It’s easy. And it really pays off in so many ways.

I recently toasted walnuts. I bought a huge bag of walnuts at BJ’s, froze them in a freezer bag to preserve freshness, and then pulled out a couple cups of the nuts and toasted them, saving money and time by:

1. Adding chopped up walnuts to my oatmeal with raisins.

2. Adding hand broken walnuts to the Life Cereal my kids eat. This is my secret trick to making a cold cereal keep the hunger at bay!

3. Mixing in toasted walnuts in oatmeal raisin walnut cookies.

4. Tossing walnuts into banana bread.

5. Putting toasted nuts atop a green salad.

6. Mixing toasted walnuts with Craisins and making little baggies of the tasty and filling snack.

7. Walnuts are good for you, according to the FDA (everything in moderation, now).

Toasting Nuts

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread nuts (pecans or walnuts) evenly on a baking sheet. I like to put parchment paper down on my baking sheet, and then put the nuts on top of it, so there is less clean-up.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, stirring nuts occasionally. Nuts can burn easily, so check them at the 10 minute mark for doneness, and keep a close eye on them.

Let nuts cool (I put mine on a wooden cutting board). Store in an airtight container in the fridge to prolong freshness.

Photo by Kelly Estes

Truly, I don’t know how a busy cook does without a good knife, let alone a Santoku knife. Early on in my marriage, I had a dull chef’s knife (origins unknown) and I ended up with a shallow cut on my pointer finger. Not only did that boo boo take forever to heal, as one is constantly bending fingers; it hurt like the dickens until it finally closed up and healed.

Once that unfortunate incident happened, I tried sharpening my chef’s knife, to no avail. Eventually I bought a nice Santoku knife and couldn’t believe the difference in quality. It was actually easy to cut food!

It is funny that while I have a nice Santoku knife we still have a most ancient television. Can you tell where my priorities are?

I am sure everyone has a knife story to share. Who wants to go first?

Photo by Kelly Estes

Serving cottage cheese and raspberry preserves sandwiches is a devious way to sneak in more calcium into your child’s diet.

Think that sounds unappetizing? So did I, but it’s quite delicious and refreshing when you use Breakstone’s 4% fat cottage cheese and good preserves.

Cottage Cheese and Jelly (or Preserves) Sandwich

serves 1 (double, triple, quadruple etc. per your needs)

Ingredients

• 2 slices honey wheat sandwich bread
• 3 heaping spoons of cottage cheese (I highly recommend Breakstone’s 4% cottage cheese)
• 2-3 teaspoons Raspberry Preserves (I am fond of Bonne Maman preserves, but use what you like)

1. Toast your sandwich bread. Toasted bread holds the cottage cheese much better.

2. Slather raspberry preserves on both sides of the bread.

3. Spread three good size spoonfuls of cottage cheese on one side of the toast.

4. Top with the other slice of bread, cut diagonally, and you’ve got a winner of a sandwich, even for picky kids!

What is your favorite sandwich to serve your kids for lunch?

Photo by Kelly Estes

Chili con carne with corn

And that’s bad. Cuz when you don’t have emergency food plans, you either have to:

a/ make a *fun* run to the grocery store for rotisserie chicken during rush hour,

b/ call a fast food joint (Chinese or Pizza related) to deliver (and regret the calories consumed later), or

c/ eat a ridiculous (and probably non-FDA approved) meal for dinner.

Now, I’ve done the occasional breakfast for dinner, and it’s not bad. I enjoy it, but my husband, who’s done a fabulous job of losing weight this year, does not. Waffles and pancakes and eggs and sausage are frowned upon by those trying to live by Weight Watchers rules. And so I take it as a challenge to keep my pantry stocked so that in an emergency, I can whip up a dinner without raising my stress level.

So, here are seven steps to take to achieve food sanity: Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

1. Have a can of Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom condensed soup in your pantry. You would not believe how good leftover meat is when you use it as a base (after sauteeing some onion and garlic in the pot first).

2. Boxed lower-sodium chicken stock MUST be in your kitchen, somewhere. This ingredient has saved my tush many a time. Think of it as a major player in using up last bits of leftovers. Of course, if you happen to have homemade chicken stock on hand, so much the better. But generally that’s not the case if you’re having a dinner emergency.

3. Frozen peas, corn, green beans, or broccoli–at least one bag of these veggies should be in your freezer at all times. You never know when these veggies will come in handy. Think of adding corn to chili, green beans or peas to a low-fat chicken a la king (with or without the biscuits), broccoli to beef, etc.

4. Crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, whole tomatoes–these taken for granted cans have helped me more times than I can count. Many Italian dishes can be made from one or two of these cans.

5. Black beans, cannellini beans, whatever beans you like–in a can or two. Beans are a great protein that can really help out if you’ve got no meat in the fridge or freezer (veggie chili, anyone?).

6. Garlic is a must for me–either fresh or minced in a glass jar (usually found in the produce department at your local grocer). I love the minced garlic for use in a dinner emergency, because I generally have no fresh garlic at those times, ya know?

7. Frozen ground meat (either ground round, 7%, sirloin, or ground turkey breast)…whatever floats your boat and you like to eat. Simply buy 1 pound of the ground meat you like, cook it, put it in a freezer safe container, label it on the top with the meat name and date, and freeze it. You’ll be so glad you did when you have a ‘What’s for dinner?’ panic.

These are my suggestions to prevent panic at dinnertime; what are yours?