We have been spending too much money on food lately. We rarely go out to eat. Actually, we never go out to eat. We've gotten take-out probably twice since the new year, but we never go to restaurants (not a real sacrifice in my book, for $40, I'd rather cook well at home and have some drinks) So, compared with others, we probably spend a lot less than most, but we could do better. I can be extremely frugal if I need to, a quality I'm actually very proud of. It's the farm girl in my genes I believe. Yes, in my genes, I never lived on a farm but was raised around a lot of people who were.
I went and dropped a boat load of money at the grocery store and the local box-store I belong to and we'll see how this turns out. If I do this right, besides the fill-ins like milk and bread, I shouldn't have to buy food for like 3 months. Most of the stuff I made can be eaten for dinner and then eaten as leftovers either for lunch the next day or for the next night. We only have Matt's kids Tuesdays and Thursdays and every other weekend. Bridgette is around less and less with work and school, they don't eat as much food as they used to. Most of the time it's just Matt and me. I still make different food for Charlie because he eats so much earlier than us, but hopefully, he'll be able to eat some of this stuff too. As soon as he stays up a bit later, we can start eating together. I look forward to that time. But until he stops going to bed at 7, that's how it works. I just can't bring myself to eat at 5:15 and Matt usually isn't home anyway.
We keep trying to keep him up a little later, we thought of moving bedtime to 7:30, but if the kid is tired, the kid is tired. Who can argue with a kid that wants to go to sleep? Just tonight, come 6:30, he was DONE and I put him down and he was happy to go, even after a 3 hour nap this afternoon. I've said it before and I'll say it agian, God bless those McAuley sleeping genes.
I'm going to list the items I made, plus the items I still need to make and the tricks I've learned from Pinterest. Most that actually work believe it or not!! This is more for my records in case this works and I want to do this again. It'll be a while though. As much as I love to cook, the last three days have been hell. A hell with lots and lots of dirty dishes. I ran the dishwasher three times today alone.
 |
| This is pretty cool. I'm scared of cream of ____ soups. All gel-ly and scary. I can handle the mushroom because it's veggie, but cream of chicken? ewwwwww Found this here. You mix dried milk, corn starch, bullion and some spices and stir it with some water and it makes 'cream of something' soup. Good for when it's called for in a recipe. I don't know about eating it outright, but who eats cream of chicken by itself? Very handy and very cheap |
 |
| I made 10 lbs of pulled pork in two batches in the crock pot. Vacuum packed it in 1.5 lb bags |
 |
| I poured the juices of the pulled pork into ice cube trays for when I reheat them. (Home made baby food gear just keeps coming in handy) Easier than putting them in 8 little Tupperware |
 |
| This is something I've been doing for a while. When we butchered Matt's deer, we ground bacon in with it to add some fat because deer is so lean. I had some leftover ground bacon that I bagged up and ever since, this is how I cook bacon. I bought a 30 lb of bacon and ground it all up and separated it into little bags. Cooks up as easy as sausage and is much less of a pain and less messy than cooking regular bacon. Basically cooks into bacon bits. It's a little temperamental, you have to cook it very even and if the heat gets too high, it pops like popcorn. But other than that, I've loved this new technique of cooking bacon |
 |
My pureed cauliflower. There is pureed cauliflower & carrots in almost every single dish I made. This is another baby food crossover that I use often. Especially since Matt's kids don't like their veggies very well.
'Mollie, what is this orange stuff in here?"
"Uh, that's just cheese that didn't stir in well"
"oh, okay"
"he he he he he he" |
 |
| I just taped the name of the dish and the cooking instructions on the top of each item. Some have some extra steps to do before you put it in the oven, I write that on there too |
 |
| We will see if this works- I read that if you clip green onions above the white, if you keep them in the sun and in clean water, they will regrow. We shall see..... |
 |
These are great. I make basically 'mini quiches' for Matt to bring to work for breakfast everyday. I couldn't have him eating a granola bar for breakfast every day. He's hungry 20 minutes later. This gives him a good breakfast in his stomach the will last him through the morning. In a frying pan I cook up any mix of bacon, sausage, mushrooms, onion, spinach, really anything you want. Spoon a little in each muffin cup, add cheese. In a bowl, mix 12 eggs WELL (I use my immersion blender, hand mixing just doesn't do) add salt, pepper, thyme, whatever you want. Cook on 350 for about 25 minutes. Check them often, they turn quick if they are overcooked. Throw the whole thing in the freezer and pop them out into a ziploc bag. Matt takes 2 each day.
Pinterest Tips:
Light a candle while you cut onions. I thought that all 'do this and you won't cry when you cut onions' were wives tales, I've never found one that worked. But, I tried it and it worked. A lot of the recipes called for onion, so I had to cut up a bunch at once. It seems to work. It may have been a fluke, but as of today....it worked.
Use your paddle attachment on your kitchen-aid mixer for perfectly shredded chicken. This was AWESEOME. So many of the recipes called for chicken so I boiled ten chicken breasts in heavily salted water. I put them in my kitchen aid bowl and mixed them on speed 3 with the paddle attachment and viola- shredded chicken. Do you know how long it takes to shred chicken with two forks? I was thrilled. As they were shredding, I added some more salt and pepper to the chicken. So uber handy.
What is in the freezer right now:
6 bags of ready to go spaghetti sauce with meat, mushrooms and all the spices (and hidden cauliflower, carrots and zucchini). This was economical because I was able to use the big can of tomato sauce, plus paste, diced tomatoes and season it myself. Much cheaper than store bought sauce
3 smaller pans of homemade macaroni and cheese using this recipe
2 pans meatloaf
3 big ziplocs of Black Bean & Chicken Chili
Chicken Bacon Vegetable Casserole
Chicken Broccoli Supreme Casserole
Broccoli & Chicken Casserole
All of the three above are different recipes, we'll see which is best. I've never been a big casserole person, but I scoured the web for edible ones for this project, let's hope these are good
I still have quite a few more I can do, I'm taking a break because I can't cook anymore for right now. Tomorrow, there is bunch of baking I'm going try to tackle. Healthy muffins I can take to work and/or give to Charlie. More on that later....
In addition to all the meat I used, there is also a surplus of just meat I was able to package up for grilling, general cooking etc.
We'll see how this all goes, I'll update more later.
|
 |
| My little helper |
Update: I don't think this is worth it. All the meals were only so-so. I can make a whole meal in less than 30 minutes that tastes much better. I think I'm done with freezer meals
