moving to the more complex.

      A note about garbage: always keep a large bowl for discards at the back of your counter space when working. This eliminates the unnecessary steps to your waste or compost bin over and over again. Emptying one container at the end of the cooking session is much more hygienic and efficient than making several dozen trips to the trash. Place one bowl next to your stove and one next to your sink directly in front of you.

      Assess your storage needs. If you want to store your soups in single-serving sizes because your family eats at different times, then please do so. If you are the set-the-casserole-on-the-table kind of household then be sure to freeze it all in one container. The reheating instructions are intended to be flexible and you can adjust the reheating times up or down depending on your needs. It is always better to freeze in shallow containers because the freezing process happens more quickly, keeping food fresher, and the reheating process is faster.

      As you go along, you will find that you always have one or two dishes in the freezer for quick meals. When you find that a dish is a hit with the whole family, be sure to double it next time you make it and freeze for future use.

      We have provided you with grocery lists for each week. Each list has all of the ingredients that you need for that week, including the Grab and Go options (usually for four servings). Once you are sure which meals will go over with everyone (and we have plenty of variation ideas for the fussiest members) you can photocopy the list to increase the amount of each ingredient as needed to double or triple a recipe. Or visit www.cookonceaweek.ca. You will find all the shopping lists there for you in downloadable form.

      When you have a complete list of all that you need for the weekly plan (including your up-sizing, if necessary), you can photocopy this plan multiple times so you can use it over again throughout the season. Try keeping a binder with these shopping lists and tracking your grocery bills. Family life being the circus that it is, we are sure the other copies will get misplaced, splattered upon or chewed by the dog. Do yourself a favour and keep this copy. Don’t lose sight of this page of crucial information!

      At the end of each week there is a blank page, ready to be filled with your notes. What did your kids like best? Did you change up some spicing, increase serving sizes? Write it down so you won’t forget.

      All weeks are designed to cost approximately $75 for the foundation of the meals, assuming that you have a few of the staples on hand. If you choose to use the Grab and Go recipes to help you with quick solutions for leftovers, then you can assume the groceries will cost another $25. Storage containers and sealable freezer bags will cost extra but can be reused often.

      Good luck and enjoy all the free time that Cook Once a Week will give you.

      Getting organized

      One of the things I do in the coaching role of my job is to show people how to get through that planning, shopping and cooking process more efficiently. I am amazed at how many people try to skip that step of planning. Then they are, in turn, amazed at how much food rots in their fridge. The process is detailed, but here are my best tips.

      Shopping

      Find out which day your market gets produce deliveries and shop on those days. The best idea is to shop and cook on the same day so you can skip the step of putting things away!

      Always shop at the same store because you will get to know what they carry and where to find it quickly.

      Try to shop early in the day or later in the evening, when stores are quieter.

      Take your list with you. Do not try to remember at the store.

      When shopping, be sure to gather all items from the perimeter of the store first. All fresh items will be found there, and you’ll need only a very few minutes in specific aisles to gather canned or packaged goods.

      Take extra produce bags and use them for meat but skip them for most veggies because they are another unnecessary step.

      Using a bin or a box instead of grocery bags saves time at the store and at home, not to mention the environmental bonus. Just pack your own bins and put similar things in one bin—pantry items, fresh meat with dairy and vegetables, canned goods. When you get home, it will be easy to assign one person to the cupboard and one to the fridge for unpacking duties.

      Store ingredients when possible in their recipe grouping. Keeping all of the vegetables for a certain soup in one bag or corner makes a quicker start.

      If you are lucky enough to live in an

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