What's for supper? Almost-free minestrone

Tonight's supper menu: Homemade minestrone soup, with English muffins and whatever you wanted to put on the English muffins (Lydia turned hers into a fried-egg muffin). The soup was "almost-free" because I used up several small containers of leftover pasta sauce and beans that had accumulated in the freezer, along with a box of chicken broth, a bit of frozen spinach, a bit of pasta, and a few mushrooms.

(When you're cooking for two or three, it's hard not to have those leftover half-cans of sauce, beans and other things. One way to deal with them is to put everything in freezer bags ahead of time--make six bags of spaghetti sauce or whatever, and you won't have any stray tomato sauce. Another way is what I just did: use little lunch-sized plastic tubs to collect up the bits and pieces, and then thaw them all out at once when you want to make soup.)

What's for supper?, and a muffin recipe

Tonight's dinner menu:

Chicken chili (from our freezer meals)
Salad: romaine hearts and broccoli slaw veggies (something easy to put together from the Giant Tiger produce shelf)
Go-withs: cheese, cottage cheese, mini rice cakes, things like that

Apple Maple Muffins

How do you make Apple Maple Muffins?

Start with last night's dessert: apples baked with a little homemade pancake syrup. Chop the apples small.

Combine dry ingredients for a regular batch of muffins: two cups flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt.  In another bowl or measuring cup, combine 1/2 cup oil, 1 egg, and about 3/4 cup milk. Combine the wet and dry ingredients along with the apples and any of their syrup. Add a little more liquid if needed. Spoon into paper-lined muffin cups and bake about 15 minutes at 375 degrees. They don't have to get too brown.

Thinking through the pantry and the freezer

I am a bit ahead with the HomeStorageSolutions decluttering calendar, which is all about kitchen cupboards right now. There are some cluttery things about our kitchen, but they're not all things I can control; so I just do my best. And yes, there are china egg cups and wine glasses and so on on the top shelf, but they're not hurting anybody. If I suddenly need a functioning top shelf that high up (hosting a team of basketballl players?), I'll do a Clean Sweep.

Looking at the next assignment, pantry food, was more workable for me this week. After I got done filling bags of dry mixes (which also let me know about any surpluses and lacks), I made a list of the canned food. I realized that we had more tomatoes and beans on hand than usual, and that was good, because we were out of freezer meals. Mr. Fixit picked up some chicken and beef on Saturday, and, along with a bag of peppers and a package of mushrooms, that was enough to make two bags each of:

Chicken Cacciatore
Chicken Chili
Chinese-style Beef and Broccoli
Sloppy Joe mix (browned meat and seasonings)
"Cheeseburger Soup" (misleading name because we use it for pasta sauce).
Plus one meal of chicken-with-chili-sauce that we ate when we were done un-cooking.

HomeStorage suggests that we eat from the food on hand over the next couple of weeks; that won't be a problem.

Frugal Finds and Fixes: It's Winter Now edition

Two weeks into 2016, the weather has been a string of snowfalls followed by lots of shovelling. I don't ski or sled; my idea of enjoying winter is staying warm indoors.

On a whim, I downloaded the January decluttering calendar from Home Storage Solutions 101, and I've been trying to keep up with its 15-minute cleaning missions. That isn't necessarily a frugal thing, but it's a cleaning and simplifying one. It's also kind of positive when I get a string of things to declutter that already aren't cluttery. Dish towels? We could replace a few, but otherwise they're just folded in the drawer. Plastic wrap and foil? I had to restock rather than declutter those. Kitchen table? I know what she means, I've seen quite a few that could have used decluttering, but ours is usually bare. I'm sure she'll get me on some other point, though. I did clean out the plastic lids etc. (those accumulate fast), and we sent an extra casserole dish and some knives to the thrift store.
 

I got a head start on next week's cleaning-out-pantry-food missions by going through what we have, getting rid of a few things that had expired, and restocking the dry baking and soup mixes. I filled twenty plastic zipper bags with homemade muffin mix, pizza dough mix, lentil soup mix, a mixture of barley and brown rice that we use for Crockpot cereal, and so on. Again, it's not necessarily more frugal, but it does save measuring and cleanup.

We are all out of freezer meals (except for leftover chili that we're going to have tonight with a frozen pizza). I am hoping to replenish those soon.

We've kept on determinedly clearing stuff out and taking it to the thrift store. Drop-off trips usually also mean go-in-and-shop trips; we had one of those today.This is what I found: a purse for $3:

A short tan-coloured skirt for $1 (that's for summer):

And a sweater dress for $5. It's a nice colour and I do like sweater dresses, but it's much too long (I couldn't even get the whole length in the photo. Here's what I did with it. On the subject of chopping and sewing, I'm still working on my Scrap Challenge. It's not going to be all clothes!

What I did to stay frugal: I did NOT buy any of the scarves they were featuring in the front of the store, and they had some really nice ones. But the purse, the skirt, and the dress were higher on the needs-list than just frou-frou. I'll do my frou another time.

Mama Squirrel's Daybook: Two weeks till Christmas

Weather: Warm enough for the ladybugs to reawaken. Frosty and his Mini-Me (above) are the only snow we have.

News from the Squirrels: The Apprentice has moved into a new apartment, no housemates this time, so she's having fun fixing up her own space. Ponytails is busy doing the things she does. Lydia has started rehearsals for a school musical.

Plans for the weekend: The Apprentice is coming for a visit, and we'll put up the Christmas tree.

In the slow cooker: Chili, part of a small batch of freezer meals we made today: Chili, Cheeseburger Soup (which we use for pasta sauce), Tortilla Filling, Teriyaki Beef, and one bag of Beef Stew. We still have some chicken meals left from the last round, so this filled in the holes.

Also to eat: Doreen Perry Cookies made with chocolate chips and holiday chips (red, white and green); and a pan of Chocolate-Cranberry Shortbread Bars from a recipe in last year's Walmart Live Better magazine. And some nice things we picked up at Euro Foods...oh, right, those are not to eat. Not yet, anyway.

Frugal "that's-so-obvious" thing: After I made the big floor-sitter with upholstery samples, I had a couple of fabric pieces left. What can you do with heavy fabric squares with serged edges? Put them under things. I have a brown piece under the stable for our Nativity scene, and a red and green striped one under a basket of Christmas music.

Arranging your own convenience (how messing with your own head can be productive)

When you're trying to do the next thing, it helps to know what that thing is. There's an old writer's trick of stopping work in the middle of a chapter, so that when you get back to work, you know exactly where you're at, just pick things up and start writing again.

Many homeschoolers, not all but many of them, do pre-planning in the summer. Sometimes (as in Lydia's Grade 8 year), this goes as far as having an entire year's weekly work written out and bound at Staples. The thinking is that then, even if you change some things, you already have that idea in your head; you know what you're doing, and all that's left is to do it. I know at least one person who made a point of collecting up all the art and science supplies required for the term (or maybe the year) and having them handy in one box. (At least the non-perishable ones.) And it makes sense: even if you don't buy a science kit, shouldn't you have the same convenience as those who do, even if you have to arrange the convenience yourself?

We are not homeschooling this year, but I still do a lot of pre-arranging, maybe more than ever.To quote Aristotle and Mary Poppins, it seems like well begun really is half done. Especially if you buy a lot of zip-lock bags. (Oh, how I love those extra-large ones--and I wonder why I waited all those years to buy any.)

I pre-sorted and pre-cut fabric and supplies for Christmas crafting, and that way I knew how far the fabric was going to stretch, whether I actually had any interfacing, and where the spool of red thread was. When I felt like sewing and had time, I took out the right (large, extra-large) bag and everything was right there, no excuses, just like a craft kit. I think of this as a sort of messing with my own head, in a good way. If you know you tend to procrastinate on things because they're too much work, then having them pre-started can be enough of an incentive to finish them off.

That's one reason freezer-non-cooking has worked well for us this fall.The meals are made, they just have to be cooked. Recently I have done the same thing with dry ingredients for baking (more zip-lock bags, and I do wash and re-use them). I have an awesome bread-machine recipe for whole-wheat bread, but I buy the bag of whole-wheat flour and then forget to make any until the flour goes rancid. (Yes, I know you can freeze it.) I figured out that a small bag of flour makes about three loaves (and a couple of cups left over for muffins), so that's what I did: pre-measured the bread ingredients into bags, wrote on them what else to add (water, oil, yeast), and stored them in the cold room. I did the same for pizza dough and two types of muffins, and some of the ingredients I have collected up for holiday baking. I figured out that we had just enough coconut, but no dried cranberries, so those went on the shopping list.

All this has nicely short-circuited my procrastinatory tendencies, allowing my do-it side to shout a Simpson-esque "HA-HA" at the Daemon of Sloth. Aside from feeling so virtuous and actually getting the sewing completed (so much so that yesterday I just looked at the sewing machine and knew we were done our relationship for this season), it has paid off in more practical terms. At four o'clock yesterday afternoon, I put a bag of pizza-dough mix into the bread machine, let it run its fairly short pizza-dough-mix-rise cycle, preheated the oven, stretched the dough into a big pan, spread it with some garlic margarine Lydia had talked me into buying, sprinkled it with grated cheese (I do buy grated cheese sometimes, especially the mixed Italian kind), pre-cut it into breadsticks with a pizza wheel, and baked the whole thing for about twenty minutes. Mr. Fixit and Lydia got home at 5:30, and the big puffy cheesy breadsticks were just coming out of the oven.

Now here's the truth, if you really need to know how lazy I can be: pizza dough has hardly anything in it anyway. I think all that was in the bag was pre-measured flour and salt. (I added water, oil, and yeast when I mixed it.) It would not have taken much for me to think "bread sticks. Yes, there's a new bag of flour. There's the salt. Measure it out, off we go." Really, I could have managed that. But there's this extra incentive: a zip-lock bag with Pizza Dough written on it, telling me to add things to it, tantalizing me with its existence, begging me to make something out of it. The same with the bags of pre-sorted fabric and trims: "I'm a little XXX waiting to be born. Bring me to life." And freezer meals: "I'm a Crockpot full of chili."

And that's all there is to it.

Mr. Fixit and Mama Squirrel make freezer meals

Here is our second freezer-meal marathon. (Read this post first if you haven't already.)

10:45 a.m.: One table full of groceries and labelled plastic bags.

11:45 a.m.: Pork meals are done and we had a lunch break. On to ground beef and stew beef:

12:45 p.m. (or a.m., or whatever it is when lunch hour is almost over): Working on chicken meals.

Bags of Chicken Cacciatore

1:30 p.m.: Finishing the last of the chicken meals:

1:45 p.m.: Meals split between the chest freezer and the top of the fridge (so they will freeze faster); one pork chop meal in the slow cooker for tonight; and we are done.

Ready for more freezer-slow cooker meals

Cheeseburger Soup

Our stash of homemade freezer meals is down to one, so it's time to make more.

I went through the list of meals we made from $5 Dinners (from this package), and picked out the ones we liked the most: Chicken Cacciatore, Chicken Chili, Orange Pork Chops, Cheeseburger Soup (except Mr. Fixit likes it without the rice and cheese, served as pasta sauce), and Chinese-style Beef and Broccoli. Those we'll make again this time. I'm also planning on adding Cranberry Pork Chops, Honey Garlic Chicken, and Crock Beef Sandwiches from Saving Dinner.

This approach seems to have worked well enough for our current meal needs that we're willing to give it another go. It works especially well when we divide the meals-for-four into meals-for-two, because we can always cook two bags at once if we need them, and if I know it's going to be just two of us eating, I use one bag and the smaller slow cooker. Sometimes I remember to thaw meals overnight in the fridge, and other times I dunk the bags in water for twenty minutes--both ways seem to work. Our little slow cooker cooks hotter than the 3 1/2-quart one, so I set it on low and keep an eye on it; if the food finishes earlier than expected, I take it out and reheat it later. (I would just use the big one, but for smaller amounts, the 2-quart pot is handy.)

We are planning on going out sometime this week and picking up groceries for Marathon #2.

What's for supper? Still eating freezer meals

Tonight's dinner menu:

Slow Cooker Tortilla Stack, made with a bag of "Tamale Pie" mixture from the freezer meals. (We're getting down to the last few.)

Freezer meal reviews #4

Sweet and Sour Beef, Islander Pork Chops:  These both turned out to have the same problem, which is that other members of my family don't really like slow-cooked chunks of pineapple along with meat. They are traditionalist Squirrels, and while pineapple is okay on pizza, they would prefer their beef stew and pork chops to be carrots-and-potatoes, not something-else. So this one isn't a recipe review so much as a note to self for next time.

Freezer cooking for tonight: Chicken Chili, which we've had once before and liked.

What's for supper? Soup night

 

Tonight's menu:

Cheese and Bacon sandwiches
Cheeseburger Soup (from the freezer meals), without the bacon or cheese because we used that for the sandwiches
Zucchini sticks

Banana Bread.

Freezer meal reviews #3

What we've eaten recently:

Chicken Tikka Masala: This was just okay, could have used more oomph. The next time I cook one of the Tikka Masala packages, I will probably try it on the stovetop (instead of the slow cooker) to see if the flavours hold up better.

Chicken Cacciatore: We had this for dinner tonight and really liked it. I added a small can of tomato paste because it seemed to need it; otherwise it was good as written.

Next up: I think one of the stew beef packages, because Lydia is trying out for basketball, and if she makes the team we may will be eating late some nights.

Freezer meal reviews, #2

Tamale Pie, minus the pie, so more or less just chili with corn: a bit bland, but it was okay with macaroni and cheese. The next package I heat up, I'll add some spices or salsa. It would be a good starter for hamburger soup.

Chinese-style Beef with Broccoli: this is one of the recipes I halved (to serve two), and when it was cooking in the little slow cooker I wondered if I should have just made the whole recipe in one bag--it looked like such a small amount.. However, once the broccoli was added near the end, it did turn out to be just enough for two (with rice and other things).  It was good, too, and the beef was very tender.

Tonight's dinner-from-the-freezer: Chicken Tikka Masala.

Freezer meal reviews

Orange pork chops: tasty.

Chicken chili: we cut down on the liquid (used half the recommended amount),  and that was a good thing or we would have had soup. But the flavour was pretty good.

When you open our freezer, it smells amazing. But it took quite awhile for the temperature to drop again, after loading it up, and most of the food wasn't even warm. Just something to think about if you're making a lot of freezer meals.

Freezer un-cooking ($5 Dinners Package)

Today Mr. Fixit and I did some freezer un-cooking, also known as "dump recipes." It's the equivalent of putting brownie ingredients into a bag and calling it a mix. The idea here is that you put meat, vegetables and other ingredients into freezer bags and then use them in the slow cooker or as casseroles. (Yes, I know some of you have been doing this for years.)

The recipes we used came from a new downloadable package at $5 Dinners: 20 Freezer to Slow Cooker Meals for $160 – 3rd Edition.  You get the shopping lists, directions, recipes, printable labels, and access to a video showing you how Erin Chase did the whole sequence. I skipped the printable labels because they're very expensive here (I used paper and tape); and I also broke down some of her 4-serving meals into 2-serving ones, because often these days it's just two or three of us eating dinner.

This morning we went to Eurofoods and brought home chicken breasts, ground beef, and a piece of pork (the directions called for pork chops, but it was less expensive to buy a large piece and cut it up ourselves). In the afternoon, we went to Bulk Barn (for a few seasonings) and Wal-mart, and got everything else that wasn't already on the shelf, including some beef that we also cut up ourselves..

At three o'clock, we put everything on the kitchen table and started to work.

Mixing up some sauce

In the home stretch.

Last round: the stew beef packages

Bags going into the freezer

Odds and ends of tomato sauce, one bag of ground beef, and two tired people. We were done like, um, dinner.

Overall reviews, based only on preparation? (We haven't actually cooked any of the packages yet.) My only real complaint is that the ground beef we bought didn't stretch far enough to make all the planned recipes, even though we weighed it out before putting it in the bags. The shortfall may have been due to shrinkage after browning  (the only actual cooking required in this packaging marathon), and we did swipe half a pound for our own dinner, but it was still a bit disappointing to have the other ingredients ready and then realize that we'd have to leave a few packages out. Next time we'll have to over-estimate.

There was also a bit of confusion around which recipes needed tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, or diced tomatoes; in some places options were given, but the grocery lists didn't always include those. I think I would say that, if you want to follow the recipes and not run short, it wouldn't hurt to buy a couple of extra cans of each type. We ended up filling in with a jar of pasta sauce from the pantry, which really isn't a problem, just something to keep in mind.

Best advice: work with a friend:. Even Erin Chase had her son opening cans for her. And make something nice for dinner at the end.

Frozen and the chosen?

Frozen and the chosen?  I had never heard that phrase before today, and would have guessed that it had something to do with Canadian winters.  However, no, it refers to the beliefs of certain food trendoids that we should only eat fresh, so frozen isn't for the chosen.  And, apparently, that includes putting extra food in your own freezer.

For me, that falls in there with parents who list "rules I never thought I'd have to make."  I never thought anyone would have to say "put the leftovers in the freezer." Or that people wouldn't think you could buy or bake extra bread, on purpose, so that you could freeze the extra. Or, maybe the problem is that they're asking whether you should.

Like the Prairie-based author of the editorial that inspired this early-morning Mama Squirrel rant, it's the waste that irks me.  It seems to be strictly a first-world "problem" that we buy or cook so much food that we don't know what to do with it, or that whatever's there doesn't suit our mood today, so it doesn't get eaten.  Anywhere else, any time in history, whatever was around would  have gone in the stew pot. End of story.

All I know is that (and not meaning to boast about it), our stand-alone freezer and fridge-top compartment, while not stocked for famine, do currently hold an extra loaf of pumpkin bread, several containers of vegetarian chili and bean soup, bread from the store, chicken, a few bags of vegetables, and a container of leftover rice. I often have extra tomato sauce or cookies or bananas in there too. Call it food purgatory, but not a place of eternal punishment.

It's just what we do.

Doesn't everybody?

What's for supper?

Tonight's menu:

Turkey-pasta casserole from the freezer
Leftover crockpotted chicken from last night (partly bones, but it is easier to just heat and eat it than to pick it apart)
A pan of little potatoes, cut in half and sprayed with olive oil before baking
Lettuce and celery salad

"Pumpkin" bars made with butternut squash

What's for supper? Kind of Philippines-Cuban fusion

What's for supper tonight?

Chicken Thighs Adobo, which includes carrots and onion (from our freezer experiment)
Reheated sweet potatoes
Rice
Cuban Bread from the Tightwad Gazette  (Dollygirl and I baked some this morning)

Oranges, bananas
Dangerous Chocolate Cake in a Cereal Bowl

What's for supper? Pass the pizza pasta

Tonight's dinner menu:  pizza pasta, a very flexible skillet/casserole meal.  This one is going to incorporate a container of frozen spaghetti-meat sauce, part of a can of diced tomatoes, a few mushrooms, green pepper, a piece of pepperoni, and some cheese, served over pasta bowties.

Plus lettuce salad and carrot sticks, and some oatmeal-raisin cookies that we're going to make this afternoon if we get time.

What's for supper? Shepherd's Pie

Tonight's dinner menu:

Shepherd's Pie, made from a thawed hamburger casserole plus additions
Lettuce salad
Toasted garlic pita bread triangles

Blueberries, or yogurt, or leftover sweet potato cake