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"Christmas shoppers in the Bullring." Photo by Mark Kobayashi-Hillary. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

"Putting the kids to work." Photo by justj0000lie (Julie Vasquez). From the Flickr Creative Commons.

"Fun at the Airport." Photo by lunchtimemama. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

Now that we are past the big November holiday, Thanksgiving, the frenetic Christmas season has begun. Managing your time well when you have a lot to accomplish is essential. It should be simple and intuitive for us to realize that when we are adding a lot of extra duties on top of our already busy lives, the smart thing to do would be to cut out some other activities so that the number of added and deleted tasks balance each other out.

Yet, most of us fail miserably at this task. Sometimes there is nothing to cut. Sometimes we just can’t let something go. The typical result is that we add and add and add and overschedule and stress ourselves out. Below are some suggestions on managing your time this holiday season.

Shopping Stress

If you are looking for time in your holiday planning, look to your shopping time budget first.

This year, due to the present “truces” on both sides of our families, we only have to purchase for ourselves and three small boys. In general, I don’t mind Christmas shopping. It doesn’t stress me out. I enjoy picking things out and finding new discoveries in the shopping universe. Because of our limited shopping lists this year, we didn’t participate in Black Friday sales and just did a minor amount of online shopping. I am still in shock at how much time this saved me!

Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, we had time to go for a walk, put up the Christmas tree, chat with family and clean the house. The weekend seemed long and relaxing.

Shopping, particularly holiday shopping, becomes a black hole of time wasting. We are all looking for the “perfect” present at the “perfect” price. Even if you manage to find the perfect present, it often is too expensive, sold out, in the wrong size or color or can’t be delivered in time. You then start all over finding another “perfect” present. I realized this last night as I searched diligently for the best quality children’s art supplies for my daughter. I like what I ended up finding but I am embarrassed to tell you how many hours were spent in the process.

How can you save time on your shopping? You could get gift cards for everyone and spend your time writing a thoughtful message in the card. You could donate to charity (but be careful to choose one that the recipient likes). You could get everyone the same thing (there is a $10 box of Costco Belgian chocolate cookies that is wonderful and you can use the tin afterward to store letter-size paper or other objects—an organizer’s dream) or just send cash.

Cleaning Stress

If you are hosting guests, cleaning your home is not a small consideration in your holiday budget planning. I truly wish there were some great shortcuts to share here. It is tough. Unfortunately, the main timesaving options you have with cleaning are: 1) hire/ask people to help you or 2) streamline your stuff so there is less to clean in general.

You could of course quickly box up excess “stuff” and rent a storage unit, or stow it in your garage or basement. Far better, however, would be to get rid of as much as possible by donating or selling. This will save you cleaning time in the future and will also free up space for all the incoming presents.

Travel Stress

Traveling during the holidays is extremely stressful. In addition to the regular challenges of airport security and traveling with children, you often have to manage a ton of presents, extra luggage and navigate large, agitated crowds. One way to make your travel a little less stressful is to either ship your presents ahead or go the luggage-minimizing gift card route. That also saves you the stress of worrying about lost luggage or extra baggage fees.

While you can’t necessarily save time on holiday travel (because most of us are traveling in the same time window) you can make the travel more enjoyable by planning ahead. If you have the option to travel during an off-peak day or time, by all means take it!

Make sure you pack some entertainment in your carry-on or car. If traveling by plane, streamline your outfit to be something stylish and comfortable with shoes that are easy to remove and with few metal accessories. Treat yourself to a compelling book to read while waiting for your flight or a book on CD for your car. Find great videos or quiet toys to entertain your children (a treat for you and other passengers). We always pack ear plugs and an eye mask on long airline flights for a touch of first class even in coach. Small blankets and soft pillows also help you (and children) to relax in flight or in the car. A few snacks also help to keep everyone in good spirits when you are tired or mealtime is delayed

Cooking Stress

If you are an excellent cook and you will settle for nothing less than the best on your table, then you need to budget time for cooking and spend less time on something else (decorating, shopping, cleaning, etc.). There are so many options to save time (and sometimes money) on food, however. Potluck is a great way to spread the cooking time and cost out across several people. Your grocery store can help you here too. There are so many great prepared meals you can purchase fresh or frozen that only require a little heating. I have been served many of these foods at elegant lunches and dinners where the hostess managed her time by serving some homemade dishes and some purchased. Going out to eat at a restaurant can be fun too and sometimes can save money over making it yourself.

Decorating Stress

If you already have a house full of things, it often comes as an unpleasant surprise each December to add a large tree to your décor. While you are moving or storing furniture, pause to take a moment to determine whether that item of furniture is really needed. Recently we removed several items of furniture from our family room and the extra space is addictive! We now have room to exercise, put up our tree and imagine new possibilities for the room.

Your decorations don’t have to be time consuming to have a big impact. Buy an inexpensive wreath of fresh greens for your front door, put out some candles and a small tabletop tree and you can be done with decorations in under an hour and have something that is easy to store.

Financial Stress

You wouldn’t know it by the response to Black Friday sales, but many people this year are struggling just to get by. Many people on tight budgets get all caught up in the holiday advertising and the chance to “buy” a reprieve from everyday worries. Yes, sometime we need to treat ourselves but holiday giving purchased on credit comes at a very high cost. Remember that you will be paying on all of these purchases for months to come–long after the joy of receiving this new item has worn off.

If you are struggling financially this year, consider asking for a present truce, set budgets for holiday items (like a dollar store gift exchange) and explain to your children why they can’t have everything they want right now. Kids are more resilient than most adults give them credit for. Yes, they might be disappointed at first but often they will bounce back and surprise you.

Work Stress

Few of us have the option to shrug off work responsibilities during the holidays.  If you are also slammed at work, you have to be extra careful with your time management.  Do your best to not take on any more projects at work during the holidays and just focus on finishing existing projects.  If necessary, create a list of “future projects” and tell people that you will get back to them in January.  If emergencies pop up, try hard to offload an existing project or delay it as you take on the emergency project.  You want to do a good job but you are only one person!  If you expect you will be overly stressed at work, reset your expectations at home that you are likely to do only the bare minimum of holiday preparations.  It’s ok!  You have to put your energy where it is most needed.

Where are you spending the most time this holiday season? What are you willing to cut out to decrease your stress? Have a timesaving tip? Please share in the comments.

Liked this article? You might also enjoy this post: Traditions: When is it Time to Change? from the Reluctant Entertainer blog.

My Yiayia's Table. This one was for my high school graduation.

This Thanksgiving is bittersweet in our family. We have so much to be thankful for–truly too many things to count. However, our Thanksgiving table is one person short this year, having recently lost the matriarch of my father’s family, our beloved Yiayia.

Yiayia was an incredible person in many ways. She lived an interesting and challenging life defined primarily by her upbringing as the child of Greek immigrant parents. Her parents instilled in their four daughters respect for tradition, high standards of hospitality and an expectation of class, elegance and great aspirations. They also taught their daughters a bit of toughness.

Yiayia lived these values. She had so many talents including cooking, playing the piano, creating artful flower arrangements, knitting, sewing, and gardening. Yiayia learned to drive by “borrowing” the family car and teaching herself. She traveled the world in her retirement and had a determined (but lovable) stubbornness to do things her way.

Her skills as a hostess are legendary. She insisted on lavish dinners on every major holiday, birthday, engagement, baby shower, graduation and sometimes just because. She did almost all of the cooking herself and decorated the tables with flower arrangements and her best china. The menu was always an elaborate array of Greek dishes mixed with some standard fare.

Each gathering typically started with tarama appetizers in her pristinely clean living room with wine for the adults and ginger ale for the kids. Dinner was usually served family style at her long dining room table (or buffet style as the family grew larger) with pastitsi, spanikopita, dolmathes, ham, potatoes, turkey and gravy and her elaborate vegetable tray which was always served on a silver platter with each vegetable, cheese or olives in a lettuce leaf cup. Dessert was a must. Yiayia didn’t make cakes but ordered the best bakery delights (usually chocolate rum cake with pineapple filling) and made Greek pastries (baklava, kourambiedes and melomakarona) to go with the coffee. You never left Yiayia’s house hungry.

Anne helping dip the melomakarona in honey.

At the end of each meal, assorted members of the extended family would pop in to say a quick hello. In warm weather we would retreat to the backyard to watch the youngest members of the family run around on her gigantic lawn and in cold we would sit around the fire opening presents, playing puzzles and games or listening to the latest grandchild’s performance on her grand piano.

Ruly Ruth and Ruly Anne in concert at Yiayias.

Now that I have done some entertaining of my own, I have no idea how she kept up with such an aggressive entertaining schedule! I vividly remember Yiayia bustling around the kitchen and serving all the dishes. Her children and daughters in law often had to say, “Sit down, Yiayia. We have everything we need. Come eat with us.” I think she truly enjoyed hostessing. It did not seem to be a stress or a chore for her. She had a harder time being the guest and coming up with small talk.

Yiayia was the root that grounded our ever-branching family tree. There was a special spot in her heart for very young children and babies and she lamented to me late in her life that she felt sad that my children would probably not remember her.

Four of Yiayia's jewels, her grandchildren. Behind us is the yellow stove that generated so many delicious meals.

I am sad that Yiayia is not with us any more and I miss her terribly. I am thankful for her long life, her tremendous energy and the legacy she left. My last vivid memory of her is her sitting in the backyard of my parent’s home celebrating the second and third birthdays of her great-granddaughters. She was beautifully dressed and had on a wonderful sunhat and smiled as she took in the festivities. That is how I like to remember her.

Yiayia simply can’t be replaced. She was the product of a special time and place that will never exist again. I still can’t quite understand how someone so vibrant can be gone so quickly and I know for certain that if there is any way possible she is keeping tabs on all of us.

Ruly Ruth shares her memories of Yiayia below:

I will always remember Yiayia with open arms, a smile on her face, and being so happy and joyful to see us grandchildren and her great-grandchildren. We were her pride and joy. My 9.5-year-old son adored her! Which seems a little odd since sometimes young children are afraid or fearful of older people. He adored her from the first moment she held him! We have a famous photo of her and TJ both wearing Crocs!! As my husband said—what a product when you reach the young kids to the 90+ year old set! Wow! One winter, after going sledding on a local hill in Utah, we were going to return to my parents’ house to warm up when my son insisted we visit Yiayia for hot cocoa! And as always she happily obliged! I will miss her, and I know my son will too. Her care packages of carefully made and individually-wrapped Greek cookies—the koulourakia, my favorites the melomokarama. So delicious!! A lot of work—and we loved eating the fruits of the labor made by those amazing, amazing hands! And the handiwork! The knitted sweaters we have for each kiddo and myself—one I chose back in college that’s an Irish intricate long sweater which will look amazing over leggings this year.

If you have someone you are missing this holiday season and are having a hard time feeling thankful or joyous, know that you aren’t alone and that it is ok to feel a tinge of sadness in your celebrations. While Yiayia’s loss is a tough one, we know there are families with much more difficult losses to bear this year and our hearts go out to them.

Ruly Ruth shares:

Along with Veterans Day, we celebrate the Marine Corps Birthday Ball on the Marine Corps Birthday November 10th. It is quite the event with a ceremony that will bring anyone heart-felt pride and tears simultaneously. It’s a sight to behold! At this year’s Ball, the gift (sometimes a personalized wine glass or beer stein with the unit’s logo to which you are attached), this year was a commemorative coin with the name of a fallen warrior. One coin we received has the name of Corporal Kyle W. Wilks. With this name, you go to the website http://militarytimes.com/valor/search.php and enter the name and read about him and others.

If you need some suggestions for coping with the holidays after death of a loved one, the Office for Victims of Crime has a wonderful list of suggestions from survivors who have been there:

If you are trying to know what to say to a friend who has been through a loss, I don’t know if there are any “right” answers. Reaching out to people in grief, inviting them to your celebration and otherwise treating them “normally” rather than avoiding them is recommended. Here are some other great suggestions from blogger Lori Pederson.

Please feel free to share your Thanksgiving remembrances in the comments and wishing you and yours a Thanksgiving filled with peace.

(P.S.  Yiayia didn’t want her picture posted so you will just have to imagine her through her grandchildren.  She probably would have wanted it that way.)

Swinging from the pear tree in Yiayia's backyard. Yiayia took a lot of photos with heads cut off and fingers over the lens but this one she marked on the back was me.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Cream Cheese Filling from Martha Stewart's/Matt Lewis' recipe.

Pumpkin pie, the Thanksgiving staple, is controversial at our house.  I love it and think it is creamy, sweet and delicious.  My husband abhors it and finds it slimy, disgusting, and strangely textured.  For years, I have tried different variations on pumpkin pie so that we can incorporate it in our Thanksgiving meal.

One year it was pumpkin cheesecake.  That was the year that I learned that cheesecake is a complicated dessert to make.  All of my mini cheesecakes fell in the center and looked sad and unappetizing.  They tasted OK but certainly nothing we would ever want to repeat.

This year, I learned about pumpkin whoopie pies from the Metrocurean blog. Could this be the answer to our pumpkin problems?  I reviewed a few recipes and decided to try Martha Stewart’s version from Matt Lewis of Baked Bakery.

Normally, I am a bit wary of trying recipes from real chefs.  I have horrible memories of trying to cook from a gourmet magazine as a teenager–spending hours in the kitchen only to have the dish turn out completely inedible and nothing remotely like the picture.

Fortunately, Martha’s recipe is pretty foolproof.  It came out looking quite a bit like the picture.  I was worried when the cookie batter was quite runny and drizzled it in puddles on the cookie sheet to bake.  Fortunately, the cookies came out of the oven puffed up, moist and soft and were relatively flat, which makes assembly into the whoopie pies easier.

My girls loved to eat the cookie tops plain, which, for my eldest was a major success in adding to her limited, picky diet.  The remaining cookies were glued together with cream cheese frosting middles (the leftover frosting was seen here in the Election Cakes). I thought they were delicious.  But the big test was seeing whether my pumpkin pie-hating husband would eat them.

SUCCESS!

 
He loved them and ate several.  This may be our new Thanksgiving dessert tradition.  I encourage you to try them.

P.S.  If you wanted a super-easy version of this recipe, you could try mixing a can of pumpkin pie filling with a box of spice cake mix for the cookies.  A friend brought cookies made from this recipe to a cookie exchange once and they were moist and delicious.

"Over-indulgence--a spoiled Thanksgiving." Illustration by Alice Barber Stephens. (1896) From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

In preparation for Thanksgiving this week, last week I posted a couple of tips on the biggest organizing challenge this week, cooking! Whether quick and easy or culinary challenge, there are many ways to organize your Thanksgiving meal. For many people, however, cooking is not the biggest challenge of Thanksgiving, that honor goes to the human interactions that occur around the Thanksgiving table.

To be sure, many of these frustrations start with the Thanksgiving meal planning. If you have not read this true but hilarious Thanksgiving letter at Awkward Family Photos by an overanxious hostess providing detailed and insulting instructions on every dish to be brought to the Thanksgiving dinner, it is worth a read.

The comment below summarizes the typical guest’s reaction:

Katherine says:
October 6, 2010 at 6:06 pm

“Two bottles of clos du bois will NOT be enough to deal with her. Who’s bringing the vodka?”

Dear Abby recently advised a woman frustrated at the request to have Thanksgiving a vegan meal this year. Dietary restrictions are becoming more and more common. Whether for weight loss purposes, food allergies, personal preferences or philosophical reasons, many people have restrictions on what they will and won’t eat. To be fair, some of these restrictions are legitimate life and death concerns while others are petty preferences and it can be very hard to distinguish one from the other.

As the host, you have the responsibility to consider these requests and try to accommodate them if you can. If you can’t accommodate them, you politely let people know and suggest an alternative.

Food has become so controversial, I would not be surprised if eventually Thanksgiving has to evolve to be two events: one a meal accommodating the needs of the most flexible eaters and another an event that has nothing to do with eating that is primarily social, like watching a football game, playing a rousing tournament of Monopoly or Scrabble, or taking an outdoor walk or hike.

Below are 10 tips for hosts and guests to help make Thanksgiving a positive event for all:

As the host:

1. Put your guests first. Your goal is to make the event joyful for everyone and make them feel welcome and respected. This will require patience and creativity.

2. Be flexible. If your guests want to bring different foods than you had planned, bring children or want the dinner at a different time, consider whether you could accommodate that request, not just whether you want to. Someday another host will return the favor for you.

3. Make things easy. The fewer restrictions you put on your guests, the more comfortable they will feel. Allow people the freedom to wear what they want to the dinner, reinterpret old traditions and otherwise be themselves. The surest way to ruin a family gathering is to try to force people into the molds you wish they fit into or remind them of the ways they have disappointed you.

4. Invite the right guests. If you have a challenging guest list comprised of some guests you like and others you barely tolerate, make sure you invite some “buffer guests.” The buffer guest is one who helps the party run smoothly, the person who chats easily with anyone or adds a sense of humor to diffuse tension. Often you hear of people inviting a neighbor or other non-family member to Thanksgiving for this purpose. It is sad but true that we are often kinder to strangers than our own loved ones and the presence of a stranger helps us stay on our best behavior.

5. Accept help when offered. You may not be comfortable delegating but do your best to allow others to contribute to the party. They will feel a greater connection to the event and it facilitates interesting conversation among guests. “Who made these wonderful sweet potatoes?” “What an incredible centerpiece!” Hold on to the parts of the party you enjoy doing yourself and subcontract the rest out. If people offer to help, have a list of things ready they can contribute: cooking, designing a centerpiece or place settings, greeting guests and taking coats, manning the bar, taking photography or video, creating activities for children, providing entertainment (if they are talented), etc.

As the guest:

1. Remember the world does not revolve around you. Consider whether your personal preferences could be relaxed or adjusted for one day. For example, your health is important but the most considerate way to address your dietary restrictions is to advise the host that you will bring your own food appropriate to your needs (along with some extra to share) and not make a big deal about it. As a parent, try to relax and adjust your child’s schedule to the event rather than insisting it not be disrupted.

2. Offer to help. Most people are loathe to ask for help and also don’t know how to respond to questions such as, “What can I do to help?” Making a specific suggestion such as, “I have a great recipe for cranberry sauce. Could I bring that?” or “I know hosting has its surprises. I would be happy to come over an hour early to help you with any last-minute details if you like.” Offer something you are generally interested in doing. And if the host declines, don’t be insulted, just know you have honored your obligation to be thoughtful and breathe a sigh of relief that there is one less thing for you to do.

3. Facilitate group cohesion. There are plenty of differences among guests around the table. As the guest, the more you can do to help people interact and enjoy each other’s company, the more value you are adding to the party. Have an answer ready for the inevitable round-the-table question, “What are you thankful for?” Avoid controversial topics of discussion, personal questions and insults. When people feel comfortable with you, they will share the interesting parts of their personal life freely but they will not appreciate being given the third degree. Older relatives take note, this includes questions like “So, who are you dating these days?,” “When are you going to get married?” or “When will you have children?” No one appreciates these questions. If you want to gossip, share your own news rather than insisting others spill theirs.

4. Know your limits. If you really can’t be civil and respectful and enjoy yourself, sometimes it is the kinder thing to decline the invitation to dinner rather than come to start an argument. Just let the host know politely, “Thank you for inviting me. It has been a difficult year and I am just not up to Thanksgiving.”

5. Thank the host. It takes a lot of time to issue invitations, clean the house, cook and clean up afterwards. Compliment the host during the party and thank them on the way out the door. For bonus points, a quick e-mail or phone call the day after the party saying, “Thanks so much for hosting. We had a great time!” is huge! That is the ultimate payoff for any host.

What lessons have you learned as a Thanksgiving host or guest? Please share in the comments.

"Mrs. John N. Garner, wife of the Vice President, who for the first time this year entertained the members of the Senate Ladies Luncheon Club, issues final orders to the Chef J.E. Cheganeo, just before the guests begin to arrive, 1/10/39" Photo by Harris & Ewing. From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

It’s been an eventful week for me and I apologize for the disruption in the posting schedule. In my last post, I provided easy alternatives to organizing a full course Thanksgiving dinner for a low-stress holiday for those who don’t cook. 

Today, we will go to the opposite end of the spectrum–organizing a sophisticated meal of culinary perfection. More and more people are becoming foodies and skilled cooks. These folks don’t dread Thanksgiving preparations but enjoy working in the kitchen. They enjoy testing new recipes and creating edible masterpieces for their family and friends. If you are planning a complex Thanksgiving meal, organization is even more important to your success. 

If you feel overwhelmed by all that is required to prepare a Thanksgiving meal, take heart that even professional chefs find Thanksgiving menus challenging. For many restaurants, Thanksgiving is the biggest business day of the year. Professional chefs have to manage both meal preparation stress and the financial stress of turning a good profit. The meal has to be delicious and perfectly cooked. So, what tricks do professional chefs use? Below are 10 tips compiled from the wisdom of the Internet. 

1. Have the right expectations. Thanksgiving is steeped in tradition and we have all been indoctrinated with images of whole turkeys served on platters as the pinnacle of Thanksgiving culinary perfection. Would you be surprised to know that fine restaurants almost never cook the turkey this way when serving their guests? 

“Lesson No. 1 in preparing food for the holiday, chefs say: Cut up the bird before cooking. Abandon the Norman Rockwell ideal of serving a whole turkey in its golden-roasted splendor. If your bird looks like that, [Bobby] Flay said: ‘Something’s wrong. Something’s either overcooked or undercooked.’” 

–Sam Sifton, “Chef’s Tips for the Thanksgiving Meal,” The New York Times, November 9, 2010. 

How do you make the turkey if you don’t roast a whole bird? Try Ted Allen’s Deconstructed Holiday Turkey with Sage Gravy. 

2. Option 1: Menu planning: Stick with the tried and true. Paula Deen, the queen of southern cooking, keeps Thanksgiving simple by sticking to old reliable favorites: 

“I don’t mess around with Thanksgiving. It’s one of those holidays where a traditional meal really counts. Every year the family gathers in the kitchen and Jamie says grace, thankin’ the Lord for all of our many blessings. Then we pull up to a table overflowin’ with tried-and-true recipes like Aunt Peggy’s Sweet Potato Souffle, giblet gravy and my wonderful ambrosia cranberry sauce. And I don’t vary from that. I give everybody their favorites—the dishes that always deliver. In fact, I don’t recommend anybody using this holiday to pull out a brand new recipe. No surprises on Thanksgiving. Sometimes surprises work out all right, but real comfort food comes from doing what you’ve always done best.” 

–Paula Deen, Holiday Dishes with a Southern Flair!, pauladeen.com 

3. Option 2: Menu Planning: Get creative! Perhaps it is a regional difference but while Paula Deen aims to preserve tradition in her southern cooking, New York chefs have a different perspective: 

“Boredom, in any event, is the enemy of all cooks, and of all successful Thanksgivings.”

–Sam Sifton, “Chef’s Tips for the Thanksgiving Meal,” The New York Times, November 9, 2010. 

Ruly Reader Ben foreshadowed this tip in his comment on my last post: 

“I have a standing request (from H) to make my garlic mashed potatoes, but enjoy branching out to make new things. . . . As fun as it is to make the same thing each year, I really like finding new challenges.” 

While many of us would be thrilled to have a signature dish that always comes out perfectly and that our family and friends love, it is understandable that a professional chef finds little interest in making the same dishes over and over and over. Particularly for a meal as time consuming as Thanksgiving, I imagine professional chefs want to maximize their time in the kitchen by testing out new flavors and cooking techniques.

Still, almost every chef agrees that you can only stray so far from traditional Thanksgiving flavors without alienating your guests. People need to experience the flavors they expect, like squash, potatoes, cranberries, turkey, etc. but in a new way.

 4. Organize Your Recipes. Martha Stewart shares a great tip for organizing Thanksgiving recipes so they are easy to access on the big day.

“Once your recipes are gathered, protect them with laminated cards and place in a loose-leaf ring. Should anything spill on the recipe, the lamination makes for easy clean-up.”

–Martha Stewart, Martha’s Thanksgiving Tips, marthastewart.com

This is also a great tip because if you do this, next year you just pull out your ring of recipes and add or replace as needed to speed meal planning next year. It could also be a great memory ring of Thanksgivings past.

5. Maximize space in the fridge. Top Chef finalist Carla Hall teamed up with Wal-Mart to offer this great article on her Thanksgiving preparation tips. My favorite tip was her use of Ziploc/resealable bags to save space in the fridge.

“Take advantage of resealable bags. They lay flat, they stack and they’re see-through so you can see what’s in them. Also, if you’re marinating something, you’ll end up using less marinade when using a resealable bag and have less clean up. More room in fridge means more room for your family favorites on the table.”

–Walmartstores.com press release, “Walmart and “Top Chef” Finalist Carla Hall Offer Tips for Cooking with Love for Less this Thanksgiving,” November 12, 2010.

6. Maximize space in the oven. The oven is massively overscheduled on Thanksgiving Day and can be a limiting factor in being able to pull all the components of the meal together simultaneously. What does a professional chef do when working with the limited oven space of a home kitchen? A key factor is planning the menu to include a variety of things that don’t require the oven, including cold dishes. Another factor is utilizing all the cooking tools available to you in the kitchen.

“*** Don’t be afraid to put things in the microwave!!! If stove and oven space is limited, put the stuffing in the microwave, heat and cover. Same with the sweet or mashed potatoes, whatever else will help. Don’t make yourself crazy cramming stuff in the oven, one night won’t be the end of the world. If it is the difference between cold stuffing or potatoes, use it!!!!”

–Barbara Esmonde, “Thanksgiving Countdown Checklist,” Life in the Kitchen Blog

Food and Wine does not suggest using the microwave but does suggest the grill and the stovetop. A crockpot is another option.

7. Cook ahead. Fresh out of the oven? Not necessarily. Professional chefs know how to save time on the big day and ensure quality food by cooking ahead. Take this tip from Chef Gerry Garvin (a.k.a. G. Garvin).

“Doing your ham and turkey the night before is definitely the way to go. Cook stuffing and other dishes 75 to 80 percent ahead of time. That way the next day you’re just finishing up and it’s already made.”

– Charreah Jackson, “Chef G. Garvin Gives Tips for Thanksgiving,” Essence.com, November 19, 2010.

8. Know Your Limits and Cook Safely. Some parts of Thanksgiving cooking are downright dangerous! Chef Ted Allen provides this warning about deep frying turkeys.

“Beware of deep-frying. I’m not saying not to do it — deep-fried turkey is a delicious Southern confection. But unfortunately, every holiday season, a startling number of poultry Rambos burn their decks, their houses, their pets or themselves trying to make one. It’s so dangerous that Underwriters Laboratories won’t put its UL product-safety logo on any turkey-frying kit, arguing that none is truly safe for home use. If you are frying this year, get a fire extinguisher and make sure you use an oil with a high smoking point, like canola or corn (never olive). And lower the turkey very slowly and carefully into the hot oil.”

–Ted Allen, “Ted’s Tips for a Stress-Free Thanksgiving,” Food Network Magazine

9. Pay Attention to Visual Presentation. All professional chefs know that people eat with their eyes. Food has to look as good as it tastes. From a welcoming table to the presentation of food on the plate, a professional chef pays attention to all details of the meal. Better Homes & Gardens has numerous suggestions for setting a welcoming table, including this great tip for place cards consisting of a note of thanks personalized for each guest.

10. Let others help! Yes, even professional chefs who are capable of making every element of the meal perfectly usually don’t do it! Sometimes they don’t even cook at all on Thanksgiving and savor the work of others.

“I always think somebody else should do the cooking. The holidays are when everyone else enjoys cooking because I love it throughout the year. This is the time I get to be the guest and it’s fun. . . . [A]round the holidays, as a chef, every time I’m invited somewhere, I always end up in the kitchen. They’re like, ‘Yo, the roast ain’t looking right. Can you take a look?’”

– Charreah Jackson, “Chef G. Garvin Gives Tips for Thanksgiving,” Essence.com, November 19, 2010. 

Last year, when you were at home slaving over the stove envisioning “What Would Martha Do?” know that Martha was out partying with friends, having brunch at Thomas Keller’s Per Se restaurant and dinner at The Four Seasons!

Hope you find some inspiration from these pro tips! How is your own Thanksgiving organization coming along? Please share in the comments.

Chef and eater. Photo by cardamom. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

In the last couple of posts, we have made quite a bit of progress in thinking about emergency food storage. But just as last month, you don’t have time to complete a thought before another holiday pops up. This month, Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is THE culinary holiday of the entire year! The main celebration of the holiday focuses entirely around food. Since most of us cook little if at all Thanksgiving can bring on stress of enormous proportions! I am starting to read more and more blog posts fretting about what to make for Thanksgiving so I thought I would throw some stress relief out there with some easy alternatives.

When I was first married, my husband and I were alone for the holidays and I was glad to have the chance to try cooking an entire Thanksgiving meal myself in our tiny apartment kitchen without fear of complete humiliation. I quickly discovered that Thanksgiving dinner is an incredibly complex meal. While each individual food (turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, a vegetable, rolls and pumpkin pie) poses its challenges, the key difficulty in Thanksgiving dinner for the novice cook is getting all of the foods ready simultaneously. An organizational challenge indeed!

On Thursday, we’ll look at tips from professional chefs on Thanksgiving but today we’ll discuss truly easy alternatives to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner that you could make for a party of one or a huge crowd.

"Kitchen Conference." Photo by Nathan Jongewaard. From the Flickr Creative Commons.	"Mo works her culinary magic in the kitchen." Photo by katkimchee. From the Flickr Creative Commons.
"The kitchen sink bit the dust on Thanksgiving this year." Photo by Shylah Erskin. From the Flickr Creative Commons.	"Thanksgiving 2009." Photo by Michael Coté. From the Flickr Creative Commons.
Busy Cooks. Photo by wrestlingentropy. From the Flickr Creative Commons.	"An American Thanksgiving in Vanuatu - in the kitchen." Photo by Phillip Capper. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

One of the first mistakes I made in my early Thanksgiving cooking years was not buying the turkey early enough. Here in the D.C. area (or DMV for D.C., Maryland, Virginia if you are local), if you wait to buy your turkey until the days before Thanksgiving, all of the most popular turkey sizes will be gone. Generally, the small to medium size turkeys are the most popular. The first Thanksgiving turkey I cooked it was an enormous 20-pound bird, which was all that was left to choose. We were so incredibly sick of eating that turkey that we probably threw half of it away. So, if you really want a whole turkey, it is time to start thinking about shopping for that bird now. If you buy it frozen, you don’t have to worry about it spoiling.

Thanksgiving Planning Tip: Be aware that a frozen turkey can several days to thaw in the refrigerator. Butterball recommends 1 day of thawing in the refrigerator for every 4 pounds of your turkey. You can speed up the thawing process if you use cold water baths but the safer food preparation technique is the fridge. You might want to click here to consult Butterball’s calculators for how big a turkey you should buy based on the number of people you are serving, how long it will take to thaw that bird and how long it will take to cook. Mark these general guidelines on your calendar—when to shop, when to thaw, when to put the bird in the oven.

Of course, you can still have a wonderful holiday and experience the flavors of Thanksgiving without all the hassle of making the traditional foods. Below are 6 easy, low-stress ways to enjoy a delicious Thanksgiving turkey dinner without spending all day cooking.

1) Turkey Sandwiches. Turkey comes in a variety of preparations that don’t require handling giblets or roasting. One of the easiest is deli-counter turkey breast. Pick a good brand and have the butcher slice it to the thickness of your liking. Pick up a bag of really good rolls from the bakery, a jar of gravy, a can of jellied cranberry sauce and a box of instant mashed potatoes (or make your own, from scratch if you are a potato purist). On the big day, you can heat up the turkey in the microwave, put it on the rolls with cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy and Voila! Thanksgiving on a bun! One year we did this with rotisserie chicken instead of turkey and that was delicious too!

2) Turkey burgers. Ground turkey is a healthy alternative to ground beef and makes a great burger. You could do something similar to the turkey sandwich or get a little fancier and use Gwyneth Paltrow’s recipe for Stuffed Turkey Burgers from her GOOP newsletter We make these one year and they are so easy and good.

3) Turkey Enchiladas. We are venturing a little away from traditional Thanksgiving here but hey, anything with turkey in it counts! An easy recipe can be found at Epicurious. This is designed as an after-Thanksgiving meal but there is no reason you couldn’t make it for the main meal.

4) Turkey Pizza. Pizza is a great crowd-pleaser, easy to make and offers nearly endless flavor combinations. You could use turkey sausage to make a pizza with traditional Thanksgiving flavors like this one from Luxist.com.  Or you could get a little creative with flavors like this Artichoke Turkey pizza from Butterball or this Greek Turkey pizza from MonkeyDish.com

5) Turkey for Breakfast. Who says that you can’t eat a Thanksgiving breakfast? Grill up some turkey sausage and serve it with hash browns, Sweet Potato Pancakes and Cranberry Syrup. Food Network just posted a tip on Twitter to boil down cranberry juice to make a quick cranberry syrup to put on the pancakes or drizzle over ice cream.

6) Crockpot Turkey. If you want to make a turkey but aren’t sure how or you have a small kitchen with limited oven space, you might take a tip from RVcookingshow.com and do it in your Crockpot slow cooker.

Some other Thanksgiving tips:

• If you are a vegetarian (or cooking for a vegetarian), The New York Times’ Well Blog recently posted 36 vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes. I am not sure how “easy” the recipes are but they look delicious.
• My mom shared a tip with me last night for an easy Thanksgiving dessert. Pick up a quart of pumpkin pie ice cream from the freezer case and some gingersnap cookies or a pre-made graham cracker crust to make pumpkin pie ice cream sandwiches or a frozen pie.
• The Reluctant Entertainer is doing a great series on her blog about organizing Thanksgiving preparations. One of her best tips so far is simple. Ask for help! Loved this quote:

“Thanksgiving is a time to include everyone in the meal. If you feel you have to do it all, to be honest, I feel sorry for you. You will be exhausted. I am not super-woman and I need the help.”

–Sandy Coughlin, Week 1: Stress-Free Thanksgiving – Invite, Plan, and Delegate!, The Reluctant Entertainer blog

Do you have an easy twist on Thanksgiving cooking? Please share in the comments.

"Thanksgiving on Combat Outpost Cherkatah, Khowst province, Afghanistan." U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Andrew Smith. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

Today is Veteran’s Day in the United States where we honor those who have served in the armed forces of the United States. Last year, Ruly Ruth gave some great tips on honoring our veterans.

This year, tying in with our emergency preparedness theme, I thought we would discuss the MRE and learn a little bit about our military through what they eat on the battlefield.

The U.S. military has several types of prepackaged meals. They include:

"seriously, you can't make this stuff up." Photo by Robert Couse-Baker. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

1) The MRE – which comes in 24 different flavors, 4 of which are vegetarian, as well as Kosher and Halal versions and versions for hot and cold climate extremes. The MRE comes in a shelf-stable pack along with a “flameless heater” to warm up the entrée.

“The Meal, Ready to Eat™ (MRE™) is used by all Military Services to sustain individuals during operations where food service facilities are not available. They are the cornerstone of military subsistence, intended to provide a Warfighter’s sole subsistence for up to 21 days of deployment (in accordance with AR 40-25) yet nutritionally adequate to be used for longer periods if necessary.”

-U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center,Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010.

For all the science nerds out there who want to know how the “flameless heater” works, here is a great description.

“The idea behind a flameless heater is to use the oxidation of a metal to generate heat. . . . To make a flameless heater, magnesium dust is mixed with salt and a little iron dust in a thin, flexible pad about the size of a playing card. To activate the heater, a soldier adds a little water. Within seconds the flameless heater reaches the boiling point and is bubbling and steaming. To heat the meal, the soldier simply inserts the heater and the MRE pouch back in the box that the pouch came in. Ten minutes later, dinner is served!”

–Marshall Brain, How MREs Work, howstuffworks.com

"A Soldier samples a pocket sandwich, one of the componenets of the First Strike Ration." U.S. Army Photo.

2) The First Strike Ration – A more compact and calorie dense meal that comes in 3 flavors, none of which are vegetarian.

“The First Strike Ration® (FSR®) is a compact, eat-on the move, assault ration intended to be consumed during the first 72 hours of intense conflict by forward deployed Warfighters . . . . Each FSR® provides an average of 2900 calories (13% protein, 34% fat, 53% carbohydrate). . . . To meet the needs of lighter, more mobile troops, one FSR® per day is issued to each Warfighter . . . .”

-U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center,Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010.

"UGR-A Serving Line in the Field." U.S. Army Photo.

3) Unitized Group Rations – These are the foods that military cooks and food service personnel use to feed large groups of Warfighters. From the pictures, they look like the civilian equivalent of family-size heat n’ serve frozen foods like lasagnas and casseroles—except these don’t require refrigeration.

“The UGR-H&S™ is designed to be the first group meal provided to Warfighters in early deployment where field kitchens without refrigeration capability are available . . . In the earliest stages of deployment, the MRE™ is versatile and nutritionally adequate enough to provide a Warfighter’s only subsistence each day. However, as soon as field kitchens can be set up and cooks can begin preparing hot meals, the UGR™ provides increased variety to Warfighters. Feedback from troops over many years has told us time and time again that there is a huge intangible benefit of being able to relax in a group setting and enjoy a hot meal. The UGR™ provides this capability.”

-U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center,Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010.

"Food?" Photo by nukeit1 (James McCauley). From the Flickr Creative Commons.

4) Humanitarian Daily Rations – These meals are generally not eaten by the military but are provided to displaced people in the conflict areas.

“The components [of the Humanitarian Daily Ration] are designed to provide a full day’s sustenance to a moderately malnourished individual. In order to provide the widest possible acceptance from the variety of potential consumers with diverse religious and dietary restrictions from around the world, the HDR contains no animal products or animal by-products, except that minimal amounts of dairy products are permitted. Alcohol and alcohol based ingredients are also banned. The meal bag is similar to the MRETM meal bag except that it is a salmon color and contains graphics depicting how to open the bag and that the contents should be eaten.”

-U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center,Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010

Meal, Alternative Regionally Customized. U.S. Army Photo.

5) MARC Meals – These are special shelf-stable vegetarian meals designed for detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

“The final product configuration includes 10 different luncheon entrée menus containing food components familiar to Southwest Asian/Middle East populations.”

-U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center,Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010

"Tube food provided to U.S. Air Force U-2 pilots." U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jason Tudor.

6) Tube meals – These have the biggest ick factor for me. This is food liquefied and put into something that looks like a toothpaste tube. We must have some very dedicated Air Force pilots to be able to do their intense and stressful jobs while eating these “foods” for their sustenance.

“Tube foods are often referred to as high-altitude rations, or ‘foods with altitude.’ The purpose of tube food is to feed U2 pilots in the U.S. Air Force (USAF) during reconnaissance missions that last for periods up to 12 hours. Due to the flying height of U2 jets during such missions, pilots must wear pressurized suits and helmets that cannot be removed, making it impossible for them to consume food with their hands or utensils. Instead, tube food is designed to attach directly to a feeding tube that extends from the outside of the helmet to the inside where the pilot is able to sip the food from a straw-like tube.”

–U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center, Operational Rations of the Department of Defense, 8th edition, May 2010

To their credit, the military does try to continually improve the food and make it better. Each year the content of MREs changes with some foods retired and new foods introduced.

“After Operation Desert Storm, surveys indicated that Warfighter food preferences closely resembled those of the general non-military population. Warfighters wanted more ethnic foods and more vegetarian offerings.”

—U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center, Vegetarian Meals in the MRE

"tabasco." Photo by Robert Couse-Baker. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

I also found it funny that the survey also showed that regardless of the meal, most warfighters wanted hot sauce to season it with (I suppose to mask the taste) so every MRE comes with a cute little bottle of Tabasco sauce.

The military also does seem to try to improve the nutritional content of these meals with each iteration. The current nutritional guidelines for MREs are:

“The contents of one MRE meal bag provides an average of 1250 kilocalories (13 % protein, 36 % fat, and 51 % carbohydrates). It also provides 1/3 of the Military Recommended Daily Allowance of vitamins and minerals determined essential by the Surgeon General of the United States.”

-Defense Logistics Agency, Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE)

I did my own calculation of the nutritional content of one days worth of MREs. I picked at random 3 MREs from the 2010 meal list found here.

The MREs I chose were the maple sausage and granola MRE, the Veggie Burger in BBQ sauce MRE and the boneless pork rib with potato cheddar soup MRE. It is surprisingly hard to find any information about what exactly is in the MRE. I scraped together my information based on photos and reviews of the MREs at mreinfo.com, MRE calorie counts at livestrong.com and myfitnesspal.com, as well as MREs for sale at survival stores and on eBay.

I wasn’t able to find information for some of the meal components and for some of them I used civilian emergency foods of a similar description.  Others I just left out.

My results showed that one days worth of MRE’s provided:

• 3, 457 calories (According to mypyramid.gov’s calculator this would be roughly appropriate for a 21 year old man, 6 feet tall, 175 pounds exercising more than 60 minutes per day. It is almost 1,000 calories too many for women, even those exercising 60 minutes a day or more.)
• 165 mg cholesterol (This is far less than the 300 mg allowed for both men and women so the MRE does well here.)
• 9 grams trans fat (Trans fats are acknowledged to be the most dangerous kinds of fats and the recommendation is generally around 2 grams of trans fat per 2,000 calories.  9 grams is really quite a high amount of trans fat. All of the trans fat in the MRE meals came from the baked goods like snack bread, cookies and muffins. Hopefully they will cut this way down in the next version of the MRE.)
• 4,239 mg sodium (Big failure for the MRE here. Way too much salt! Almost 3 times the recommended daily allowance.)
• 21.5 grams fiber (If these meals are aimed primarily at young men, recall that the desired fiber quantity for men under 50 is 38 grams. This is about half. Perhaps this is the reason that you cannot read about MRE’s without finding some warfighter’s detailed story about constipation! For women, this is much closer to the 25g they need but remember that the number of calories is generally far too high for most women so women probably need more fiber-dense foods as well.)
• Roughly 14% protein, 21% fat, 65% carbs, which meets general guidelines for athletic people.
• These MREs provided 368% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin C, almost 100% of calcium and iron, about half of the Vitamin E, Riboflavin, Niacin and Folate, about 36% of vitamin A and about 25% of vitamin B6. Adding a multivitamin to the MRE might not be a bad idea.

But the crucial question . .. how does the MRE taste? Apparently OK but certainly not for everyone. Here you can see a BBC reporter tasting the “chili macaroni” meal with U.S. troops.

And here is a group of schoolchildren tasting the meals at the Army Reserve Enrichment Camp.

I have a new appreciation for the many sacrifices of our warfighters and am thankful today for everyone who has served our country.  Please feel free to share in the comments your Veterans Day wishes and remembrances.

"Dinner on the Final Night: Wabakimi Provincial Park, Ontario." Photo by OakleyOriginals. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

For those who just moved the clocks back one hour, how are you doing? I am still adjusting to daylight savings time but am really enjoying the “new” time. I purposely kept my alarm clock back one hour for the privilege of waking up each morning to “give” myself an extra hour of sleep.

Continuing our discussion of emergency food supplies . . . today we are going to combine the prior work we have done on nutritional requirements and grocery store supplies to try to create a 30-day emergency food plan for a family of 4.

This work has been more detailed and complex than I anticipated so I am not able to deliver the full plan to you today. However, I am going to share some of the interim research steps.

Even if you are not interested in creating an emergency food supply, I hope going through this exercise will enlighten you both in terms of how you might be able to stretch your food budget to save money and how to eat more healthily with minimal effort.

After writing my post on nutritional requirements, I found that I needed to add a few more details. In addition to knowing how many calories you need and the basics of a food pyramid, there are some specific quantities of various nutrients you need and some nutrients that you need to limit. What are these requirements? Interestingly, they are printed for us on many of our longer food labels, like those on cereal boxes. I never noticed them before now. Here is the section from our cereal box:

Most of us know that we should limit our fat intake, particularly of saturated fat and trans fat. Most of us also know that too much cholesterol is not a good thing. Based on my own reading of food labels, it seems we don’t have to worry quite so much about fat and cholesterol because most food manufacturers have limited fat and cholesterol in their foods for us.

"breakfast: bunny in the hole." Photo by woodleywonderworks. From the Flickr Creative Commons.

The Mayo Clinic, citing recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, indicates that Men under 50 need 38g of fiber per day (even more than what is recommended on the cereal box!) and women under 50 need 25 grams. Men over 50 need 30 grams of fiber and women over 50 need 21 grams.

A recent study suggests that children 2 and older consume grams of fiber per day equal to their age plus 5. (For example, a 5 year old should consume 5+5=10 grams of fiber per day).

How much fiber does the typical American adult consume each day? About 14-15 grams or about half of what we should.

Salt content in food is something you are going to start hearing more and more about. The American Heart Association recommends all Americans limit sodium consumption to no more that 1500 mg a day. Overdosing on salt is something that is easy to do and is a condition that has almost no symptoms you can identify yourself. You might not know you are eating too much salt until you develop high blood pressure.

How much sodium does the average American consume each day? A whopping 3,712 mg! More than twice the recommended limit.

Potassium is a requirement I had only vaguely considered before this research project. Apparently we are supposed to aim to balance our potassium and sodium intake to maintain healthy blood pressure. Since sodium is added to so many foods for flavoring, that means you have to eat a LOT of potassium to even things out.

Finally, some nutritionists advise that what we need to look at is the overall ratio of foods in our diet with about 40-60% carbs, 20-30% fats and 10-15% protein.

Is it possible to plan an emergency food storage plan that complies with these health requiremens? We’ll sure try!

Here is an example of a nutritionally balanced daily meal plan in canned food emergency rations for a woman consuming a 2,000 calorie diet and a man consuming a 2,500 calorie diet.

 
The male and female rations are mostly the same except that the man needs to add on about 500 more calories and 7 more grams of fiber, ideally without increasing the salt! So the man has a higher fiber breakfast cereal, double the portion of fish at lunch, adds raisins to his peanut butter rice cakes snack and swaps the granola bar for a higher calorie energy bar or a handful of unsalted nuts.

Hmmm….so despite best efforts, we are still low on potassium and carbohydrates and a smidge too high on sodium. But considering that fresh fruit and vegetables aren’t a realistic part of the emergency supply, I think we are doing fairly well.

I clearly have a lot more work to do to get a full 30-day meal supply with a greater variety of healthy foods that we eat often. I will continue the work.

In the meantime, please feel free to share your comments and suggestions! Do you count calories or the nutritional value of your own diet? What tools do you use to make this data-intensive work easier?

In my last post, I promised to share with you some of my favorite finds from the grocery store for emergency preparedness.  Several people have commented that they prefer to stick with traditional emergency food packs like military MREs (meals ready-to-eat).  Under this plan, people typically purchase the MREs, which are good for several years, from a special supplier then throw them out and replace them when they expire.  There is no one right way to do emergency preparedness and if this works for you then by all means, go ahead!

In my own emergency preparedness, I am hoping to use the emergency preparedness stores as a way to encourage healthy eating on a regular basis as well.  My intention is to stock our emergency stores with foods that we eat (or should be eating) regularly and rotate regularly through the food, I don’t want to buy foods like MREs that we would never desire to eat outside of an emergency situation.  Also, I have my doubts that my young children would subsist on MREs—at least not until they got VERY hungry.

Below are my 20 best finds at a typical grocery store (or online in bulk at amazon.com) for emergency preparedness.

Total cereal at amazon.com	1) Breakfast cereal or oatmeal – Most breakfast cereals are so fortified with vitamins that you are getting a lot of nutritional punch for your calories (and dollars).  Ideally, you would select a whole grain cereal with low sugar content but I believe even most sugared cereals are fortified as well.  If all you did for your emergency food planning was buy an extra box of cereal and some powdered milk (see next item) you could probably survive on that for days.  Ask any college student!
Organic Valley Organic Nonfat Dry Milk Powder. At amazon.com.	2) Powdered milk – If you are going to be eating cereal, you will need milk!  Just add water to your powdered milk and you are ready to go.  It tastes fairly close to regular milk.  If you are allergic to milk, you could also substitute alternative “milks” like rice milk, soy milk or almond milk.  I quite liked those milks until I looked at the nutritional labels one time and found that they were all basically just sugar water and didn’t have any of the protein benefit you get from cow’s milk–although they are low in fat and cholesterol.
Skippy Peanut Butter, Super Chunk. At amazon.com.	3) Peanut butter – Ruth foreshadowed this one in her comment Tuesday but yes, peanut butter is a great emergency staple because it packs a ton of calories into a compact little package.  It is also full of protein, vitamin E and niacin.  If you don’t like peanuts, most grocery stores carry other nut butters as well, like cashew butter and almond butter.

Campbell's Red & White Low Sodium Chicken with Noodles. At amazon.com. Frontier Soups Homemade In Minutes™ South Of The Border Tortilla Soup. At amazon.com.	4) Canned soup and dried soup mixes – Canned soup is one of those really basic things you might forget about for emergency planning but canned soup is really kind of like an MRE.  It is usually very high in sodium so you have to watch out for that but more and more soups are being made that are lower in sodium and higher in nutritional content.  If you haven’t taste-tested a low-sodium soup, you are in for a bit of a shock.  You don’t realize how much sodium you are used to eating until you try a low-sodium variety.  The taste is a little bland but some well-seasoned low-sodium soups are OK.  This emergency staple will require heating but I can tell you from experiments with my own children that eating it cold straight out of the can (their preference) won’t kill you.  There are also dried soup mixes that you just add water to and heat that are less bulky.
StarKist Tuna Solid White Albacore In Water, 12-Ounce Cans. At amazon.com. Bear & Wolf Pink Salmon. At amazon.com.	5) Canned seafood – We all know that fish is full of all kinds of healthy nutrients for us, particularly the esteemed omega-3 fatty acids.   I most frequently hear people say, “ I don’t like fish.”  If you refuse to eat fish, then obviously you will need to pick some other canned protein.  I am a timid seafood eater myself but if you love seafood you can get so many types of canned seafood from sardines to clams to shrimp. The second complaint I hear about fish is that people are worried about the mercury content.  My favorite kind of canned fish (white albacore tuna) is one of the fishes with very high mercury content.  You are only supposed to eat a 6 oz can about once a week.  The State of Alaska Department of Health and Social Services has done quite a bit of research into the mercury content of various kinds of fish, both because of the significant fishing industry in Alaska and because of the number of native Alaskans who consume large amounts of fish in their diets.  Alaska Health and Human Services has created this handy chart to guide pregnant women and children (the most sensitive populations for mercury exposure) but this guide is really a good guide for anyone.  According to this chart, you can safely eat unlimited amounts of “all species of Alaska salmon.”  This was great news for us since one of our favorite substitutes for albacore tuna is the Bear & Wolf (Costco brand) pink wild Alaskan salmon.  They manage to take all the bones out of the salmon in this brand and while the flavor is a bit stronger than tuna, it is quite delicious.
V8 Vegetable Juice Low sodium. At amazon.com.	6)   V8 juice – One of the harder foods to obtain in emergency food stores are fruits and vegetables.  V8 juice, particularly the low-sodium variety, gives you a large quantity of vegetables in an easy-to-drink container.
Dole Pineapple Chunks in 100% Pineapple Juice. At amazon.com.	7) Canned pineapple in juice – You could really use any canned fruit in juice but the only fruit I can reliably find that is not packed in a sugar syrup is pineapple.  This emergency staple doubles as both a juice and a fruit!  I especially love it cold and keep it in my fridge (but I realize that in an emergency, room temperature is the more likely alternative).
Herdez Salsa Casera. At amazon.com.	8 ) Salsa – Salsa is another great way to get your vegetables in and add some flavor to your meals as well.  You have to watch your sodium content here but chips and salsa are a great shelf-stable snack.
Goya, Bean Black Low Sodium. At amazon.com.	9) Canned beans – Beans are a great protein source.  You could also get dried and cook them yourself if you know you will have a cooking source in an emergency.
Ryvita Whole Grain Rye Crispbread, Rye & Oat Bran. At amazon.com.	10) Crackers, Rice Cakes and Tortillas – Since I love good bread I wish there was an “emergency bread.”  I have not found one yet.  Instead we have to settle for bread substitutes like whole grain crackers, rice cakes, chips and even taco shells.  This is the one part of my emergency storage plan I am not so happy with.  I don’t want to stock up on too many high fiber crispbread crackers or rice cakes since we don’t like to eat them all that often (although we would probably be healthier for the switch).  We will need something to spread all that peanut butter on for snacks.  Some tortillas will keep for up to 60 days so that may be the direction we go.
Ensure Plus Complete Balanced Nutrition Drink. At amazon.com. Carnation Instant Breakfast Nutritional Drink. At amazon.com.	11) Meal-substitute drinks. You generally find these in the geriatric section of the pharmacy aisle or sometimes the weight loss section. In vitamin stores, they might be sold near the muscle-building area.  There are many brands of these drinks and some are quite expensive.  We found a generic CVS brand that wasn’t too expensive and actually tasted pretty good.  These drinks are usually free of any allergens (dairy, etc.) and are fortified with just about every vitamin and mineral you could ever need.  We have used them to substitute for refrigerated breakfast yogurt smoothie drinks.  They are a great grab-and-go food when you are headed into the car.  Another product with slightly less nutritional content but good taste are the shelf-stable breakfast drinks from Carnation.
Fiber One-Oats & Chocolate. At amazon.com.	12) Granola Bars –   Yes, good old granola bars are an emergency staple.  Most granola bars have too much fat and sugar to really be considered healthy foods but they do offer some benefits in terms of complex carbohydrates and vitamins.  If nothing else, they are a compact way to get some calories.
Sun Maid California Raisins. At amazon.com.	13) Dried Fruit – You can get exotic or go with a classic–raisins!
Navitas Naturals Really Raw Cashews. At amazon.com.	14) Raw Nuts and Seeds – Generally you have to shop in the bulk foods section of the grocery store to find unsalted nuts and seeds.  Salted are of course delicious but when you are trying to keep your sodium down (there is salt in everything in packaged foods!) this is one area where you can cut the salt out and miss it less.  Peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds.  Lots of great choices here.
Hunts- Snack Pack Pudding. At amazon.com.	15) Shelf-stable pudding! Probably an essential if you have small children.  No refrigeration needed.  Self-contained little cups.  Some nutritional content from the milk (although it is mostly sugar, of course!).  The Hunts Snack Pack brand has a shelf life of up to 540 days!
Barilla Whole Grain Spaghetti. At amazon.com. Ragu Pasta Sauce, Chunky Garden Style, Mushroom & Green Pepper. At amazon.com.	16) Whole grain pasta and spaghetti sauce. I am putting this toward the bottom of the list because this supply is useless if you don’t have a cooking source.  You can’t soak pasta in room temperature water and make it edible.  Since we eat pasta all the time, however, and since we have been able to cook pasta on the gas stove in at least one prior emergency, it will stay on our list.
Early California Ripe Pitted Olives. At amazon.com.	17) Canned olives.  A great source of healthy fats and a good snack as well.  Most small children like black olives and adults could go for a tangy variety like kalamata or manzanilla.
Maruchan Instant Lunch Chicken Flavored Noodle Bowls. At amazon.com.	18 ) Ramen noodles/Cup O’ Noodles – These are probably the most cost-effective emergency food staple. They generally cost about 30-50 cents per meal and they are warm and filling. You do need to be able to at least boil water to make them useful. They are also very high in sodium but you can control that a little if you use the ramen with seasoning packs and use less of the seasoning pack. Fortunately ramen noodles are one of the foods our kids will eat reliably too.
	19) Jerky – Beef jerky, turkey jerkey, even ostrich jerky! Any meat can be dried into a jerky. While high in fat and salt, these are great pick-me-up treats particularly if you are doing high energy work. Jerky is usually pretty expensive at the grocery store so look for a sale or buy in bulk online.
Hershey's Milk Chocolate Kisses. At amazon.com.	20) Chocolate – Chocolate is an essential survival food!  There are some health benefits to chocolate but really it is more of a mental food than a physical one.  Want to make a friend?  Offer some chocolate.  Need an escape from your stressful emergency situation. Chocolate to the rescue!  There is no way we would be caught without it!

So that is the list of the items our family is most likely to stockpile to create our own emergency food storage. What would you add to this list?  Please share in the comments.

In Tuesday’s post, we’ll try to put these foods together into a sample 30-day emergency meal plan. Have a great weekend!

If it feels like one long holiday marathon from Halloween until New Year’s you are probably right! This morning, I received a great e-mail newsletter from the Old Farmer’s Almanac about Election Day cakes. Celebrating Election Day? Apparently this used to be the norm.  I can’t imagine doing another celebration right on the heels of Halloween!

“[A]n Election Day cake is an American institution. The tradition dates from the 1600s, but the cakes became more elaborate after colonial independence. Weeklong celebrations often accompanied certifying the election results, and women baked these yeast cakes for out-town-guests.”

-Election Day Cake, From the Old Farmer’s Almanac website.

Since today is Election Day, I thought I would attempt the cake. Wow! It was a lot of work but it was an interesting connection to the past.

At the time this recipe was created in 1833, a good portion of American society was still disenfranchised. Yet women were making these elaborate cakes and celebrating because at least someone was voting and history was still fresh enough in the collective memory to value voting as a hard-won privilege.

I thought my readers might enjoy seeing this recipe and would have a good laugh at my bumbling attempt to make it.

Election Day Cake
Old Farmer’s Almanac Recipe

• 1/4 cup lukewarm water
• 2 packages dry yeast
• 3/4 cup whole milk, heated to lukewarm (I substituted half-and-half)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading and forming
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup currants (I substituted raisins)

1. Pour the water into a 4- or 5-quart mixing bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the top, and set aside until the yeast dissolves, about 3 minutes. (err…try 30 minutes! I kept waiting for all this yeast to dissolve by itself and finally had to stir the last clump with a spoon.)

Yeast - 30 minutes and a good stir later!

2.  Stir in the warm milk, then beat in 1-1/2 cups of the flour, making a stiff batter.

3.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes (no longer).

2. Beat in the butter, egg, sugar, spices, and salt. Then work in the remaining 1-1/2 cups flour, making a soft, rough dough.

3.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 15 to 30 minutes.

3. Knead the dough until smooth, for 5 to 10 minutes. It will be very soft and sticky. Gradually add more flour as necessary, a few tablespoons at a time, to form a smooth dough.

4. Knead in the currants (or raisins).

5.  Roll the dough into an 8-inch log.

6.  Cut the log into 4 equal pieces. . .

7.  then divide each piece into 6 little rolls.

8.  To create surface tension so the rolls will puff up round, roll each into a little ball. One at a time, pinch 1 side of the ball with your fingers as though stretching loose skin, then tuck the stretched dough into a pucker at the bottom of the ball. Do this several times until the surface looks taut.

9.  Dredge the rolls in flour (oops!  Forgot to do this!) and arrange pucker-side down in a greased 9x13x2-inch baking pan, 4 rows across, 6 rows down.

10.  Loosely drape with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until generously doubled, 1-1/2 to 2 hours. The rolls should all be touching.

11. Set a rack in the lower-middle level of the oven. Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Bake the cake until all the rolls are puffed and richly browned, and those in the center register at least 190 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, about 15 minutes. (Watch your oven carefully!  I have a small, hot oven and even with the temperature turned down to 350 degrees the cake was in danger of burning after 15 minutes.  After all this work, I would have cried!  I don’t own a baking thermometer so I ignored that part.  Can you imagine making these without the benefit of an electric oven?)

12. Let the cake rest in the pan for 3 minutes, then gently shake the pan back and forth until the cake loosens. Invert the cake onto a cookie sheet, then reinvert it onto a rack. (Please join me in laughing at this part of the recipe.  My rolls were so packed into that pan that there was no way they were coming out without a fight.  At first I thought I might have burned them on the bottom but it turned out that they were fine.  They just wanted to be pried loose one by one.) Serve warm or at room temperature, preferably on the day of baking.

So, what does “election cake” taste like?  A cinnamon roll!

I don’t think any modern American would consider this a “cake.”  Also, it’s quite a good roll with the spices and raisins but it really needs more sweetness.  I added a stripe of cream cheese icing that happened to be left over in my fridge from another recipe I will share with you later this month.

I was so busy making my election cakes that I almost didn’t make it to the polls!  I packed my girls into the car and we got there 30 minutes before closing.

Happy Election Day!