Sally’s Kitchen & Stuff

Reader’s digest version.

- We were supposed to show up to get on the bus at 7:30 AM.
- 8 AM. We’re sitting in the parking lot. One of my singers slept in, the lead trumpet was on his way.
- 8:05. We’re finally on our way, but my singer is going to have to drive up with one of our sax players.
- 9:10. Bus breaks down and we had to stop near Orangeville. We sat and played cards/talked til around 11 AM while our director got us rented cars. (for 25 people, no less!)
- 11. Toll truck arrives, but it couldn’t toll a bus. The bus was much too heavy. We left it there.
- 12:45 PM. We finally arrived and unloaded, setup in a huge hurry.
- 1:15 PM. Makeup. Hair. Hair’s a mess.
- 2 PM. Show. Not bad - we’re remembering pretty much everything…but in the interim one of my singers ripped both her dress and her gloves. Thankfully it wasn’t noticeable. (More time at the sewing machine for me…)
- 5:30 PM. We finally packed up and drove back.
- 8:40 PM. We arrived in TO, but 4 people will have to drive the cars back and come back tonight.

What a DAY. I’m somewhat glad I don’t drive.

Free printable grocery coupons from CANADA.
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What’s even better, you don’t have to print it yourself. Select, send, and…they send it to you, and pay the postage! How nifty is that?

They’re free, and they actually have some good info on them. It’s actually the ONLY magazine I subscribe to: a 20 to 30 something working woman’s productivity bible.

New Year’s Resolutions - Printable PDFs

I don’t have a new recipe up yet - it’s been a long time prepping Christmas…you guys have no idea what it’s like! I’ve been teaching a vocal group Christmas music since the beginning of August, and honestly, that’s probably why I haven’t been over-shopping for gifts. The constant festive music in shopping malls just drives me out of there without the hour.

So instead I’ve came up with some secrets…some secrets people’s been telling you about that you haven’t been listening to in ages. How I maintained my weight since 17, and how the old jeans still fit. It’s really very, very simple.

Eat well. Eat anything you want. Don’t ever deprive yourself.

Didn’t expect that did ja?

Now here’s the catch:

• No alcohol, no smoking, no drugs. You can’t do cardio and smoke. It’s just not feasible.
• No sugary drinks except for orange juice and other no-sugar-added juices.
• No buying chips and cookies. If you must eat it, make it yourself. Once you realize how much butter goes into the baking of one batch of cookies, and how much oil it takes to fry chips, you’d be wary of putting another one into your mouth. Worse yet, most commercial cookies still contain trans fat.
• Eat EVERY meal. Snack on vegetables. Don’t let your body feel hungry.
• Eat everything you put on a plate, and replace all your 12" plates with 8" ones. Nobody needs to eat that much!

It’s really not what you eat: it’s what you buy. When you go grocery shopping, bring a list. Make sure you have a bunch of yummy low-sugar fruits and veggies on it. Skip the snack and pop isle.

When you get home, prep the veggies  - wash, dry, chop - and throw them in Tupperware containers. So when you’re hankering for a snack, you’d reach for a Tupperware full of chopped white mushrooms and red bell peppers. Mmmm.

You CAN eat big heavy meals and still be healthy! Keep your snacks healthy and keep the unhealthy snacks hidden, if you must have them at all. Sure, I still like a few cookies once in a while, but since I only eat what I bake, I partake in premeditated bingeing - often, when the cookies are done, the therapeutic dough kneading and the smell of baking, as well as the interim veggie snacking already did its work, and I end up giving the cookies away.

Most of us lack the will power to go to a gym - I do. As much as I like to advocate Pilate’s/yoga/weight training/cadio/aerobics, I can’t. I don’t do any of them - they’re too boring. I stay healthy doing what I love - DANCING.

It used to be salsa and swing lessons that really reved up my metabolism, but lately I’ve turned to Dance Dance Revolution, or even better, its PC equivalent: Stepmania. All you need is a $10 dance pad, a PC, and USB adapter. There are lots of sites that offer free sim files, linked off of the Stepmania website. Each set of DDR takes 9 minutes (3 rounds). Pick 5 of your favorite songs, and you’d have 45 minute of cardio separated by breaks of 30 seconds or so each, or however long for you to pick a song.

If you have a PS2/Xbox, the official version of Dance Dance Revolution also has a workout mode so that you can play continuously. I prefer the breaks, however, but to each his own.

Staying in shape is not a science - as much as diet books and fitness instructors try to tell you. It’s about having fun in life, and wanting to have more energy to have said fun WITH! And since it is fun…why not start today?

It doesn’t cost a lot to make great food. Just use some imagination.
I’ve electrical taped 5 cheap steak knives together to make a temporary
egg slicer, and used parchment paper (unbelievably strong stuff when
wet) to lift roasts off a pan.

Most of my recipes, anyhow, are geared to a budgeted household…and people who are too busy to cook everyday.

Penny pinching

• Don’t have a casserole pan? Line your roasting pan with a most clean towel, then cover with parchment paper and glue the leaky parts with 1 part water 2 parts flour and a pinch of salt.
• Need to decorate a cake but don’t have an icing bag? Roll up some parchment paper and cut yourself a decorating tip. An alternative would be a zip lock baggie with a tip cut out, but that’s more effective with filling up pasta shells.
• Don’t buy anything pre-grated. You can do it yourself, and it’s not really that much work. Spray the grater down with cooking spray if you dread cleaning it afterword.
• Don’t get a glass cutting board. They’re expensive, and they DULL YOUR KNIVES. Splurge on a bunch of acrylic ones instead and replace as they get rough.
• To avoid freezer burn, wrap with plastic wrap (keeps the air out) then zip-lock bag them.
• Do make a bunch of sandwiches at the same time and freeze them. To avoid a soggy sandwich, try to let in as little air as possible when you zip-lock, and then let it thaw in room temperature IN THE BAG and only take it out when it’s ready. You can freeze chocolate the same way.

Weird stuff that works

• Can’t get the burned starch off the bottom of the pot? Throw in a handful of salt and add a layer of water, bring to a boil. Rinse, and wipe the bottom off with a paper towel or a j-cloth. Whatever’s going ON that cloth, it’s NOT going to come off. If there’s still stuff on the bottom, repeat the process with vinegar and water.
• Don’t have a dutch oven and want to put that plastic handled pan into the oven? Wrap the handle with a moist kitchen towel. Wet it every 30 minutes if you’re baking any higher than 350. I use my pan to make frittatas all the time.

Cooking Essentials, if you have NOTHING ELSE

• Whisk made of acrylic - $1
• Nylon spatula - $1
• Nylon soup scoop - $1
• Good, big heavy bottomed pan - $30 & up
• Big, and I mean, big enough to feed 20 - heavy bottomed soup pot - $30 & up
• Metal tongs - $5 and up, or you can use chopsticks. $3 a pack of 8.
• A roasting pan with a rack - I got mine for $10 at Benix & Co. and I’ve had it for 5 years.
• A decent rice cooker - these things are getting cheaper and cheaper. - $20
• Wooden spoons, replaced every 8 weeks. - $2 for 3 at a dollar store.
• Metal strainer for pasta - $5
• Aluminum foil and parchment paper - $2 each roll.
• Lots of Tupperware containers and zip-lock sandwich bags.

Nice to haves

• Dutch oven - it’s amazing how much food you can make in that thing.
• Slow Cooker - There are lots of good slow-cooker recipes out there, and it’s nice to come home to the smell of food.
• Rice Cooker - yeah, it’s in the above list, but it is sort of a "nice to have." You’d use less oil in your rice (none at all) and it’s cooked perfectly every time.
• Ceramic oven pans for all those nice casseroles
• Bread pan for those great banana loaves. It’s cheap too. And you can make Cinnamon buns in it.
• Food processor - a luxury, but great for making sauces, cutting veggies, emulsifying sauces, chopping nuts, kneading dough. It will save you a bundle of time in the long run, although they are QUITE expensive.

Ok. Here’s what you need:
1. A printer. You don’t have to print it, but it’s much more effective if you do.
2. One sheet of paper.
3. A copy of MS Excel or similar spreadsheet software. Stay late at the office to do this, or get yourself a copy of:
    - OpenOffice, or if you want something standalone, give Gnumeric a try. Both are free and open-source. Calc rocks.
4. Have a paper calendar ready to pick out dates. A mini card one will do.

And here’s what you do:

1. Start a new spreadsheet. Title them your first 5 columns DATE, EVENT, DEPOSIT, WITHDRAWAL, and balance.

2. Figure out all your paydays, 3 months in advance. Point them out on the calendar, write down the dates. Write down how much each paycheck would be next to the date.

3. Write down a list of expenses - Date/title/cost. EX: 12-dec-05 Phone bill -40 - again, 3 months in advance. Make this only NECESSARY expenses - phone bill, rent, utilities, groceries. We’ll work on the "want to spend" section later. If you’re not sure how much you’re being paid (if it varies), work out and average and -$50. Always add $20 on top of variable bills - such as the phone and util bills.

3. Select the money rows (depot, withdraw, balance) and change its number format to "currency." Right click > format. I choose the "-" sign over using brackets simply because it takes up less space when printed. If you like, add a row on the bottom with how much cash and money in the bank you have RIGHT NOW, and label it under today’s date.

4. Now we sort the list by date. In excel, it’s select fields > menu data > sort > sort by date, ascending, with header row. Now the magic begins.

5. In the balance row, add this function to the E2 field "=SUM(C2:D2)" and in the E3 field: "=E2+SUM(C3+D3)"
What you’re doing is adding your above balance to the mix of "deposit + (-withdrawal)"

6. Now select that second balance field (assuming that the first one is cash-in-hand), select the remaining fields and choose fill from the edit menu, then down. Voila! The bottom right corner number is how much you’d have in the bank if you only spend on necessities, by the beginning of march. According to this budget, if you’re a single bachelor making the average $500 a week, and sharing a house with someone, you can save a whooping 5k in three months. Of course, if you make less than this and sometimes run into trouble paying bills, just check your balance. Any negatives would be automatically highlighted in red.

Now you can customize it! Simply add the fields in the bottom of the list and re-sort to see WHEN and HOW MUCH you can spend on entertainment, clothes and etc and still save a bundle.

Now to stick to said budget.

It’s harder than you might think. A cup of coffee every morning at Starbucks could run you $60 a month. Grabbing lunch instead of making it? $5 x 5 x 4 = $100. Going out for dinner? There goes another $20. So, how to stick to that budget?

1. Use cash and keep all the receipts. This might seen like an oxymoron, since cash in hand goes faster than cash in bank. The problem with cash in bank is that once you have that bankcard, you could spend anywhere from $20 - $2000. If you budgeted $200 for that shopping trip, take out the $200 and put it in your wallet. Leave the bankcard and credit cards at home.

2. Still got that budget sheet? Keep your goal in sight. Select the whole thing and change the font size to 8 pts. Then move the fields around so it’d fit on a nice little card about the size of your wallet. Take all your bank cards out - you’d only need one, and that only on occasion - and tape the card over the inside of your wallet. Now every time you pull it out to buy coffee (bad girl!) you’d be reminded to not spend that money.

3. Shop with a list. ALWAYS. Stick to the list. ALWAYS. Check the flyer first, ALWAYS.

4. When you’re online shopping, instead of adding it straight to your shopping basket, save it to a wishlist. Most of them will wound up impulse buys. So check the wishlist in two weeks - if you still want it, go ahead…get it if it’s in your budget.

5. Freeze your credit cards. Spend what you have, not what you will have. That’s a Chinese proverb, actually, taught to me by my grandmother. A friend taught me an alternative - put it in a zip-lock baggie, fill it up with water, and put it in the back of the freezer. So it’s still there for a rainy day, but impulse buys will have to wait.

6. Pay yourself. No, seriously. You’ve got to have money for fun. Budgeting is like a diet - you’re more likely to binge if you deprive yourself. So DO budget for entertainment and clothes, or even your morning coffee, just make sure you take it out in cash and don’t use that bankcard. Saving it nice, but put aside some money for a splurge on dinner once a week or a movie day out on Tuesdays.

And finally, here’s a download for you. Sample Budget - Excel file.

When you have roommates (or even if you’re living with a partner), sometimes we complain of them being sloppy, or they complain of us being sloppy. The best way to end this dispute is to get organized.

Sample list of chores

When I was younger I lived in a co-op house and we had a complete system of chores - clean the bathroom, vacuum, take out the garbage, running the dishwasher at night. There were always at least 7 of us, so the frequency of chores are cut down to every 8 days, really. We just each picked a day where we have the most time free, and dedicated an hour or so to cleaning up. The chores would change every week, so one Friday I would be responsible for the bathroom, another vacuuming the rug. Each Friday I’m responsible for putting away the dishes from the dishwasher int he morning, and running the machine at night. It was an ingenius system thought up by our 90 year old landlady, and she was using it for years.

When you’re in a couple situation, things change a bit. You might want to do your laundry together because you don’t have enough for a load at the end of the week, and you don’t want to waste water. You might want to share the cooking as well, since some days are late days. So over the years, I’ve developed the points system. Every two weeks, sit down and pick out the chore that NEEDS to be done in the next two weeks, then divide the points equally, plan them out with stickers on a stickerbook calendar (so you can reuse them, if you like.) and work out beforehand who’s doing what on which day - especially when it’s a recurring task like cooking and doing the dishes.

At the end of the two weeks, take a digital photo of the calendar, remove the stickers, and start over. You can either use a mini-whiteboard or a sheet o wax paper; both work equally well. One thing that really work well is the waxy on one side freezer paper. It’s translucent so you can draw a calendar (backwards) on one side, then turn it onto the waxy side to receive stickers.

The sticker system works well with the rooming situation as well. The points system (printed out and posted next to the calendar) provides a flexible way of doing housework - you can always swap for equal points.

Good luck getting things done, and enjoy a clutter-free home!