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Y.T.

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    Arizona
  1. thank you! I had not heard of them before. you find that they actually work? my method has been to put some paper towels at the bottom of a plastic bag to absorb moisture that could otherwise encourage rotting, and roll the top down to leave the bag open so air and gasses can escape. but that usually only gives me a week and a half.
  2. I say that in the name of preparedness, there's no time like the present for him to learn. I actually labeled all the cabinet shelves in the kitchen with what goes where (big plates, little plates, glasses, bowls... large pots, small pots, strainers... pasta, rice, canned goods, spices). I just used post-it notes as labels, cutting off the excess paper and put them across the edge of each shelf to indicate each area. Men (and kids) can read, so they can figure it out. Taking 20 minutes to do that now saves you hours of "I have to do that for him" later. He may not put things back where they should be, but he can't claim he doesn't know where to find something. I give up on the fridge though. My guy apparently feels that the top shelf is the place to put everything back, no matter where else it came from: the crisper area, the door, the bottom shelf. I'm constantly rearranging it and putting things back on the door to make room for leftovers or groceries. But one step at a time, I figure. Another thing: print or write out directions so there's no excuse not to know how to do something. Again, time invested to do that now saves hours of your time wasted doing it for him later. If he complains he doesn't know how to do it or it's too complicated to follow there's always the response of "so what you're saying is that I'm very much smarter than you, since I manage to do this everyday by myself?" -- or -- "so you're saying that as a grown man you can operate complex electronics like the TV or computer just fine, but something as simple as following directions for rice is too challenging for you?" Said in a loving, teasing way with a smile and a wink of course, not in a nasty way. The first several attempts (or even weeks) of this may not go so well and may require a lot of patience your part or enduring not-so-great meals. But everyone has to learn at some point, everyone is a beginner at some element of preps. ...not to get off-topic. but as I see it, on the subject of preparedness if you're trying to plan meals for more than yourself then your partner (or kids, if they're old enough) should be part of that plan, to some degree. Especially if you're finding meals difficult. It's important not only for your sanity and respect for your time, but also so they are able to feed themselves (a basic life function) should you become injured, ill, or otherwise unavailable. They need to know where supplies are, where recipes are, how to operate the appliances, how to avoid getting sick through undercooking or improper cleaning, how to shop, how to make a meal. And it's best for them to figure that stuff out now, in a safe crisis-free environment than when SHTF. edit: spelling
  3. this is exactly why I'd like to get into canning at some point. so I can store the elements for meals that I regularly use or that take a long time to prepare. giving me the option to do something as you've just described. I figure that also will help the "you mean food doesn't come from a window?" bf with the cooking.
  4. what about printing out or writing up a list of 5-10 recipes that you usually make that you know the kids like, and giving them to your husband? tell him he can save his creative experiments for nice adult meals between the two of you. or lunches you can each take to work.
  5. aside from the energy involved in cooking that many meals at once, that's my concern as well. If we lose power for a few days or more I've then just lost a month's worth of meals along with the energy it took to make them. There aren't that many options for refrigeration here. I can't use a generator and I'm renting so I can't set up an alternate power source inside. We're pretty much limited to ice and a cooler. With dry ice or block ice, a good sealing cooler and some discipline I can make a small amount of food last about 3 days. But there's no way I could preserve even half a freezer's worth with that method.
  6. I'm sorry to hear about your stress. I have similar issues. Meals are really draining for me. I don't mind cooking, I actually used to enjoy it. But doing so on a daily basis, 2-3 times a day, especially on work days is challenging. One thing I'd suggest is having your husband share in the responsibilities. I requested this of my partner when I noticed that at the end of his day he would just go sit down and relax online or with games -- while at the end of my workday I was supposed to start in with yet more work: cleaning for, planning, preparing and cleaning up after meals. Because if I didn't do this we'd either not eat or have to order in. So yeah, that wasn't flying with me. And it was an extremely unfair situation that viewed his free time as valuable and sacred, but assumed mine was somehow automatically forfeit to responsibilities. We're still working on this in general, but it's getting better. It requires slow change to set habits. But it's making a difference. For example, on the days I'm really run down he'll ask if I'd like him to handle dinner, or I'll say it's a "fend for yourself night". I print out recipes and clip them on the fridge so he can just follow the directions instead of feeling he just doesn't know what to do. Right now I handle the cooking and he handles the cleaning. The whole idea of regular grocery shopping or actually cooking a proper meal, let alone planning meals, was totally foreign to my bf before we were involved. I swear, I honestly have no idea how the boy managed to sustain himself at all before we met. His cabinet looked like he lost a bet. So it made sense for me to be in charge of meal planning and him to be in charge of clean up. In your case you may find the reverse works, since you mentioned meals stress you out. I also set the rule that we both go grocery shopping, it's not a "me" thing. Or if only one of us goes it's for a good reason (he's sick or I'm on a deadline). Whatever you decide, the division of labor may help you. The second thing I've found is to have a rotation of easy recipes that utilize a lot of the same ingredients. That prevents you from having to keep going out for some special ingredient or guessing what you can make with the random stuff left. I have these big magnetic metal clips that I use to hold the recipe printouts, as I mentioned above. This eliminates a lot of the stress and decision making. I just flip through, pick something (sometimes at random, sometimes based on leftover base ingredients) and follow the steps. I keep a pen nearby to note changes, since often I need to tweak amounts of times. I've found http://allrecipes.com and http://cooks.com to be helpful sources. You can search by ingredients or type of food. The third thing I've found is to set aside one day (or a few hours over a whole weekend) to make batches of sauces. Then put them in plastic containers in single-meal servings (2 people) and freeze the containers. I use dry erase markers to write the date on each because the "ink" wipes off when I've emptied the container. I take out one or two containers a week and put them in the fridge to thaw so they're ready for dinner at some point later. That turns a 60min+ pasta dinner into a 15-20 minute dinner. For example, many of the meals are a base (rice, pasta, or couscous) with a topping (marinara sauce, beans & spices, etc.). It takes a good 30 minutes just to prepare the marinara (chopping, measuring, blending) and another 20-30 to simmer. That's a lot to do every single time. But making 3 batches takes about the same amount of time as making 1 batch. So I try to have an afternoon where I'll do several batches of sauce, enough to cover a few weeks. That makes the individual work days much easier for me. A final thought is that using frozen vegetables (like spinach and carrots) and canned vegetables (like tomatoes) makes it much easier on yourself. It's not as nutritious as fresh and I prefer fresh, but I simply can't use fresh veggies before they go bad. I'd have to go shopping 3 times a week for that, or be revolving my week's schedule around a specific vegetable, neither of which are realistic for me. So putting half a bag of frozen spinach into a pan and sauteing it is easier and quicker than scheduling to use a fresh bundle, washing it, sorting the leaves from the stems, then chopping it first. Also keep in mind that loaves of bread freeze well, which saves you trips to the store. I like to have some sandwich stuff on hand for "fend for yourself night". Or some kind of frozen food for the same reason: burgers, chicken, little sausage rolls, small pizzas. Anything that can be wrapped in foil or stuck on the Foreman grill and left alone for 15-20 minutes. hope that helps. edited to add links
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