Beginning this new journey

I am starting this blog because I want to share this new journey I am on.  I am starting to plan meals better, prepare meals ahead of time & even freeze some.

I don't like to cook, although I LOVE to bake!  When someone in my family asks what there is to eat - especially for dinner - my brain freezes - it just checks out & cannot process anything.  My husband is the real cook in our family. He is able to just pick some things from the fridge & pantry & throw together an awesome meal.  But he works full time and I am at home, so this really needs to be my responsibility.

I knew I needed better preparation & have tried in the past to create meal plans, but invariably I end up making something that sounds great to me, but the rest of the family doesn't like it so much, so I've pretty much given up - not a good decision.  We have ended up spending more on eating out or buying less healthy food.

Sometime over the past few years I came across a blog called Lifeasmom.com and subscribed. Every day I get a message in my inbox with lots of good tips: some one freezer food, some on being frugal, some on emergency preparedness, some on fun things to do for parties, and much more.  I have been reading the messages on freezing food and saving those message intending to go back & glean more info out of them, but never make the time to do so.

Then comes January 2013 and my husband's 1st paycheck of the year. As of December 2012, he got a raise, so was expecting a little bit more each paycheck. Boy was I surprised when his paycheck was actually about $50 less!!  Not going to go into politics & complaining, but I know it's due to the higher costs in healthcare & some changes in the tax rates that is making this change in his income.

So since we are a 1 income family of 4, this was my wakeup call!!  Time to do something different with our meals!  So I went back to my Inbox, looked at all the message I saved from Lifeasmom.com & found one where she mentions the cookbook she wrote regarding freezer meals. It is called Not Your Mother's Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook by Jessica Fisher.

Before heading to Costco & Super 1 or Smith's and spending a bunch of money, I decided I needed to check my freezer, fridge and pantry to see what I already had on hand. I then picked some recipes based on what I had.  From Costco I had a bag of frozen chicken breasts, 2 packages of Italian sausage, several packages of turkey burger, a package of organic hamburger, and a package of wild Alaskan salmon.  I also had a package of hamburger from a local grass fed cow (we bought some beef from another home schooling family).  We also participate in Bountiful Baskets, so I knew I had some fruit & veggies coming on Saturday.

Here are the meals I picked from Not Your Mother's Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook:
1) Garlicky Italian Chicken Breasts
2) Herb Butter Chicken Tenders
3) Breakfast Cookies
4) Breakfast Smoothies
5) Penne with Italian Sausage and Tri-Color Peppers
6) Bacon-Cheddar Egg Bake
7) Chile and Sausage Oven Frittata
8) Herbed Pork Sausage Patties.
9) Bulk-Batch Pancakes
10) Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Pancakes
11) Maple-Oat Waffles

I looked over the ingredients and made a list for Costco & the grocery store:
cheddar cheese, bananas, garlic, eggs, lean pork, whole wheat pastry flour, oat flour, mini chocolate chips, powdered buttermilk, powdered eggs, raw pumpkin seeds, plain yogurt, red, green & yellow peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, tomato paste, monterey jack cheese, freezer containers, freezer jars.

The freezer containers are with the plastic dishes in the grocery store, usually near the utensils aisle. The freezer jars are with the canning supplies.

I mostly defrosted the chicken breasts, then cut them all up into strips.  I doubled both of the chicken recipes and put the chicken with the spices and liquids in the freezer bags.  If you start this freezer process yourself, remember to write on the freezer bags first what is in them, any cooking instructions and today's date, then add the ingredients.  Trust me, it's way easier to write on the bags flat on the counter than trying to write on them with food inside.  We haven't eaten any of this yet.  The chicken is raw in the bags and marinating in the liquids & spices.  It will be simple to cook when we are ready.  I just have to turn on the oven and broil them or step out the front door & fire up the charcoal grill.  It might actually be fun to grill in the snow!

I am finding, just like the cookbook suggests, that it is best to double or triple a recipe. The prep time is only slightly lengthened and you get 2 or 3 meals put together at once.

I then made the cookies.  My youngest daughter was excited about them & my oldest daughter wasn't sure she would like them. When they came out, my youngest didn't really like them with the nuts & oats inside, but my oldest did and grabs one or two each morning since I made them. (it's only been 3 days). I forgot to factor in our elevation (3000 ft above sea level) and take out a little sugar & baking powder, add an extra egg & a little more flour - so most of my cookies came out flat!  Next time I'll take out my high altitude cookbook & refresh my memory as to the exact items to reduce and which ones to increase.

I also got all my dry ingredients & started putting together the pancake & waffles mixes.  About a month ago, I bought a #10 can of powdered butter at Super 1, so I had that in my pantry ready to use.  If you can find them, powdered buttermilk, powdered eggs and powdered butter make your mixes easier to use later.  All you have to do is add water.  We also have Ener-G powdered egg substitute since my hubby has an egg intolerance.  Once these were all mixed up, all I had to do was calculate how much water I needed for the buttermilk, eggs & butter, plus the water mentioned in the recipe. I wrote that down on the zip lock bag with the recipe name & the date.  The only extra ingredient besides water I will have to add is maple syrup & vanilla for the Maple-Oat Waffles. All the other recipes just add water.  We haven't made any of these yet, but am looking forward to it.

Also, on Saturday I make the Penne with Italian Sausage and Tri-Color Peppers. From Costco, I purchased the tri-color peppers in a bag in the fridge room. Their bag has red, yellow & orange peppers. I also got the same color of peppers in my Bountiful Baskets order on Saturday. I found sometimes it pays to wait to see what you get from your basket before going shopping!  I did not double this recipe as I wanted to see how it tasted first and how my family enjoyed it before making extra that may just end up in the freezer for a long time.  But now that I am thinking about it, it might be a good idea to double any recipe anyway because there is always a family from our church that needs a meal taken to them (our church has been growing over the last 6 months with lots of new babies).  My youngest didn't like the sauce, but she usually prefers her pasta plain with butter. My oldest thought it was really good & they had leftovers for dinner after their ski lessons on Sunday.  My hubby has a gluten intolerance so didn't have any. That means I need to buy more gluten free pasta for him.

Yesterday (Monday), I made the Breakfast Smoothies. I made The Red Banana (strawberries, banana & milk) as well as The Blue Maple (milk, blueberries, plain yogurt & maple syrup). I didn't have just plain blueberries in the freezer so used my three berry mix from Costco (blueberries, blackberries & raspberries).  I used my 6 of my 8 oz freezer jars for The Red Banana and the other 6 for The Blue Maple.  My girls & I tried The Blue Maple, so only 3 jars made it to the freezer!  We all liked it.  And they each had one this morning.

Yesterday, I also made the Bacon-Cheddar Egg Bake.  The ingredients call for bread pieces, but I decided to substitute hash browns (from Costco - in a large milk-like carton in the dry goods section - I don't think it was in the oil & vinegar aisle, but it might have been or the next aisle over.)  The recipe says you can make individual servings in 2 cup containers or a 9x13 baking dish.  Again, I changed it up & opted to use my muffin pans.  I have one metal pan & one silicon pan. For this I would really recommend using the silicon pans only!  I put a little bit of dry hash browns in the bottom followed by the shredded cheese and cut up cooked bacon, then I poured the egg/milk mixture of the top.  I cooked them according to directions, using my cake tester too verify they were done.  We had this for lunch!  Because it is winter out right now, I covered the pans with wax paper and then a kitchen towel & set them out on my back porch to cool in the snow.  I forgot they were out there until this morning, but it was 20 degrees F outside, so they were frozen.  The silicon pan made it very easy to get them out.  I just turned it over & rolled the edges off each one. Super easy! The metal pan was a little more tricky. I had to cut around the edge of each.  I then re-used the was paper, wrapping 6 of them in the piece & placed them in a freezer zip lock bag. Twelve fit flat in the bag.  My youngest was so funny while eating them yesterday for lunch. She said she didn't like the cooked cheddar cheese.  Daddy was home for lunch so he asked her if that meant she didn't like grilled cheese, quesadillas, and cheese burgers anymore since they all have cooked cheese on them.  The silly goose said she just didn't like it on eggs.  I personally thought they were wonderful as did my oldest!

Today's job is to finally use - for the first time - my meat grinder for my Kitchen Aid mixer.  I have a wonderful father-in-law who didn't need it any more & passed it on to me!  I will make the Herbed Pork Sausage Patties and the Chile & Sausage Oven Frittata.

Also, I got 2 bunches of celery as well as a small paper bag of brussel sprouts so will have to find some recipes for those.  With all those tri-colored peppers I had, I knew I wouldn't be able to use them all before they went bad, so I cut up all of them & put them in 3 quart freezer bags in the freezer.  It will be easy to pull them out & measure what I need in future recipes.  I know with the celery, I can either cut it up & freeze it as well, or put it in my food dehydrator & in jars with oxygen absorbers for later use.

Sorry I don't have any pictures to see any of my preparations with this first entry, but I'll see if I can take some today and you can at least see how they look in the bags.  Thanks for reading.