When we first started traveling, food was simply part of the experience. We wanted to try new restaurants, sample local specialties, grab a few snacks along the way, and enjoy ourselves. Whether something was particularly healthy did not really enter into the equation. Over time, that changed. We started paying more attention to our weight and wanted to maintain the progress we had made at home while traveling with our diet goals. This lead to a surprise fix for our problem with travel and diet.

First instinct; Eat healthier.

That seemed like the obvious answer, but it created a problem. The more we tried to make every meal a healthy choice, the less enjoyable some of those meals became. We would eat something that looked like the responsible choice, still feel unsatisfied, and then find ourselves compensating with snacks or treats later.

Eventually, we realized we were solving the wrong problem.

Instead of trying to make every meal healthy, we needed to understand how the food we were eating fit into the entire day.

We, to this day, have a tough time with the word “healthy” for the reasons we will discuss.

First, We Figured Out What We Actually Needed

The first step was figuring out our approximate daily calorie needs. That gave us a baseline and made it possible to start making decisions based on something more useful than whether a food had a reputation for being healthy.

From there, we stopped thinking about food as good or bad. We started looking at the basic breakdown of a meal: calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fat.

For a while, we tracked what we ate. The goal was not to track everything forever. We wanted to learn what a particular portion looked like and get better at estimating calories when we did not have exact information. Our experiment was simply to figure out how much we ate when we ate out.

That exercise led to one of the more surprising discoveries in our travel diet.

Healthy Can Mean More Calories, Temptation

Fried chicken and potato wedges from a gas station could fit our goals much better than a Cobb salad at a restaurant.

Obviously, that does not mean fried chicken is healthier than a salad. The point was that the label “healthy” told us very little about how much we were actually eating. A Cobb salad can come with cheese, bacon, avocado, dressing, and a large portion. The fried chicken and potatoes might be a much more predictable amount of food.

Once we understood that, we stopped asking whether something was healthy and started asking whether it worked for the day we had planned.

That was a much more useful question.

The Trap We Had Fallen Into

Trying to eat healthy while traveling created another problem that took us a while to recognize.

We were often overeating because the meals themselves were not particularly satisfying.

A lighter meal might leave us thinking about food an hour later. After spending the meal making what felt like the responsible choice, it was also easy to justify a treat afterward. The result was sometimes a healthy meal followed by snacks that we would not have eaten if we had simply had a more satisfying meal in the first place. Yeah, that is the lizard brain at work which is a real problem for many of us.

It’s Not Exercise, It Is Fatigue Talking

Travel added another complication: we had to get better at distinguishing actual hunger from being tired.

After a long day of driving or flying, it is easy to interpret fatigue as hunger even though you may have sat all day. On a day when we had been hiking or walking around a city for hours, however, the extra hunger was real. We found, those situations could feel remarkably similar even though our bodies had very different caloric needs.

The other major problem was that we were not planning.

When we waited until we were hungry to figure out what we were going to eat, the available options made the decision for us. Maybe there was a fast-food restaurant nearby. Maybe the only convenient option was a large restaurant meal. Either way, we were making a food decision at exactly the point when we had the least patience for making a good one.

We needed to plan before we were hungry.

The Fix Was Planning, Not Restriction

Before a trip, we started looking at what each day would involve. A day spent hiking called for something different than eight hours in a car. A day spent walking around a city called for something different than an afternoon sitting by the pool.

That gave us a rough idea of how much food we were likely to want, but it also helped us decide where we wanted to spend those calories.

We started planning meals before we left, while we still had the luxury of being thoughtful about our choices.

Just as importantly, we put everything on the menu.

Chips were on the menu. Jerky was on the menu. Granola bars were on the menu. Grocery store fried chicken was on the menu. So were beer, wine, and ice cream.

Consistent Calories, Not Health Food

The difference was that we knew roughly what those foods represented in terms of calories.

That made some foods that we might normally consider less healthy” incredibly useful for travel. Chips and jerky are easy to carry, do not require a restaurant, and can be portioned into a known number of calories. Having those foods available meant we could keep moving without reaching the point where we were desperately hungry and willing to eat whatever was in front of us.

The indulgent foods also served a purpose. A bag of chips or some jerky might not be the most nutritionally impressive meal, but it could give us a predictable amount of food while leaving room for something we really wanted later.

We Stopped Trying To Be ‘Good’ Every Day

Another change was realizing that every day of a trip did not need to have the same food strategy.

Some days could include a great dinner, drinks, or dessert. On other days, we could keep things simple with our snacks, a straightforward breakfast, and an easier dinner.

That approach worked better than trying to be disciplined at every meal. A day of simpler food gave us room for an indulgent meal later. Conversely, after a big restaurant dinner, there was no reason to make the next morning another food event.

This also meant we could enjoy treats without feeling like we had blown our calorie goals.

If we had kept our food fairly simple during the day, there might be room for ice cream in the afternoon. Knowing that the ice cream was part of the plan made it easier to enjoy it without turning the entire day into an unplanned eating spree.

Hotel Breakfast Became Our Easy Win

Hotel breakfast was another tool we started using more deliberately.

It was not necessarily the most exciting meal of the trip, but that was exactly what made it useful. WE could chose our portions and options from what was there. Over time, we found these breakfasts were pretty routine across hotel chains. We generally knew what would be available, and we could put together a predictable breakfast without spending much time or money figuring out where to eat.

That gave us a known calorie supply to start the day and left more flexibility for lunch and dinner. Sometimes, we could use them to grab some fruit to take for the day ahead as well.

Not every meal needed to be memorable. We were traveling to experience the destination, not to make every breakfast an event.

We Planned Dinner Before We Were Hungry

Dinner planning made an even bigger difference.

Rather than waiting until we were hungry and then looking for somewhere to eat, we would research restaurants the night before. Reviews helped us narrow down the options, while photos gave us a surprisingly useful idea of portion sizes.

Restaurant descriptions can only tell you so much. Seeing the actual plate gave us a better sense of whether we were looking at a modest meal or enough food for two or three people.

By the time dinner arrived, we already had an idea of where we wanted to go and what we might order.

That removed a lot of the decision-making that happens when you are hungry, tired, and standing in an unfamiliar part of town.

We Planned Our Drinks Too

Drinks were another place where calories could sneak up on us.

Buying beer or wine from a grocery store gave us a much better idea of what we were consuming than ordering whatever happened to sound good at a restaurant or bar. It also helped us avoid turning a couple of drinks into a surprisingly large calorie expense.

There was another benefit: it usually cost less.

The goal was never to eliminate drinks. We simply wanted them to be a deliberate part of the trip rather than something we added without thinking.

The Unexpected Result

The irony was that eating a little less “healthy” helped us manage our weight better while traveling.

First, it cut costs because we were not relying on restaurants for every meal. Second, it controlled calories because we knew what we were eating before we got hungry. Most importantly, we still ate food that felt fun and different from what we normally ate at home.

Nothing about the approach required us to go hungry.

We also did not feel cheated. These were not our everyday meals, and we were not trying to recreate our normal routine while traveling. We were making room for the things we wanted to experience.

That could mean fried chicken one day, a great restaurant dinner the next, or ice cream in the middle of the afternoon.

The important part was that those choices fit into the overall plan.

What We Actually Fixed

Looking back, our original mistake was thinking that eating well meant making the healthiest possible choice every time we were hungry.

Travel taught us that a better approach was to think about the entire day.

We learned how much food we actually needed and got better at recognizing the difference between being hungry and simply being tired from a long drive or flight.

Planning ahead made a bigger difference than we expected. We could decide where to spend our calories before we were hungry, keep convenient foods with us, and look at restaurant portions before choosing where to eat.

Even our drinks and treats became part of the plan. Rather than feeling like we were breaking the rules, we knew when we had room for something we wanted.

Evolution Not Revolution

None of that sounds particularly revolutionary.

The surprising part was what happened when we put it all together.

Our calorie intake stayed relatively stable. Our weight stayed where we wanted it. We spent less money. And we got to eat plenty of food that was more interesting than the meals we would normally make at home.

In the end, we did not need a perfect travel diet.

We needed a travel diet that accounted for the fact that we were traveling.

Once we stopped trying to eat “perfectly” and started planning how we wanted to spend our calories, we found that we could enjoy the food, enjoy the trip, and still come home in roughly the same place we left.

The post The Surprise Fix To A Bad Travel Diet first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

The best time to do something is not always when we want the outcome. It is when the conditions make the work possible. A realization we discovered but did not really understand that at first. This post elaborates on our previous post here.

We were thinking about summer and what we wanted. Plans included a garden that would be producing vegetables. The smoker would be running. We would have fish and meat preserved for later in the year to cut down on cooking. It was an appealing picture: spending the warmer months enjoying the things we had grown, caught, and prepared ourselves.

Then we started thinking through what that actually required. That was when we realized something obvious that we had somehow missed.Some of the things we wanted most in summer needed to happen long before summer arrived.

We Realized We Needed To Work Backwards

Smoking meat in the middle of summer sounded great until we remembered that a smoker creates heat. Standing outside next to a smoker on a hot summer day, adding more heat to the house and the surrounding area, was not exactly the experience we were imagining.

The result belonged in summer but the work did not.

The same thing happened with the garden. If we wanted fresh vegetables in the summer, summer was not when the garden started. The planning happened during the colder months. Seeds needed to be selected. Beds needed to be prepared. Structures needed to be repaired. Decisions needed to be made before the first warm days arrived.

The summer garden was the visible result of work that happened when the conditions were better suited for preparation.That was the moment we started seeing a pattern.

Maybe we had been looking at activities backward? The the question was not simply, “What do we want to do?” Maybe the better question was, “What conditions need to exist for this thing to happen well?”

We Started Paying Attention

The more we paid attention, the more we saw this idea everywhere. The world around us is constantly changing.

• Weather changes.
• The amount of daylight changes.
• Temperature changes.

We also realized during the year that

• Our energy levels changes.
• Daily responsibilities change.
• Short and long term goals change.

Those changes are not necessarily problems to solve. They are information.

For a long time, we treated conditions as something to work around. If we wanted something badly enough, we assumed we should be able to make it happen regardless of what was going on around us. Sometimes that is true. There are certainly times when persistence matters. But there are also times when we make things unnecessarily difficult because we are ignoring the conditions that surround us.

The Work May Not Be Wrong, The Timing May Be.

We already understand this in many areas of life. Farmers do not plant because they are impatient to see the harvest. They plant when the conditions give the plants the best chance to grow. Athletes do not train the same way every day of the year. Their goals require different phases of preparation.

Consider an Olympic skier does not approach July the same way they approach competition season. The goal remains the same, but the work changes. There is a time for building strength, a time for refining technique, a time for competition, and a time for recovery.

Their short term goals change over the year due to seasonal changes. They are paying attention to them and being optimized for their fall and winter peak. They understand that progress depends not only on effort, but on applying the effort at the right time.

Fish Have Seasons Too…

Fishing was another place where this idea became clear. Technically, yes, we can fish all year. But not every fishing trip serves the same purpose.

A cold spring Chinook trip can produce an incredible fish for meals. There is nothing wrong with that. But it may not be the trip we are most excited about. It can be one of the worst trips weather wise which is completely ruins the joy of fishing for fishing’s sake. There are times when the weather is right, the days are longer, and being on the water simply feels like where we want to be.

There are also trips with a different purpose.

If we want smoked trout in the freezer during the winter months, that requires planning. It means recognizing when those opportunities are available and making the effort when the conditions support it. The goal is not just catching a fish that day. The goal is creating something we will appreciate later.

Once again, the outcome and the work do not always happen in the same season.

The same lesson existed in the garden.

It is easy to think of gardening as a summer activity because summer is when we see the results. The vegetables are growing, ripening, and producing. You dream of fresh tastes of beans and tomatoes, maybe some carrots. Bees and flowers make the garden feel alive.

But the garden really begins much earlier.

It begins when we are sitting inside during the colder months deciding what to plant. It begins when we are preparing structures, organizing materials, and thinking through what the next growing season requires. By the time summer arrives, much of the important work has already happened.

The garden is not created in the moment we enjoy it. It is created through respecting the conditions that make each stage possible.

We found the same pattern with creative projects.

One of the things we enjoy is collecting stones and turning them into jewelry. At first, it seems like one activity. But it is really a series of activities that each fit different conditions. Finding interesting stones is best done when being outside is enjoyable. Warmer weather makes it easier to explore, collect materials, and rinse rocks outside.

Then the conditions change in a similar pattern.

• Days become shorter.
• Evenings become longer.
• Outdoor adventures slow down.

That creates the perfect environment for sitting at the workbench, cutting stones, assembling pieces, and finishing projects. The creative process did not stop. It changed forms. The conditions changed, so the work changed with them.

The more examples we found, the more we realized this was not really about hobbies. The hobbies were just where we happened to notice it first. Every pursuit has conditions where it thrives.

• A skier has them.
• A gardener has them.
• A builder has them.
• An artist has them.

A parent, a business owner, or someone learning a new skill has them. The conditions are different because the goals are different. The mistake is assuming that every day, every month, and every season should offer the same opportunities.

They do not.

Wrapping Up

We have spent a lot of time believing that progress comes from pushing harder. Sometimes it does. But sometimes progress comes from recognizing when pushing harder is simply creating more resistance.

Working with conditions does not mean choosing the easy path.

• The gardener still prepares.
• The skier still trains.
• The fisherman still gets up early.
• The craftsman still puts in the hours.

The difference is that they are not spending all of their energy fighting what is already there. They understand the environment they are working within and adjust accordingly. Maybe there is something valuable in that.

Our take away was, if we wanted to optimize our outcomes:

• Not to build a life where every season looks the same because they aren’t.
• Don’t force every activity into every part of the year if it doesn’t support it.
• Recognize what each season, each place, and each stage of life makes possible.

The conditions are already there. The question is whether we are paying enough attention to work with them.

The post Planning Early Leads To Better Outcomes first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

The problem? That moment rarely comes when or how we expect. And while we wait, life keeps moving. Dreams shrink. Health and youthful drive fade. Bad habits become muscle memory. The next chapter silently slips further away.

Many of us assume that the next chapter in life will start when it “should.” That someday, when the work slows down, the schedule clears, or a milestone arrives, life will suddenly feel easier, freer, more meaningful. We expect clarity to appear overnight, as if decades of routine will magically transform into the life we’ve imagined.

That is a trap.

We liked our work. But we also knew something simple: it wouldn’t last forever. Roles change. Energy changes. Health changes. Change is inevitable. Waiting for retirement or a distant “someday” to build the next chapter is risky—and uninspiring. We weren’t interested in sitting back and watching the days go by.

Recognizing the Trap

We’ve seen this pattern before. When we made a major career change in the past, we fell into the same mental trap most people do: thinking clarity would arrive after the leap. In reality, clarity comes from the work we do before and after a transition, not from the moment of change. That experience taught us to recognize the trap early when thinking about the next chapter.

The key lesson: your next chapter doesn’t have to wait. You don’t need to start from scratch at retirement.

Step 1: Stop Assuming Your Future Self Is a Different Person

The next chapter isn’t about reinventing yourself completely. Growth expands you, but it doesn’t erase your core interests. Your future self shouldn’t be a stranger. Pay attention to what consistently pulls you in—skills, hobbies, or projects you keep returning to.

Step 2: Take Stock and Identify the Delta

Start by listing the habits, skills, interests, and projects you’ve been consistently investing in. Then compare this inventory to the life you imagine. Where is the gap? What is missing?

The bigger the gap, the more dangerous the trap becomes. A large gap can make the future feel overwhelming, strengthening the temptation to wait for “someday” rather than act now.

Once you see the delta, you can create a focused plan of small, consistent actions to move the ball forward. That clarity prevents wasted effort on dramatic leaps and ensures progress compounds over time.

Step 3: Move the Ball Forward Every Day

If something matters enough to anchor your future, it deserves structured time in your present. Even 30 minutes a day dedicated to a skill, interest, or project compounds faster than waiting for a someday leap. Skills deepen. Confidence grows. Options multiply. That is how you avoid the Hail Mary.

Reframing the next chapter as something you build gradually takes the pressure off. The question shifts from “What will I do someday?” to “What deserves more reps this week?” That is tactical, actionable, and repeatable.

You don’t need to leave work you enjoy to prepare for what comes next. In fact, work you enjoy can fund and stabilize the next chapter if approached intentionally.

Build Your Next Chapter: 3-Step Action Framework

Step 1: Stop Assuming Your Future Self Is Different

Growth expands you; it doesn’t erase your core interests. So, start by identifying the skills, habits, and projects you keep returning to.

Step 2: Take Stock & Identify the Delta

First, list what you’re already investing time in. Next, compare it to the life you want. The bigger the gap, the more dangerous the “someday” trap becomes. Then, focus on small, consistent actions to close that gap.

Step 3: Move the Ball Forward Every Day

Even 30 minutes a day compounds faster than waiting for “someday.” Over time, building gradually, measuring progress, and iterating creates real momentum. Finally, reframe the question: “What deserves more reps this week?”

At this point, you’ve already begun taking actionable steps toward your next chapter. But there’s another trap that can quietly undermine progress if left unexamined.

Avoid the “It Will Be Better When” Trap

The real trap is the phrase “It will be better when we…”

• Retire
• Have more time
• Are focused on ourselves

Ultimately, time does not create clarity. Action does.

To get started, consider a simple filter:

• Find what you already spend time on that could scale?
• What skill are you quietly building?
• What interest keeps resurfacing year after year?
• Where can you commit to little, consistent progress instead of a future leap?

Chances are, that is already your next chapter in early form.

Build a Next Chapter You’ll Actually Enjoy

Wrapping Up

Your next chapter should not feel like a stranger. It should feel like a more developed version of who you already are. However, if it feels disconnected from your current habits and interests, reassess the vision. The goal is alignment, not escape.

We recognized that attempting a ‘Hail Mary’ pass into the end zone at the last minute is a trap. That is how we used to think of our future. Instead, we are moving the ball now, a few yards at a time. Measured risk. Compounding effort. So, start moving the ball today. Your next chapter doesn’t have to wait for a distant someday—it’s being built in the choices you make now.

The Future:
Don’t imagine it-
-Build It

The post How to Break the Golden Years Trap first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

But what if you don’t want a giant privacy wall in your yard? What if you want to keep the deer out while still enjoying your view? In the spirit of previous posts, we needed to learn to make something work rather than keep buying detternts.

How High Can Deer Jump?

Deer are surprisingly athletic, and most adult deer can easily jump a 6-foot fence. If they’re motivated (and the landing area is safe), some can clear heights up to 8 feet according to the NCWRC. Deer usually will not jump a 6-foot fence, but they can clear an 8-foot fence on level ground if properly motivated. Because of this ability, a 7- to 8-foot fence is generally recommended.

The problem?

Lumber is expensive, tall fences can block your view, and building something that high takes time, effort, and money. Also, once built, maintenance of wood fences, especially in wetter climates, is problematic.

A Simpler, Cheaper Solution: The Invisible Deer Fence

There’s an alternative that works beautifully for most gardens and smaller landscapes: an invisible deer fence made from 8-foot garden stakes and heavy-duty fishing line.

Here’s how it works:

• Use 8-foot garden stakes (metal or other high-strength types) spaced 8–10 feet apart around the perimeter of the area you want to protect.
• String 300-lb test clear fishing line around the stakes at two or three different heights — typically 2 feet, 4 feet, and 6 feet off the ground.
• Place the fence 2–3 feet away from the plants or garden beds the deer want to eat.

Because the fishing line is nearly invisible, the deer can’t see it. When they walk into it or try to push through, the line confuses them. They can feel the barrier but can’t understand what’s stopping them. That’s usually enough to deter them entirely.

Why It Works

Deer rely heavily on both sight and hearing for their depth perception and caution. Because their eyes are on the side of their head, their depth perception isn’t great. They don’t like entering areas where they can’t clearly see boundaries or escape routes. The invisible barrier triggers that natural wariness. After one or two attempts, most deer decide it’s not worth the effort and move on.

Benefits of a Fishing Line Deer Fence

• Inexpensive: Costs a fraction of traditional wood or wire fencing.
• Unobtrusive: Keeps your view open and your yard looking natural.
• Easy to maintain: If a line breaks, it’s quick to repair or replace.
• Versatile: Works well around trees, vegetable gardens, and ornamental beds.
• Greener: Fewer materials needed

The Drawbacks

We’re the first to say this type of fence is not perfect. This setup won’t necessarily keep deer off your entire property; it will only keep them out of the specific areas you fence in. For many homeowners, that’s actually a plus — deer can still roam through, but your favorite plants stay safe.

It is also not a barrier to those other pesky critters we love and hate: squirrels, rabbits, etc. This style of fence is designed to create a perimeter around areas such as raised beds, ornamental shrubs, and even trees.

This type of barrier works best when we have select blocks or strips of land to protect. For example, it isn’t going to stop a ravenous herd that has no other food source than your large-scale commercial orchard.

Wrapping Up

You don’t need to sacrifice your view or your budget to keep deer out of your garden. With a few garden stakes, strong fishing line, and some simple planning, you can create a nearly invisible barrier that protects your plants while keeping your landscape open and natural.

A deer fence doesn’t have to be a wall. Sometimes, the best defense is the one you can’t even see.

The post How To Make A Simple Deer Fence first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

The medical, health, and fitness communities rely on data to determine a person’s peak health and optimal weight. To make things easier to find, we highlighted some of the most essential tools and formulas and pointed you to resources for digging deeper.

That said, anyone who’s spent time in health and fitness knows that trends come and go. Further, these tools and formulas focus on large populations, not always matching an individual’s goals. New theories, tools, and approaches constantly emerge, so we must continually revisit and refine what we know.

Disclaimer

Before diving in, here are the axioms that drive our statement that each tool is a single lens on where you are in meeting your goals, not who you are. 

• Each human being is a different living, breathing organism. 
• Every health organization and government must try to set standards that are the broadest for all people. 

Also, we aren’t here to judge these openly. We aim to discuss what each is attempting to ascertain, how it tracks it, and how it provides insight into your personal goals. Now on to the tools!

Body Mass and Composition

So, like us, you are curious and want to understand your body weight and makeup. These tools help answer questions like “Am I heavy for my size?” or “How much of my weight is muscle, fat, or bone?” They do this by measuring parts of your body and comparing them.

• BMI or Body Mass Index Calculator: A calculator for adults to gauge if they are over-/or underweight. 

• Skin Fold Test: This test uses calipers to measure specific skin folds to determine a person’s muscle-to-fat ratio.

• WHR or Waist to Hip Ratio Test: Another body composition test that relies on a difference in the circumference of someone’s waist relative to their hips. 

• Dunk or Hydrostatic Weighing Test: This test uses your buoyancy to determine your body composition. It uses Archimedes’ principle to make its determination.   

Calorie Intake and Consumption

• BMR or Base Metabolic Rate: A calculator that estimates the total number of calories your body burns daily at rest. Rest means eating, sleeping, and performing normal respiration and blood pumping. 

• TDEE or Total Daily Energy Expenditure: This formula is roughly BMR with activity added. That being said, activity is also not a standard because it is based on you and your current state of conditioning or fitness. 

• DRI or Daily Required Intake: DRI is BMR calories broken down into fats, proteins, carbohydrates, macronutrients, etc., according to the USDA MyPlate.gov standard. 

But Wait, There’s More!

We didn’t get into activity calculations, such as the RPE (Rate or Perceived Energy) Scale for perceived exertion, nor Bone Density scans, such as DEXA (sometimes called DXA), to determine body composition. Why? We wanted to focus on those most available to the average person just looking for basic guidance, like we were. 

An Important Point To Note

Remember that post on serving size we wrote? Yes, take a look at your BMR and TDEE. You may find that you are not what the USDA terms the ‘average’ person who needs x calories daily. This is where most problems with weight management start for people. Once you have done some research, you will find your number.

Wrapping Up;

This post collects a variety of tools commonly used to guide weight and health management. Each can be helpful, but each has pros and cons. We aren’t here to decide what’s right for you, but if you choose to use them, remember to research them. None of these tools is an authority on you unless you fall into the exact ‘average’ they are targeting. Instead, see them as valuable tools, helping you shape and refine your approach to your goals.

The post The Truth About Fitness Calculators first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

Setting Up our Goals

To begin with, we got honest about our goals, which was an outcome of reviewing our habits. After some conversations and ideating, we made a list of our 3 to 6-month goals with attainable outcomes. Achievable and actionable goals are key to driving real, attainable outcomes. These items went into a spreadsheet. It wasn’t easy because we had to be honest about trade-offs and priorities.

In that process, we found that there are things we think we want to do and things we will do. Many of us have things we say we want but will never achieve because we cannot take action or are unwilling to suffer for them. We may want to be rock stars or master gardeners, which takes time and energy. 

If we pursue those goals, we must trade off other things we want to expend energy on. By focusing on what we wish to in a measurable and actionable way, we make sure we focus our energy on things we won’t simply drop just because something got ‘hard’. Unfortunately, growth isn’t easy, but by focusing on actionable items, you can prove that you are progressing due to your effort.

Buckets of Hours for Balance

We assigned each goal a bucket of hours each week. Those buckets of hours allow us to stay balanced and manage multiple goals simultaneously. We are rarely engaged in one single goal at a time. There will usually be an attempt to attain various goals simultaneously. 

Even if you want to be an Olympic athlete, you will not be training every minute of the day. You will also need to build your brand, do interviews, and find a way to earn income later. The sport may be the primary focus, but it can’t always be the only thing you can focus on. 

Before the week starts, we put what we will work on on the sheet and tie those items to the larger goals. We then estimate each item to make sure it can make it happen. Further, we make sure the goals are attainable that week. We can’t plant a garden if the weather isn’t expected to cooperate. This work creates an actionable weekly plan with no foreseeable blocking dependencies.

Logging our Time

Every day, we ‘bill’ our time against the tasks we have for that week, just like any other project. We log this for every day we work on one of the tasks. To be realistic, we also bill our daily duties, such as making dinner, doing dishes, or even going to the gym. Let’s face it: those things also take time and limit our capacity for the bigger goals.

As the week goes on, we add notes about wins, losses, and learnings as things progress. These become items to review every Friday to gauge how the week went. Our time logging creates a data-based way of determining how things are proceeding. 

 If something happens and we can’t get through an item, we want to ensure it doesn’t keep recurring. If it happens repeatedly, it is feedback that it is not actionable or can’t be done right now due to some dependency.

Celebrate the Wins

We have learned that we must also celebrate our wins if something has gone well. If we have made a huge gain or overcome a hurdle, we want to recognize and reward ourselves; otherwise, working towards long-term goals can feel like an overwhelming slog. If you’re going to become a great baker, you want to make sure you recognize when you have made something great so you know how to repeat it. 

The point here is that we want to remove the stigma of failure. By documenting learnings, we see how we are growing, while celebrating wins, we see our progress. This helps us through positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement, which can lead to cognitive biases like Survivor’s Bias that block our growth.

This approach has made us feel more productive and focused. This isn’t a new concept per se. We do Scrum events in software engineering to help teams build their products. Initially, that is where the idea of our personal time card started, but it is not what it has become.

An Actionable Feedback Loop

Our timecard has become a constant feedback loop that helps us address the question, ‘Am I doing everything possible to achieve what I want and what is truly important to me?’ That question can be tricky to answer when we are the judge and jury looking at our performance. It always feels like more must be done, which isn’t always actionable or possible.

A timesheet that tracks progress toward our personal goals gives us a practical gut check and a way to examine our approach to goals and the trade-offs between them. We have real numbers to look at when we ask ourselves if I am doing enough about <x> or should focus more on <y> this week. It then becomes much more about data than about emotional context or mood.

What, No Example?

No, we are not going to give an example. Why? We don’t want to focus on the tools. You can take notes on a whiteboard, a Google calendar, an Excel spreadsheet, or even sticky notes. The point is that the tools don’t matter, but the process does. All you need to do to succeed is:

• Create a set of actionable goals you want to work towards.
• Create a bucket of hours for each.
• Log your time daily.
• Have a win, a learning, or a failure? Take a note!
• Review once a week to celebrate what got done and learn from what went wrong.

Wrapping Up

We know punching a clock can feel tedious. However, we have found this approach a huge help. While your mileage may vary, it has been beneficial for us in balancing our march toward multiple goals. It has helped us realize where we want to be and, more importantly, how to estimate our progress.

The post How To Be Successful Via A Time Card first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

You can easily quantify how much you weigh or how much money you make. Some goals that maximize your potential are not as easy as they seem to quantify. For example, ‘I want to be in good shape’, but putting a pin in for an outcome is hard. Because of those challenges, we decided to take a different approach to how we viewed success, blocks, and missteps via habits.

How This Idea Came About?

It was simple. We were looking for new hobbies during the winter when the weather wasn’t conducive to our regular sports and traveling. Being frugal and conscious of waste, we didn’t want to do things to keep busy. We had a few conversations back and forth about things we wanted to do, but we were worried about cost and space. 

In one of those conversations, we realized we didn’t want another hobby to do another ‘thing. ‘ There had to be more to it than simply entertaining ourselves. Those activities aren’t bad, but we have enough of them. It had to be something that created value in our lives. 

Value Add was Key

The idea of creating value stuck. Value was the key to unlocking a more philosophical approach to all our activities. As we refined this idea, we saw larger implications of that approach. Value was tangible even if it wasn’t easily quantifiable. As with any investment, we wanted to understand how we would be rewarded so we could rank our activities. If you spend time doing something, you want to be rewarded by it in return. The better the return, the larger the reward.

We decided to start ranking our activities by value. Did we get the same value out of watching a movie that we did out of going to the gym? What was the investment for each time? How did the outcomes of doing the activity benefit us? We started to realize that not all activities benefit us. Some activities we found valuable, but they were more maintenance than fun hobbies. 

Out of this, the three habits were born. So what are they?

The Three Habits of Us All

There are three habits all of us have. That is not a judgment because what you value and do is up to you. We only label them to help us define ourselves. The habits are:

• Creation: Habits that create something.
• Stability: Habits that maintain our current state.
• Waste: Habits that have negative sides to them.

Let’s get to defining them.

Habits of Creation

These things we do add value to our lives by creating new things for ourselves. If you garden and grow vegetables to eat, then gardening is a habit of creation for you. You will usually gain something from sitting on the couch and reading a book. That makes reading a habit of creation for you. You practice a creation habit whenever you seek an opportunity to advance a goal. 

Habits of Stability

We must follow these habits, but may not enjoy them or create something new. For example, cleaning the house every week is necessary, but may not add additional value to your life. Another example may be going grocery shopping, which is required to eat. Essentially, any time you perform maintenance or routine tasks necessary to support your life, you practice a habit of stability. 

Habits of Waste

Habits of waste are things we do that create waste. When you go out to eat, only eat half and throw the rest away; you waste food and money. If you have a gym membership, go three times a week, and never push yourself, you get nothing for your time and money. That is what we would call creating waste. Sounds a bit preachy, right?

We’re not Preaching! It is—not—about preaching. It is about honestly identifying areas where we waste our time. Why? Because those areas don’t add value, they still cost us and keep us from doing things we value more. They are, however, sometimes necessary as a tradeoff.

Let’s examine when they are necessary.

You may need to eat out if you are busy working all week, spend your entire Saturday doing yard work, or take the kids to soccer practice. It may be that the only option to eat out is somewhere that serves a larger portion size than you want. Could you have made dinner? Sure! But in this case, you are spending so much of your time with habits of creation that you need to balance them with some waste to stay productive and possibly sane. 

That’s How We Use Them

We use these to review a week or even a year to gauge how things are going. Did we spend more time in habits that created waste, or did we spend more time in habits of creation? Are we balancing the three? When we plan a week and look at the tasks ahead of us, what is the ratio of each outcome of our actions? 

TL;DR: Are we making headway, staying stable, or stuck in a destructive pattern? 

This also applies to longer-term goals. Not all goals are quantifiable or quickly reachable, and life is not linear. Just because we want to do something doesn’t mean something won’t block our path. Things like health, family, and economics are external forces that can hinder our short-term progress. We don’t always control those events but can control how we react. 

The Negative Cycle That These Avoid

The biggest challenge for many of us is recognizing progress. Learning and growing can be frustrating and even painful processes. Many times, to succeed, you must know by failure. When focused on the short term, those failures can lead us to feelings of negativity. We are wired for negativity, and that wiring protects us in the short term. To succeed and grow, we need mechanisms to rewire us to see opportunities. Canonizing these three habits can help us with that rewiring. 

When we try and fail, it is easy for us to assume we learned nothing. Worse yet, there are times in life when we can lose track of our gains due to the duration or challenges of our goals. I will never be an Iron Chef; however, I did learn to cook and do meal planning. It was not a linear progression of learning. There were times I filled the house with acrid smoke, and we ended up going out for fast food.

I was, and always will, be learning. That failure and the lessons learned from it could have been wasteful. In these cases, my ‘Habit of Creation’ is to note what went wrong, why, and how to avoid it the next time. In that act, we take something that was a waste and make it something that creates learning. 

Progress Indicators

Because life and learning aren’t linear, it isn’t always easy to know if we are succeeding in our goals. When we review progress on our goals, we look at what is trending. Seeing more of the week or month with more Creation than Waste indicates that we are progressing, even if we have another year or more to accomplish our goals. This is what some would call ‘working a plan’. 

If life forces a pause due to financial, medical, or other external forces, we may see an uptick in our Stability over Creation. That is still a positive outcome over waste. Sometimes, we might have to wait and see what little we can do alone. For example, economic downturns are not something you, as an individual, can do anything about. What is important is that you can keep a positive mental picture by being able to see what you are doing to stabilize yourself and reduce waste.

Our Check In

We keep a log occasionally, especially when unsure of our progress. Every week, we take 15 minutes to write out 2-3 of each habit we have acted on. For example, we might have done research that turned into a blog post. Out of that research came learning. Maybe we planted a garden but underestimated the time needed to do that activity, so we ate out. Out of that, maybe there was a mix of waste and creation. 

Over time, we want to see a more create-than-waste trend. If we know no stability, we probably let some things go that we shouldn’t. While we don’t love doing maintenance work, sometimes we must stop and change our lawn mower’s oil. Maintenance doesn’t stop there. It may also mean doing a portfolio tune-up to ensure your financial goals are met. Stability comes in many shapes and sizes. 

Wrapping Up

We discussed three types of habits to help guide our definition of progress. By canonizing tasks into Habits of Creation, Stability, and Waste, we can help measure our progress. We can use these as a reality check when we feel we aren’t making progress or learning. It is easy to get discouraged without feedback on successes. These tools can help us define success and overcome that problem to stay focused and positive, or make changes so that we can be.

The post How To Build A Road To Better Habits first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

Why Make It?

People post recipes that usually lead with claims like lower cost, more natural ingredients, fewer preservatives, or other health perks. We’re skipping that because our focus lies elsewhere. What we wanted was to be able to create things from scratch and tailor them to what we liked. As a result, like our bread recipe, we wanted a place to put the instructions so we could find them. That is what this blog post is. 

Our Peanut Butter Can Be Any Nut Butter

We may be talking about peanut butter, but technically, you can make your version with different nuts. It is the same process. We don’t only use peanuts in ours because we want a different depth of flavor. As an aside, the US does have standards for when to call something a spread or a butter. The tl;dr is here, and the more extended version is here. After making and eating a lot of nut butters, I am not a fan of these categorizations. 

Why aren’t we fans? Because we break nut butters into three types that don’t come from factories.

• First, you’ll find the basic grind at many local supermarkets. It’s usually just nuts, coarse, and in our experience, nearly impossible to spread.
• Then there’s the ultra-smooth kind—more like a sauce or jelly—that comes from high-oil nuts (or added oil) and long processing times.
• We want something in between: butter that spreads easily but still holds some firmness and texture—not as firm or creamy as Jif or Skippy. We appreciate those for what they are, but they lack the depth of flavor and homemade texture we’re after.

 It’s About the Oil Content

The final texture of nut butters comes down to how long you process them and how much oil the nuts contain. Raw ingredients aren’t always consistent—peanuts, for example, vary greatly. There are several types of peanuts and different methods for roasting them. Since peanuts are a crop, their characteristics depend on where and how they grow. That means oil content and texture can differ from batch to batch.

Our recipe uses a standard roasted, non-salted supermarket bulk peanut. We also add a bit of pecans to add depth of flavor. Want less oil? Use a dry-roasted peanut with no salt added for your peanut butter. Want to roast your own? Maybe try Alton Brown’s idea in his recipe.  

The important thing is that familiarity creates success. Once you have tried something and found something you like, realize that changing the nuts can impact how oily the peanut butter is, impacting the final consistency. 

Texture is About Time

This will sound like a Captain Obvious comment, but the longer you process the peanuts, the smoother the result. What is not so obvious is that you raise the heat level as you process. If you want silky, you can process the peanuts until they release their oil and become liquified. 

When you process under 10 minutes, you will not usually see the separation. Processing means pulsing your food processor for 1 minute, then letting it rest for 1 minute. Why do this? It’s about heat. You are slowly raising the temperature of the peanuts through friction. Based on our empirical evidence, once you hit 12-14 minutes of processing, your mix will liquify. For us, that isn’t simply about time; it happens at around 120℉-130℉.  

Here is the progression over time of the peanut butter as it goes from thick to a creamy sauce.

Chunky as it first comes together.

Blended similar to buying fresh ground in a store.

Creamy as the nuts release their fat.

Why is that important? If you want thick peanut butter at room temperature, you may not want to process it as long. If you want it to be thin and spreadable, you may need to keep it in the fridge to firm up. In the latter case, you don’t want to add more than a teaspoon of oil until you have completed processing to dial in the right consistency for your needs.

Hedging Your Bets

In terms of having it get too thin once it separates, you can hedge your bets and take out some insurance using a stabilizer like guar gum. Many people have issues with an additive that stabilizes or alters food chemically. Hear us out on this one first before saying ‘t’ain’t natural to be using that’

Guar gum, made from guar beans, is a natural thickener like corn starch or arrowroot powder. The key difference is that it thickens without heat, which makes it ideal for recipes that don’t involve cooking, like peanut butter or fermented hot sauces. You can read more about it here.

Some individuals are sensitive to guar gum just like those sensitive to soy, nuts, milk, whey, or other food intolerances. However, guar gum is also a common ingredient in the food world, so you are probably already consuming it if you have had something as familiar as a pint of Ben & Jerry’s (or others) Ice Cream. We aren’t picking on them, but we use them to show how common the usage is.

Storage

Our recipe creates an easily spreadable peanut butter. The oil (fat) is drawn out of the nuts into a suspension to make it spreadable, which makes it a bit unstable. Depending on your kitchen, at room temperature, it may be too thin for you, and due to the instability, it may allow the oil to separate. We recommend storing it in the fridge after making it to allow it to thicken and solidify. This may take up to 12 hours. We would rather keep it in the refrigerator than add any shelf stabilizer to it.

Print

Smooth Peanut Butter

A recipe for a smooth Peanut or an 'Any' nut butter.

Keyword Bread, Condiment, Sandwich, Sauce, Side

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Processing Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Equipment

• 1 Food Processor
• 1 Spatula

Ingredients

• 12 oz Roasted Peanuts
• 2 oz Roasted Pecans You can use all peanuts but this will create a different depth of flavor.
• 2 tsp Kosher Salt Use more or less to your liking.
• 1 tsp Peanut Oil You may need more based on the oil content of your nuts.
• 3 tbsp Honey Use more or less to your liking.
• 1/2 tsp Guar Gum Optional

Instructions

• Gather all ingredients before you start.
• Place all dry ingredients in a Food Processor
• Process for 1 minute, let rest for 1 minute. We are using this to process / rest interval to control how we raise the temperature.
• Process for 1 minute as you drizzle in the oil and honey mix, then rest for 1 minute.
• Sample flavor and adjust salt and honey to taste.
• Continue to process for 1 minute / rest 1 minute 8-10 more times.
• The temperature should slowly come up to 120-130 Fahrenheit.
• At this point, you should have a major consistency change as the fats liquify. If not, continue to pulse/rest a few more times until you see it seperate.
• Add oil to adjust the consistency to liking.
• Place in jar and set in fridge to firm up. It may take up to 12 hours to fully solidify.

Wrapping Up

This post provides the basics for making a simple homemade creamy peanut or nut recipe. You can experiment with nuts, sweeteners, and consistency to tailor the recipe to your liking. For example, walnuts and maple syrup create a great nut butter with a different flavor profile to spread on apple slices in the fall.

The post How To Make Peanut Butter first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

A Tale of Two Leavenings

What makes bread rise is pretty simple. It is a mix of expanding gases and how much structure, traditionally gluten, has been developed in the bread. Not enough gases or gluten, and bread doesn’t rise. Oddly enough, too much gas may allow the bread to rise, but more like a balloon than having a great crumb. This is how Choux pastry works, which is a terrible dough for bread. On the other hand, too much gluten and the air can’t create enough pressure to lift the dough.

 Leavened bread is any bread that rises via a leavening agent. In an over-simplification, we will say there are two types of leavening that produce the proper gases to help the dough rise; chemical and yeast. We use the term gases to cover everything from steam to carbon dioxide. Let’s take this one definition further. Chemically leavened breads are generally classified as quick breads. Examples of quick breads are pancakes, muffins, and banana bread. 

Yeast breads are those that are leavened by way of critters and a byproduct of their binge eating. Yeast consumes sugar and turns starch into sugar to consume it next. The byproduct of their consumption is alcohol, carbon dioxide, and organic acids. That yeast may come in several forms, but it is all basically critters having a big ol’ party that makes your bread rise. 

But Chemicals Are Bad!

Ok, yes, we know, the word chemical scares people. The word chemical, in our context here, is not some crazy concoction made by some multinational conglomerate bent on world destruction by way of your GI tract. Chemical leavening is the natural reaction of things like acids and bases that create expanding gases in the same way a school science project volcano does. If you use baking soda and baking powder, you are making a chemical leavened bread. 

When Chemical Leavening Goes Wrong

Quick breads and other chemically leavened items generally are a bit more foolproof than getting yeast breads to rise. If you are following a known good recipe, and things don’t work out, it is probably something simple that went wrong. Since this is not a post on how to create a recipe using these two, for brevity, we will focus on what usually goes wrong.

• Old ingredients that have degraded. Baking powder and baking soda have a shelf life and can break down over time. To test them:
  • Place a small amount of baking soda in a bowl and add vinegar. If it fizzes, it is good, otherwise replace it.
  • Put hot water in a small bowl and add baking powder to it. If it fizzes, it is good, otherwise replace it. 
• Improper mixing, especially over mixing of can cause quick breads to not rise. When mixed too much, gluten forms and keeps the gases from creating lift. Pancakes are notorious for having this problem so leave some small lumps please. 
• You added or substituted something that threw off the chemical balance. Remember chemical leavening has to be a balance of acid and base to work right. If you use buttermilk over whole milk, you have changed the chemical composition of the recipe.

Yeast, The Beast

You can write a lot about yeast. Many of our most loved foods come from their digestive antics. Yeast are what create leavened bread and alcohol. This is a post about fixing things, not the yeast themselves. To do that, we need to understand a little but not a lot about them. 

Ask someone how many types of yeast there are and you will get mixed answers because they are used in so many different ways and some have brand-specific names.  To keep it simple, we will try and limit it to those used in making dough. Each type of yeast has specific qualities, which you can read about from people who know more than us. Starters such as sourdough or Bittman, are also created by yeast. They are a living, breathing, set of active critters that can be called up to help bread rise. 

Unless they are dead, or asleep, or…, or…, and yes, that is the challenge with yeast. They are somewhat temperamental and need to be alive and active or they are of no use. They also need to be treated right, or they won’t produce well like any other people who work for you. Most of the time bread doesn’t rise, it is because our little bubble makers have been done wrong. We will get to why that can happen without you knowing you did anything wrong.

The Primary Reasons Breads Fall Flat

We won’t try and give every reason bread can fail to rise, but we can cover the major reasons for it. We will explain why, and how to avoid it the next time. Here are some likely culprits.

• The yeast you used is not active or dead.
• There isn’t enough or there is too much gluten or structure in the dough.
• You didn’t let it rise long enough.
• As with yeast problems, the starter isn’t ready even though it bubbles.

These are all the core issues for bread not rising. Let’s examine each one.

In Active or Dead Yeast

This is probably the number one reason bread doesn’t rise. Yeast are a bit finicky. They may need to be woken up to work, which is known as proofing the yeast. You need to know which type of yeast you are using to know if they must be woken up first before use. Once you know that, you can look at the type and application and do a quick Google search. 

Regardless, we always proof our yeast or at least check some of it if it has been sitting, no matter which type we use. It is easy to check it is alive by putting a ¼ of a teaspoon of it in warm water to make sure it creates bubbles after a 2-3 minutes or so. Warm water brings us to the other finicky side of yeast, temperatures, and chemicals. 

What is warm water? Warm is a subjective term. Warm water means any range from 95℉ to 115℉ depending on yeast type. At 120F yeast starts dying. Think about that for a minute. Our bodies are roughly 98.6F. The difference between what is ‘warm’ to us and dead yeast is not very big. This is why we use a thermometer to check our water temps. 

Also remember that in certain areas of the world, the water supply has chemicals such as chlorine specifically designed to kill all bugs, not just bad ones. If you are having continuing problems, it may be time to look at that as a possibility. This can be fixed, usually, by using distilled or filtered water. We make bread with tap water all the time, but others aren’t always so lucky. 

Gluten and Dough Structure

Bread requires structure, which is generally formed by gluten, to trap air bubbles to allow it to rise. If not enough gluten is present, the dough won’t have enough structure to rise. If too much gluten is present, the dough also can’t rise since the air and gas pressure can’t push or pull the structure around. 

Let’s face it, most recipes also use all sorts of strange things for a definition of how bread dough should feel. It makes it hard for people new to bread making to understand when enough is enough when kneading bread. To fix this, for many breads, you can use what is known as a window pane test to get an idea of where you’re at. While this doesn’t work for all bread types, it is a good gauge to use as you teach yourself how much is enough. 

 It Didn’t Rise Enough

Yes, yeast is fickle. We have established that. It turns out they have their own schedule. Many bread recipes will tell you to allow it to rise for some stated time or until it doubles in size, or a combination of both. Time, in recipes, is a guideline not a reality. Even the idea of the bread doubling in size is technically a suggestion. 

 How much rise you can have and how fast it can happen are directly related to how active your yeast is and how much gas they can produce. That is directly related to how much food is available to them, and the temperature they are at. Simply put, yeast work faster the warmer they are up until a point. That doesn’t mean you want them going all out either. The best range for a dough rise is generally 75℉-78℉.

To improve your odds of success, it is best to do a poke test on the dough rather than simply wait and hope. When you do a poke test, you get a realistic idea of just how much rise has happened and how much the yeast has inflated the dough. This is the same way we may test a bike tire or beach ball for how inflated it is. 

Starter Didn’t Start It

A challenge that arises when using a starter is that you also have to know when that starter is ready. Just because a starter is producing bubbles doesn’t mean it is a gung ho colony of yeast ready for a mission. We realized this as we started doing sourdough. Our first loaf was dense enough to be hardtack. 

When you are just starting with some of these new items, you may not understand how bubbly that bubbly should be. Of course, again, most recipes will tell you ‘doubled in size’ for both starter and bread. That is a hard lesson to learn in both the amount of time and the ingredients wasted. 

A helpful solution for this is what is called a float test. A float test is placing a small bit of a starter into water to see if it floats. This test gives you some assurance that the starter is not only mature enough, but is at peak production before it falls back onto itself. 

Wrapping Up

Many things can go wrong in creating bread. In this post we have addressed many of the big ones. Even if these are not 100% full proof for every situation, they give you some tools to start digging into the problem. If you use them, they can help you methodically eliminate much of the noise from “What did I do wrong?”. For each item you know works with certainty, you can feel more secure in your abilities. All of this can also help reduce the wasted time and ingredients you have spent precious time and money on. 

The post It’s Easy To Fix Problems With Bread first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

Background

Many of us have heard the story of the Earl of Sandwich and his gambling that spawned the sandwich. It was bread and beef, but that is what it is today? What about the submarine, grinder, hot dog, or burrito? It turns out both the FDA and USDA  govern the definition of sandwich. Not only do they govern it, some states have their take on it. Stranger still, or maybe not, it varies from country to country with groups like the British Sandwich Association or BSA. 

All of this seems more of something to keep lawyers busy than anything to do with food. That makes it an interesting sidebar but not something that helps us. Let’s use this information to set context that we will be considering only a case of a closed sandwich rather than anything else.  What is a closed sandwich? We will call it two or more pieces of bread that contain filling between them.

Callout, You do You

We are looking to learn how we can create a perfect sandwich, and what it means to us. We are not telling people to not go out and make the sloppiest sandwich known to humanity. The same goes for restaurants that serve sandwiches or burgers the size of someone’s head. It’s not our jam but we dig others may like it. You do you. This is also why we will leave the recipes for sandwiches to someone like Alton Brown and other chefs. It was his show that spawned the idea behind the post. We wanted to dig a bit further than he did. 

Why? Who Cares?

As usual, we are doing this as much as a thought experiment for us as much as we are for others to ponder. When I order a sandwich, I don’t want to receive something that I can’t eat without a bib or knife and fork. Worse still, when I bite into a sandwich I don’t want the fillings to be shot out of the other side. In both cases, if I have to use a fork and knife to eat it, it is not a sandwich. It just feels like bad craftsmanship and a waste of food. Ok, I will step down from my soapbox now.

Still, why does that matter to others? It is very simple to us. The entire point of a sandwich was to be able to carry on something while using a single hand to eat with. Whether you fish, play cards, read during lunch, or any of a myriad of other activities, the purpose of a sandwich was to only occupy a single clean hand to consume nutrition without utensils.   

Combine that thought with the want of good food and there is the reason for why. We’re good with a baloney and cheese sandwich sometimes. Other times, not so much. A grilled cheese sandwich can be sublime in the same way a tuna sandwich can be. Where things get more complicated is, say a chicken salad on wheat. 

What makes or breaks most meals is water content. A good cook knows how to manipulate the water content of food to create something more than just palatable but enjoyable. Here is why water, and manipulating it, is so important. 

Water boils at sea level at 212℉. If you want moisture in your food, you can’t raise the temperature over that number or the food will start to dry. When water is present in food, cooking it initially produces steam, which prevents creating a crust as you would for, say, toast.  As heat penetrates the food, the outer layers’ temperatures go up and caramelization or browning via the Maillard reaction starts. The real trick is to make everything from moist fried chicken to toast to a seared yet juicy burger is about balancing water evaporation as the food cooks.

This balance of wet and dry, soft and hard drives the mouthfeel of what we are eating. In fried chicken, you get the crunchy crust around the juicy meat. In a seared burger, you taste a bit of the char with the still moist meat. With toast, we end up with a crisp caramelized surface with, depending on slice thickness, a soft center. It is in that balance where basic nutrition becomes great food.

The Balance of Structure with Wet and Dry 

Sandwiches need the same manipulation of wet and dry as any other type of food. Additionally, sandwiches must provide a structure which makes them a little more complicated. It’s this relationship that can make or break a good sandwich. Let’s put down some axioms to help us form a sandwich construction rubric.

First Axiom: The harder the bread, the more pressure exerted on the contents when bitten, but the less moisture will impact it.

Second Axiom: The softer the bread, the easier it is to bite, but it’s much more susceptible to falling apart by getting soggy with wet ingredients. 

Third Axiom: For a sandwich to stay together, the layers must provide enough friction against each other to keep the sandwich from sliding apart.

Fourth Axiom: A sandwich is not a bread bowl or bowl of any type so it should not hold ingredients that need that level of containment.

Let’s dig in a bit more on all of these.

The Big 3 

Our first axiom is about dealing with hard bread and/or toasted bread. The harder the crust of a sandwich is, the more bite pressure it takes to get through it. That pressure is then transferred to the filling of the sandwich. That is great if we have a deli-meat and cheese sandwich, which creates a flat structure.

If we add avocado on that sandwich or use that bread to make a toasted tuna fish, the results won’t be great. In sandwiches, softer ingredients don’t always play well with harder ingredients and are usually ejected from the sandwich, onto you. We need to balance how much give is left in the bread to allow it to contain the ingredients when bitten.

In the second axiom, we know that when we add wet ingredients to soft bread, it can become, well, soup, not bread. By using a firmer crust or a light toasting, we create a barrier to that moisture destroying our bread. When we toast it too much, we may, however, run into our first axiom. This can be counteracted by a thicker slice of bread, which creates a cushion for the bite pressure. 

The third axiom is no different than building a house or a high rise. When we consider a building, each level higher we go, we must make sure it is structurally sound. That means hard and soft textures need to work together to create a cohesive structure, or things will eject from the sandwich. You have probably witnessed this in action if you have ever eaten a burger with lots of sauce and leaf lettuce. If the lettuce was shredded, it would hold in place rather than make a slip and slide.

The Big Bowl

At another time in our history, people used trenchers instead of more refined service items. Yes, your bread was your utensils, bowl, etc. That is great. In the modern world, we see that a deep dish pizza is not a sandwich. Sandwiches are a form of service ware to hold your fillings. Up to a point that is fine. Where it becomes problematic is in trying to make a sandwich with items that don’t belong. Thick salsas, cherry tomatoes, olives, etc. can destroy the structure of a sandwich quickly. 

Let’s talk about types of chicken sandwiches to make the point. If you are preparing a chicken salad sandwich with lovely big chunks of chicken in slippery mayo, it will be better in a bowl than between bread. Why? Unless the bread slice is thick enough and soft enough to deform into a bowl, the ingredients will fall out.  Let’s change that to pulled chicken in BBQ sauce. If it is piled high and heavily sauced, nothing will hold it. Fry that chicken breast and you will have no problem.

Cheese as Binding Container

When it comes to hot sandwiches, cheese can do you a structural favor. By placing the cheese over all the other ingredients and melting it, you in essence, create a shell around those ingredients. This results in a sandwich that will hold tougher despite some of the axioms we have discussed. 

Wrapping Up

We discussed aspects of sandwich making to set up a rubric for more success than failures. This thought experiment hopefully helps others think through how to make tweaks to how they look at sandwiches. We also discussed why they aren’t as simple as two slices of bread and some meat or vegetables. With a bit of thinking, a simple sandwich can be elevated to a one-hand buffet over just a midnight snack. 

The post A Guide To Better Sandwiches first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.