February fun

It's time for some more fun photos from our family.

 

These are the white ski boots I use when I ski.

 

These are the Burton boots I use when I snowboard.

 This is my board with the step-in bindings.

This is my first day back on my board.  I boarded for a few runs with my girls as they skied and then after 4 easy runs, I called it quits & skied with them instead.  Some of you may remember that 3 years ago, I fell snowboarding & broke both wrists. I thought I had given it up, but I had a little bit of a desire to try again last year & didn't, but this year, I contacted the family whom I had given my boots & bindings.  They had not used them in the last 3 years & they had just been sitting in their back shed.  Needless to say, they did need some cleaning up with clorox wipes & I think there might have been mouse poo in one of my boots. Got it all vacuumed out & wiped out.  I think I have the cutest board around!  On the green side, there is a graphic of a little boy sitting on his bed with his teddy bear & his airplane looking out his bedroom window at the moon.  On the blue side, he is hanging onto his plane with one hand & his bear with the other as they fly around the moon & look back into his bedroom. 

The next day, I went back to the mountain & met up with a group of hard booters who were on the mountain for an event called Trenchfest - specifically just for snowboarders who wear hard boots & ride on skinny race boards.  I had a gal named Kathy give me some pointers on how to ride better.  This board is so very different than mine!  It turns on a dime!  So my toe edge happens much sooner than I am used to and just rolling my foot inside my boots made the board turn the way I wanted.  I didn't have to spend a lot of effort to kick out the back foot to make the turns.  This board responds much quicker.  And because she was given this board for free, she gave it to me for free.  Those are her bindings.  I'm not sure if I'll keep the board, but at least she only lives a couple of hours away, so I can give it all back if I need to.  I haven't been brave enough to try this board again, but have gone 3 more times on my board.  I always bring both my board and my ski equipment as I know that I will get tired from boarding & need to switch to skis.  It's funny, I HEAT UP like crazy when I'm boarding & don't need hand warmers or the extra glove liner, but as soon as I go back to skiing, my hands are freezing!  The last time I boarded (the 5th time) I was with my hubby & we went all the way to top of the mountain.  I chickened out about 3/4 of the way down because I let the hill intimidate me and I decided to just sit on my board & slide down the hill.  Not the safest way to get down the hill, but it sure was fun! After this adventure, I'm putting up the board again for a while & sticking with skiing.  I found that while I am boarding, I am constantly talking to myself, reminding myself what to do and keep second guessing my decisions.  With skiing, I just go down the hill & don't even think about what I am doing. It's almost like it's second nature.  Plus the hubby says I look way better (more comfortable) when I'm skiing!

This is a dog named Lyla that we babysit every so often.  She's a lot of fun.

So they had this silly poster on the window at Dairy Queen, so we had the girls stand behind it.  They are supposed to look like elves.  I think it said something about ridqulous yourself.  My oldest definitely did a good job trying to make it look like she was drinking from the straw, whereas my youngest pressed her nose & cheeks against the glass!

Tried to take a photo from the car as we passed some wild turkeys, but you can hardly see the 3 of them.

Feb 19 meal prep

I haven't posted any pictures or updates for a couple of weeks because of all the meals I had prepared in January.  We've been using them!  So when the hubby got paid last week, I was able to use more of the food budget for mostly non-perishable items instead!  Although I did buy some salmon & cod at Costco as well as some more organic chicken.

We had a funny / not so funny thing happen this weekend with the Maple Oat Waffle mix.  My oldest decided she wanted to mix it up, so she took it upon herself to do that.  I came into the kitchen a little while later & saw that she had almost uncooked pancakes on a plate (they were still white & not browned at all) and some very lumpy batter almost completely filling the bowl.  I asked her if she had followed the instructions on the freezer zip lock bag and she said no, she had only dumped in some of the dry ingredients & added water.  Oh boy!  She had not added any of the maple syrup called for & definitely did not measure out the dry ingredients or the water.  She just kept adding water until it wasn't so thick!  I salvaged the mess by  measuring out of her bowl what might have been a double portion of mix plus water & added a double portion of syrup.  The rest of what was left looked to be about another double portion, so I added a double portion of syrup to that as well.  I also got out a whisk & beat the batter in both bowls to help get rid of all the lumps & dry material stuck to the bottom of the bowl.  By the time I was done, my arm was ready to fall off.  I think I should have grabbed my hand blender & used that instead.  Oh well.  I then proceeded to use the correct frying pan & made pancakes with the mix.  They all came out nice & brown & thoroughly cooked!

We had to then have a lesson in all of these meals I have been preparing.  My family needs to read the instructions written on the outside of every bag or container in the freezer.

Today was my day to go to my Esther Bible study, so I got up when the alarm went off & went to work out.  I love doing the Leslie Sansone 21 days before Thanksgiving abs that is on Youtube as it is only 7 minutes long & it is super effective!  I then decided to get on Wii Fit Plus instead of an exercise video & started with the mushroom bump and ended with the Island Bike ride (right next to the mushroom bump) and chose to do the Expert ride trying to find 20 flags.  Let me tell you, that was a workout this morning!  I missed one of the flags up by the light house so had to ride all over at the end to find that one missing flag, but I did find all 20 & rode over 11 miles (actually walked in place for the whole time).  My calves were burning & I was dripping.  So as soon as I was done, hopped in the shower, did hair & makeup & off to my Bible study I went.

Once I was home, the hubby arrived shortly after as he went snowboarding this morning before work.  He started making his prize-winning chili & I decided to also work on some more food prep.  I had an eggplant in the fridge so needed to do something with it before it went bad.  The hubby asked for eggplant parmigiana and I know I'm not a fan of it & more than likely the kids won't be either.  Found a recipe in the Better Homes & Garden cookbook.  The eggplant is supposed to be peeled, then cut into 1/2 inch slices, but I decided to shred it instead.  I used 5 of my little bread loaf pans to prepare it.  First I put in the shredded eggplant, then the shredded parmigiana cheese, then marinara sauce, then shredded mozzarella cheese. I shredded 3 sticks of string cheese as I didn't have any other mozzarella.  Then into the freeze it went.  It is great for a side dish when the main dish is pasta, chicken or fish, so I think I've got that covered.

I then worked on creating 4 meals from my wonderful new cookbook, Not Your Mother's Make Ahead & Freeze Meals cookbook.

The first 2 meals was Hoisin-Glazed Salmon Fillets.  I pulled out the frozen salmon & put 4 pieces in each zip lock bag.  In quart freezer bags, I put the Hoison sauce marinade. (Sorry, didn't take a picture).

Next, I prepared the Crumb-Topped Cod Fillets. The great think about both the cod & the salmon is that each piece is individually wrapped, so it makes it super easier to pull out the number of pieces you need for these make-ahead meals.  The bag contained 5 pieces, so I separated them into 3 & 2 pieces for this recipe.  I used quart freezer bags for the crumb topping, but only put 1/2 of the amounts in one for the 2 piece meal.

I also pulled out from the freezer, the chicken breasts, the Italian sausage and some bacon, so I can use them in some other meals.

The dinner this evening was Chicken Enchilada Bake with Green Chiles and Jalapenos.  As I said before, I'm not a fan of green chile or jalapenos, so there were no jalapenos in this recipe & very little green chile.  This is a cream based recipe with sour cream & cream of celery soup.  I found it very delicious and I ate it with tortilla strips from Costco, almost using it as a dip for the chips.  My girls were not thrilled with it, but they both finished what I gave them.  Here is a photo of the cooked recipe.

My oldest decided she was still hungry, so she dished up some of her daddy's chili.

Some Chicken Food Prep

Today is Monday, so that means using the 3 defrosted chicken breasts & the Costco Rotisserie Chicken.

With the chicken breasts, I decided to cut them up into bite size pieces and make the Chicken and Wild Rice dish from my new wonderful cookbook, Not Your Mother's Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook by Jessica Fisher.  I was just a little bit shocked that it takes almost 2 hours to cook!  But it came out great! And we have leftovers & even gave one serving away.

Next, I tackled the Costco Rotisserie Chicken.  I discovered, some of it was gone!  I think I have a chicken loving hubby in the house.  So, I got all of the lovely gelatinous stuff off the bottom and all the skin & extra fat too, then started taking the meat off the bones.  Once that was done, I started cutting it up into tiny pieces, maybe about 1/4 to 1/2 chunks.  I decided to make the Chicken Enchilada Bake with Green Chiles and Jalapenos.  I'm not a big fan of green or red chiles (even after living in New Mexico twice) or jalapenos, so I only used 1/2 of the amount of green chiles and no jalapenos.  Also, I'm not 100% sure that my kids will like this dish.   I then pulled out my Homemade Cream of Celery Soup from the freezer, defrosted 2 containers and chopped some onions & mushrooms.  I also had to shred some Monterey Jack cheese.  The recipe calls for cheddar or Monterey Jack, so I decided to use half of each.  I put all the "wet" ingredients in the bowl, along with the veggies, cheeses & spices and stirred like crazy.  Then I added the bite size corn tortillas.  It works really great to take 5-7 at a time & cut them in slices, turn the cutting board & cut crossways. Most of the pieces will be about 1 inch squares.  Then I added the cut chicken.  Stirred again like crazy.  The recipe states to put in a casserole dish, sprinkle with more cheese & freeze.  Since I'm getting a little tight on freezer space in our side by side fridge/freezer, I decided to just put the mix in gallon zip lock freezer bags.  Then I put those bags inside another freezer bag and added a quart size freezer bag of the extra cheese.  Into the freezer 2 meals went.

Yesterday, while the girls & I went to their weekly ski lessons, my hubby decided to make his winning chili again!  We came home to wonderful smells in the house. Not only did he make his chili, but he also cooked some rice and shredded some cheese.  His chili has these small pieces of steak in them and almost melt in your mouth. We like to eat our chili over rice with shredded cheddar. Some of us also like to add sour cream to cool off the little bit of heat.  We had more than 8 cups of chili left, so 2 cups went into freezer containers (from Glad) and the leftovers went in the fridge.

 this is the buttermilk cornbread mixes I made ahead of time, just for chili

I think between the steak meals, the enchilada bakes, the other chicken meals, the chili, Marie Calendar's pot pies and the frozen salmon, I do believe we will have some pretty good meals over the next couple of weeks.

I totally forgot to mention how the dehydrated food came out.  I did accidentally leave the celery & chard in the dehydrator too long, so the celery came out teeny tiny, but I still ended up with about a cup of it.  I can use about a tablespoon when a recipe calls for a stalk of celery.  The chard stems were still not dry, so I broke up the leaves & put them in a jar, crushing them as I went. I can then add the crushed leaves to recipes later.  The stems went back into the food dryer to finish.

I do still need to make the veggie bolognese, but that is tomorrow's task.

Bi-weekly Food Prep

Another paydate (for the hubby) and another time to prepare more meals.  (pictures to come in a couple of days.

I've been busy with beef & chicken this time (so far).

I made my Costco run on Friday buying the main ingredient for several meals (beef or chicken).  I bought 2 packages of tri-tip roast and another package of top sirloin steaks.  I got Costco's rotisserie chicken along with 2 bags of frozen chicken breasts.

On Friday, I made 2 meals of Mediterranean Style Steak, having one for dinner & freezing the other. The one for dinner is shown below marinating in the vacuum sealed container.

I also made 2 meals of Seasoned Steak with Gorgonzola Butter.

What do you do with all that extra gorgonzola from Costco?  Freeze it of course! It has gone into a quart size freezer bag.

I then started making 2 meals of Chipotle Rubbed Tri-Tip, but found I had no chipotle chile powder, so put the tri-tip roasts in their own zip lock bags & put them in the fridge.  I also put the rest of the spices in sandwich baggies.

On Saturday, I made my grocery store run. Went to Super One and got everything on my list except for chipotle chile powder as I could not find it in the hispanic section, in the herbs or in the organic section.  So luckily Smith's is only a block away, so popped in there to look for it.  I went directly to the seasons/herbs section & found it.  I could get 2 oz of the Kroger brand for $2.98 or McCormicks 2 oz for $8.39.  Sorry, that was an easy decision - $2.98!

Came home from shopping and finished the Chipotle Rubbed Tri-tip & got it in the freezer.

On to the chicken dishes.  I had already partially thawed one of the bags of chicken, so started preparing the following dishes:
Spicy Dijon Chicken
Tandoori Chicken
Teriyaki Chicken

The Teriyaki Chicken was supposed to be turned into skewers, but I chose to make them chicken tenders instead.

I also doubled the recipe for Homemade Cream of Celery Soup and put 2 cups in each freezer container.  This tasted sooooo good and now it's ready to add to other dishes.

Tomorrow or Mondays dishes will be Vegetable Bolognese and Quick& Easy Enchiladas.

this is the basil I grew, so used the mortar & pestil to grind it up for the bolognese

everything set out for the bolognese

burger & eggplant/carrots ready for pot

hot oil to get started

eggplant & carrots in oil

onions & garlic added

I will also cut up that Costco rotisserie chicken and either freeze the meat or use it to mix up some chicken pot pies.  I bought several of the mini-foil pie dishes just for these.  I will then take the carcass & the skin and use it to make Homemade Chicken Stock and also some Easy Chicken Gravy.

Today also was my Bountiful Basket day.  In addition to the normal fruit & veggie baskets, I also purchased a bag of 5 misc breads and a juicing pack.  I don't think we are going to be doing much juicing over the next few days, so I did the following:
1) I took the 2 bundles of celery I got 2 weeks ago & the 2 new bundles & cut them all up into 1/4" pieces and then put all those pieces on 4 trays in my food dehydrator.
2) I took the green chard and put those big leaves on 3 trays in the dehydrator.
3) I cut up the curly parsley and put it in a quart freezer bag in the freezer.
4) I fine shredded the ginger, put it in a quart freezer bag & in the freezer
5) The apples & blood oranges from the juice pack just went in the fridge
6) Not sure what to do with the 2 beets, but may end up dehydrating them as well.

As I was looking in the dehydrating book for temps & times, I came across carrots.  I can shred them & then dry the shredded carrots.  I can then take the shredded carrots & use them in a carrot cake or soup stock or whatever.

We'll see how my afternoon goes after the girls ski lessons to decide if I have time for the bolognese or the enchiladas, otherwise it will be on Monday.

Thanks for reading.

Pics of prepared foods

 These are the Bacon Cheddar Egg Bakes baked in muffin tins.  I was able to fit 12 in a gallon freezer zip lock bag.

These are the breakfast cookies.  I have 2 more gallon size bags in the freezer.

This is from a turkey we cooked for Christmas.  The leftovers immediately went into the freezer for some future meal - maybe pot pie?

 This is part of the block of Tillamook cheddar cheese I bought at Costco.

 This is the herbed butter chicken strips.

 These 2 are the Garlicky Italian chicken strips.

 I had 12 of these in the fridge - the breakfast smoothies.  Now there are only 5 left!  I guess that means the girls like them.

 These are the tri-colored peppers - some from Costco, some from Bountiful Baskets.

 I doubled this recipe for Maple Oat Waffle mix.  The only thing I have to add is water & maple syrup as I used powdered buttermilk, powdered eggs & powdered butter.

 This is a double batch of Bulk Batch pancake mix.

 This Oatmeal Chocolate Chip pancake mix has mini-chocolate chips in it.  Rather than doubling the recipe & putting in 1 bag, I put the ingredients in two bowls & then 2 quart freezer ziplock bags.

This pancake mix is from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook - again a double batch.

Fun pics

 The girls and I skiing on January 7, 2013

 My youngest trying on a silly mask at the sports store.

 The girls took pics of needles in me at acupuncture.

My oldest inside a new sleeping bag. This is how she would look if the head opening was all cinched up, IF we were camping in cold weather!

Sausage Patties

Here is a photo of the progression of my sausage today. I started with boneless pork ribs, ground them up in my Kitchen Aid meat grinder, formed them into patties, cooked them, then placed them on a metal tray, covered them with wax paper & a kitchen towel & put them outside in the snow to cool.  The temp outside is 27 degrees F.

Someone may be wondering why I put my food in the snow.  Well, my wonderful new cookbook says to cool your food before putting in the fridge or freezer to make sure the fridge & freezer don't have to work as hard to cool the food. 

Because our back porch is above ground 1 story without stairs, I don't have to worry about people or animals getting up on the porch & snatching food.  Plus, when it is below freezing outside, I am being green, using nature to help cool the food.  Very soon, my patties will be frozen and then I can bring them back inside, layer them between some wax or parchment paper & pop them in the freezer in a freezer zip lock bag.  How cool is that!

Here is a photo of the wonderful tools I used today.  I ground the pork in my Kitchen Aid meat grinder, then put it all in the bowl, added the spices and the paddle & mixed it up.  I have a small container of round cookie / biscuit cutters, so used the smaller size in the photo to make breakfast sausage size patties, then used the larger one to make hamburger sized patties.