Good fall morning!! Here where we are it's starting to get chilly at night. This morning at 6:45 it was 47° outside and 64° inside - and we have windows open (well, not all the windows, and not all the way open) in the house :) That also means that we (more like I) drug out the comforter and put it on the bed to stay warm at night. I also dug out my "winter" bathrobe to throw on while I get Daniel's breakfast ready and get him on his way (and blog, and eat breakfast... and anything else that I do before actually getting dressed!).
This weather - plus my extreme frugality right now - has had me looking to soups and stews this week. Yesterday I tried this recipe, but tweaked it to fit my own liking. Oh, it was very yummy!! You could easily cut the hamburger amount back, or even double all of the other ingredients to make a BIG batch of soup, and either have lots of leftovers or freeze some for later. And I served it with a huge, crusty loaf of fresh from the oven french bread, oooo-la-la!! You can click the link to see the original recipe, but I'm going to write my version here in the post.
Gayle so kindly hosts a Friday Recipe Swap each Friday over on her Grocery Cart Challenge blog. Scoot on over there for more yummy recipes!!
Hamburger Veggie Soup
1 lb hamburger
1 onion, chopped
1 can green beans, drained - reserve juice
1 can corn, drained - reserve juice
2 cups sliced carrots
1 can diced tomatoes
2 blocks beef bouillon
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup
water
1/2 cup rice
(This recipe is supposed to be a crockpot recipe, but I forgot about making it until too late, so I just simmered it on the stove for a couple hours, my directions are for the stove-top method.)
Brown hamburger, drain. Add onion, beans, corn, carrots, tomatoes, Worcestershire Sauce and Cream of Mushroom soup.
To reserved bean/corn juice, add enough water to make 3 cups. Dissolve bouillon cubes most of the way in juice/water, add to soup mixture.
About 30 - 40 minutes before serving, add 1/2 cup rice* to soup, stir occasionally.
*Probably if I were doing it in the crockpot, I'd add the rice at the beginning when I put everything else in.
Daniel voted to add the rice since he is not a "liquid soup" person - he likes his soup to be pretty hearty. The 1/2 cup really helped out with that. We even had his parents over to eat with us! This recipe fed 4 of us nicely. The french bread, wow. It was my bread machine recipe, but the bread machine cycle for that was going to take too long. So I just mixed it up on the dough setting, and 30 min. from the end of the dough cycle (it's rising the 2nd time) I pulled it out and shaped it into a huge french loaf, put it on a greased baking sheet, and let it rise on top of the warm stove for about 30 minutes, then baked it for about 35 minutes. It had a nice, crunchy crust, and was the best french bread I've had! I even cut the big slashes in the top of the loaf before baking it so it even looked the part!! I wanted to take a picture, but didn't have time to.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading this recipe!!
Friday, October 3, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Time to Cook!
I just had a lightbulb moment for an awesome post - let's see how "awesome" I can make it !! LOL! And... don't scroll down looking for pictures to see if you can skip the reading - because there are no pictures! Sorry, you'll just have to endure my talking instead :)
The title to this means "how you can have time to cook" :)
Time: 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks in a year, 365 (or 6) days in a year. Not very much, is it? Especially if you work outside the home. (Though working INside the home doesn't give you more "time", trust me - it still gets dark in the evening, you still get tired, you still don't feel like doing anything sometimes, you still get cranky, there's still "nothing" to eat every once in a while.... and you know how it is!)
I worked at a locally owned bank for a little more than a year between last year and the beginning of this year, so I know all about what it's like to come home feeling like any rejuvenated gray matter that was in your head when you left for work had been scrambled, fried, charred and then scrambled some more to see if anything was left. Is EXHAUSTED the right word? And you're hungry, but you do not feel like cooking - you barely feel like lifting the fork or spoon to your own mouth, let alone deciding what to put on the spoon.
I have to say I didn't do it alot, but here are a few things that I tried to do when I would get an "organization" spurt for a little bit.
To buy the food:
Use a day that you're not working (or if you can at all muster it up, go after work to save another trip into town - that's why I like the 24 hr WalMart) and do a massive grocery shopping trip. Today, I would try and make a massive menu plan (to fit my grocery budget of course) first so I'd only be buying what I need to buy, and not just randomly be putting stuff in the cart because I might need/want it for something.
I bought meat in the family size packs, the biggest bags of frozen veggies I could find, several heads of lettuce (it keeps ok in the frige and if it does start to go bad, you only lose the outside leaf or two - unless you really let it go bad!!), boocoos of lunch meat for Daniel's sandwiches, multiple dozens of eggs... Anything that could help me not have to plan another trip for as long as possible.
When I'd get home, I'd put everything away but the meat. If I bought whole chickens, I'd stuff one into the crockpot, the rest into pots on the stove and get them cookin' to pick off later to have chicken meat all ready for a casserole or soup. Then I would pull out my scales and start packaging away. Hamburger I put into ziploc bags. Mash the meat flat to fill the bag, and freeze it. Chicken pieces I wrapped breasts individually in saran wrap, then put them all in a big gallon ziploc, thighs I would wrap 2 per saran wrap thingy, and do the same thing - chuck them all in a big ziploc. Then I'd haul it all down to the freezer. This way, if I needed 1 chic. breast, I could grab one. If I needed 4 thighs, I could grab 2 packets... it really makes it easy!
To make the meal:
The evening before, I would get anything out of the freezer that I needed (this included the vegetable for the meal so that it was all thawed and ready to cook when I'd get home), and put it in the frige. I started to collect other ingredients as well... if it called for a can of soup, I got out the can of soup. I got out the onion, pulled out the bowl, the crockpot, the measuring cup, the flour... and put all that on a clean counter (or shove enough stuff aside to make a clean spot!). If the meat needed browned but I wouldn't have time in the morning, I'd pop it in the microwave to thaw, and then brown away. Once it's done, I'd stick it in the frige.
The next morning (and you could do this stuff the evening before if you don't have time in the morning) I would mix together as much as I possibly could. If it was a crockpot meal - woohoo baby! - that's even better! I'd chop the onion, mix together the flour stuff, or whatever... anything that could possibly be done before putting it in the pot to cook or in the oven to bake. And I would try to leave things semi-organized for when I'd walk in the door that evening so that I wouldn't have to think too much.
When you get home: Ahhh... all I have to do is dump the meat mixture stuff in the casserole dish, pour the milk/egg mix into the dry stuff and dump that on top of the meat and put it in the oven. And dump the corn into a pot on the stove. And then supper's on, and you don't have to worry about it until you go to eat it!
This method really helped with my "working and trying to cook" related stress level. Today, menu planning almost eliminates the need for me to worry about what or when to cook since I only have to think about it once a week instead of every day.
Elizabeth wrote an amazing post yesterday over on her blog about quicker meal times... she does even more pre-freezer prep than I do, so make sure you check it out!! I got some great ideas from her :)
And if you have ideas/methods that really help you out for meal prep, leave a comment about what they are :)
The title to this means "how you can have time to cook" :)
Time: 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks in a year, 365 (or 6) days in a year. Not very much, is it? Especially if you work outside the home. (Though working INside the home doesn't give you more "time", trust me - it still gets dark in the evening, you still get tired, you still don't feel like doing anything sometimes, you still get cranky, there's still "nothing" to eat every once in a while.... and you know how it is!)
I worked at a locally owned bank for a little more than a year between last year and the beginning of this year, so I know all about what it's like to come home feeling like any rejuvenated gray matter that was in your head when you left for work had been scrambled, fried, charred and then scrambled some more to see if anything was left. Is EXHAUSTED the right word? And you're hungry, but you do not feel like cooking - you barely feel like lifting the fork or spoon to your own mouth, let alone deciding what to put on the spoon.
I have to say I didn't do it alot, but here are a few things that I tried to do when I would get an "organization" spurt for a little bit.
To buy the food:
Use a day that you're not working (or if you can at all muster it up, go after work to save another trip into town - that's why I like the 24 hr WalMart) and do a massive grocery shopping trip. Today, I would try and make a massive menu plan (to fit my grocery budget of course) first so I'd only be buying what I need to buy, and not just randomly be putting stuff in the cart because I might need/want it for something.
I bought meat in the family size packs, the biggest bags of frozen veggies I could find, several heads of lettuce (it keeps ok in the frige and if it does start to go bad, you only lose the outside leaf or two - unless you really let it go bad!!), boocoos of lunch meat for Daniel's sandwiches, multiple dozens of eggs... Anything that could help me not have to plan another trip for as long as possible.
When I'd get home, I'd put everything away but the meat. If I bought whole chickens, I'd stuff one into the crockpot, the rest into pots on the stove and get them cookin' to pick off later to have chicken meat all ready for a casserole or soup. Then I would pull out my scales and start packaging away. Hamburger I put into ziploc bags. Mash the meat flat to fill the bag, and freeze it. Chicken pieces I wrapped breasts individually in saran wrap, then put them all in a big gallon ziploc, thighs I would wrap 2 per saran wrap thingy, and do the same thing - chuck them all in a big ziploc. Then I'd haul it all down to the freezer. This way, if I needed 1 chic. breast, I could grab one. If I needed 4 thighs, I could grab 2 packets... it really makes it easy!
To make the meal:
The evening before, I would get anything out of the freezer that I needed (this included the vegetable for the meal so that it was all thawed and ready to cook when I'd get home), and put it in the frige. I started to collect other ingredients as well... if it called for a can of soup, I got out the can of soup. I got out the onion, pulled out the bowl, the crockpot, the measuring cup, the flour... and put all that on a clean counter (or shove enough stuff aside to make a clean spot!). If the meat needed browned but I wouldn't have time in the morning, I'd pop it in the microwave to thaw, and then brown away. Once it's done, I'd stick it in the frige.
The next morning (and you could do this stuff the evening before if you don't have time in the morning) I would mix together as much as I possibly could. If it was a crockpot meal - woohoo baby! - that's even better! I'd chop the onion, mix together the flour stuff, or whatever... anything that could possibly be done before putting it in the pot to cook or in the oven to bake. And I would try to leave things semi-organized for when I'd walk in the door that evening so that I wouldn't have to think too much.
When you get home: Ahhh... all I have to do is dump the meat mixture stuff in the casserole dish, pour the milk/egg mix into the dry stuff and dump that on top of the meat and put it in the oven. And dump the corn into a pot on the stove. And then supper's on, and you don't have to worry about it until you go to eat it!
This method really helped with my "working and trying to cook" related stress level. Today, menu planning almost eliminates the need for me to worry about what or when to cook since I only have to think about it once a week instead of every day.
Elizabeth wrote an amazing post yesterday over on her blog about quicker meal times... she does even more pre-freezer prep than I do, so make sure you check it out!! I got some great ideas from her :)
And if you have ideas/methods that really help you out for meal prep, leave a comment about what they are :)
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
I've Been Tagged!
Erin over at $5 Dinners (which is a GREAT blog by the way! She does a super job of breaking down her meal prices) tagged me for this. It says I'm supposed to list the rules... well, read them yourself! :PNow I have to come up with 7 random or weird facts about myself!! I must think about this one...
1: I'm still wearing a LOT of the same shirts that I had before DH and I even started going out. I just threw out the socks from that "era" a couple weeks ago when I realized they were so worn out (but no holes!!) that they were making my feet hurt.
2: Sometimes I drool when I sleep... like big, massive, wet, slobbery, soaks the pillow drool puddles kind of drool.
3: I rarely go barefoot - a bee sting or two took care of that.
4: I don't like flying or jumpy bugs/insects (see #3 for the reason).
5: I wear sandals even if my toenails are in DESPERATE need of polish remover and a fresh coat of paint!
6: I only like Hershey's milk chocolate - other brands just don't taste right.
7: My middle name is HERSHEY!!!
Woop, woop!! I'm tickled that I came up with 7 things! I wasn't sure I was going to be able to (well, 7 "random/weird" things, that is). Sorry... I don't do the "only wear a sock on 1 foot" thing - I'm just not that weird! (now if I could only find the blog I read that on!! Please help me if you know which one it was! Thanks!)
Ok... tag 7 people ... and I'm going to mix this up a bit!! List 7 random/weird things ABOUT YOUR KITCHEN or that YOU DO IN THE KITCHEN:
Liz at This & That by Liz
Angie at 5 Kids, My Husband and Me
Jane at Shorestories
Aliisa at UnconventionalMoms
Gayle at one of my favorite blogs, GroceryCartChallenge
And I totally don't read other blogs (or know the bloggers well enough) to tag any other people. I read TONS of blogs... and usually end up forgetting which ones I wanted to go visit regularly :(
Works for Me Wednesday
So I was digging in my cupboard trying to find out if I had Taco Seasoning or not, so I'd know if I needed to make some, buy some, or what. I keep all my seasoning envelopes in one place, but some had fallen over... and you know how it goes. I thought to myself that I needed to find something that I could put them in.
Then I emptied a pasta box, started to crumple it up to throw it away, and **bling**, the light-bulb came on!!
It fits in my cupboard very nicely, and now I can just pull out ONE container instead of fishing around (since that shelf is above my eye-level) trying to locate the right packet out of several.
Then I emptied a pasta box, started to crumple it up to throw it away, and **bling**, the light-bulb came on!!
It fits in my cupboard very nicely, and now I can just pull out ONE container instead of fishing around (since that shelf is above my eye-level) trying to locate the right packet out of several.
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