Out of the Box Living

Freezer Cooking: Ground Beef Meals

2010-06-09T16:50:00.010-04:00

One thing that has been working really well for me over the past 2 years or so is freezer cooking. It all started when my sisters-in-law and my husband's cousin gifted me some frozen meals after my daughter was born. How wonderful it was to have meals prepped and ready to cook in the freezer! Who knew this would be the beginning of a way of life for me.

Since then, I've experimented with my freezer quite a bit. I've gone through the stage of shoving food in various stages of preparation in my freezer, only to forget about it or have no convenient use for it. This includes garden produce, meat, you name it, I've haphazardly tried to freeze it for "later." The only thing is, if later never comes, you've wasted your time and the food you lost in the freezer!

Motherhood has made me much more efficient in so many ways.  Two of them have been utilizing my freezer space and getting a good meal on the table, quickly. I now try to have a plan in mind with everything I freeze. If I freeze garden produce, it is typically for a particular use. For example, one year I froze bags of pepper strips for the heck of it, and there they were a year later, crusty with ice and unused. Now last year, I stocked up at the farmers market and froze bags of diced red and green peppers I knew I would use as a pizza topping for our frequent homemade pizza nights, in chili and in my favorite beef barley soup recipe. And I have done just that. It makes all the difference in the world when you freeze food for a purpose.  Even better, I have not bought an expensive winter pepper all year.

These days, one of my strategies has been freezing food in ready-to-go packages, to minimize day-of food preparation. Recently, I experimented with freezing cooked, unpeeled, diced potatoes using this method to use as a side dish with other freezer meals I've prepared, like marinated meat. Throw the thawed meat on the grill, the frozen potatoes in a skillet with some onions, and butter/oil, make a salad or other vegetable and you have a delicious, nutritious meal without much fuss.

Freezer cooking has become my favorite way to cook in this season of my life. Over the weekend, I took some of my frozen potatoes a step further and made several packages for the freezer of diced cooked potatoes, cooked broccoli and cooked breakfast sausage, to be used for an easy week-night dinner or brunch of egg casserole - just add eggs and milk, pour into a casserole dish and pop it in the oven. I was making this dish for us to have for brunch on Sunday anyway, so instead of making 1, why not make 4?

As you can see, I'm a big fan of doing messy or laborious preparation once and enjoying it many times over the following couple months. The funny thing is, I love to cook! Just not every meal, every day.

My plan for this coming weekend is a bunch of ground beef main dishes or parts of meals. Maybe it's my pregnancy talking, but the chicken in the freezer isn't doing it for me right now and beef sounds great! Who knows what will sound good next week. Either way, I like to have a variety of choices available to me in the freezer, and I find it most efficient to choose one main ingredient - in this case, ground beef - and make lots of variations on that. After a few cooking escapades like this, before you know it, you've got a selection of meals with beef, pork, chicken, beans, vegetarian or whatever other main ingredients you like to eat.

Here's what I'm thinking for this weekend. Ground round at our high-end grocery store is on sale, and I like to start with good ingredients; cheaper is not always better. You usually get what you pay for. Normally I would go for ground sirloin because it is leaner, but since I'll be making a combination of uncooked burger-type meals as well as cooked ground beef meals, ground round should work just fine.

         :: (4 lbs) uncooked hamburger patties - 4 packages of 1 pound each.
         :: (6 lbs) uncooked oven hamburgers (ground beef mixed with BBQ sauce, to be baked in the oven) - 4 packages of 1.5 pound each.
         :: (6 lbs) cooked meatballs (to add to spaghetti sauce) - 8 packages of 3/4 pound per package
         ::  (3 lbs) cooked ground beef (to add to spaghetti sauce) - 6 packages of 0.5 pound each
         ::  (4 lbs) cooked taco meat (using the homemade taco seasoning recipe from Make-A-Mix) - 4 packages of 1 pound each
         :: (9 lbs) cooked sloppy joe filling (fabulous recipe from Don't Panic Dinner's in the Freezer) - 6 packages of 1.5 pound each

So that works out to be 32 lbs of ground beef. Watch out, here comes the crazy lady buying 32 lbs of meat. The quizzical looks from behind the meat counter will be worth it. It will be WONDERFUL to have these meals in the freezer, ready to go. Added bonus: my "starting to become picky" toddler likes all of these foods!

Hello Out There....

2010-06-07T20:31:00.002-04:00

Hello, friends, it's been awhile. So where in the world have I been? Well, pregnant. Is that enough of an explanation? I didn't think so. I'm coming up on 6 months pregnant, and have been just exhausted for the last few months. Don't get me wrong, there have been many a blog post I have begun composing in my head as I go about my day, but when it comes time to actually get on the computer - during Molly's naptime or after she goes to bed - I've been choosing rest instead. In fact, I'm behind on all things computer, not just blogging about all the things I love to do!

That said, I'm still doing many of the things I normally talk about, I'm just not writing about them. I've been making bread and muffins (including fabulous chocolate chunk muffins) from my make-ahead mixes quite a bit, as well as gearing up for a wonderful season of fresh, organic produce. I've still been getting my bi-weekly produce delivery (which I have been getting mainly fruit) from this great company, and just received my third weekly box from the CSA I joined for the first time this year, which will provide mainly vegetables. And, in my own vegetable garden, I've planted broccoli, greens, sugar snap peas, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers and more.

What do I plan on doing with all of this produce? Good question. Normally I do lots of canning and freezing. This year, who knows. My whole life feels off-kilter when I'm pregnant, and I can already tell I'm just not on my game right now. Last year, I did a ton of canning, though I often made it happen after Molly went to bed, into the wee hours of the morning. This year... I don't think I'll be doing that. So we'll see what happens. Generally, when something inspires me to can, I do it. I'm not counting on much inspiration this year!

One exciting thing going on at our house is that it is strawberry and asparagus season in Southeast Michigan!! After a long, cold winter, it is always so wonderful to see the sun come out and the asparagus poke out of the ground. Then, a few weeks later, flowers start to appear on the strawberry plants and soon beautiful red strawberries are popping out everywhere you look. This year, the warm weather has given us strawberries about two weeks earlier than normal. Before Memorial Day, I picked a small handful of berries that didn't make it into the house. On Memorial Day, I picked just under 5 pounds of strawberries. A few days later, I picked just under 10 pounds!!! I could hardly believe it.

What ever will I do with all of those berries? Well, normally I would make plenty of jam and experiment with other recipes, but this year I might just eat them, share with friends and freeze what is left. I did borrow my mom's food dehydrator, and had dreams of experimenting with strawberry fruit leather, but lately I think it might take all the strength I can muster just to get the strawberries cleaned and into a freezer bag. So we'll see. They sure are delicious.

So, there you have it. I have major respect for all those mamas out there having babies and taking care of their families and blogging all about it. I plan to keep sharing my escapades with you... if you'll keep reading.

Homemade Play Dough

2010-04-07T13:32:00.001-04:00

Lately I've been feeling like a lame mom. Molly is 20 months old and has lots of energy. She's also at the age where she needs constant supervision and loves being by my side. While I do love the cuddles and fun, I'm a bit lazy (and frugal) when it comes to constantly having new toys for her to play with and things for her to do. I also am already sick of cleaning up our every-day messes, so projects that create more messes are less exciting to me. HOWEVER, I know that toddlers need to do fun activities and make messes, and that it is my job as momma to clean them up.

I've been wondering if it is time for her to have play dough. That can't be too messy, can it?? I don't mind spending a few dollars on the stuff from the store, but I thought, just for fun, I would try making it today.

It took all of 5 minutes, and I am pleasantly surprised at the quality. It's actually pretty awesome! I used this recipe.

Here it is with all the ingredients in the pan:

You cook it for a few minutes and magically, it starts to look like this:

Then, you take it out of the pan and knead it for less than a minute and it looks like this!

The only modification I made to the original recipe is that I didn't add vanilla. I don't need another reason for my child to want to eat this stuff. Also, I actually like the smell the way it is... it reminds me of my childhood.

Refrigerator Clean-Out: The Update

2010-03-29T11:20:00.000-04:00

Earlier this morning, I decided it was time to clean out the refrigerator. I had a couple other goals too, including making bread and some broccoli salad. Well, as usual, I bit off a little more than I could chew. I was able to almost finish cleaning out the refrigerator, and I did get the loaf of bread made.

Here it is... can you smell it through your computer? I wish you could.

I ran out of time to get the refrigerator door cleaned out and organized, but the largest part of that beastly project is done. I took everything out, cleaned the shelves, cleaned the inside of the refrigerator and the fruit and vegetable drawers. There were some scary messes in there. But it's done, hooray! I do love a clean refrigerator.

Plans for Mom's Morning Off

2010-03-29T09:28:00.001-04:00

Mondays are one of my favorite days of the week. The day where I get to have my cake and eat it too. You see, I work two days a week as a dietitian, and stay home with 20-month-old Molly the rest of the time. On Mondays, I work at 1pm, and I still send Molly to daycare in the morning. So... I get to have a morning to myself a few times per month!

Those of you who stay home with your kids totally get it. We have no free daycare options (ie family) nearby, so any time we need childcare, we have to pay for it. Thus, not a lot of breaks for mom and dad. Molly is a very active young lady, and I am not always great at getting things done that I need/want to at home. Monday mornings are one of those times I get to do "extra projects" that don't always get covered during naptime.

On today's to-do list:

- bake bread (it's rising in the bread machine)

- make broccoli salad (my pregnant self can't stand cooked vegetables right now)

- CLEAN OUT THE REFRIGERATOR!

You saw the picture. It's pretty bad. That's my plan for this morning, and I have until about 11am to get it done.

What projects do you have hanging over your shoulders? Is your pantry out of control? Is your closet full of clothes a mess? Perhaps this is the week to tackle something. You'd be amazed at how much you can get done in an hour or two when you decide to get it done.

Off I go, time is of the essence. I'll post a picture when it is finished!

Winter Comfort Food: Tomato Soup and Simple Mac and Cheese

2010-03-17T14:27:00.001-04:00

Lately I have really been enjoying the recipes I have tried from Heavenly Homemakers. I recently came across this recipe for tomato soup that is made from fresh tomatoes and can actually be canned. I love tomato soup and I do love canning, so I was immediately intrigued.

You see, I grew up on Campbell's tomato soup. Despite the fact that the second ingredient is high fructose corn syrup, I still buy it and still like it once in awhile. It's a childhood thing.

Now in the summertime, we use just about every tomato we can get for our favorite spaghetti sauce canning recipe. But, I'm always open to squeezing in a new recipe if it's really great and if it's something we will love in the middle of the winter. If it can be an actual meal for us? Even better. I mean, I do like jam and jelly, but seriously, how much can you eat of that stuff?

So I happened across this tomato soup recipe. Four simple ingredients: tomatoes, onion, butter and salt. Three hours on the stove. A splash of cream. Heaven in a bowl.

I was just going to bookmark the recipe and add it to my list this summer, but then I had an idea. My father-in-law gave us a bunch of quarts of tomatoes he canned last summer, and I still had some left. I decided to use those to try out the tomato soup recipe so I could see how it tasted before I allocate our precious summer tomatoes to a recipe I've never tried.

I ran 6 quarts of tomatoes through the food mill to remove the seeds and doubled the tomato soup recipe. If a recipe is going to have to cook for three hours, I'm going to make a BIG batch. When it was finished simmering, I used my immersion blender to puree it in the pot. And then I tasted it... wonderful. It had just the flavor I was looking for: simple and tomatoey. And, it goes well with this delicious recipe for easy, creamy macaroni and cheese.

We ended up eating some that day (Molly gobbled it up), putting about 2 quarts in the fridge, and I froze another 3 quarts. This recipe will be definitely be on the priority list this summer. We'll see how much canning I get done with baby #2 due 9/15....!

Seed Starting - Getting Ready for This Year's Vegetable Garden

2010-03-15T15:22:00.000-04:00

Every year, I think I am going to try to start some of my vegetable plants from seed. Most years, I never get around to it. Planning 8-12 weeks in advance means thinking about gardening in the middle of winter, while there is often still snow on the ground. Usually, I don't get past the thinking stage.

Well this year, perhaps because because I have less time for projects/hobbies, I made it happen. Yes, you read that right, life with a 19 month old means I have less time, but somehow I sometimes actually get more done than I did in prior years. Call it better planning, an increased drive for autonomy, call it whatever you want. All I know is that when you don't have much time, sometimes you get more efficient about using the time that you do have.

Now, have I spent one minute organizing the basement, the garage, or the mountains of paperwork that also stress me out? Nope, somehow those projects just never make it to the top of my priority list.

This year, the stars were in alignment, I had the materials I needed, and I ended up making the time to get it done. I broke up the project of starting seeds in to three mini-projects.

One day, I organized my pots and containers that would hold them. And then Molly woke up from her nap.

Another day, I filled up the pots with seed starting mix, watered them and brought them upstairs to a sunny, south-facing window in our extra bedroom. And then Molly woke up from her nap.

Well today, during what I call my "Mom's Morning Off," when Molly goes to daycare in the morning and I don't have to leave for work until noon, I finished the job by actually planting the seeds. I do love my Monday mornings.

My Own Giftable Arrangement

2010-03-15T14:57:00.002-04:00

Ever heard of that company that makes beautiful bouquets out of fresh fruit? Well, I have, and they're one of my favorite gifts to give and receive. They don't wilt like flowers (though don't get me wrong, I still love flowers!), and yet they are a treat that doesn't happen to add inches to your waistline like cookies, cake or candy.

Over the weekend, I had planned to pick up one of these bouquets to give to a friend's daughter who just had knee surgery. Then, it occurred to me... maybe I could make it myself. I mean, really, how hard could it be to skewer some fruit and turn it into a masterpiece?

Well, here it is, so you tell me.

Definitely not bad for a first attempt. A little chaotic looking, but definitely fun, unique and delicious.

The recipient's family really likes pineapple, so I decided to start with that for an edible, yet attractive base. Then I washed up some strawberries, grapes, raspberries and blackberries. I also peeled and sliced the rest of the pineapple and used a cookie cutter to make heart shapes (yes, that's what those shapes are). Then I went to work with the skewers until it seemed like there was enough fruit.

In the end, I spent a fraction of the price I would have paid for the professional version, yet was able to use more exciting fruit like raspberries and blackberries, and we got to eat the leftover fruit! Which was good, since, while I was making the bouquet, I had to constantly fend off Molly, who must have eaten her weight in fruit yesterday. I guess there are worse foods to overindulge on.

Maple Syrup: As Local as it Gets

2010-03-09T13:42:00.003-05:00

As you may have noticed, I like to experiment with all things food. I also feel such a sense of pride when I can duplicate or recreate or improve upon foods I like that are already readily available. My husband and I are also big fans of domestic adventures, focusing on botanical and other... experimentation, shall we say. Since we've known each other for the last almost 7 years, we've dabbled in organic gardening, canning, freezing, beer-making, wine-making, vineyard and orchard growing, beekeeping, cheese-making and I'm sure other projects I'm forgetting.

Well, add maple syrup making to our list.

I actually don't know why it took us 7 years to come up with this idea, but this year we decided to learn how to tap the maple trees in our yard. The quick description of maple syrup "making" is this: you tap your trees, collect the sap, and boil it down until most of the water is gone, and you are left with sweet, gooey maple syrup. It takes 40 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of maple syrup. So far, after 2 days of collecting sap from one tap, we have... drumroll please.... 1 oz of syrup! Here it is!

I know, I know, less than impressive. I'm pretty excited though. This shows me that it is possible. I share more details on the maple syrup process below.

First, you find the south-facing side of your tree and drill a 1/2" hole 2 inches deep (eek, I felt like I was killing our lovely maple tree, but I know this is done all the time for maple syrup making, and their trees don't die!). I only did one tree the first day just to make sure it worked before drilling another tree. Once your hole is drilled, you push in the spile - that's the little spout that guides the sap out of your drilled hole into your collection bucket. The spile has a hook on it so you can hang your bucket.

I covered the whole contraption with foil to keep the sap as clean as possible.

Then you let it sit and the sap drips into your bucket. After 2 days, here's what we collected:

We couldn't believe it! You don't want to have the sap sit outside too long, as I'm guessing the sugars may start to ferment, so today I brought in the weekend's sap and started boiling. I poured it into a 4 cup measuring cup, and it was basically overflowing. I guesstimated it to be around 5 cups, or 40 oz sap. I poured it through some cheesecloth and then boiled it down for an hour or two until it got darker in color, thickened up slightly, and since there wasn't much there, I stopped boiling before it burned to the bottom of the pan.

And once again, here is my finished product, all 1 oz of it!

I tasted it a couple times, and it is definitely sweet and kind of mapley. Here's the thing: I knew we had at least one sugar maple, but I wasn't sure if I picked the sugar maple or the "other" maple tree to tap! Sugar maples have brilliant red fall color, and our other maples have yellow leaves in the fall. Since there are currently no leaves on any of the trees and I couldn't remember which was which, I just picked one. I don't think I picked the sugar maple.

A couple things to consider when trying to make maple syrup:

:: Sugar maples produce sap with the highest sugar content, but other types of maple trees produce sweet sap also that can be made into syrup. You just might have to boil it down longer to get more water out.

:: The time of year that you can collect this sap is in the spring when outdoor temperatures are below freezing overnight and above 40 degrees in the daytime.

So today, I tapped the other tree that I suspect to be the sugar maple. I used the other two spiles we bought, and put them both in the same tree since it is a bigger tree and apparently you can tap a few places on one tree.

I'll have to let you know how it all turns out! I'm hoping for another couple ounces at least, and then next year... we'll get started a little earlier.

Something From Nothing: Homemade Stuffing

2010-02-25T12:35:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite cooking escapades is to make something from nothing. That nothing is referring to a little of this and a little of that from the refrigerator, pantry or freezer which could easily be thrown out. Sometimes when you have the right amounts of nothing, you can make something quite delicious!

Today I am trying my hand at making my own stuffing from various bits of bread that I have been stashing away in the freezer. I've been making homemade bread for many months now, and sometimes I'm ready for a fresh new loaf before we finish the last one. Instead of throwing the old bread out, I've been cutting it into cubes or tearing it into little pieces and putting it in a bag in the freezer. My plan had been to make stuffing or croutons. Stuffing it was.

I somewhat followed a recipe from the book "Make-A-Mix" by Karine Eliason, Nevada Harward and Madeline Westover. Basically you make a dry stuffing mix which you can store in your pantry like any other stuffing mix, and then add wet ingredients and bake when you're ready to eat it. I'm very interested in getting as many processed foods out of our house as possible, and I do love stuffing, so I figured it would be worth trying this recipe.

You're supposed to start out with 30 slices of firm-textured bread, cut into 1/2 inch cubes. I just guessed and used what I had, which ended up being approximately the right amount. All of my bread was also frozen to start out with.

Bake in a 300 degree oven for about 45 minutes, or until the bread gets a little toasty and dries out. Stir occasionally as it is cooking.

Combine:
1/2 cup canola oil (reduced from 2/3 cup in original recipe)
3 tablespoons instant minced onion
3 tablespoons dried parsley flakes
2 teaspoons garlic salt
3/4 teaspoon ground sage
1/2 teaspoon pepper

When the bread is done, put it in a bowl and add the seasonings. Toss lightly until the oil mixture coats the bread cubes as well as possible. Then you can put the stuffing mixture in an airtight container and store in a cool, dry place for 3-4 months. I just divided mine into two containers: one for tonight's dinner, the other for another time.

To make the stuffing:

1 cup chicken broth
1/2 stick butter, melted (yikes! This is reduced from 6 tablespoons in the original recipe)
1 onion, finely chopped
4 large sticks celery, finely chopped (I used carrots instead because that's what I had)
6-7 cups of the bread/seasoning mix

Melt butter in a skillet and saute onion and celery/carrots until crisp-tender. In a large bowl, combine the bread mix with the vegetables and chicken broth. Toss lightly and put mixture in a lightly buttered casserole dish. The recipe didn't say to cover the dish, but I did. Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

We went for total comfort food last night with rotisserie chicken, stuffing and mashed potatoes. Yum, it was delish. My husband couldn't believe it was homemade. This recipe is a keeper!

Put A Little Extra Cash in Your Pocket (Updated)

2010-02-24T14:50:00.002-05:00

Have you signed up for Swagbucks or Ebates yet? If not, why not? Maybe you've never heard of these two programs.

There are lots of scams out there, and I am typically very skeptical of anything promising free money. However, these two programs came highly recommended so I decided to try them out.

Basically, Swagbucks allows you to earn points for doing what you already do: searching for things on the internet. You earn about 1-3 swagbucks each day just by using the swagbucks search tool instead of something like google. The points easily add up, and then can then be redeemed for all kinds of things. My personal favorite is the $5 Amazon.com gift card, which can be earned with 45 swagbucks. So, with basically no extra effort on my part, I've been earning one $5 gift card for Amazon.com approximately every month. It doesn't seem like much, but you can save them up for something big that you've been wanting. And hey, free money is free money!

Update: hours after I posted this article, Swagbucks rolled out a new point system in honor of their 2nd anniverary. It looks like the only difference is that you now earn 10, 20, 30 swagbucks instead of 1, 2 or 3. Everything else looks the same.

Here's how to do it:
1. Click on this link to the Swagbucks website.
2. Sign up for an account.
3. I found it useful to download the Swagbucks toolbar so I could search from any website.
4. That's it! Start earning swagbucks.

Ebates works a little differently, though what I love about it, is that it also helps me earn money doing something I already do: online shopping! In a nutshell, when you shop online using Ebates, you get back a percentage of what you spent shopping. That adds up in your Ebates account, and they periodically send you a check! Yes, actual money. I just got a check in the mail for over $30 just from Christmas shopping I was going to do anyway.

Here's how to do it:
1. Click on this link to the Ebates website.
2. Sign up for an account.
3. Check out the long list of stores/websites that participate in Ebates: pretty much every place I've needed to shop except for Amazon.com.
4. The next time you're going to buy something, go to the Ebates website first. Find your store and click through to it from the Ebates website.
5. That's it, do your shopping and watch the money add up in your Ebates account!

So both programs are really that easy. I definitely would not recommend something that I had not personally tried and thought was worth it.

In the spirit of full disclosure, yes, I will earn a small referral if you sign up through me. But I also really just think these are two worthwhile programs.

Enjoy, and happy shopping!

Winter Fruit Salad

2010-02-18T13:06:00.001-05:00

Yum, today I was inspired to make a refreshing fresh fruit salad. I used grapefruit, oranges, pineapple, apples and bananas. It's hard to tell from the picture, but I cut the pieces very small, similar to what I had many years ago when I visited Brazil. Lots of little pieces of fruit, a little fresh citrus fruit juice squeezed on top to keep the apples from turning brown, and some chopped bananas added right before serving. The great thing about the little pieces of fruit, is that when you eat a spoonful of the fruit salad, you get several different types of fruit in the same bite and not just one big hunk at a time. It's a bit of work to do all the chopping, but it is so delicious and unexpected in the middle of the winter.

This Week's Meal Plan

2010-02-17T13:35:00.001-05:00

I have not been the best at posting my meal plans lately, but we have been eating, I promise. We sort of fell off the wagon, so to speak, with the Eat From the Pantry Challenge. Actually, I'm being pretty hard on myself, because really, eating from the pantry is what we always do! The challenge to not buy any groceries during the month of January is the part we failed on. I'm not that good with rules, I guess :)

We really do eat from the pantry/freezer/storage in the basement very regularly. I always take stock of what we have, what we need to use up and come up with our meals from there. I am definitely not the type of cook that gets a taste for a dish and then goes out and buys all the ingredients for them, no matter the cost. January's challenge wasn't all that different from my normal life, but I had a hard time going to the grocery store for a couple staples without picking up other items also. We did end up spending less than we usually do, so that's a success in my book!

On to the meal plan for this week:
Monday: Leftover "Jeff Casserole," ham, frozen corn
Tuesday: Turkey tortilla soup from the freezer, cheese toast, zucchini from the freezer
Wednesday: Arabic lentil soup, sauteed Brussels spouts with bacon and onions, ham sandwiches
Thursday: Mashed potato/carrot/kale/smoked sausage casserole with saurkraut using keilbasa from our 1/4 pig
Friday: Tacos with refried beans, rice, corn

I'm planning on making the taco meat on Thursday, so that it is ready to just heat up on Friday after work. I am always starving and tired on work nights, so anything I can do to make life easier on myself, I'm going to try!

I've got some soup and a new recipe for Brussels sprouts to try today, so I guess I had better get cooking while Molly is napping. Eat well and enjoy your week.

Making Mixes: Bread, Corn Bread, Banana Oatmeal Waffles

2010-02-17T13:16:00.001-05:00

We're finally catching up with life around here. The stomach flu made its way around our whole house, and it was slow going to feel motivated to do much in the kitchen. I think I'm back though!

On Monday I was able to grind a bunch of flour and prep ingredients for 6 loaves of homemade bread, which I store in the freezer in freezer boxes. When I want to make bread, as I do once or twice a week, I just get my flour out of the freezer, add the wet ingredients to my bread machine pan, add the flour and yeast, and start up the bread machine. It takes all of 5 minutes or less to do this. I have the bread machine make the dough, and I put the dough in a pan, let it rise, and bake it in the oven. It is SO easy and delicious. Not to mention 2/3 whole wheat, yet soft and tender, which is even better in my book.

This time I was feeling motivated to make a couple other types of mixes to have on hand. I found a corn bread recipe I like, in the Better Homes and Gardens (the red and white checkered one) cookbook of all places. I ground some popcorn into cornmeal - yes, that's the best corn commercially available for making your own cornmeal) and mixed up 4 batches of corn bread mix.

As I do for the bread, I put all of the dry ingredients for cornbread in the freezer boxes. I didn't take a picture, but I also wrote instructions on the container lids: what wet ingredients to add, plus baking instructions. This recipe is for a 9X9 pan of corn bread, or 12 muffins or 24-26 corn sticks. I plan to keep these freezer boxes designated for cornbread, so I thought it would be easier to write on the lids instead of fishing out the cookbook. It's all about convenience!

The third mix I made was for banana oatmeal waffles. Mind you, I am NOT a waffle maker or pancake maker at all. That is my husband's arena. However, my sister-in-law makes these banana oatmeal waffles and they are SO good, like banana bread. We've been making extra pancakes on the weekend and freezing them for quick week-day breakfasts, and I knew these waffles would be great for that too. Not to mention nutritious and something different.

So, into the boxes went the dry ingredients for banana oatmeal waffles. I also went out on a limb, writing instructions on the lids again, assuming this recipe would be a keeper. Now I feel a bit more prepared with my bread prepped and a couple other baking treats ready to go also. I love knowing exactly what goes into my food and avoiding all of the extraneous additives and ingredients in boxed mixes.

Have any good mixes that you like to whip up? Please share! My next mix to devise is whole wheat pancakes... see you later, Aunt Jemima.

Granola

2010-02-10T09:12:00.000-05:00

Mmm, last night I made granola. I had been in the mood for it for awhile after enjoying a few boxes of Cascadian Farms granola with my yogurt. I haven't made granola in a long time, but it was just as good as I remembered. The coconut adds a wonderful subtle flavor that makes it stand out from other granola recipes.

Here is the recipe:

4 cups regular or quick oats
1/2 cup wheat germ (or ground flax seeds, oat bran, etc)
1 cup coconut
1 cup slivered almonds (optional - just add more oats if you omit this)
1 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup raisins (or other dried fruit)

Combine all ingredients, except raisins/dried fruit and mix until well blended. Spread on a shallow baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden brown, stirring every 10 minutes. Add dried fruit and stir. Will continue to crisp as it cools. Store in a sealed container.

One note: this is definitely not a low calorie recipe. You can try adjusting the oil if you want, but I have found the finished product to be not quite crispy enough when I've cut it down too much.

Enjoy!

Bagels!

2010-01-23T21:54:00.000-05:00

Lately I have been really inspired to make bagels. Maybe it's the Eat From the Pantry Challenge that is making me think twice about every food purchase, or maybe I was just ready for the next culinary adventure. Who knows. I've made three different batches of bagels in the last couple days.

First, I used my current favorite bread recipe's dough to make bagels. I had already made a loaf of bread and was going to make two, but changed my plan after I had already started the second batch of dough, so I thought I would see if the dough would make good bagels. I followed this recipe, which was actually my inspiration for making bagels to begin with, for turning the dough into bagels. Here are some pictures from that attempt:

Batch #1: Boiling the broiled dough.

The finished product. They were 2/3 whole wheat flour (freshly ground hard red wheat), 1/3 unbleached white flour. I made some with cinnamon sugar, some with sesame seeds and minced onion, the rest plain. They were pretty good, but a little bread-like, not so crispy outside/chewy inside like I was looking for. Not surprising, since afterall, I did use bread dough to make them!

Batch #2: Here is the finished product for the original recipe I had been wanting to try. They're 100% whole wheat, and that's how they tasted. A bit too wheaty for me. It could be that I used the hard red wheat instead of the hard white wheat I normally use. I had heard that the red wheat had a stronger flavor but had not used it much. I can't tell much difference in my bread, and these bagels were beautiful ... but wheaty. I'll let Molly eat those!

After I made the first two batches and saw that bagels were not as much work or as time consuming as I assumed, I decided to try to find a good recipe for New York-style bagels. Have I mentioned that I am a total bagel snob? I grew up in New Jersey, and have lived in the Midwest for the past 15 years, where bagels are just not the same. I still dream about New Jersey bagels and pizza.

So I decided to just forget about whole wheat for now, and work on finding a good bagel recipe that might get me close to my ideal bagel: crispy on the outside and chewy goodness on the inside. One-inch layer of cream cheese or egg salad... even better.

Batch #3: I found this recipe for New York-style bagels and tried it tonight. The bagels were pretty good! I would definitely make them again. Maybe I will even play with adding in some whole wheat flour. The recipe made 8 bagels, and they were huge, so I will probably try to turn it into 12 bagels next time. I substituted molasses for the malt syrup, since I didn't have any, though I may just have to get some for this recipe. As with all of the bagel recipes I tried, I used my bread machine for the dough.

Here is a picture of the finished product:

Wow, I can't believe I made bagels! Have you had any culinary adventures lately?

Eat From the Pantry Challenge: Recap of Week 2 and Week 3 Plan

2010-01-17T22:02:00.000-05:00

Well... except for the incident last Tuesday, all is well with January's Eat From the Pantry Challenge. I haven't been doing too much cooking, because it took us some time to get through all the food I made during week 1! We've just been eating leftovers and scraps here and there all week, and I've taken a little time off from cooking. Strangely... we're not exactly going hungry.

Our refrigerator is looking a little bare, so I'm back on the bandwagon and have plans to do some cooking this week. I'll try to control myself so we're not eating leftovers for a week and a half again! Here's our plan for the week:

Saturday: Homemade pizza with dough, sauce and toppings from the freezer
Sunday: Oven hamburgers, roasted vegetables, potato smiles, super easy black bean soup
Monday: Sweet potato black bean burritos (frozen) from last week's beans and rice with avocado and salsa
Tuesday: Country BBQ pork ribs in the crock pot, kale, potatoes
Wednesday: Chicken tikka masala, lentil biryani, broccoli
Thursday: Marinated pork chops, spatzle, salad, potato/bean/ham soup
Friday: Pancakes, farm fresh eggs, grapefruit

I'm not sure when I'll go to the grocery store next. We're set for most of the week with milk and bananas, so we'll see how long I can go! We had quite the glut of produce last week, so I'm happily working my way to the bottom of that in preparation for my produce delivery next week. Eat well and enjoy your week!

Eat From the Pantry Challenge: Fell off the Wagon... oops.

2010-01-14T14:22:00.001-05:00

I have a confession to make: on Tuesday night, I went to Meijer for just a couple of things, and I ended up going hog-wild with some coupons and ended up spending an extra $40. Oops. It's not so much the money, but the principle of it all! We are supposed to be eating from the pantry this month, not buying more groceries. I have no great excuse except that... I was hungry... and I'm not the greatest rule-follower... and there were some really great deals that hadn't been available in awhile... and I was hungry...

OK, I had a moment of weakness, but I will move forward and continue my journey towards eating what we have on hand and not buying more "stuff." I shouldn't have even looked at the Meijer match-ups. The allure of Smart Taste pasta, frozen vegetables, Lance crackers and other great deals sucked me in, and I convinced myself that it was "just a few" things, and I wouldn't buy anything else unless it was on my list. For the conditions I set, I did pretty well. Did I mention that this was after a swimming class, and I was hungry, and I almost bought DONUTS?? But I didn't, I put them back :)

So, I'm hoping that this public confession of mine will reassure you that whatever goal you might be working on right now, if you fall off the wagon, pick yourself up and climb back on. The only way to reach your goal is to try again. You're that much further ahead than when you started the first time.

Eat From the Pantry Challenge: Recap of Week 1 and Week 2 Plan

2010-01-10T12:44:00.000-05:00

Week 1 of my family's Eat From the Pantry Challenge went very well, or at least I think so. Here was our meal plan for last week, and we basically followed it. The only thing I did differently was on Thursday, instead of making a bean and cornbread casserole with red cabbage on the side, I decided it would be wise to use up some of the turkey from the Trash Can Turkey we made last weekend. I made turkey divan and turkey-black bean-tortilla soup instead. Delish.

One thing I did not totally account for with my meal plan, is the sheer quantity of food all of those recipes would make! Not that it's a bad thing, but here we are on Sunday, and we still have lots of leftovers from last week to eat. Also, making at least one beef, pork and chicken dish each week is a lot of meat. At least it is for us, a family of 2 adults and one little one. You see, when I cook, I make enough for at least 4-6 people, because I'm a big fan of the cook once / eat many times idea. Sure enough... we are eating some of these dishes many times!

I haven't always cooked such meat-laden foods. Since I've been in the pregnancy/breastfeeding season of my life for the past couple years, during part of which I couldn't have ANY dairy, soy or nuts, meat became one of my few options for protein. So now I'm a bit torn, because I don't think we need to eat meat every day, but I am also anxious to move along some of that meat taking up valuable real estate in my freezer. I'll come up with a happy medium at some point. But for now... I'm cooking up a storm.

My schedule is a little busy early in the week, so it will be a bonus to have all these leftovers available. Here's my plan for this week:
Saturday: Meat pie from the freezer - an incredibly delicious annual Christmas gift from friends
Sunday: Trying a new recipe for beans and rice in the crockpot, roasted vegetables. Possible "Jeff Casserole"
Monday: Leftovers, broccoli
Tuesday: Leftovers, salad
Wednesday: Marinated pork loin chops, red cabbage, potatoes of some sort
Thursday: Baked Mediterranean chicken, kale, roasted root vegetables
Friday: Potstickers, broccoli

So far so good on the grocery spending. I did go to Trader Joe's this week for milk, bananas, yogurt and the month's worth of rice milk, and spent around $35. I only anticipate going once or twice more for the bare necessities, so I think we're still on track. I was also lucky enough to be given a dozen of the freshest eggs I have ever had (I saw them be plucked from their nests) when I visited this farm, where I am thinking of becoming a member of their CSA this summer. What a treat!

And, while I am enjoying this Eat From the Pantry Challenge, my husband and I are developing a little grocery wish-list of things we can't wait to have once we can grocery shop again! Here is our list so far:
     :: shrimp (lots of good shrimp recipes in my cooking magazines lately!)
     :: peanuts (for his rice cream)
     :: dried blueberries (for Molly's oatmeal)
     :: white miso (to make this fabulous salad dressing, which I have been craving lately)
This is good, we're coming up with alternatives and using what we have instead.

Have you decided to participate in the Eat From the Pantry Challenge for a week, two weeks, or even the whole month? How is it going for you?

Eat From the Pantry: Week 1

2010-01-03T23:10:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I made my plan for our take on the Eat From the Pantry Challenge. I did a rough inventory of our freezers, pantry and cupboards to see what needed to move along, and started various lists: meal ideas, vegetables and fruit available and other misc food items that needed to be eaten, among others. It went fairly quickly, since we are busting at the seams with food somehow. We could probably do this for two months instead of one!

Just to recap, one of my goals is to cook at least one beef, pork, chicken and bean dish each week, as well as two pots of soup/stew. Lunches are leftovers and mainly the soups, as well as anything else we come up with on the fly.

To keep you in suspense (and because I'm not sure when we'll be in the mood for what), I'll just share our meal plan for Week 1.

Saturday: Chili, bread
Sunday: Trash Can Turkey, lentil sausage soup
Monday: Spaghetti and meatballs, roasted vegetables
Tuesday: Braised pork steaks with olives and mushrooms, sauteed zucchini, potatoes, applesauce
Wednesday: Southwest bean casserole with cornbread topping, some sort of red cabbage side dish
Thursday: Turkey and dumplings with lots of peas, carrots and celery
Friday: Rump roast in the crock pot, carrots, potatoes, prunes

So far so good. There have been a couple occasions that I had to remind myself that I couldn't really add anything to my grocery list, so this is already working! It's all about creatively using what you have and not just picking up everything you want from the grocery store.

Are you participating in the Eat From the Pantry Challenge? Tell us about your progress! Eat well and enjoy your week.

Winter Trash Can Turkey

2010-01-03T22:40:00.000-05:00

When turkeys were $0.40 a pound at Thanksgiving time, I bought two extras for the freezer. A turkey is nice to have on hand to roast over the weekend, and then enjoy leftovers in turkey and dumplings, turkey and noodles, turkey pot pie... the possibilities are endless.

This year, I wish I would have bought many more turkeys for the freezer. See this post for why I only had room for two.

We decided to try out a recipe that we did a couple times this summer - but on a 15 degree day instead of a lovely summer day. We made a trash can turkey! It was DELICIOUS. Seriously. You have to try it. The flavor is wonderful, the meat is incredibly juicy, and there is even a hint of smokiness to the meat, which I love. Not to mention that my 15 lb turkey cooked in less than 2 hours and there was no roasting pan to clean up!

Here are a few pictures of our culinary adventure today. First I laid out some heavy duty foil and poured an 18 lb bag of briquettes onto it. You light it the same way you would for grilling, and let them cook until they are gray. While that was cooking, we pounded a 2X2 stake into the ground and covered it with foil. I laid out other sheets of foil around the stake, to protect the turkey in case it happens to fall down the stake onto the ground (which has not happened to us yet).

In the house, I rubbed the turkey with canola oil, salt, pepper and smoked paprika. Then, I hung the turkey on the stake.

Then, we put the galvanized trash can (which has never been used for garbage) on top of the turkey. The turkey is not touching the inside of the can.

Once the coals were ready, using a shovel, we put 1/2 of the coals on top of the can and 1/2 around the base.

Then, since we had never done this in the cold weather before, we put the trash can lid on top of the coals and folded up the foil around the base, so that any wind wouldn't burn up our coals too quickly.

One hour and 45 minutes later, we used the shovel to take the hot coals off the top of the can, and scraped away the coals at the base. Then, we lifted the trash can and... viola! A toasty, perfectly cooked turkey. The heat from our experiment must have warmed the frozen ground, so the stake started to lean, but this didn't hurt anything.

Then, with oven mits on and foil against the bird, I took the turkey off the stake and plopped it in a pan. Here it is on our picnic table! We did go inside to eat it, of course. It was SO wonderful and amazingly juicy. Try it sometime! And don't forget to throw the carcass into your crock pot for some fabulous turkey stock. Mine is simmering right now...

January: Eat From the Pantry Challenge

2010-01-02T20:17:00.000-05:00

For the month of January, two of my favorite blogs are hosting a challege to us frugal-minded folks. The challenge is to eat from your pantry/freezer/cupboards for the whole month, drastically cutting down on trips to and expenses at the grocery store. I've tried to do this before, but usually only for a week at a time, so when I read about their idea to do it for a whole month, I was intrigued. You see, I'm a bit of a food hoarder.

Here is one area of my basement:

Here is another:

And another...

And then there is the huge freezer!

I have the best of intentions... I cook double-triple-quadruple batches of recipes to freeze and eat later. I freeze garden produce in the summer to be enjoyed throughout the cold, long winter. I get great deals on food by matching sales with coupons. I don't know what I'm preparing for... the day when I don't want to cook? The day I break a leg and can't cook? Who knows. What I do know is that we have LOTS of food in our house right now, and a challenge to make a dent in it sounded right up my alley.

Not to mention we might actually save some money by not spending so much at the grocery store. I've been doing quite a bit of shopping lately. Before Christmas sales, after Christmas sales, I do love a good bargain. But even bargains add up.

One of the nice things about this Eat From the Pantry Challenge, is that it is up to each family to come up with their own ground rules since everyone's situation is different. Since we are busting at the seams with food, here is our list of "rules" for our family:

1. We will continue to get our twice-per-month box of organic produce delivered. I'll have to do a separate posting about this sometime, but basically it's exactly as it sounds: we get a box of organic fruit and vegetables delivered to our doorstep every other week from this company, and this takes care of the bulk of our fresh produce needs, when combined with what we have stored in our freezer and refrigerator. Our box is $23, so this works out to $46 for the month.

2. I will focus on cooking at least one meal each week of beef, pork, chicken and beans and will also make two pots of soup/stew each week. We have lots of beef and pork in the deep freezer from the 1/8 cow and 1/4 pig we bought... awhile ago. Also, I recently made a bunch of chicken and pork freezer meals that I talk about here and here. Then... there's the 25 pounds of black beans I bought that I could stand to get more creative with.

3. I will still buy staples like milk, eggs and bananas. Yes, not-even-close-to-local bananas are a staple in our house with a 17 month old. And, until we get our own cows or chickens, I will need to buy milk and eggs.

4. Since there will continue to be great deals to be had in the month of January, I allotted $10 per week to snatch up any hard-to-pass-up deals where I can get items free or almost free. I will focus on staying on top of cutting coupons and putting them in my coupon binder so that in February, I will be organized and ready to go.

So, I'm not really a purist. Everyone's got their limits. In fact, just this morning I already went against the Eat from the Pantry Challenge when I was lucky enough to visit a farmers market an hour away from home, where I bought red cabbage, turnips, parsnips, carrots, greenhouse tomatoes and eggs. To me, it was more important to support the farmers out there braving the frigid weather, thus having the treat of some locally grown winter produce than to be super rigid about this challenge. After all, we're all just trying to do the right thing, right??

So there you have it. I can't wait to see how we do! One week is pretty doable for most people and may help get the creative juices flowing. A month? Oh boy. Hopefully there will be no peanut butter and mustard sandwiches.... ha ha, no chance. Eat well and enjoy your day!

6 Months of Garlic

2009-12-10T12:33:00.001-05:00

One thing I love doing is cooking. One thing I don't have is a lot of uninterrupted time, what with chasing around an active 1 year old. Anything I can do to save myself time in the kitchen, while still preparing delicious, healthy meals for our family... I'm all over it.

Last night I prepped enough minced garlic to last us a good six months. I don't really know how long it will last, but a LONG time. I started with a huge 3 lb container of peeled garlic from Costco, which cost all of $5. Not much, if you ask me. I trimmed off the hard end of each clove, and popped them in my food processor.

I chopped up the garlic until it was minced. Then I dumped it out onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Using a spatula, and then another piece of wax paper on top, I pressed the garlic into a nice thin layer on the cookie sheet.

Once the garlic was pressed down, I took my handy pizza cutter and cut horizontally and vertically to get little squares, about 1 teaspoon each.

I covered that up with wax paper and froze both trays overnight. In the morning, I broke up the pieces and put them in zip-lock bags to go back into the freezer. Now, when I need garlic, I don't have to take the time to crack open a clove, have the skin stick to my fingers as I hurriedly try to mince it, inevitably ending up with too-big chunks. I just open my freezer, take out a square - or more - and throw it in my pan or pot. One thing I love about this, is that I end up using a lot more garlic this way, and I LOVE garlic! No mess, my favorite.

You could also do this with hot peppers, diced onions, or other high-maintenence veggies, though I have never tried it on this scale.

Eat well and happy cooking!

More Cooking Ahead - Bread and Pork Roasts

2009-12-03T22:18:00.002-05:00

Today I finally got to the grain-grinding and bread prep. portion of my "freezer cooking" adventure. I like to grind enough flour for at least 6 loaves of bread and then measure out the whole wheat and white flour into boxes for the freezer. Then, I just have to throw the wet ingredients into the bread machine along with the box of flour and yeast, and away we go.

For some reason, just having the flour already measured out makes the task of making bread so much less daunting! I am really not a baker, actually. That's why I have the bread machine do my dirty work and I just take the lovely dough, bake it in the oven and call it my own homemade bread. Boy is it good! Especially with freshly ground flour, oh my goodness.

I also experimented with grinding popcorn into cornmeal today. I haven't made anything with it, but I did pop it in my freezer to keep it fresh until I do use it. I'm thinking of making some corn muffins. How cool is freshly ground cornmeal?? I'm looking for a good cornbread/corn muffin recipe that I can use to make homemade mixes from. I would prefer more of a savory taste than sweet, and not too much milk/sour cream, etc since my husband tries to stay away from large amounts of dairy. Now that I'm grinding cornmeal, I will probably be experimenting with corn bread recipes in the weeks to come. If you have a great recipe, please share!

The one other quickie freezer meal-making I did was a few pork loin roasts. The huge ones were on sale at our high-end grocery store, so I bought one and split it into three big roasts, about 3 lbs each. They worked out to be less than $5 each, which is pretty good considering each will provide at least 6 meals but probably more for us. I seasoned one of the roasts with a new dijon marinade, and the others I left plain. I've got a maple glazed pork roast recipe I've done a couple times that is fabulous. Hopefully this will give us a little variety from the 35 lbs of chicken I just added to our freezer two days ago!

Freezer Cooking Day: The Results

2009-12-01T23:00:00.001-05:00

The results are in... I ended up making 10 meals of marinated chicken breasts using 7 different sauces. Plus, I have 5 plain chicken breasts that are trimmed and ready for whatever I might need them for. I was going to do 10 plain ones, but who am I kidding... which are more likely to be eaten? The ones that are seasoned and ready to cook!

When you break it down by cost, you'll see what a savings it really is to do this type of cooking where possible. I had all the ingredients on hand besides the chicken. Even if I had used the recipes I had originally intended from my cookbooks, I already had all of the ingredients anyway, so the only thing I had to buy is the chicken. For approximately 35 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, I spent $51.93. I got 11 meals from the 35 pounds. As I said in my earlier post, the breasts are HUGE, so I cut them in half. Each bag got 4 breasts, cut in half, so 8 pieces of chicken, at $4.73 per meal. If we say that each meal is, on average about 6 servings, that works out to be about $0.79 per serving. Not bad, and definitely cheaper than take-out. The best part is, the work is done!

All in all, it took me about an hour and a half to clean the chicken, add the marinades, put the bags in the freezer and clean up. It took me less time than I thought, but I had to wait until after Little Moo's bedtime, since she did not grant me with much of a nap today! No one wants to be up to her elbows in chicken guts with a one-year-old running around.

The other part of my cooking in advance plan that I didn't accomplish was bread prep. When I grind flour, I do enough for 6 loaves of bread, and measure out the whole wheat and white flour into freezer boxes for the freezer. Doing this step ahead of time saves me a couple minutes when I'm making bread, which is so helpful! Every few minutes helps. Tomorrow is another day......

Freezer Cooking Day: The Plan

2009-12-01T13:13:00.003-05:00

Today and tomorrow, Crystal from MoneySavingMom and FishMama from LifeAsMom are hosting a freezer cooking day, where they prepare a bunch of meals to freeze for another day. They have started doing this once a month to make life easier at dinner time. I have done versions of this in the past, usually on a smaller scale based on what ingredients I have on hand and what meat/protein I can find at great prices. I like to do this bit by bit so that I don't have to take the whole day to cook. When chicken is on sale, I buy enough for 4-6 meals, prepare them and freeze. The same goes for pork. When those huge loins are on sale, I have one or two sliced into chops and roast, season or marinate, and into the freezer they go for another day. By preparing a handful of extra meals here and there, before you know it, you have a freezer full of meals to choose from. Better yet, they have all been bought on sale and the cheapest prices I can get! Then, when I'm ready to eat them, I just thaw and bake/grill/put in the crockpot.

Before I decided to participate in this Freezer Cooking Day, I had already noticed that my local high-end grocery store was having a sale on chicken breasts for $1.49/lb, which is pretty good in this area, especially for good quality meat. I had planned to take advantage of this deal this week anyway, so it was a nice coincidence that a couple of my favorite bloggers are doing freezer cooking today also!

This morning I picked out the recipes I was planning on making, from Fix Freeze Feast and Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer (info is listed to the right), my two current favorite freezer cooking books. Then as I was looking through my refrigerator and pantry, I changed my gameplan. I decided to move along a bunch of condiments that I am sick of looking at. Instead of trying some new recipes this time, why not marinate a bunch of chicken breasts in sauces I already have? How's that for frugal...

So here's what I'm planning:

:: 35 pounds of skinless, boneless chicken breasts, trimmed and divided into 3 pound portions. The breasts are usually huge, so I cut them in half the fat way, so I end up with a triangular piece and a sort of semi-circle shaped piece. Each portion of 3 lbs goes into a gallon-sized zip-lock bag. Before adding the chicken to the bag, I label with a permanent marker what is in the bag and cooking instructions. I am purposely buying more chicken than I need to account for trimming. Any extra chicken will be frozen on cookie sheets and put in a zip-lock bag for later.

:: 7 different marinades/sauces: two different BBQ sauces, mole sauce, curry sauce, sweet and smoky Indian marinade, raspberry salsa, and a sesame teriyaki sauce.

:: The marinade gets poured into the zip-lock bag, and I squish around the chicken and sauce until the chicken is coated. Depending on how much time I have and how creative I am feeling, I may add some pizazz to the bags like extra onions, garlic or other herbs and spices.

:: As for cooking, some are for the crock pot, and some are for grilling or baking. The BBQ sauces with chicken will go in the crock pot for healthy and delicious pulled chicken, similar to pulled pork but much easier! Same goes for the mole sauce, which will probably be served with tortillas for tacos or burritos. The others will probably be grilled or baked.

So it's that easy! The hardest part is cleaning up the chicken, which takes me awhile since I'm picky. If you wanted to do this even MORE quickly, you could buy the bags of indivdually frozen chicken breasts, count them out into your zip-lock bags, add your marinades and pop them in the freezer. In literally minutes, you could have many main dish meals in your freezer, ready to go. While the meat is cooking, make a quick salad and/or other vegetable and you have a healthy, cheap meal.

Do you do any freezer cooking? Tell us about it in the comments section!

Update on this week's cooking adventure!

2009-11-13T12:28:00.000-05:00

In last week's meal plan, I had a bit of a cooking adventure in store for me. On Wednesday, I used my pressure cooker for the first time for COOKING instead of canning. Tuesday night, I scoured a couple cookbooks for a recipe that looked good and would use one of the huge pieces of meat from our 1/8 cow that I always have trouble using up. I settled on a crock pot recipe for beef barley soup using round steak.

I'm sorry I don't have a picture to share, but it was DELICIOUS! Seriously, delicious. I had been in the mood for something like that lately, with the weather getting cooler, and it was exactly what I wanted.

The pressure cooker was awesome! I chose a crock pot recipe, since the moist, long, slow cooking of a crock pot is perfect for tougher meats that take a long time to tenderize. A pressure cooker works well for similar cuts of meat, but uses very high temperatures and pressure to achieve similar results. The best part about using the pressure cooker is that it took 25 minutes of cooking time once all the ingredients were in the pot!!!. Amazing. My new Nutrimill grain mill and my pressure cooker might just be my favorite kitchen appliances (besides the dishwasher!) right now.

Below is the recipe I used in my 10 quart pressure cooker. This is doubled from the original recipe, and it filled my pot just over half-way. You might want to reduce it if your pressure cooker is smaller, since you don't want to fill a pressure cooker more than 2/3 full. Also, my pressure cooker only has one pressure setting, 15 pounds, so adjust accordingly if yours is different.

Beef Barley Soup
adapted from Fix Freeze Feast: Prepare in Bulk and Enjoy by the Serving

3 pounds round steak, cut into small bite-sized pieces
3 cups sliced carrots
3 cups sliced celery
2 cups chopped onion
1 large green bell pepper, diced
2 (14 1/2 oz) cans diced tomatoes, undrained
2 cups any tomato sauce (I used pizza sauce I bought and didn't like on pizza)
2 quarts beef broth
1 tablespoon beef boullion
1 cup pearl barley
2 teaspoons salt (can be reduced)
1 teaspoon black pepper

1. Brown the meat in a little bit of oil and remove from pot.
2. Add carrots, celery and onion and saute for 7-10 minutes, or until they begin to soften.
3. Add back meat and all other ingredients, stir.
4. Attach lid to pressure cooker and turn heat on high to bring it up to pressure. Once steam starts coming out (or whatever your particular pressure cooker does to indicate it is up to pressure), reduce heat to low-med and cook for 25 minutes. Reduce pressure according to your pressure cooker's instructions. Once all pressure is gone and it is safe to open the pressure cooker, open it, stir the soup and enjoy!

Recipe makes 5-6 quarts, so be sure to freeze some for another day.

Do you have any tips or great recipes for using a pressure cooker? Please share!

Frugal Thoughts for a Friday

2009-11-13T12:08:00.002-05:00

Earlier this year, my husband learned that his company was doing an across-the-board pay cut. The percentage wasn't huge, but once it came into effect, it was more painful than we thought. We have never been overly extravagent people and both are decent at saving money, but in the past few years, we seemed to always find ourselves spending pretty close to (or going over!) what our monthly paychecks brought in. It's so easy to spend what you have, adjusting to each pay increase, isn't it?

Once we heard about the pay cut, we realized we really needed to look at our budget and cut out any and all unnecessary spending. I already was looking at our spending periodically to make sure we weren't missing any savings, but this time we had to get serious. We have some money saved as a cushion, but we really didn't want to dip into that to cover our monthly expenses. Somehow, we had to get our monthly spending to be LESS than our incoming paychecks!

Right around the time of the paycut, a friend shared a couple blogs with me: Moneysavingmom and Hip2Save. They are both dedicated to finding ways to save money on the purchases that we make everyday - from groceries to toiletries to gifts and lots more. Just to name a few, they post ideas on how to live frugally, coupon codes for online shopping and grocery store match-ups, which pair sale prices with coupons and other promotions that help you get items for free or at incredibly reduced prices.

In the 8 months or so that I have been following these and other great blogs, I have been getting tons of good deals on things I would normally buy anyway, and I have saved lots of money. The best part about it, though, is that it has totally changed the way I think of spending our hard-earned money. No longer do I traipse around the grocery store picking up anything and everything that looks good, only to forget about it once it is away in the pantry or freezer.

Now I will clarify that I am a total foodie and love cooking, and I haven't lost all the fun of grocery shopping. Using coupons and pairing them with sales to get products close to free has actually allowed me to try more new foods that I might not have spent money on otherwise. In some cases, I have loved the product, and in others, I'm glad I didn't spend more than a few cents!

Just recently we received word that the pay cut will be reversed, and this month we will be back to my husband's normal pay. Also, I changed jobs this month, which will give us even more wiggle-room with our budget. Will I go back to my old ways of spending? NO! I'm so excited to report that after the first month or two of the reduced income, I forgot we even had the extra savings that could bail us out if we charged too much on the credit card that month. I spent my time trying to get great deals and keep our out-of-pocket expenses as low as possible. I think that because I started small, and tried not to let couponing overwhelm me (because it can be very overwhelming!), I have continued to do it and enjoy it. Sometimes a big trip to the grocery store with my stack of coupons and shopping list that I have carefully planned out can be exhausting, but when I come home and proudly show my husband how much I did (and didn't) spend and all that we got, it is worth the extra effort in my opinion.

Here are some of the best lessons I learned when I had to tighten my belt these last many months:

:: Spending mindlessly is like eating mindlessly - you're left with unhealthy results, whether it is an enlarged credit card bill or an enlarged waistline.

:: Using coupons and finding bargains not only saves us money, but it fulfills my urge to shop! No longer do I go shopping just to go shopping, and yet I feel like I am living more abundantly than ever.

:: Patience is key. Unless I really need something NOW, I try not to buy it. Often, what I need really does go on sale and/or I find a coupon by the time I need it.

:: Just because something is free doesn't necessarily mean it is a good idea to buy it! There are lots of coupons out there for highly processed junk food. While the occasional (free) treat is fun, many times I have to just ignore some good deals. On a similar note, if you don't need it and it only costs 45 cents, you're still spending money and adding clutter to your life. So keep walking.

So yes, living frugally is a lifestyle not everyone can understand or want for themselves. The way I see it, I live frugally in some areas of my life by using coupons, not spending much money on technology (including cable) and really considering every purchase I make, so that I can live a life of abundance in other ways.

What are the best lessons you have learned from cutting back? Please share!

This post is linked to this post for Frugal Fridays.

Meal Plan For This Week

2009-11-09T22:42:00.001-05:00

OK, I admit that last week I didn't come up with a meal plan, and I could really feel the difference! Things were much more chaotic at dinner time, but since we had a meeting Wednesday night and were heading out of town Friday, I slacked off and didn't come up with a plan. Thankfully I had done some cooking last weekend, and that saved us for many lunches and dinners during the week.

For more information on why I think meal planning is so great, check out this post and this post. In fact, I am actually considering trying to plan out two weeks of dinners in advance, but because I am short on time tonight, I will stick with one week and start thinking about next week.

Here is my plan for the week:
Monday: Leftover potato kale soup using potatoes from the farmers market and our kale, brats on homemade buns using this recipe and fresh ground flour from my new grain mill!
Tuesday: Homemade baked beans and cornbread using bacon from our 1/4 pig and navy beans that I cooked and froze previously
Wednesday: Experimental day - something with round steak from our 1/8 cow, a new carrot dish with my father-in-law's carrots and potatoes, possibly cooked in the crock pot and mashed
Thursday: Another new recipe - a chicken simmered in a soy sauce brine and roasted, sauteed zucchini from the freezer and leftover potatoes
Friday: Homemade pizza using this recipe for crust, veggies from the freezer, italian sausage from our 1/4 pig and anything else I can find that would be good on pizza

We'll see how cooking adventure Wednesday goes. I am going to come up with a recipe for the round steak and my pressure cooker, which I have never used except for some canning a few years ago. I am terrible about using some of the cuts of meat from our cow that I am less familiar with, so I'm trying to get motivated. Perhaps the speed of the pressure cooker will be just what I need to light a little fire under me! I am starting a new job too, so maybe my new schedule of working Mondays and Fridays will help me do a little more cooking during the week, which I have not been as good about lately. Maybe my husband will start making his famous casseroles on Monday nights! Hmmm... that's a lot of maybe's... Eat well and enjoy your week!

Surprise, a Productive Fall Weekend!

2009-11-03T22:08:00.004-05:00

This weekend, my husband and I had a chance to catch up around the house. For him, that meant spending two full days collecting the millions of leaves that have fallen on our yard and getting them mulched with the mower and into the compost pile. For me, that meant a few things: putting our vegetable garden to bed for the winter, doing some cooking ahead and... playing with my new Nutrimill grain mill! I love when it happens this way - I didn't really plan to get all of this done, so the fact that I did was a huge bonus!

Here's what I was able to do:

          :: Put our vegetable garden to bed for the first time in the 5 years I have lived in this house. It always seems to get really cold really fast, and the fall ends up being such a busy time for some reason. I always have the best of intentions, but I have never actually pulled up all of the old plants and organized the beds for next year... until now!  Not only did I clean out the dead plants, but I gave each bed a thick blanket of mulched leaves and grass clippings, that will hopefully block out some of the weeds in the spring and also add nutrients and organic matter to the soil. We didn't have a stellar year in the vegetable garden, and I just didn't spend the time out there like I usually do, so I'm hoping my little bit of extra garden love this fall will translate into a more productive season next year. It certainly can't hurt!

         :: Cooked now so we can eat later without a lot of fuss. I love cooking from scratch and eating healthfully and frugally, but there are only so many hours in the day, so I try to be efficient about it. On Sunday, I made a big pot of of brown rice and black beans for the freezer, a small pot of chili for lunches this week, some sausage/potato/bean soup, a loaf of bread, and since the oven was on for the bread, I threw in some potatoes to bake to eat with the chili this week.

The rice and beans are something I do regularly. For the rice, I make a big pot, and then portion it out in approx 2/3-3/4 cup servings in plastic sandwich bags, freeze, and then pull out any time we have a meal that goes with rice. Since brown rice takes a good 45 minutes to make, I don't have to worry about planning too far ahead for the rice when I have portions ready in the freezer. To eat, we just put the frozen rice (without the bag) on a plate and microwave 2 minutes. Not only is it a time-saver, having rice portioned out saves our waistlines too. We know we can always heat up another bag if we want more rice, but we never really feel like it once we finish our first helping. On the other hand, if we had a big pot of rice... we probably would eat more.

For the beans, I randomly chose an amount of 4 cups of dried black beans from my recent bulk purchase you can read about here. I soaked them in water overnight, and then put them in a crockpot with a bunch of water. I cooked them on high for a good 8 hours or so - it took a long time to heat up. Once the beans were tender, I let them cool a bit, and then portioned them out without the liquid into 1 cup bags for the freezer. Now, when I'm making soup or burritos or some other recipe that calls for canned black beans, I just go to my freezer instead. I ended up with 10-11 cups of cooked beans from 4 cups dry. This way is cheap, took almost no work on my part, and the beans don't have all the added salt or packaging that canned beans have. No work and a great final product? I'm all over it.

        :: Last but not least, my grain mill and food grade buckets with gamma seals arrived! It was a pretty busy week so I didn't have a chance to store my bulk purchases or try out my grain mill until Sunday. I cleaned out the buckets and seals during the week, and then let them dry for a few days to make sure all of the lid parts were completely dry before storing my beans, oats and wheat. The gamma seals on the 5 gallon buckets are supposed to keep the critters and moisture out. We'll see!

As for my Nutrimill grain mill, it is wonderful, I love it!!! I used hard white wheat from my recent bulk purchase and made some finely ground flour. It was so easy. Then, I made a loaf of bread with my current favorite recipe. It was INCREDIBLE. Seriously, I could have just kept on eating it until the whole loaf was gone. It turned out lighter and fluffier than my bread usually is when I use store-bought whole wheat flour. I'm never going back! I knew I would love my new grain mill, and I have not been disappointed.

I'm always looking for more ideas to save time in the kitchen without sacrificing quality or $$. What kinds of time- or money-saving cooking projects do you do?

This Week's Meal Plan

2009-10-25T23:34:00.000-04:00

Uh oh, I almost went to bed without posting my meal plan for the week. I have to say, posting my meal plans for the last few weeks has been interesting! There is nothing like making a commitment and putting it in WRITING to inspire me to do more cooking. I feel like I am more accountable this way, which is motivating even when I'm tired and don't feel like cooking something interesting. I have pretty much followed my meal plans so far, though sometimes the days are rearranged based on what is going on and what we feel like eating.

This week, my husband is out of town for work until late Tuesday night, so dinner is just Molly and I for those evenings. Last night I made a one-dish-meal of spanish rice, and tonight I made a cheesy lasagna (and two small loaf-sized lasagnas for the freezer) for us to have for a few meals. Since I had the oven on for the lasagna, I decided to also try a new recipe for baked oatmeal to have for breakfasts and snacks this week. It turned out pretty well - Molly gobbled up a piece before bed tonight. I think next time I will experiment with some dried fruit or maybe pumpkin puree instead of applesauce (I skipped all but about a tablespoon of the oil) to change things up and add a greater variety of nutrients. I made a half batch, cut it up in pieces, and we will enjoy it warmed up this week.

Here is our meal plan for this week:
Monday: leftover spanish rice that I made with ground beef from our 1/8 cow, carrots from my father-in-law, green peppers and corn that I froze from the farmer's market, taco sauce that I canned and homemade chili seasoning, organic green salad from Costco
Tuesday: leftover lasagna, the last of the zucchini from our garden
Wednesday: baked Mediterranean chicken, Brussels sprouts, garlic bread
Thursday: roasted beets, potatoes, broccoli, marinated pork chops
Friday: Friday night pizza using this recipe for crust, Italian sausage from the 1/4 pig we bought this summer, green peppers that I froze from the farmer's market and any other leftover morsels that would be good on pizza

This week I am working Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday's meal is more easy-going than it looks. It is already prepared and waiting for me in the freezer, so all I have to do is thaw it in the refrigerator the night before, pop it in a baking dish when I get home and put it in the oven. Eat well and enjoy your week!

Bulk Food Find!

2009-10-23T14:48:00.003-04:00

I've really been enjoying making my own homemade bread lately, and decided it is time to step it up and use really great flour for this staple food for our family. I've bought locally grown and ground whole grain spring wheat flour and it is FABULOUS, but the price is quite high if you want to use it frequently (weekly or daily) like I do. So, my birthday was a couple weeks ago and I decided to ask for contributions toward a grain mill.

To go along with the grain mill, I've also been on the hunt for an inexpensive source of whole wheat that I can use to grind into whole wheat flour. Someone suggested this place for buying bulk hard white wheat and other bulk goods. I checked out the locations and as it turns out, I live 10 minutes from the only location in my state!

My friend and I made an appointment and went last night. It was awesome! I spent a total of $36.10 and here's what I got:

          :: 25 lb bag hard white wheat
          :: 25 lb bag quick oats
          :: 25 lb bag black beans
          :: 1 can (2.4 lbs) dehydrated refried beans
          :: 1 can (5.8 lbs) hard red wheat (it is supposed to have a different flavor than the hard white wheat so I wanted to try it)

I broke down the purchases of the larger bags to see just how good of deal this was.

Hard White Wheat:
       :: One pound of flour = 4 cups
         :: 25 lb bag of hard white wheat = 100 cups flour
         :: Cost of 25 lb bag = $5.90
        :: Cost per cup of freshly ground whole wheat flour = less than 6 cents

The bread recipe I've been using lately calls for 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup white flour.
          :: Cost of 5 lb bag unbleached white flour = $2
          :: 5 lb bag white flour = 20 cups
          :: Cost of 1 cup white flour = 10 cents

Cost of the flour in one loaf of delicious homemade bread: about $0.22

Oatmeal:
According to my store-bought oatmeal package, 1/2 cup dry oatmeal is one serving. This is a nice-size bowl of oatmeal - more than the packets if this is what you are comparing to. When I make oatmeal, I use 1/2 cup dry and 1 cup water and get 1 cup+ once it is cooked.   My one pound container provides 11 servings.
          :: One lb oatmeal = 11 servings
          :: Servings per 25 lb bag = 275
          :: Cost of 25 lb bag = $7.50
          :: Cost per serving = less than 3 cents... and healthier than most boxed cereal anyway

Or you could think of it by the package:
          :: 25 lb bag = 400 oz
          :: 1 large canister of Quaker Oats = 40 oz
          :: 25 lb bag = 10 large canisters of Quaker Oats
          :: Cost of 25 lb bag = $7.50
          :: Cost if you could buy it by the canister: $0.75 each

Black Beans:
According to the bag of black beans already in my cupboard, one serving is 1/4 cup dry, so 12 servings per pound. I'm not sure I could squeak out 3 cups from my 1 pound bag of beans, but since it's in writing on the bag, I'll just use these numbers as a ballpark figure.
          :: 25 lb bag at 12 servings per pound = 300 servings
          :: Cost of 25 lb bag = $16.35
          :: Cost per serving = 5 and a half cents

Wow, it seemed like the black beans broke the bank at $16.35, but when you break it down by serving, it is still a really great deal for this super-healthy protein source. In this case, it sure pays to buy in bulk when you can find it. If this is too much food for your family, you could always try splitting a bulk purchase with a friend. Bulk foods have much less packaging then traditional food, so money is not wasted on paper and plastic that will go in the garbage! However, not all bulk buying is created equal. Be sure to bring your calculator and do the math to make sure you are getting a good deal.

I ordered my grain mill last night. I'm sure I will be sharing the details of my love affair with my new grain mill in the weeks to come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check out this blog for more Frugal Friday ideas.

Molly Book: Finished At Last!

2009-10-20T22:50:00.000-04:00

At last, I have finally finished this project that I started for little Molly... when she was about 6 months old. Now she's almost 15 months old, and yes, it took me that long to complete it. It seems that the only time I can find to sew is when I am sitting in the car for hours on end!

I got the idea for a felt book spelling out the letters of her name somewhere, I can't remember. It seemed like such a quick and easy book to throw together, but as always, once I got started, my imagination ran a little wild. What started as a simple little project turned into, well, a much larger one. My motto for most projects I start is usually "Go Big or Go Home." Big just sometimes takes some time to finish.

To make the book, first I cut out the letters and pictures out of felt. *Sorry there are no pictures of the steps - I started this book long before this blog existed.* Then I glued them onto the felt pages and sewed them all down with embroidery thread so that nothing could be picked off and swallowed by a child. Then I sewed the pages together so that each page is actually two pieces of felt back to back. Once these thick pages were finished, I sewed the book together. Here are all the pages... enjoy!

Here is the cover:

Here are the inside pages:

That blob attached to the ribbon on the "Y" page is a jingle bell to play with.

And the back cover... the hearts on black fabric were done by my mom and definitely have the best stitching of the whole book. Don't look too closely at the sewing on the rest of the book! I'm not overly experienced in the sewing department.

This Week's Meal Plan

2009-10-18T09:40:00.002-04:00

Once again, 5 minutes of meal planning saves me much needed time, sanity and money. See my posts here for more of an explanation on how. Here is our meal plan for our dinners this week:

Monday: Tofu stir-fry with veggies from the freezer and brown rice that was cooked as a big batch and frozen in single serving sizes (microwaves in 2 minutes)
Tuesday: Crock pot beef stew using carrots and potatoes from my father-in-law's garden and stew meat from the 1/8 of a cow we bought last year, organic green salad from Costco
Wednesday: Marinated and grilled chicken breasts, organic green salad from Costco, perogies
Thursday: Dinner salad of organic greens, leftover chicken, veggies and chopped up apple
Friday: Friday night pizza using this recipe for crust

I try to choose very low-maintenance meals on days I work - this week it is Tuesday and Thursday. On those days I only have about an hour or a little more to get Molly fed and to bed as well as get our dinner going so we can eat at a decent hour. If I plan easy meals in advance, I don't feel quite so overwhelmed. Eat well and enjoy your week!

Last Canning Project of the Season??? Honey Apple Butter

2009-10-16T12:13:00.001-04:00

This week I made honey apple butter, which was wonderful. We had been accumulating quite a selection of apples in the refrigerator, and I am almost out of the maple apple butter that I made 2 years ago. Maple syrup was an incredible accompaniment to apple butter, but it is pretty expensive and I already used my stash of maple syrup in some fabulous maple blueberry jam this summer. Also, we had our first honey harvest this year and have lots of honey to get creative with! No problem. I like a challenge like that.

Sweet Cider Apple Butter, adapted from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving
yield: about 16 - 8oz. jars (this is a double batch!)

12 pounds apples (I like to use a combination of varieties)
4 cups apple cider
1 quart honey
1 teaspoon cloves
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Directions:

First, a picture of my little helper/apple thief Molly.

All the apples went into the sink for a good wash first. Before I started cutting apples, I put my frozen (from last season) apple cider in an 8 quart stockpot on the stove. As the cider melted, I quartered, cored and peeled all of the apples, throwing them in the pot to start cooking and soften. To be honest, I forgot how many apples 12 pounds is! I wished I had taken out my apple/peeler/corer/slicer to speed up the process.

Once the apples were pretty soft, I took my handy stick blender and pureed the apples until they were nice and smooth. I like my apple butter silky smooth, so blend them as much as you prefer. The recipe says not to liquify it.

Then I added my honey and spices, stirred, turned the stove down to low and cooked slowly all day, stirring occasionally. See how dark it got? You just want it to thicken slowly without sticking to the bottom of the pan or popping up and splashing out. This takes several hours, but the house smells incredible as it cooks. For some people, the whole process would NOT generally take an entire day to do, but I had many, many distractions and interruptions hanging out with little Molly that it took longer than it would have had I been by myself. But... by the end of the day it was done and that's what counts!

Once the apple butter cooked down to a consistency I prefer, I processed 8 oz jars for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath canner.

Try a sandwich of cream cheese and honey apple butter on this homemade whole wheat bread... YUM.

Sweet Grocery Deals

2009-10-15T12:04:00.001-04:00

Molly and I made a trip to Meijer yesterday to scoop up some deals. Several months ago I started getting into "couponing" (what a funny name), which means that I try to match up coupons with sales to get sweet deals on groceries and other household items. Thankfully, most of the hard work is done by other people who post the match-ups on their websites. Right now my favorite sites for this are:

Money Saving Mom

Hip2Save

Macomb Money Savers

These people are masters at using coupons, getting freebies and other great deals, and sharing them with others. I've saved so much money since starting to use coupons, and it fulfulls my urge to shop without spending a ton of money.

I know that a lot of coupons that come with the Sunday paper are for food items that are complete junk. I try to avoid these and still find coupons for other items that either:
:: are good wholesome foods
:: are treats (especially if I can get them for free or close to free), or
:: are for other household items we need like toothpaste or cat food
Why pay full price when you can stack a store coupon with a manufacturer coupon and a sale and save a bunch of money?

For the above items, I spent $22.74 out of pocket (I admit I did have $10.90 in bottle deposits from our second-time-in-5-years cash-in on the few soda cans we accumulate). According to my receipt, I saved $37.62 from store promotions and coupons. AND, best of all, because of the offers going on at Meijer yesterday, I got back $13 in catalinas (money toward your next purchase that the little machine spits out after your sale) because of what I bought! Pretty cool. Here's what I got:

1 3.5 lb bag Purina cat food
1 Danimals yogurt smoothies
3 Fast Shake pancake mixes
1 loaf Pepperidge Farm bread
1 bag King Arthur whole wheat flour
16 cans Campbell's cream of mushroom soup * keep reading for WHY!
3 cans Meijer unsalted carrots
2 quarts Swanson chicken broth
4 cans Swanson chicken broth
3 boxes Zip-lock snack bags
3 boxes Zip-lock evolve sandwich bags
5 Pillsbury Simply peanut butter cookie dough
1 box Townhouse Flips crackers
1 box Meijer Applause wheat crackers

So I can already hear the moans looking at that list of groceries... some of those items are not simple or wholesome! Let me explain. Some items, like the Danimals, crackers and canned carrots are for 14-month-old Molly. This little nursling is not a fan of regular milk, loves canned carrots and can only eat so many slices of homemade bread for a snack. The pancake mixes are for camping or weekends up north because you just add water to the bottle, shake and voila, pancake batter with very little clean-up. The cookie dough (most of which will go straight into the freezer to be enjoyed slowly) is the new Simply kind with wholesome ingredients, and were practically free after the sale, coupons and catalina. As for the chicken broth, I do a lot of from-scratch cooking, and while I do make stock from almost every bird that enters our house, sometimes you need some canned chicken broth.

Lastly, the cream of mushroom soup. No, this is not first on my list of foods to include in my diet, BUT please allow me me to explain. Soon after I met my husband, he forgot how to cook. I love to cook, so I pretty much took over in the kitchen right when I moved in. However, one meal he will make in the wintertime is casseroles! And they all start with some kind of meat, vegetables, cream of whatever soup and are topped with tater tots. I was skeptical at first, but they grew on me and most importantly... when he makes casseroles I DON'T HAVE TO COOK DINNER! So why spend $1.59 on a can of soup when you have a casserole craving when you can buy 16 cans for $3.90 (yep, under $0.25 per can) on sale with coupons? We know we're going to eat it once in awhile, like it or not.

So in all of this money-saving excitement, I did fail to pick up milk, which we are almost out of. Duh. Oh well, I'm still new at this couponing stuff...

Until Next Year...

2009-10-14T14:38:00.002-04:00

Over the weekend we harvested the last of our garden for the season: tomatoes, zucchini and a few small onions. My birthday was on Saturday, and it seems that every year my birthday is the turning point between summer and fall. We still have some kale (lacianato and Red Russian) and broccoli that I will leave in the ground and keep picking until the plants or I give up. Apparently kale tastes sweeter after a nip of frost anyway. I actually feel lucky to have harvested what I did this year. With the addition of toddler Molly this year, I just didn't have the time or energy to spend in the garden like I have in years past. The weather was also cooler than usual this summer, so the plants didn't do as well as they usually do. However, considering the little time I did spend gardening, I am thankful for what we ended up with! I'm already dreaming of next spring; hopefully we will have tons of asparagus and strawberries again next year.

Even though it seems like our garden didn't produce as much as usual this year, I am thankful I was able to take advantage of our local farmers markets to buy extra fresh fruits and vegetables in season and mostly organic so that I could preserve them (relatively inexpensively) for our long, cold winter in Michigan.

This is what I froze this year:

:: Corn, blanched and cut from the cob

:: Strawberries (ours)

:: Blueberries

:: Zucchini, some grated, some diced (many were ours)

:: Green and red peppers, diced

:: Three kinds of pesto: basil, basil/parsley and basil/spinach

And this is what I canned this year:

:: Spaghetti sauce (some tomatoes were ours)

:: Jalapeno salsa

:: Cayenne jalapeno salsa

:: Habanero jalapeno salsa

:: Dill pickles

:: My grandma's sweet pickles

:: Danish cherry sauce

:: Strawberry sauce (our strawberries)

:: Strawberry lemon marmalade (our strawberries)

:: Low sugar cherry jam

:: Summer solstice jam

:: Peach jam

:: Low sugar peach jam

:: Peach and honey jam (this was before our honey harvest)

:: Honey apple butter (our honey)

:: Cherry chutney
:: Low sugar blueberry maple jam
:: Grape juice (our grapes)

We also have some potatoes from our garden, tomato juice canned by my parents and green beans and stewed tomatoes canned by my father-in-law. 95% of the fruit and vegetables that we put away for the winter were grown either by us, our parents, my grandfather or the farmers at the farmers market. It's good to know where your food comes from! I'm always looking for new ideas for preserving fruits and vegetables. What kinds of produce did you preserve this year?

Meal Plan For This Week

2009-10-12T11:40:00.002-04:00

Spending just 5 minutes planning out our dinners for the week saves me a lot of things:

:: Time - no wasting time thinking about it during my busy day at one of my two jobs: working outside the home or staying home chasing my 14-month-old Molly.
:: Angst - no more fretting over what to make for dinner when I've already thought about it and defrosted what I need.
:: Money - no stopping for take-out because I'm too tired and overwhelmed to prepare a nice meal. Also, meal planning helps me look at what food I already have that needs to be eaten and get creative instead of deciding on a meal and then going to the store and buying all of the ingredients, on sale or not.

I always regret it mid-week when I haven't made a meal plan. I am guilty of stockpiling food with the best of intentions and then forgetting about it in the pantry, freezer or fridge. Meal planning helps me remember these items and get them onto our plates! So, when you see strange items in my meal plan, it is probably something I'm trying to get out off my shelves :)

Here is our meal plan for this week:
Monday: Cranberry Chicken from "Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer", organic green salad from the farmer's market, perogies from the freezer
Tuesday: Turkish Pork Loin Chops from "Fix Freeze Feast," kale from our garden, corn on the cob (probably the last of the season!)
Wednesday: Black Bean Chilaquile from "Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites" using onions from our garden, corn I froze this summer, home-canned salsa and tomatoes from my father-in-law's garden
Thursday: Friday night pizza with homemade crust from this website for one of my favorite books. Toppings will include zucchini and onions from our garden and diced bell peppers I froze this summer. I know it's not Friday, but we're traveling Friday night and we didn't get to have homemade pizza last Friday either!
Friday: Ham or Turkey sandwiches on homemade bread from this great website, apples we picked at the orchard and some kind of treat for our road trip for a family wedding this weekend.

Between the usual chaos of my days at home with Molly, I'm also attempting to make some honey apple butter today with apples we picked at the orchard and honey from our bees. Yes, our bees! Stay tuned for a future post dedicated to our first honey harvest this year.

HOT Salsas

2009-10-02T22:42:00.001-04:00

Recently I visited my grandpa's farm garden and collected many, many hot peppers, pledging to do "something" with them. I had jalapeno, cayenne and habenero peppers along with lots of tomatoes, bell peppers, green beans, zucchini and cucumbers. I have some friends and family members who like super-hot foods, so I thought I might just try a recipe I came across for jalapeno salsa. I ended up making three batches of salsa: one batch of jalapeno salsa, and then two more batches replacing some of the jalapenos with cayenne and habenero peppers.

I didn't want to spend the time taking out the seeds and veins of the peppers partially because they are so darned small and I had so many peppers, but also I didn't want that hot stuff touching my fingers! Most of my canning escapades happen during my daughter's nap time or after she goes to bed, so time is always of the essence. To save some time, I threw all of the cleaned and trimmed ingredients in the food processor to be chopped up for a slightly smoother textured salsa. This moved things along a bit and didn't make too big of a mess.

I haven't tried any of the salsa yet. I'd like to say it's because the recipe said to let it mellow for 3-4 weeks, but really I think it is going to be SO hot! Even the jalapeno one, let alone the habenero. I canned some delicious peach salsa earlier this summer, and it was plenty warm with about 4 jalapenos in it. I didn't count all the peppers in these recent batches, but I know I had 11 habeneros plus some japalenos in one batch. This stuff is going to be HOT. Hope everybody likes it!

This Week's Meal Plan

2009-10-01T14:21:00.008-04:00

I don't know about you, but I work much better if I have a plan, especially in the kitchen. I love cooking, and mostly from scratch, but I am often terrible about keeping track of what I have on hand in the refrigerator, pantry and our two (yes, two!) extra freezers. The fact that we have two freezers probably gives you a clue that we often have quite the stockpile of food.

In the past several months I have been making more of an effort to simplify, reduce waste and save money, and one area I have focused on is food. A few minutes of meal planning each week has done wonders to help us eat the food we have grown or spent hard-earned money on before it goes bad, rotate our food supply and lose the 5pm panic of figuring out what to have for dinner.

Each person/family is different, but for us, I prefer to just plan out our dinners. Breakfast is usually cereal, fruit, bagel and cream cheese, PB&J or oatmeal with bananas, raisins and maple syrup during the week, and pancakes or eggs and toast on the weekends. Lunch is usually anything - leftovers or a sandwich. It's not usually too hard for me to come up with breakfast and lunch. Dinner during the week is the struggle, but really important, especially since this is where our lunch leftovers come from! If I don't cook for a couple days, our lunch options begin to dwindle and the temptation of going out to lunch gets stronger and stronger. That option is neither wholesome, healthy nor frugal, so this is where meal planning comes in to save the day.

Here is our meal plan for this week:
Monday: Casserole of potatoes, kale, onions and smoked sausage with sauerkraut and German mustard
Tuesday: Spaghetti with meat sauce, zucchini, garlic bread
Wednesday: Indian dal and butter chicken simmer sauce with brown rice and naan (Yuck, when will I ever stop thinking that what comes out of a jar will taste anything like what you get in a restaurant??) I have BAD luck cooking Indian food. Any advice is appreciated.
Thursday: Disappearing zucchini orzo and salmon burgers
Friday: Homemade pizza using this recipe for the pizza dough (stay tuned for a future post about our Friday Night Pizza tradition)

So far we've stuck to the plan, and I'm so glad I'm back on the meal-planning wagon. We eat far better and it's less stress for me, even though I typically end up cooking more this way. All it takes is 5-10 minutes a week and a couple of peeks in the fridge and freezer to see what needs to move along. Result: less rotting produce, happier bellies and healthier bodies.

Enough Spaghetti Sauce for the Year

2009-09-30T13:02:00.034-04:00

Over the weekend we canned our last batch of tomato sauce of the season. My goal this year was 4 batches and wahoo, we're done!! It is a lot of work, but a few busy summer weekends pays off all year long with our luscious red gold from a jar. Rich, tomatoey, a touch of spice... there's nothing like it. I love knowing each and every ingredient that goes into this favorite quick, easy meal of ours. The smell you encounter every time you walk in the house from outside while the sauce is coooking is absolutely heavenly.

Seasoned Tomato Sauce, adapted from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving

yield: about 14 pints or 7 quarts

30 pounds tomatoes

4 cups chopped onions

8 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup olive oil

1 1/3 tablespoons oregano

4 bay leaves

2/3 tablespoon black pepper

1 tablespoon sugar

1/6 cup salt

1 1/3 teaspoons crushed red pepper

bottled lemon juice for canning

Canning our favorite spaghetti sauce is quite an event and takes all day... sometimes even into the next day if I take too long to get started. My recipe starts off with a 20 quart stock pot filled with washed, cored and quartered tomatoes. Plum tomatoes are the best since they tend to have the most solid/least liquid but any will work. I have made batches with any and every tomato I can find to get up to the 30 pounds, including cherry tomatoes.

I squeeze the tomatoes as I add them to the pot, bringing out the juices so that tomatoes can start to cook without burning to the bottom of the pan. I cook these until they are nice and soft.

Once the tomatoes soften, I run them all through the vegetable strainer that attaches to my KitchenAid mixer. This removes the seeds and skin, which go into the compost.

The tomato juice goes into a 16 quart stock pot with the rest of the ingredients, and then you cook, cook...

and cook it some more.

It takes many hours to cook the sauce down to a consistency I like for spaghetti sauce, and it is worth the time and effort to get it to be nice and thick. I usually cook it down by half - so basically I end up with 7-8 quarts when I start out with about 16 quarts. Add 2 T lemon juice to quarts or 1 T lemon juice to pints, and process quarts in a water bath canner for 40 minutes, pints for 35 minutes. The entire process takes 8-10 hours. Enjoy all year.

Come on in, the water's fine

2009-09-22T13:49:00.001-04:00

Hello and welcome! I can't wait to share my domestic adventures with you. Feel free to leave any feedback in the comments. I will do my best to reply to your questions in a timely fashion. Please bear with me as I get myself and this blog organized.