Category Archives: Dinner Planning

The Vegan and The Kitchen Newbee AKA My Interns

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Monday night I felt like a little kid on Christmas Eve, both excited and nervous, like I was anxiously anticipating what Santa would bring me. Would my expectations be met? Would I get those super, awesome, limited edition rollerblades and be mindblown?! I was meeting my interns for the first time the next morning…this is the first time I have ever taken on interns and I honestly did not know what to expect!

Guess what? Santa (or should I say Dr. Sarah Woodruff, my Kinect-Ed partner from the University of Windsor) gave me some super, awesome, limited edition interns and I was mindblown. Sara Santarossa and Trish Dubé are young superstars in the food and nutrition industry…we need more people like them!! I could feel their passion as we talked about the importance of working with youth, family dinners, and the importance of positive body image.

WOW I thought, this is sooooooo cool! I couldn’t contain my excitement! After gushing about them to Ron, I had to call Sarah and tell her how wonderful I think the girls are!!

Quickly I learned that the girls were both very different in terms of their life experience! Making this such an awesome learning environment for the three of us!

SaraLunch

Sara comes from a family with a vegan lifestyle…and get this, they are Italian! OK, I am intrigued. This gives us a wonderful challenge of modifying all of my recipes so that they can be enjoyed by vegans too! Sara really enjoys being in the kitchen and typically does not use a recipe. For lunch on our first day, she made African Thai Stew, following the recipe in Dinner Survival. Afterwards, I asked what she thought about our cookbook – I was happy to hear that even though she had never used one of our cookbooks, she picked up on how we lay out our instructions/ingredients (reading left to right!), and she thought this was sooooo much simpler than other formats she had seen!

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Eating Like A King On A Shoestring Budget – Part 5

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HOW TO BEST UTILIZE WEEKLY SPECIALS - Part 5 of 5 in series – Eating Like A King On A Shoestring Budget

Sooooo, here we are on part 5, but first… a quick recap last week’s CityLine show and my blog series Eating Like a King On A Shoestring Budget. Click for Part 1

My next series will include you on a little journey I‘m about to dive into! Moving from a 3000 sq ft home to a 580 sq ft home! Sometimes I walk into the space and wonder, “Where on earth will I put everything?” I will share my thoughts, frustrations, grocery bills, food storage solutions… you name it! It’s all in a pursuit to understand and embrace the concept “Living with Less”!

Grocery Receipts

For those who understand and are feeling the time saving benefits of Part 2 in the series… Eat Sheet™ vs Grocery List…waaaaay to go! More time for shoe shopping, bike riding or whatever makes you happy! Remember five little lines will not only save you a bundle, but also save your sanity in the meantime!

I’ve included a snapshot of my own personal grocery bills this past week and I’m going to do more of that! I want to be completely transparent about where I shop and why…. aaaaand how much I really do spend on groceries! A family of four adults or 2 adults with 2-3 kids can be fed beautifully on about $60 bucks a week – as long as you’re shopping from your Freezer First! (Part 3 in the series) Hopefully I have proven that!

Continue reading Eating Like A King On A Shoestring Budget – Part 5