Why you Should Make your Own Salad Dressing Recipe Honey-Cumin Salad Dressing

I fell in love with the house salad dressing at Checker's Bistro some time ago. I Could have drank shots of the stuff it was so darned good. Sadly, they took it off their menu (crazy). I went on an internet quest to find a recipe that mimics it this past Spring. I found one and have fine tuned it to my liking. I have been using this dressing on just about every salad I've eaten since Spring. You should probably try making your own salad dressing too, here are several reasons why:

• It will have a lot less sodium than store bought
• You'll save money 
• It has no preservatives yet most recipes you'll find won't need stored in the refrigerator
• You can cater the dressing to your liking
• You know exactly what's going into your dressing, omitting things like MSG.
• It saves on waste, those plastic/glass dressing bottles don't go into the trash/recycle bin.
• It will only take you 5 minutes. Shopping for a bottle in the store takes longer than making it yourself!

Here's my recipe: I adapted it from this recipe I found on Epicurious.

Honey-Cumin Vinaigrette

1 Tablespoon Cumin (I use McCormick I do believe this spice companies gives you great quality)
1 Tablespoon Honey
1/3 cup Red Wine Vinegar
3/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Using a funnel and a glass bottle (I used a discarded Red Wine Vinegar bottle or soy sauce bottle)
Funnel Cumin into bottle, followed by honey, Vinegar & oil. shake until honey is dissolved. Store at Room Temperature for several weeks. (maybe months, I have always used mine up faster than that) Shake well before using.

Can't Remember Life Before Meal Planning

When we had our first child it did not take long for my dear husband, Keith and I to realize that my becoming a stay at home Mom by day and taking on part time work was the choice for us. We knew spending as much time watching and learning with this little person we created was very important to us.


Along with baby came a new need for additional organization. I have always prided myself on being very organized. I am a multi-tasker by nature and actually thrive on it, I love it. I work best under pressure, and produce the most when LOTS needs done.

Baby brought the LOTS and I brought innovation to my household. I despised 4:00pm when I had to try and figure out what the heck to make for dinner. When I gave up my full time position at a direct mail magazine I wanted to be that wife/mom that had dinner on the table when hubs arrived home from work at 5:30. I know, I know maybe there are yucky feelings about that for some. Those feelings are for you, not me. I wanted to be tattooed June Cleaver so meh, my choice. And I do not in any way EVER regret it. Ever. I wear a very cute apron too.


So 4:00 irritation, innovation needed. I wanted to plan meals. Not the same plan every week for Goodness sakes. I wanted to keep it rad. Original plan was to try to make one new recipe a week, that was dropped to one bi weekly. Now I just do, if I want to.

my meal plan process is simple:

Every other Monday I grab my wall calendar, a pen and the sale flyer. I write a meal on each day of the week and all the ingredients I need for those meals on my list checking to make sure I don't already have what I need. When two calendar weeks are full I am finished.


So why do I do it?
Stress relief:
I mentioned 4:00. I spend about half an hour meal planning two weeks worth and that's all the time I worry about it for those two weeks! Huge stress reliever. note: My husband plans the weekends, so it could take 45 min to an hour to do a bi-weekly plan. And he is a much better cook than I. He is much more outgoing in the kitchen. I tend to gravitate to easy meals, that are quick to prepare. In all fairness though, during the week I have serious time constraints.

Money saving:
seriously folks this will save you money. Grab your grocery store flyer, or look it up online and meal plan according to what is on sale. I clip coupons, or print them online, just choose a site that you can print multiple coupons per page or you will lose your savings in printer cartridges. Breakfast for dinner once a month saves dollars, and kids LOVE it. Making triple batches of things like taco meat, spaghetti sauce (yea I make my own for some meals) and freeze in bags. Invest in a chest freezer. That way when ice cream is on sale you can buy the 4 for $10 and fit them in your freezer.


Health:
Planning meals assists in looking at your dinners at a distance. You can balance much easier the things your family needs to stay healthiest. For instance I plan one vegetarian a week (at least) I balance meats, like one chicken meal, one turkey (burger), we usually avoid red meat but you could throw that in, you get the idea. You can look at your week and see, whoa, we can't eat pasta every day?! and change it. Meal planning also helps to avoid the dreadful fast food stop, or the expensive restaurant take out that could occur on a particularly irritating day when you are absolutely NOT in the mood to figure out what to make for dinner. Hey, this also saves money too!


Listen to this great podcast about meal planning for more great tips

Another great resource is the Organizing Junkie blog. Menu Plan Mondays are popular in the blogosphere. Apparently you can link your meals and plans with other meal planner/bloggers. I have yet to do this, have still continued to kick it old skool- paper/pen/sales flyer but would love to check these out. If you do I'd love to hear how you like it!

Play doh Storage Tip

Busy Moms like myself have to stay organized. We have to pre-plan out how our day is going to fall into place. We must strategically accomplish an abundance of things to to keep our job security as CEO of household. Okay, yea, true, no chance my wonderful husband is firing me, he knows full well there is NO way he could begin to handle it all, but metaphorically, to keep our own mental job security, if you will.

One thing I try and plan in my head is how to keep the kids busy if I need to get some Etsy stuff done, or house stuff, whatever needs doing that requires little interruption. For us one of the things my girls will go to town with is Play Doh. Listen, as a kid the colorful dough was totally banned from my house, It always bummed me out, so I always knew I wanted a large open stock of it for my own kids. So we do. And my girls love it.

But the darn stuff does dry out, even when lidded properly. So. I have tip for you, to make it last longer

It's totally quick too, so no worries. Make sure you put it in a nice ball. Let the kids collect all of the color, but make it be your Momma/Daddio hands be the ones molding that rainbow clay back into a crackless blob.

Next? use one of the multitude of medicine droppers any parent owns, fill it up with water, put 3 drips in a normal size container, two for medium, one drip for the party pack size container. Drop your blob in, DO NOT PRESS DOWN DOUGH. affix lid, allow lid to press down doh as it needs to close.

I tell you, it works. Just don't use too much water, only the drips as mentioned above, or it will be slimy on the bottom. If you are overzealous and this occurs, no biggie just knead the slimy part through and you'll be good to go again.

So there you have it. We have had some of the same play doh colors for (literally)5 years. I admit we also have tossed some, but overall this helps save you from tossing a lot more.

Have fun digging out doh from under the finger nails! & Have a Peachy Day!