Two Hour Freezer Cooking

Today I began to do some freezer cooking. What I got accomplished only took me a little over an hour and a half.

First I put on some potato sausage, which I found at the meat market yesterday. It was only $1.38 a pound, so I bought three pounds. It has diced potatoes and green peppers, and a lot of seasoning in it. After tasting it, I wish I had bought more. I sautéed it in crumbled pieces, and then put it in a bowl to cool.

Next I put in some Italian Sausage to crumble and fry up. Once I had this in a bowl, I made sausage gravy out of the drippings and set that in a bowl to cool.

Once that was done, I cleaned the pan and put in about 4 pounds of hamburger to fry up with diced onion, green pepper, and carrots. I added garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, paprika, chili powder, salt and pepper. Once finished, I removed a big bowl for tacos and another to mix with rice and tomatoes for stuffed peppers.

With the ground beef mixture that was left, I mixed in tomato sauce, tomato paste, and a can of crushed tomatoes, some Italian seasonings, and let simmer for an hour for a big pot of spaghetti sauce.

While that was simmering, I used my food processor to dice up onion, green pepper, carrots, and celery, and put them all in baggies so that I have them handy.

Later, I used the cooked ground beef, and made stuffed green peppers for dinner.

Now we have food all bagged up either in the fridge or freezer for things like tacos, nachos, chili, in eggs for breakfast, or whatever I can think of.

Tomorrow I am going to cook up some chicken to make chicken broth, and shred the chicken and bag it up for soups, sandwiches, salads, nachos, or whatever.

Homemade Febreze

My sister is also big on making her own things, or saving money. Okay, mostly saving money. She's made everything from her own laundry detergent to her own hamburger buns. Here is a way to make your own Febreze:

Febreze

1/8th cup fabric softener
2 Tbl baking soda
hot tap water
32 oz spray bottle

Mix and put in spray bottle

Food Watch: Chef Robert Irvine's Lasagna

How many of you watch Restaurant Impossible? We watch it every week. My son would love me to try some of Chef Robert Irvine’s recipes, so I am going to do that in a couple of days. This is my plan:

Winner’s Circle Lasagna Recipe

This recipe won awards, as well as I think most of Chef Irvine’s recipes. It looks really easy to make.

I am also going to make my own wonton wrappers to use. The recipe I got here:

Homemade Wonton Wrappers

These also look easy. If you try these recipes before I do, let me know how they turn out.

Food Watch: Homemade Bread

I have to introduce you all to this website: Steve the Bread Guy on Youtube.com.

I have been wanting to learn to make bread for a long time, and because of Steve the Bread Guy, I finally got it right! :) It really is easy. It took a few tries for me to get it right, but listen to everything Steve says. I do put in 2T of sugar into the bowl with the hot water to help the yeast work, but that's all I do different.

Bread Recipe

2t sugar
2cups hot water
2T yeast
1T salt
5 cups flour

Click for Directions

Food Watch: Homemade Gravy

Gravy

2 cups chicken/turkey/or beef broth/stock
2T flour
2T oil
milk or water

Put 2T oil and 2T flour into pan and stir for a moment.
Mix in stock and let come to a boil and thicken, stirring near constantly.
If it gets thicker than you want, pour in a little milk or water until it's your desired thickness.

Since I make so much broth, I can usually always make gravy. But if you don't have broth, you can use bouillon cubes and make your own broth first.

Food Watch: Homemade Chicken Stock

I make chicken sock all the time. I don't think you can ever have enough. It's very expensive to buy, so instead when I'm going to make chicken for dinner, I will usually make chicken stock out of it first.

I know a lot of people use big chunks of veggies and the strain the broth. I really like to chop veggies down real small in the food processor and keep with the broth. I just think it gives it more flavor. So you can do whichever way you want.

Chicken Stock

Chicken pieces (I usually brown a little on each side before adding everything else)
2 stocks celery (and if you want, you can use the center of the celery)
1 large onion
2 large carrots
2T parsley
6 chicken bouillon cubes (I just think it gives it more flavor)
Pot of water

Brown chicken on each side.
Chop veggies in the food processor. I think the finer the better.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the pot.
Cover and simmer for an hour and a half or so. I add a little more water as it evaporates.

You can strain if you wish.

Food Watch: Homemade Using Up Food

Using Up Food

I do try to use up most things that I buy, because I hate throwing food away. I often do, but I try really hard not to.

How to Use Make the Most

Last night for dinner, I had a package of 10 chicken thighs. I only made six for our dinner, so I had four leftover today. I put them in a pot with diced celery, carrots, onion, green peppers, oregano, parsley, salt and pepper, and water, and let it simmer for a couple of hours. This made a great broth.

I love having broth in the house. There's so many uses for it.

Broth

Gravy

I took out the thighs for our dinner. With this, I used a cup of broth with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and a cup of milk and made gravy. I made mashed potatoes to go with our dinner.

Potato Soup

With the broth, I diced up potatoes and onion, and made a big batch of potato and ham soup.

We had a little of the soup to go with dinner, and the rest will go with sandwiches for lunch.


These tips are how I try to make the most out of what I have.