August 29th, 2010 Recipes, frugal eating on the go, large family shopping ideas, and freezer cooking kits all in one!
We’re learning to make the most of our Sam’s trips slowly. Last week Matt hit on the best thing ever. First of all, let me say if you have a membership to Sam’s you can not only get your diapers for much less you can drop into their cafe and get amazing deals on lunch or dinner. You can get a huge Nathan’s hot dog and drink for about $1.75 or a large slice of pizza and a drink for under $3. Y’all, for a family of 7 that is da bomb. Last week while ordering our after-church hot dogs Matt ordered a case of fully-cooked 16 inch pizza crusts. 20 of them. For, get this, $16. Wow. And we all know the hardest part of getting a homemade pizza right is the crust. No more. You ask for them at the food counter where you get your hot dogs, not in the frozen foods section in the back. They come in a big box. We set our box straight into the freezer and pull out however many we want to cook up at a time. While we were at Sam’s we bought a mega pack of mozzarella, pepperoni, and sauce (those are found in the regular food section of the store). When we got home (or in reality 4 days after they sat in the fridge waiting for me) I divided the huge packs of pepperoni and cheese into little freezer bags according to the amount we would need for each pizza. And because we like to experiment with all kinds of pizzas we also bought some pre-cooked grilled chicken chunks (you could save money by doing these yourself, we just didn’t this time), barbeque sauce, alfredo sauce, bacon, garlic, black olives, green olives, and fruit. We also want to try a chocolate chip cookie dough soon.
So far we’ve tried cheese sticks: frozen crust, melted butter spread all over, garlic (we love the huge pre-chopped garlic – we use it for everything) spread all over, and then cheese sprinkled on top. When you divide your cheese if you put it straight into the freezer it will stay loose and not melt down into a huge clump. Then when you want to make a pizza you can reach into the bag and put the frozen cheese you want onto the frozen crust – no thawing. We bake all of the pizzas at 400 degrees for about 10 or 15 minutes – just check for a melty golden cheese on top. Serve the cheese sticks with the pasta sauce you would normally use on the pizza.
Here are a couple we had yesterday.
The cheese pizza is the kids’ fall back favorite. I should’ve used more cheese. Oh well, they didn’t seem to mind this time. The other is a chicken, garlic, tomato, alfredo. Oh my, y’all. The only thing that would’ve made this one better is crumbled bacon. But we forgot to make it ahead of time. I think the pizza made it into our bellies just fine without it though. Chicken Alfredo Pizza: frozen crust, spread some chopped garlic on top, half a jar of alfredo sauce, a little salt, mozzarella, grilled chicken chunks, sliced fresh tomatoes, and a little more cheese just to hold the chicken and tomatoes on. 400 degrees for almost 15 minutes. Oh my.
August 4th, 2010 Here’s a recipe and another how-to on freezer cooking.
Once again, we ate it up before we got pictures. Doh!
When you go buy your big pack of ground beef and brown it up all at once, you’re also going to buy another big pack of ground beef. This one is for burgers. After you brown all that other ground beef and set it in the fridge to cool, then turn your attention to the burger prep.
Dump the whole bunch of raw ground beef into a big glass bowl (use a metal pot if you don’t have a bowl big enough). Mix in some burger seasoning mix – we’re currently using Emeril’s Bam! Burger Mix but we’re not partial. Mix it in really well. Lay out a long strip of wax paper on the counter. Then patty out the ground beef however large you want them. Lay them out lined up on the wax paper. Then start tearing off plastic wrap (I don’t have a great method for this, suggestions?) Currently I tear off the size I’ll need that will wrap one patty completely. I start setting them all around on the counter tops – not touching so they don’t wind up all wadded up together. I wrap each patty individually, stack them, and set aside. When they’re all wrapped I stack them into my freezer – you can put them into freezer gallon bags if you’d like and date them, but we eat them up so quickly that I skip this step most of the time.
Now, to the cooking part.
When you want them for a quick dinner, pull out however many you’ll eat at a meal, unwrap, set frozen into a large casserole dish not touching. Set your oven to broil. Set them under the broiler (with the shelf halfway down – you don’t want them right under the broiler) and set the timer for 10 minutes. When the timer goes off, squish ‘em flat and flip them. Set the timer again for 10 minutes. Squish, flip. Set timer again for 10 minutes or less – depending on doneness. You can tell they’re done when the juices run clear when you squish them. Keep squishin’, checkin’, and flippin’ until done. When they’re done add sliced or shredded cheese and set back in the oven until cheese is melted.
When serving this time we added precooked bacon you can buy in the store, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, mustard, mayo, and buns (toasted or not – your preference!). We deep fried some Rally fries you can find in the freezer section (really good, by the way) and added shredded cheese to the top, sometimes we salt and sugar the fries instead of adding cheese – mmm!
Cook ahead meal and walk away, unattended burgers all in one!
July 30th, 2010 Once again I have no picture to go with these – must remedy that.
My honey came up with this one, so you know it’s divine!
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat oven according to directions on can.
Spray a glass pie plate well with cooking spray. Layer a handful (or however much you want, don’t measure, people, just toss it in!) evenly in the pan of the chopped pecans, then the shredded coconut, then the chocolate chips.
Drizzle the caramel from the package all over that.
Place the rolls with sides touching in the pan.
Bake as directed.
When they get golden remove from oven and immediately place a large plate over the top and flip them out onto the plate.
Eat ‘em warm and try not to gorge yourself!
July 28th, 2010 I don’t have a picture for these yet. You’ll just have to trust me when I tell you how yummy they are.
I think there may be a misconception that all of my recipes are these hard involved recipes like the unbelievably amazing tasting Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas. There’s a lot of work there. Made much less if you cook ahead a few of the ingredients, none-the-less pretty involved, but oh so worth it. I promise not everything I do is difficult. I’d lose my mind if it were.
So, are you ready for, like, the easiest recipe ever?
Ingredients:
- 3-4 pounds country style pork ribs, boneless (or boneless pork chops)
- 1 family sized can cream of chicken soup (you could use cream of mushroom, but I don’t like cream of mushroom, therefore I use chicken)
- salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Put pork ribs in crockpot. Pour soup on top. Add a little salt and pepper. Cook on low for 8 hours.
I normally don’t double this recipe since I serve it with veggies and rice – it usually makes enough for our family for one meal. Want leftovers? Double up!
I serve this with those in-the-bag steamable veggies found in the freezer section. I put some garlic salt on the veggies with a little margarine. I serve the Creamy Pork Chops with rice and pour the “gravy” they cooked in over it.
That would be it.
July 23rd, 2010 Let me start with the menu planning. Backwards. Makes complete sense, right? Allow me to explain.
Sometimes I grab my recipes (see below), look into my cabinets to see what we have, and then write out what we’ll be having for the next 2 weeks in a list form (not a calendar day-by-day type that I tried before). On the same page I make a grocery list, going meal-by-meal seeing what we need to buy. This is one of my old lists I just happened to find. Not pretty, but functional. Notice I marked how many or what size of each item before going shopping (because I have no ability to think when I’m in the store with a bunch of sweet hooligans).
After shopping sometimes I post the same list, marked on and all, on the fridge. That’s my normal menu planning.
But sometimes Matt shops (can I get a woo hoo! ?). We shop vastly differently. Viva la difference! He’s not so much a plan aheader. Nor is he a list taker. I never make a list for him. I love a list, he hates a list, what can I say? So I quit fighting that long ago and rejoice in the fact that I’m not shopping this time. Who cares what he comes home with, right? It’s food and I didn’t buy it. This was a life-saver and how we lived the whole time I was pregnant last time. I not only couldn’t bring myself to think about food without throwing up, there was that whole swine flu debacle, not to mention my inability to walk by the end of the pregnancy. He shopped. I loved him for it.
But it’s hard to know what to cook when you’re not the one shopping, right?
Here’s the backwards part. So, he comes home with all this food and I assess it. Hmm, what I can make with this and this? I make a list of what all he bought. I put that list on the fridge with a number of how many meals I can get out of it (not leftover meals, mind you. Completely separate days.) Then I brainstorm and hit up my recipes and ask Matt what all he planned when buying (note the Hawaiian Chicken – he came home with a bottle of marinade which I poured over the chicken in a freezer ziplock and labeled – now it’s premarinated, ready to thaw in the fridge, and use in a Chinese meal). Then I proceed to cook ahead like normal (ground turkey this time instead of beef). I leave the list on the side of the fridge and as I use a meal I mark it off. There are even snacks on there that I might forget are in the cabinets.
 The arrows are to let me know the ones I need to use first before something goes bad, ie. uses produce or fresher bread that will go bad, etc.
And here’s where I discuss why I don’t use the day-by-day plan. It didn’t work for us. Somebody mentioned this in my comments or Facebook fanpage recently (I can’t remember which). They said they might want one thing one day and it not be what’s for that night on the schedule. Amen, sister girl! Plus, we’re fly by the seat of our pantsers. I might plan to be home Friday night and schedule some fancy meal. And Matt might come home and say “Let’s go to town tonight!” And then I have to make elaborate switcharoos. Not my thing. Or I might forget to pull out from the freezer to thaw one night for the next day’s meal and now I’m back to the switcharoo. Ugh. Or I might plan to make a crockpot meal and have fifteen kid emergencies right off the bat (can you say last Monday?!) and forget to start the meal until it’s too late. This way I’m not bound by a schedule. I can go to my list at any point, assess how much prep work any one meal will take and pull the stuff out to make it – make-ahead is great for this – last minute craziness? I need a meal in the next 15 minutes? I already have ground turkey browned – it’s going to be a spaghetti night! I actually have my wits about me at the kids’ bedtimes as I pass by the fridge? I set the boneless ribs in the fridge for tomorrow. No schedule, just easy peasy.
30 Meals
I found the 30 Meals idea from Brenda. Here is the official total 30 meals idea. I love it, I plan to implement it a little at a time. These are the ones that are already in rotation in my house. Even though we’ll use this list most of the time, we’ll continue to always try new stuff – we like variety! I hope y’all will post your list of 30 and link ‘em up (or put them in the comments) when I post a McLinky later. I also eventually plan to put every recipe for these on here. If you’ll let me know what your favorites are I’ll write the recipes in order of popularity!
- Fajitas
- Meatloaf
- Chinese
- Spaghetti
- Chicken and Rice
- Sour Cream Chicken
- Mexican Chicken
- Bacon, Eggs, Biscuits
- Bacon Lettuce Tomato Sandwiches
- Pancakes and Sausages
- Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas
- Frozen Burrito with Enchilada Sauce and Cheese Bake
- Egg Casserole
- Beef Stroganoff (with beef tips)
- 7 Layer Dip
- Homemade Burritos
- Salisbury Steak
- Chicken Fried Steak with Mashed Potatoes
- Black Beans – Crockpot, Salsa, Sour Cream served on Garlic Bread
- Roast with Veggies – Crockpot
- Roast Beef Sandwiches
- Creamy Pork Chops – Crockpot
- Hamburgers
- Melty Ham Sandwiches (with or without fried eggs)
- Lasagna
- Tacos
- Barbeque Sandwiches – Crockpot
- Chicken and Dumplins
- Porkloin
- Swiss Steak – Crockpot
- Chili – Crockpot
- Chilitos
- Chicken Taco Soup – Crockpot
- Lemon Pepper Chicken – Crockpot over Salad or Rice
Sides and Extras I’ve included these because they are (for the most part) staples we keep and will need to buy each time we go
- Sweet Potato Casserole
- Salsa
- Twice Baked Potatoes
- Drop Biscuits
- Steamed Veggies
- Granola
- Muffins
- Quick Breads – Banana, Pumpkin, Apple Spice
- Devilled Eggs
- Seasoned Rice
- Noodles
- Fruit
- String Cheese
- Yogurt
- Instant pudding and Jello
- Chocolate Chips
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