This was our dinner last night!!! Pork loin chop with BBQ sauce and apple sauce, jasmine rice and and amazing spinach salad! It was sooooo delish!

This meal is a prime example of how easy it is to eat inexpensively, yet eat like a king!  It’s also the absolute best time to talk about one of the most important  lessons we learned from S.E.Asia. Eat less meat along with more real food!! You see…I love meat!  I have always said I could be a vegetarian if it wasn’t for meat! LOL! My husband also loves meat! So you can only imagine how sad we were when my beautiful husband Ron was diagnosed with Gout! For those of you who don’t know much about Gout, it’s all about the amount of purines in your food, which your body converts to uric acid! If your body can’t get rid of the uric acid, it will deposit it into your joints!  If you haven’t seen my husband I’m attaching a pic!  He’s slim, he’s active, he eats sooo healthy, He’s gorgeous…ooops got carried away there…guess that last one is all about bias and not too much about his health! My bad!! Aaaaanyway…He isn’t exactly what you’d call the poster boy for Gout, so you can imagine our shock when the diagnosis came through that Ron’s painful foot was caused by Gout!

What does this mean?  How will our eating life change?  Well…Meat has purines …so we now had to rethink our meals each day so that he didn’t exceed 3oz of meat per day! We were both bummed out…and what horrible timing…right before our trip to S.E. Asia! Anyone who knows Ron and I, they will attest…we don’t just look forward to eating on holiday—we actually plan our entire trip around the food we’ll eat!! We couldn’t imagine limiting ourselves right before this amazing trip! Have you ever felt at times you are supposed to be exactly where you are at exactly the right time?  Weeell get this…  If you have ever been to S.E. Asia you know that going to a large grocery store is quite the experience!  Specifically relating to meat, there is the equivalent of only two large cooler doors in the entire store (The type of cooler door that they store milk in, at a convenience store, here)!  The only large grocery stores that have more than that, are in the tourist areas catering to, you got it…westerners! What was most fascinating to us was both the cost of our meals (cheap, cheap cheap) and how meat was more of a flavouring than a hunk of something!  Even when we made Sate in Bali at cooking school, we were amazed how little went onto each skewer. Yet in combination with rice and veggies it was always enough!  When Ron and I arrived home we couldn’t stop talking about the whole trip and how amazing it was!  Not only for the obvious reasons, being with our daughters, but also the lessons we learned!  In S.E. Asia you can eat cheap!  Is it because you eat less meat!  Can we do this here?  I have been putting it to the test!  I have always been a bargain hunter (with seven kids you better be)!  Grocery shopping is no different!  I have an app on my phone called Flipp  My sister got me hooked on this amazing app! At my fingertips I can see all the flyers.  This week, whole, Canadian pork loins were one of the sale items! The loin was about 7 lbs and it cost me $12.50.  I sliced off 3, 7oz chops from the end-froze two for another night then grilled the third with BBQ sauce and Ron and I sliced it right down the centre and each had half! That’s 3.5 oz each of meat (which is actually .5 over what Ron should normally have)! Later in the month I’ll show you what I did with the rest of the loin! We served our chops with jasmine rice and a huge spinach salad with all the things we love. Feta cheese, pine nuts, red slivered onion, wild organic blueberries, carrots, cucumber and our favourite maple balsamic dressing!  Applesauce for the chops?  Of course…no pleasure spared! We even had a small piece of focaccia each, with oil and vinegar,  while we were making dinner so added that into the cost and calories!

To get to the cost we had to measure and weigh every little thing!  It’s a lot of hassle to measure everything out, but from now on I am going to do my best to include this in my blogs, so that all of you don’t have the hassle of doing it!  I’ll do it for you!   Conclusion…we were full, it was spectacular, we felt great and it was cheap! What an eye opener!   Bottom line…if you love meat like we do,…have it…just have less of it with a little rice, potato or quinoa and tons of your favourite veggies! Eat like the S.E Asians do…Save a bundle and who knows, it may get us closer to their size as well!!! xox

Many hands make light work! We know the saying, yet do we encourage this in our culture when it comes to dinner making? It’s definitely common place in S.E. Asia! I’m choosing this as the fourth topic in my series  What we can all learn from S.E. Asia!

We would be in a family restaurant and everybody was doing something! There were two teens rinsing and seeding bird’s eye peppers while laughing and chatting (seeds remained for the locals, but removed for the wimpy foreigners LOL!)  an eight year old brought up our meal with her dad, a young boy picked up our plates in a plastic tub and as you passed by the kitchen… it appeared mom, grandma and grandpa were cooking! It was really quite beautiful! This kind of family camaraderie repeated itself all throughout Thailand, Laos and Bali. It begged the question, “Is this the way it is with dinner at home as well, or is this only in a restaurant setting?”

Every time I had the chance, I would ask…who makes dinner at home? Although the answer varied…sometimes grandma, grandpa, mom or dad – the answer was also always the same…”Well, we kinda all work together!” When I dug further here’s an example of what they said. “Sometimes my grandma is helping my brother with his business, so if I get home first I will make dinner.”  Or… “Sometimes my brother will help my grandpa if  my grandma is not well,” and so on! One young girl even suggested, “You know, just like everybody does!!” I was embarrassed to admit that in Canada and the U.S. , it’s unlikely grandma is in the house at all …and chances are if a son or daughter arrive home before the parents, there’s a good chance their kids are watching TV, playing video games, or doing homework! What they probably aren’t doing is starting dinner!  I’ve always believed if we are to get healthier as a nation we need to engage our children in the dinner making process, even if each does  just one small thing! This is why I’m soooo passionate about the Kinect-Ed Program for kids in school—the kids really understand why they need to be helping out in the kitchen before mom or dad get home (even if it’s to do just a little task)! Why is working together so important? Close your eyes and imagine this…A parent walks in the door… the pots, pans and ingredients are all out on the counter and an onion is cut. Everything is ready for a parent to begin making dinner. A 12 year old cut the onion while a 10 year old pulled out all the stuff. How will the parent feel when they walk in the door? Did those small tasks make or break completion of homework? Did it take away all their down time? Each would take 5 minutes max, so I don’t think so! Now imagine the more common scenario… the 10 year old is on the phone and the 12 year old is playing a video game. Only you can fill in the blank for how that parent feels now!

About 10 years ago my husband, Ron, and I were in Vancouver for a television appearance.  The taxi driver taking us to the airport was Sikh! We loved his hybrid car, so what started as a man to man hybrid car conversation, turned into a beautiful story about his business, (turns out he owns the cab company), his wife & children and the effort it took to bring his parents to Canada to live with them in their home! Being self-centred Canadians, we asked…”How does your wife feel about your parents living under the same roof?” “Oh,” he replied, “she’s so happy now, it’s a beautiful thing! If my wife or I cannot make it home in time, my parents pick up the kids from the bus stop. My mother often gets dinner started and my dad keeps the children occupied with all the stories from back home! My children would be lost without their grandparents and so would my wife and I! ” WOW!! I can’t tell you how many times Ron and I have spoken about this beautiful man and his beautiful story! My point is this…instead of constantly dissecting other cultural foods as to which will make us slimmer—-why not dissect other cultural behaviours, such as working together as a team! 5 minutes from one + 5 minutes from another + 5 minutes from another = dinner on time  minus a whole lot of stress + a healthier diet for all!  Sounds pretty beautiful to me!!