Why Blog?

The last two weeks have been very full in my life.  I find that as things get busy, blogging is my first pastime that gets kicked to the curb.  In this most recent bout of scheduling overload, I found myself wanting to blog about the Minestrone soup that turned out wonderful, or the new alphabet matching game that I devised to keep GBaby working on her letters.  But the thought of finding the time to write up the said blogs, just added to my stress.

I enjoy processing life through writing.  I love being able to come back to my own posts to find my favorite recipes and see what was on the menu this time last year when I run out of ideas.   I love being able to share shortcuts I've found in my own kitchen experience.  Looking through garden posts from previous seasons encourages me that Spring will be here soon enough.

For now, life is full.  As seasons change in life, on the calendar and such, please forgive the sporadic frequency of new posts.  That's life.

February Batch/Freezer Cooking

This month I'm taking a different approach to my batch/freezer cooking.  While it is not uncommon for me to go off-menu and whip up a batch of [insert whim here] and freeze a portion of it for a later meal, right now I'm really working hard to stick to the menu.

When I was making my February menu, I was weighing three main considerations:

:: Budget During the early months in the year, I like to shave down my grocery budget so that I have extra in the summer months when fresh produce is in season.  This extra gets used for pick-your-own berries and our favorite farm stand and does well to fill our freezer for next winter.  The other budget consideration is that I'm really trying to stay on grocery budget and have jumped on the "cash only" bandwagon to see if that works.  So far so good!

::Time I love getting multiple meals out of one chunk of time and only have to clean up once.  But right now, the calendar won't allow me a good, empty day to work on freezer cooking. (and the budget doesn't give me all my grocery money at once anymore - I'm learning to split the big shopping up twice a month instead of once a month)

::Replenishing While having meals in the freezer that are ready to pull out, thaw and cook makes mealtime so much easier, these meals do not magically appear.  When my freezer stash gets low, I have to plan on how to restock.

Since my January menu used a lot of my freezer meals, my February menu will be working to replenish them.  I will be posting recipes in my Freezer Friday posts and updating the list below with links as the month goes on.

Ham & Cheese Rolls

Burritos

Chicken & Dumplings  Chicken & Biscuits

Chicken Stuffing Casserole

Minestrone

Spaghetti Bake

White Bean Chili

Beef & Vegetable Stew

Freezer Friday: Stashing Christmas Goodies

Between now and Christmas, most households will bake more than they do at any other point in the year.  I'm sure none of this comes as a surprise as images of fudge, cookies, candy and family favorites dance in your heads!

Baking really can be a lot of work: mixing, baking, clean-up, repeat.  If you bake smart and store safely, you can take a lot of the chore out of baking, and just enjoy the results.  Here are a few tips to take the stress out of baking this Christmas.

Smart Storage

The best way to keep your goodies fresh is to bake them as freshly as possible.  Air and moisture are the enemy of most baked goods.  Air tight containers, plastic wrap and zip-top bags are your best defense against stale goodies.  In some cases, you may want to double your defenses.

Cookies

Cookies can be a real pain in the neck and keep you tied to the oven for hours on end.  However, if you scoop and freeze your favorite cookie dough, you can have fresh cookies on hand in about five minutes longer than your baking time, whenever you need them.   Sugar cookies can be made, rolled and frozen on a quiet evening, and then baked and decorated with half the mess later.  Slice-type cookies, like my Coconut Fudge Cookies, can also be a wonderful time saver as the "logs" of cookie dough can be frozen ahead of time.  Thaw, slice, bake and you're ready to go.  Just remember to wrap cookie dough logs in plastic wrap tightly and then store in a freezer zip-top bag to keep them fresh.  Cookie dough balls can be frozen on a cookie sheet and then placed in an airtight container or zip-top bag once they're hard.  I layer my cut-out sugar cookies between wax paper in an air-tight container.  Your darling child forgot to tell you that they need a dozen cookies for a party on Saturday, no problem.  An impromptu gathering and you need to bring something to share, no problem.  Sugar craving after a day of shopping, no problem!

Fudge

Fudge is also a great prep-ahead goody.  Prepare it as you normally would, but do not cut it.  Remove it from the pan in as large of pieces as you can and wrap them tightly in plastic wrap and then in a freezer zip top bag.  Fudge can be refrigerated happily for about three weeks.  For longer storage, put it in the freezer but allow it to thaw as slowly as possible before cutting.

Candies

Many candies can be made ahead and stored in the refrigerator or in air tight containers.  Brittles and Peanut Butter Balls are two that come to mind that our family loves.  Most can be made weeks in advance, and stay very fresh with the proper protection.

With a little planning, you can bake in peace and fully enjoy your Christmas!

What's On Your Produce?

Every once in a while I come across a news story that just turns my stomach.  This CNN report on pesticides in produce was one of those stories that made my stomach somersault both figuratively and literally.

I am not generally a fan of the US media/news outlets as often their information seems to be more drama and less facts.  This article, regardless of it's credibility, made me stop and think about what we eat on a regular basis.  I am very happy that so much of my produce comes from my garden!  It also makes me want to do a bit more research on this area.  Anyone have any good resources?  Feel free to put links in comments below.

What are your thoughts on pesticides in commercial produce?

Why I Keep Fighting

Five years ago by body was attacked, and I waged war with everything my doctors could give me to rid my body of cancer.  After three months of chemo and 3 weeks of radiation treatments, I won that battle.  And I kept fighting.  I keep fighting because progress is being made every year with new treatments.  In my relatively short lifetime, the type of cancer I had has gone from a terminal disease to having one of the highest cure rates among cancers.  That's worth fighting for!

While I have won back my health, my fight against cancer continues for those who are fighting for their health.  For friends who have been diagnosed with cancer, and those unknown to me who have had a portion of their life shattered by cancer.  I continue so that my daughter, my nieces and my nephews may see more curable cancers in their lifetime.

I have walked a marathon to raise awareness and funds for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society, I have participated in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life as a Survivor, as a Participant, as a Team Captain and as a Committee Member.  I have grown and cut my hair a number of times to donate towards wigs for women who have lost their hair in their fight against cancer.

This past weekend involved a lot of fighting.  On Friday and Saturday was our local Relay for Life.  For those of you not familiar with the event, it is an all night walking event and teams come together to raise money and spend the night walking.  This year I was on the committee so I did a lot of walking, just not on the track.  I helped set-up, break down and everything in between.  While I worked behind the scenes (where I tend to work best) there were 30 teams who had raised money and were walking and having a great time.  We wanted to raise $85,000.  At the end of the event, our staff coordinator announced that our small town Relay had raised $98,500 and she expected the final to come in over $100,000.  While this is nothing to shake a stick at, in order to fully appreciate the magnitude of this accomplishment by our teams, you have to realize that in this area of New York, we reported a 10.6% unemployment rate in February of 2010.  In the perspective of the current economics in our area, I am amazed and so grateful for all the hard work of these teams, individuals and our committee to make this happen.

Following Relay, I headed for a Hair to Share event in memory of a local teacher who had lost her fight with cancer.  My hair had been living comfortably in a braid between washings for about four weeks.  It had grown too heavy to pony-tail and it was definitely time to cut it off.  So I did.  And so did my friend Margery.  About 9 inches of my hair was cut to send off to the Beautiful Lengths program.  I have seen the wigs that have come back to our community through this program and was so glad to help.

Most people don’t have to go outside their circle of friends or family to see lives that have been affected by cancer.  Take a stand.  Join with those who are fighting for their health and fight along side them.  Check out the links in this post to learn more about programs you can get involved with.

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Print Your Own Money

What would you say if I told you that you could print your own money?  It is perfectly legal and there are no poor consequences.

After this week's grocery shopping trip, I've decided that printing coupons is like printing my own money.  There are a few different groups of thought on coupons.  Some folks make their grocery list based on what is on sale and what they have for coupons.  That doesn't work for me.  I make my list, know what I keep stocked in the house and when I find coupons to match my shopping habits, it print them.    I spend about 15 minutes a week clicking the print button to get coupons.

Want to find coupons?  There are a  number of sources for the coupons that are available on the web.   I subscribe to MoneySavingMom.com in my blog reader-each of her posts comes through like an e-mail with the subject line reading the deal she found coupons for.  I skim through the headers and if her deals aren't stuff I usually buy, I delete.  Then every couple of days I'll click through and get the coupons.  Coupons.com and SmartSource.com are two of the main websites where I go to print coupons.  Most allow you to print a coupon twice and photocopying the coupons is a no-no.  These websites re-set the print counters at the beginning of the month and add new coupons on a regular basis.

This week when we went shopping, I had craft store coupons, grocery coupons, and birthday coupons ...

We are working on redecorating parts of our house.  I took a minute to print the ACMoore coupons - one from my computer, one from HandyMans - and we saved $30 on picture frames that we wanted to get.

Then came the grocery coupons.  Like I said before, I print coupons for things I'm going to buy anyway and will give me the best deal: pasta, coffee, olive oil, contact solution.  For example, this month I needed pasta, Ronzoini has great gobs of coupons out there and my store happened to have it on sale, making my pasta $0.25 a box.  All told: $12 in grocery coupons.

Finally the birthday coupons.  Certain places give you deals on your birthday - Cold Stone is one of them.  Their coupons are good for a week around your birthday.  So, we got free ice cream.  This was a treat because we probably wouldn't have gone to Cold Stone otherwise.  ($8.)

At the end of the day, doing my normal shopping I managed to spend $50 of money I printed myself.  Not bad for a little bit of time, ink and recycled paper (coupons get printed on the back of paper to reuse in our house)!

My Season of Lent

Many Christian traditions celebrate the season of Lent, which is observed beginning on Ash Wednesday and spans 40 days until Easter.  While the Catholic Church is the most known for calling parishioners to sacrifice something during this time in order to deepen their focus on Christ, other denominations like Presbyterians and Lutherans also follow this tradition.

This is not a tradition that I grew up with and every year I find myself struggling to figure out what I’m going to “give up” because everyone else is talking about it.  This year our congregation was challenged to make a difference with your sacrifice.  If giving up chocolate, donate the money that you would have spent on chocolate to the soup kitchen.  If you sacrifice an activity, use the time to volunteer.

While discussing this year’s Lent season and batting around a few ideas, as a family we settled on minimizing our grocery budget as much as possible by eating meals that are stashed in the freezer and using the extra money (and time saved on cooking) to put together Hygiene Kits and Baby Kits for our denominational disaster assistance program.  I often feel convicted of how I spend my time, and was feeling this conviction when I came across Katie’s “What are you doing for Lent” post over at Kitchen Stewardship.  As I read the post my “what doing with your time” voice kept echoing in my head.  Then the first linked response on Forty Bags in Forty Days de-cluttering challenge caught my eye and was the catalyst that gelled in my heart what this year’s Lent season needs to be about for me: the spiritual disciplines of gratefulness and giving.

I strive to focus on being content and know that we have so much more than we need, but that does not turn into true gratefulness as often as it should. Rarely do I look around to see how much I really have and sometimes how little we actually use.  So over the course of the 40 days of Lent, 40 bags of various sizes (nothing smaller than a plastic shopping bag) will leave my house destined to be donated or recycled and I will daily strive to allow gratitude to fill my heart and life.

Would you like more ideas for observing the season of Lent in a unique way? Visit this Kitchen Stewardship post for ideas (scroll to the bottom of the post for link ups.)

Confessions of a Clutterbug

NOTE: This entry is rated PG for language.  Please do not read if easily offended :-)

Before my daughter was born, I had my cleaning all organized out and had grand plans to keep to my 4-week cycle to keep my home clean and in order after the baby arrived.  HA!  Yeah, I know you other moms out there are laughing.

Then, GBaby arrived.  I was trying to figure out life with a newborn.  The first two weeks were ok because HandyMan was off work and home and taking care of stuff for me- he was so great.  Then he went back to work.  I was home, alone, with a baby:  in February in the Northeast (not the most motivating of months).  My philosophy on housekeeping quickly changed to I’d rather do a half-a$$ed job of cleaning than have my house look like a$$.  There you have it.  I have no idea how to clean up this philosophy without loosing the poetics of it.

So I took to the “quick clean”.  Grab cleaner & rag and hit all the surfaces in the bathroom.  Done. Bathroom’s clean.  Throw all the dishes in the dishwasher, rake everything off the counters into a stack in my office (my catchall hiding spot). Done. Kitchen’s clean.  Pull the comforter over the sheets; throw all clothes lying around into the laundry bins.  Done. Bedroom’s clean.  You get the idea.

After a little while I had to focus on one area every so often and really clean it. I’d pull out the broom, mop, vacuum, cleaners and rags and evict all the dust bunnies and dog hair.  So far it’s working.  I try to clear the kitchen counters, sink and dishwasher every night before I go to bed and get the toys up off the kitchen floor but often exhaustion wins.

If you drop in, you’ll find my home comfortably lived in and most of the dustbunnies and cobwebs banished.  If you give me notice I may actually “clean” before you come!

TM on Leftovers & Carry Over Ingredients (COIs)

I am blessed that HandyMan will eat almost anything and doesn’t mind leftovers at all.  Often at the end of a meal, I will plate up the leftover in lunch size containers that can be easily grabbed out of the fridge on his way to work.  Sometimes though, I’ve planned the excess for a second meal all together.  I like to call these Carry-over ingredients.

When there are enough leftovers for a full second meal, I try add something new to the meal so that it will look a little different the second time around.  If we had lasagna with green beans the first time, I’ll make salad and bread sticks the second time.  If we had soup and fresh bread the first time, it will be soup and sandwiches the second time.

With my carry-over ingredients (tagged as COI's), the idea is to cook extra to save cooking time later.  So, if I'm grilling chicken for fajitas, I may grill extra meat to be used in quesadillas or taco salad later in the week.  If I cook white rice to go with stir-fry, I’ll make a double batch and add cilantro and tomato to the leftover rice to have a Spanish rice side later in the week.

By mixing and matching with your main dish or protein items, you can cook once but use the cooked items on your menu in a number of different ways, saving you time on meal preparations later down the road.   Look for the "Carry-over Ingredient" icon and the "Time Saver" icon in my posts for tips on how to get the most for your meal preparation efforts!

What are your favorite ways to save time and energy when cooking?

TM on Cloth Diapers

When I was pregnant with GBaby, HandyMan and I had many conversations about the diaper options for GBaby.  He was an all-or-nothing cloth diaper side: start from day one, no need for disposables.  I, on the other hand, was a bit more wary because I knew realistically who would be doing the laundry and had been told by veteran mothers to give myself 2-4 weeks to get settled before taking on the task.

Everyone has an argument for or against the cloth diapers. Personally, I like that waste from the diapers would be headed for our septic tank and not the land fill.  We’re on spring water, so the extra laundry wouldn’t add to the water bill.  I have lines in my laundry/bathroom so I wouldn’t have to run the dryer.  I’ve heard that cloth diapered kids potty-train earlier.  That’s a big one!  I was leaning towards it but had to get around HandyMan’s black and white arguments.  It took some convincing, but we got there.

Now that we’re six months in, I’m glad we chose the cloth diapers. We started with the cloth diapers when GBaby was about three weeks old.  We’ve used the Seventh Generation chlorine-free disposables for day-trips and vacations.  Most of the time, GBaby is in cloth.

Once we decided on the cloth, we had to decide which cloth option to go with.  Cloth diapers have made so many advances and become so innovative that it’s not even the same league that my mom was in when my brothers and I were little.  There are covers and pre-folds and all-in-ones and pocket diapers and cotton and hemp and bamboo and the list just keeps going!

We finally decided on cotton pre-folds and covers – it seemed like less laundry in the long run as the covers can get used more than once before they head to the laundry bin.  HandyMan installed diaper sprayers on our toilets which are fantastic and have made clean up oh-so-easy!  HandyMan also gets lots of credit for changing diapers, but as I thought, I’ve ended up doing most of the laundry.  But that’s ok – it’s my job!

One day as I was hanging the diapers I began to think about how much we were actually saving.  It is estimated that the average family spends about $550 for diapers during the first 6 months of an infant’s life and another $450 by the first birthday.  So far we’ve spent $290 on cloth supplies, detergent, and disposable diapers and GBaby will be 6 months old next week.  We did luck out and get some of our supplies hand-me-down at a HUGE price-break.

Are cloth diapers for everyone? No.  Are they working well for us? Yes.  Would I do it again? Absolutely.  It’s been more work, but it’s been much more manageable on our budget.  I’ve chosen to invest time rather than earn money, so it works out well for us.

TM On Gardening

2009 is our third year with a garden and unfortunately due to a very cool summer it’s not doing that great this year, but in the past two years we’ve done very well.  When we bought our home I was thrilled to see seven raised garden beds already in place and we have since added two more.  I am a HUGE fan of the square foot gardening method and have used it in our beds.

Our garden usually produces zucchini, pumpkins, corn, peas, spinach, carrots, broccoli, strawberries, green beans, basil, cilantro, cucumbers, green peppers, and tomatoes.  Most of our produce is then processed to be frozen or used fresh.  We have more freezer space than pantry space and the freezing process seems to be a bit easier than the canning process for me.

The thing that I love most about the garden and freezing our own (or locally grown) produce is that in the dead of winter when I bust out the frozen green beans, I know where they have come from.  They weren’t picked to early and flash frozen through some factory then trucked across the country. They came from my back yard.  That makes all the work of gardening in the summer, worth it!  What's growing in your back yard this summer?

TM on Shopping

Last week i talked about how shop for your family and stay on a budget.  Now here comes the true confession:

I do not like shopping in stores.  For anything.  (Give me the internet and that is a completely different story!)  I live about thirty minutes from all the major shopping in my area so completing this chore generally takes more time than I wish to spend among the steel aisles, clanking carts and fluorescent lighting.  Midge8 and I generally do the “shopping run” every two weeks together and the social aspect makes it much more bearable.

I have a shopping list note pad lives on my fridge.  Items get added as they are desired or as they are used up and it’s not just grocery items.  Since we will do all of our “town” shopping at once it’s also the Lowes list and the Target list and the… well, you get the idea.

This year we’ve been working very hard on our budget and what this usually means for my shopping is a big restocking grocery run at the beginning of the month and just getting fresh stuff we need as the month goes on and the grocery line on the budget creeps closer and closer to its limit.  The pantry items and freezer stuff -meats on sale, frozen juices and bulk cheeses that get portioned and frozen- are generally restocked at the beginning of the month.

Our groceries come from a variety of outlets.  We have a locally owned bulk foods store that is in HandyMan’s regular path of travel where we get a lot of our pantry and deli items and in the summer HandyMan stops by our local produce market on his way to a weekly meeting and stocks up on our produce for the week.  In Town, Aldi’s is a regular stop as well as a locally owned restaurant supply house that retails to the public.  Occasionally, when I’m leaning towards a Country Gourmet night or they’re having a really good sale, I’ll end up at Wegmans.

What is your favorite, or least favorite, part of shopping?

Hidden Veggies

Recently a friend told me about Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfield.  I liked the premise of it so I put it on my Inter-Library Loan list.  I skimmed through it and caught the major points and then set out to re-invent some of my recipes.  Jessica’s idea is to add vegetables, in pureed forms, to foods that your kids already eat to infuse them with a bit of nutrition.  It is a great in theory. However in practice it seems to be extra work with little results.  While her recipes were nutritious and the few I tried were very good, there weren’t enough veggies in her recipes to take the place of the veggie servings that we and our children should be getting.

BUT – when I did the numbers and realized that but substituting pureed yellow squash for some of the liquid in my favorite chocolate cake recipe, I was able to cut the fat calories almost in half and not tell the difference! Now we’re talking!   Since I love to bake, any opportunity to make recipes a bit healthier is right up my alley.

I’m working to infuse some of my favorite recipes with more vegetables using the pureed method that Jessica outlines.  Recipes will be posted as I experiment marked on this site with “HV” or “Hidden Veggies”.  Nutrition Facts I post are calculated through CalorieCount.

Do you have any veggie packed recipes that leave the eater unsuspecting?

Hidden Veggies

Recently a friend told me about Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfield. I liked the premise of it so I put it on my Inter-Library Loan list. I skimmed through it and caught the major points and then set out to re-invent some of my recipes. Jessica’s idea is to add vegetables, in pureed forms, to foods that your kids already eat to infuse them with a bit of nutrition. It is a great in theory. However in practice it seems to be extra work with little results. While her recipes were nutritious and the few I tried were very good, there weren’t enough veggies in her recipes to take the place of the veggie servings that we and our children should be getting.

BUT – when I did the numbers and realized that but substituting pureed yellow squash for some of the liquid in my favorite chocolate cake recipe, I was able to cut the fat calories almost in half and not tell the difference! Now we’re talking! Since I love to bake, any opportunity to make recipes a bit healthier is right up my alley.

I’m working to infuse some of my favorite recipes with more vegetables using the pureed method that Jessica outlines. Recipes will be posted as I experiment marked on this site with “HV” or “Hidden Veggies”. Nutrition Facts I post are calculated through CalorieCount.

Do you have any veggie packed recipes that leave the eater unsuspecting?

TM- On Cooking

I love to cook. Love it!  I love seeing and enjoying the finished meal and sharing a great home-cooked meal with friends and family.  As much as I love cooking, I equally despise the clean-up of said culinary ventures.  So I rarely cook for one meal at a time.

I've been inspired in part by my mom who always cooked to have leftovers and the theories more than the recipes of the Once a Month cooking folks.  If I’m cooking it’s going to be for a small army or for at least four meals to come.  Lasagnas and enchiladas: one for the oven and at least 2 for the freezer which will each yield dinner and at least a lunch if not two.  Homemade meatballs: part of the batch for dinner, enough for two other meals to the freezer.  Soups in the crockpot: dinner when cooked, enough for a meal leftover in the fridge and the rest portioned for Ready Meals to the freezer.  You get the idea!  What is your favorite meal to cook in batches or to have for leftovers?

TM- On Cooking

I love to cook. Love it! I love seeing and enjoying the finished meal and sharing a great home-cooked meal with friends and family. As much as I love cooking, I equally despise the clean-up of said culinary ventures. So I rarely cook for one meal at a time.

I've been inspired in part by my mom who always cooked to have leftovers and the theories more than the recipes of the Once a Month cooking folks. If I’m cooking it’s going to be for a small army or for at least four meals to come. Lasagnas and enchiladas: one for the oven and at least 2 for the freezer which will each yield dinner and at least a lunch if not two. Homemade meatballs: part of the batch for dinner, enough for two other meals to the freezer. Soups in the crockpot: dinner when cooked, enough for a meal leftover in the fridge and the rest portioned for Ready Meals to the freezer. You get the idea! What is your favorite meal to cook in batches or to have for leftovers?