Thursday, January 10, 2008

Schwans

My mother was very good about making sure me and my brother were prepared to live on our own when we moved away from home. I could cook and do laundry well before I graduated high school. In fact, I'm a pretty good cook and I usually enjoy doing it. But, cooking has become a bit of an issue over the last couple of years. With trying to school the kids, I often have less time than I'd like to cook. I also have lots of days where I have the time to cook, but I don't feel at all well. The answer for me: Schwan's.

Schwan's is a company that makes lots of different frozen foods and delivers them to the home, twice a week in my case. The first time I saw their catalog, I thought, "Why would I buy this stuff when I can make it myself for a lot less money?" Now I know. I buy Schwan's to save me time and still give my family a good meal. For example, tonight we had tortellini which I seasoned with olive oil and spices, and a mixed vegetable dish that I just cooked for 10 minutes in the skillet. I have three cooking/serving dishes to wash. When you compare it to a home-cooked meal, it definitely cost more. But, since the actual alternative is eating out or getting take-out, the cost is pretty reasonable.

Between my good old crock pot, my new pressure cooker, and Schwans, I hope to be able to give my family a good, balanced dinner most nights of the week. And, even if I don't get to a full shopping trip, the Schwan's delivery comes every other week. Yet another adventure in my life of domesticity.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've never used Schwan's but I've seen their advertising. Like you, I don't have much time to cook with a 6mo and all. I make it a point to cook with the crock pot ALOT! I went to www.flylady.net and checked out the crockpot recipes there. I cut and pasted the ones I thought we would like into a word document and printed them out. I haven't tried them all but most of the ones I have tried have been wonderful and very easy to make. One of favorites is taking a whole chicken and pouring a bottle of Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce----let it cook all day and put the meat on sandwich buns (we go for healthy wheat). I think C could eat this all the time! And I found an excellent pot roast recipe on there also-----C thinks it's a close runner-up to your moms (not exactly as good, but VERY close he says). Anyway, if you have time you may want to try some of them. I like the recipes where I just dump the ingredients and let it cook all day. I then use my Pampered Chef brown plastic steamer pot to steam baby carrots or broccoli in the microwave (8 minutes tops)----or I add a salad. The biggest time saver for me has been to plan my meals out for the entire week. This is what flylady recommends and I always thought, how could that really make a difference? It makes a huge difference for me-----I no longer an scrambling around last minute looking for something to cook. Plus---it allows me to use my crock pot, which I have sitting on my counter at all times (it replaced my coffee maker which never got used since I stopped drinking caffeine). Anyway, let me know if you run across a good, but easy recipe. I'm always looking for those!!!!