2012
Bulk Cooking: The Meats
So the other day I shared my top 5 tips for freezer cooking and as promised I’m back to show you how I prepped 26 meals while I cooked dinner and cleaned the dishes. This big project focused on Step 2: Make Your Meals Speedy. Do you ever run into that dreaded feeling around 5 o’clock that you didn’t pull anything out to thaw and now dinner won’t be ready until the end of time when all you want to do is sit on the couch, drink some wine and watch some trash TV? I hope I’m not alone in those kind of days.
The best way to avoid those days is to cook your meat ahead of time. I don’t suggest cooking all meats ahead of time by any means but ground beef and chicken cuts are the perfect thing to prepare and have ready in a pinch.
Supplies
Pay close attention to these supplies as you plan your freezer cooking. You’ll be cooking several meats so save money by shopping the sales (rule 5) and visiting Costco (rule 4). I also had luck at my local Aldi store since you can’t beat their celery prices most days.
You’ll need:
- An empty dishwasher
- A clean stockpot
- A clean crockpot
- 10 pounds ground beef
- 1 stalk celery
- 9 chicken breasts
- Water, chicken broth, or a combination of the two
- Measuring cup
- Containers (I used Ziplock bags)
- Labeling tools (sharpie, address labels)
- Bonus: A kitchenaid mixer, a strainer, and a food processor
Preparation
The night before your cooking day, thaw some chicken breasts. Some people will stick frozen chicken breasts straight in a crockpot and while some modern crockpots may keep your food in a safe zone, it’s safer to put thawed chicken in your crockpot so that’s what we’ll be doing for this project.
About 4 hours before dinner, place your thawed chicken breasts in a crockpot. I have a small Rival crockpot
Let the cooking begin!
I was making a long but hands off meal in the kitchen so I prepped my meal and my bulk cooking at the same time and finished assembling while dinner was in the oven.
The Beef
First, I chopped up the entire stalk of celery. Rather than waste time with a knife I just threw it in my food processor attachment and chopped it up very finely. I had two separate packs of ground beef I had gotten on sale so I chose the smaller pack (3.4 pounds) and threw it and the diced celery into the preheated stockpot on the stove. I use my Pampered Chef Mix n Chop to separate the beef, then I throw the lid on so the meat cooks faster. After about 10 minutes with some occasional stirring, all my meat was cooked and finely chopped. I poured the meat into a strainer to drain the fat and let it cool. While it was cooling I cooked the other 6.6 pounds of meat I had in the same method, sans celery. You can season these meat batches any way you want while cooking them.
The Chicken
While the beef was cooking and dinner was still in the oven, I had strained my chicken of all the liquids. I then threw the chicken breasts into my Kitchenaid mixer with the batter blade attached and in seconds I had perfectly shredded chicken. I could easily chop the chicken by hand but remember, this is a speed run.
Packaging
My dinner was nearing completion as I rushed to finish my last pre-dinner task. I used my handy Pampered Chef Measure-All Cup and set it for 2 cups. I had quart sized Ziplock bags* set aside and I filled each bag with 2 cups (1 lb) of whatever meat I had prepped. I threw an address label on some bags and wrote out what was in the bag (1 lb ground beef + veggies) and the date. I left all the bags open and on the counter to finish cooling (since steam=water=ice crystals=freezer burn) and I served up that night’s dinner while the cooling took place.
After dinner I came in, sealed the bags after squeezing out as much air as possible, and stacked them flat in my freezer. After frozen you can store the bags upright in a mail crate in your deep freeze. One person takes care of the bags while the other loads the dishwasher and you can still fit in your wine and TV time. With an outdoor tv mount, you can enjoy watching your favorite shows on your patio.
*Some people might freak out at Ziplock bags but here’s the deal: since you’re working with cooked meat you can reuse the bags and they take up the least amount of space in a freezer. Just cover up your old label with your new one each time you cook and you are good to go.
The Results
My chicken batch produced 7 1/2 cups of shredded chicken. This meant I had 3 bags plus a small container set aside for a lunch. I can thaw a bag of cooked chicken on the counter in 30 minutes, under hot water in 5 minutes, or it can go straight onto the stove. I use the shredded chicken for chicken salad, chicken pot pies, chicken burritos, or many other dishes. The chicken batch created 4 meals.
My ground beef mixed with celery started off as 3.4 pounds of meat but the vegetable added stretched it to 12 cups. I would have had 7 bags of meat but I cheated and used one bag’s worth of meat in that night’s dinner. I thaw it the same way as the chicken and I use the meat+veggie combo in tomato based dishes like sloppy joes and spaghetti. The ground beef plus veggies batch created 7 meals.
My plain ground beef batch started as 6.6 pounds of meat and created 25 cups of beef. I separated these into 10-2 cup batches that I’ll use for tacos and lasagna and 5-1 cup batches when I want a meal light on meat like ziti. The ground beef batch created 15 meals.
The average cost of my beef packs ended up at $1.40 per pack since my original 10 pounds of ground beef turned into 22 meals. I don’t remember the chicken price but I’ll take a look the next time I stop by Costco.
While I don’t have 26 complete meals on hand, I prepped ingredients so now none of the above recipes will take longer than boiling noodles. That’s a huge way to shave time off your cooking and with most of your prep work done on those meals, you’ll have more time to watch Game of Thrones or How I Met Your Mother.
Bonus
I had some Costco pesto in my fridge nearing the expiration date so the night before my cook day I threw it into ice cube trays and froze it. While I was bagging all my other goods I put the ice cubes into some bags and stored them back in my freezer. Now I have perfect servings of pesto for baked potatoes or pasta, I didn’t waste my goods and I followed rule 5: freeze seasonally. If you can fit all 5 freezing rules into one cook day, you know you’ve done well.
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Homemade bread
Today is National French Bread Day. I’m sorting of doubting this is the kind of day you can ask off for work but it is a good excuse to eat some bread. I’ve been slowly going through Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice
For this bread I made some slight tweaks to a recipe from Jamie Cooks it Up! eventually ended up with a bread I could make in 90 minutes. It’s a little longer than a typical dinner takes to throw together but a lot of it is hands off. If you have a Kitchenaid mixer you got for a wedding and just use it to make cookies, this is the time to break it out.
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup lukewarm water
- 1 Tablespoon yeast
- 1 Tablespoon shortening
- 1 Tablespoon salt
- 2 Tablespoon sugar
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1 cup cold water
- 5 - 6 cups flour
- 1 egg
- 1 Tablespoon water
Instructions
- Measure out 1/3 of a cup of water that's warm to the touch. Pour it in a small bowl and proof the yeast in the water. see more details on how to proof yeast
- While yeast is proofing, mix together shortening, sugar and salt in a small bowl. Make it crumbly, then pour it in Kitchenaid mixer. Add the dough hook to your mixer.
- Boil 1 cup of water (or run on high for 3 minutes in the microwave) and pour into mixer. Immediately add cold water.
- Pour proofed yeast mix into your mixer and begin to stir on low.
- Slowly add one cup of flour at a time. You want the dough to be wet but not sticky. I used 5.5 cups for mine but in summer you may need all six due to the humidity.
- When the dough starts pulling from the sides of your mixer, put your mixer on high and let it run for 8 minutes. (You may want to grease the bottom your bowl before putting in the mixer stand because kneading can make it get stuck. Trust me on this.)
- Turn off the mixer, remove the bowl, cover it with a towel and let the dough rise for 20 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 170 degrees
- Separate dough into two equal halves
- Roll one half into a small rectangle. Fold in half length-wise and pinch sides together. Roll into another rectangle, you'll notice this one is slightly longer than your last. Again, fold over and pinch. Roll into one last rectangle. Start rolling the long side to the other long side, like a cinnamon roll. Pinch and seal, then place on a jelly roll pan. Repeat with second dough ball.
- With a sharp knife, slice bread 4 times diagonally. You don't want to go to deep; just skim the surface.
- Whisk egg with tablespoon of water. Brush it on your bread, making sure to brush inside the cuts.
- Place the bread in the oven for 15 minutes at 170 degrees.
- Turn the oven up to 400 degrees. Leave the bread in the oven while the temperature rises and even after it reaches the new temperature. The goal is to have the bread in the oven for 5 minutes past your initial baking time.
- Lower temperature to 350 and leave bread in the oven for another 10 minutes.
- Check if bread is done by tapping with your finger. If bread sounds hollow, it is done!
2012
5 Deep Freeze Tips
Shortly after I got married my parents passed down their aging deep freeze to me and my husband. I had a great time filling it and using it to store goods long term. Sadly, last year our freezer passed on and went to freezer heaven. It chose to go around 5 in the morning so we spent the early hours running items from a deep freezer we once loved to our tiny refrigerator’s freezer. Some goods didn’t make it while others were cooked up that day. The unexpected loss of our freezer put an end to our bulk cooking days.
Early this year a family member had to downsize her home and during her downsizing sale I managed to snag a great deal on a chest freezer. I immediately shifted some of our items down to the new freezer but since then I haven’t done any bulk cooking or baking to stock it up. I wanted to really plan out what I wanted to stock it up with and what were my favorite ways to use it.
Tip #1: Freeze Seasonally
Think about what you should be freezing this very moment. It’s spring right now so I want to be freezing food that will last our household the next 3 months. In the summer it is hot, I’m usually doing tons of projects, and I certainly don’t want to be running my oven on 90 degree days. In contrast, at winter time I’m always so cold that I want warm meals without having to get out from under my blankets to cook a huge meal. I’ve created a calendar to show what I like to freeze and when.
I’m always trying to flash freeze seasonal ingredients and quick meals but these are all specialty items I like to do each season to keep my freezer well-stocked. In the fall it’s the perfect time to roll out sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies and freeze them in fun cut out shapes. That way come winter you just need to decorate them. When you make your winter cookies like chocolate chip, make a triple batch, scoop the dough into balls and freeze so you have cookies all spring long and you don’t just eat cookies over the holidays.
Tip #2: Make Your Meals Speedy
I love the idea of freezing entire meals but they tend to take up so much space or lose a certain amount of quality when frozen. I do have exceptions that I’ll be sharing in the future but in general, I don’t freeze entire meals. I do freeze ingredients though. I love freezing pre-cooked and seasoned ground beef or shredded chicken. They come in so handy on a night I need a quick meal without going out to eat.
My other tips are to freeze breads and doughs. I buy buns and freeze them or I make a double batch of pizza dough and freeze the dough for later. I just pop the dough out of the freezer in the morning, place it in a bowl on the counter and when I come home I just roll it out.
Tip #3: Buy Quality Packaging
I try to buy top Ziplock and gladware products for freezing because I know my items will be better preserved and it increases the chances of me being able to recycle the containers. If you buy foil pans, look for ones with flat lids instead of plastic ones. The plastic lids crack easier and you could experience the dreaded freezer burn when that happens. It also makes labeling your containers easy and that’s a must. I love using blank address label stickers to label my frozen meals with the item and date. The best flat-topped foil pans I’ve found at my local stores are actually from the dollar store. 3 pans for $1 is a deal I can’t resist.
Tip #4: Invest in Costco
There are no words that accurately describe my Costco love. I love that I get quality meats there, I love that they have frozen herb cubes, I love their rotisserie chickens, I love their cheap flower bulbs, I love their dog food, I love their cheap gas, I love their smoothies. For a deep freezer they are a dream. I buy boneless skinless chicken breasts there and the cut is so perfect I don’t waste a bite. I can get steaks, pot roasts and pork roasts there for a rate much cheaper than I can at my local grocer. I buy frozen berries for smoothies and I can’t wait to try the new herb cubes my friend Wendy just told me about. Right now I already buy a huge jar of Costco’s pesto and freeze it so I can’t wait to try more herbs from them. My membership more than pays for itself with the discounts I receive and my membership allows me to get cash back.
Tip #5: Shop the Sales
Costco isn’t the only place I get deals. After the price of bacon shot up nearly $5 a pack, I realized I didn’t want bacon to be a luxury. Now I stock up on bacon, hot dogs, and butter when there’s a great sale (watch during Superbowl, BBQ and Christmas seasons respectively) and freeze all the items. I’ve never had a problem with the quality and it ensures I don’t pay the $7.50 cents my grocer tried to charge me for bacon when there wasn’t a sale.
I’ll be back later this week to show you how I prepped 26 meals while I made dinner and cleaned the dishes.
Pin ItDeviled Eggs
Last year for Easter my mom left town for a family wedding. Not wanting my brothers and dad to starve or eat pizza, I decided to cook my first Easter dinner. I made a ham, a potato casserole that I’m sure every family has their version of, some carrots, and a dessert. One dish that went over very well was the deviled eggs I made. My mom got home from the wedding and found a plate of leftovers waiting for her sans deviled eggs and just yesterday she complained that everyone ate them all before she got to try them.
The key to my deviled eggs is that I hate pickle relish. I don’t want it touching my eggs. The second worst thing about deviled eggs is that they can be very bland so I wanted more of a kick than the sprinkle of paprika on top of them. I had some horseradish leftover from a steak and potatoes dinner I had made and I wondered if the combination of eggs and horseradish might work out. Spoiler alert: It did.
Ingredients
- 1 dozen eggs
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon ground mustard
- 1 tablespoon horseradish sauce
- paprika
Instructions
- Hard boil your eggs the day before and let them cool down in your fridge overnight.
- On Easter morning, peel the eggs under running water.
- Cut each egg in half lengthwise and remove the yolks.
- In a small bowl, place the yolks, mayonnaise, ground mustard and horseradish sauce. Mix with a whisk or a mixer.
- Spoon or pipe the mix back into the eggs.
- Sprinkle with paprika and chill in fridge until guests arrive.
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Pi Day
Happy Pi Day! Pi Day is of course one of the high holidays for nerds. The other is Mole Day (October 23) and that is best celebrated by dressing up in a mole costume and singing a special song in its honor. You’ve never heard the line “that’s 6 with 23 zeros at the end…Much to big a number to comprehend” or danced to it either? Well, fine then, we’ll just stick to Pi Day and its glorious pies made in the holiday’s honor.
Today’s pie isn’t anything fancy. When I was a kid and I would visit my grandma, she’d make it for me and my brother. As a kid I had never seen such a tall pie and it was solid chocolate. My grandma called it dream pie and the first time we ate it my brother had a nightmare that night so he called it nightmare pie for quite a while. The other name we called the pie was pudding pie but being a kid and not being trusted in the kitchen, I had no clue why it would be called dream pie or pudding pie. Here’s a hint.
For this recipe you need a magic ingredient called dream whip (a whipping stabilizer), pudding of your choice, a 9 inch pie crust and milk. That’s it. It’s so simple.
At the beginning you only mix a cup of milk with the dream whip and magically you already have a very fluffy looking base. Then you add in pudding and some more milk and you have a giant fluffy mixture that you just spoon into a pie shell. The hardest part of this recipe is that you have to let the pie chill for 4 hours. It’s super simple and straight from the box so while my grandma never told me her “secret” recipe, I just had to find dream whip on the shelf in the pudding aisle to discover her secret.
Ingredients
- 2 envelopes (1 package) Dream Whip
- 2 3/4 cups milk
- 2 (3.4 oz) packages Jello instant chocolate pudding
- 9 inch graham cracker pie shell, baked
Instructions
- If your pie shell requires baking, bake it and cool following the instructions.
- With a mixer blend 1 cup of the milk and the 2 packs of dream whip.
- Beat on high for 6 minutes until the mix has peaks.
- Add the powdered pudding and remaining milk. Mix on low until combined, then on high for 2 minutes.
- Spoon the mix into the pie shell. Refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving.
2012
The Girl Scouts Turn 100
Happy 100th birthday to the Girl Scouts! I was a Girl Scout for only 3 years but I’m still friends today with several of the girls who were in my troop.
In honor of the Girl Scouts reaching such an old age, I created a cocktail in their honor. I wanted a chocolate milkshake with the taste of mint cookies and for fun I threw in some rum. It was a great combination. I used chocolate ice cream but for a stronger mint flavor you could use vanilla ice cream. You could even go the mint chocolate chip route but I didn’t want the taste of Thin Mints to compete with the taste of the ice cream. The only thing that went wrong with this cocktail was that my eyes were bigger than my stomach. That’s what I get for drinking before 5 o’clock. I’ve adjusted the recipe so it makes two small cocktails, one for you and one for another Girl Scout.
If you haven’t seen Girl Scout cookies in your area yet try the Girl Scout Cookie locator. I live in a rural community without many young people so I’m always having to hunt down Girl Scouts but now I just plan ahead and combine a cookie run with a trip to the hardware or grocery store. You could always cheat like I do in the off-season and buy the Keebler Fudge Shoppe Grasshopper cookies. They aren’t quite as minty or as crunchy and they’ll do when I run out of a frozen supply of Thin Mints but I always revert as soon as it’s cookie season.
If you aren’t a Thin Mint person, I’ve been seeing plenty of Girl Scout-themed desserts this year. There’s SugarDerby’s Do-Si-Dos and Tagalong Bundt Cake, aBitterSweetWife’s Samoa Caramel Bark, My Baking Addiction’s Tagalong Peanut Butter Parfaits, and these incredible looking Samoas Cupcakes by Sweet Pea’s Kitchen.
What’s your favorite Girl Scout cookie?
Ingredients
- 6 Thin Mint Cookies
- 3 Scoops Ice Cream
- 2 Shots of Rum
- 4-6 oz Milk
- Whipped Cream
Instructions
- Choose 2 tumblers to serve your cocktails in. Use 1 to measure out a full tumbler of milk.
- Add the milk to a blender with cookies, ice cream, and rum. Blend until smooth.
- Pour shake into tumblers and add whipped cream.
Club Cobb Salad
I haven’t talked a ton about my husband Daniel but here’s one thing you have to know about him: he loves salad. He eats salad with Chinese food, he layers it on his lasagna, and I have to buy lettuce in bulk at Costco. In an effort to appease his salad love, I concocted the idea of a cobb salad with all his favorite things on it. In addition to salads, Daniel loves ham, sandwiches, bacon, ranch, hard-boiled eggs, and cheese. This is how the club cobb salad was born.
You’ll want to cut up a mix of salad greens into finely chopped pieces. Mine had spinach, arugula, and romaine lettuce in it. Then form rows with all your ingredients. I used cheddar cheese, sliced deli turkey, hard-boiled eggs, diced ham, bacon, monterey jack cheese, grape tomatoes, and green onions. They key to this salad is lining up the ingredients in rows so it looks pretty. When you’re ready to eat just toss it up and serve with a good dressing. I like honey mustard but my husband is more of a ranch person. Serve it with some toast and you’ve got yourself a club sandwich in a salad.
Ingredients
- 6 cups finely chopped mixed salad greens
- 1 dozen grape tomatoes
- 1/4 cup chopped bacon bits (homemade or store bought)
- 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1/4 cup shredded monteray jack cheese
- 1 cup diced ham
- 2 hard-boiled large eggs, separated, the yolk finely chopped and the white finely chopped
- 8 slices turkey deli meat
- 2 tablespoons diced green onions
Instructions
- If you are making fresh bacon bits then cook your bacon and crumble it. Set aside.
- Fill a large bowl or platter with fresh salad greens.
- Arrange the ingredients in lines starting from the center. Use tomatoes, bacon bits, ham, egg whites, and turkey forming a mirror image from the center.
- Layer the egg yolks on top of the egg whites and place cheeses over the bacon and turkey.
- Sprinkle on the green onions to taste.
- Serve with either a ranch or honey mustard dressing.
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2012
S’mores Mix
If you’re in St. Louis, you’ve probably played in a trivia night or two. Outside of St. Louis I’ve discovered that most people have no clue what a trivia night is. Usually trivia nights include 10 or so rounds of 10 questions with the event working as a fundraiser for a cause. There are usually raffles, giveaways, and a group of about 50 or more tables competing.
My friends and I have an annual tradition. We go to our old high school’s trivia night to raise money for each year’s grad night program to promote a safe night without drinking for all the kids. The event provides free sodas and you can buy drinks and all the tables bring their own food. My friends and I tend to take that food part as a challenge. We bring pizzas, tacos, chips, deli sandwiches, a fruit tray, dip, cheese and crackers, and plenty of yummies for everyone. This year I made a S’mores snack mix. I’m pretty sure one person wanted to steal it from me and eat it all night long with a glass of milk. Who can resist Golden Grahams, a chocolate syrup, and marshmallows together? Thankfully it was good enough to help cope with our crushing loss this year. Let’s just say the categories included retirement community card games and knowing the price of toilet paper at a grocery store. Sorry people, I’m in my 20s and shop sales.
Ingredients
- 12 oz box Golden Grahams cereal
- 3/4 cup Dark corn syrup
- 3 Tablespoons butter
- 11 1/2 ounce bag milk chocolate chips
- 1/2 bag of 11 oz bag of mini marshmallows
Instructions
- Pour box of Golden Grahams into a large bowl.
- Over medium heat, stir together corn syrup and butter until evenly combined. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips until smooth.
- Pour the chocolate mix over the Golden Grahams and stir together. Once well combined, add your half bag of mini-marshmallows.
- Spread the mix into a sheet cake pan using your hands. Smash it as flat as you can and let rest for 2 hours.
- After 2 hours, break the mix apart into smaller bites and enjoy.
2012
Chicken and Dumplings
There seems to be two camps when it comes to chicken and dumplings. The northerners love a dumpling that is more ball-shaped and is light and fluffy and the sauce is broth-based. The southerners love a dumpling that is more biscuit and chewy while the sauce is more of a gravy. Living in Missouri my life has always been a mix of northern and southern traditions so chicken and dumplings are always a hot topic. The average southern style is always better than the average northern style but the best northern style will ALWAYS beat the best southern style. That’s just how it is for me.
Thankfully, this recipe is one of those best northern style chicken and dumpling recipes. Pam from For the Love of Cooking has tweaked a Cooking Light recipe to be amazing. She even understands my irrational hatred of rosemary and uses basil as her herb of choice. Rather than repost her recipe I want Pam to have all the credit so if you need to try some of the best northern chicken and dumplings out there, try Pam’s Chicken and Basil Dumplings.
How about you? What’s your favorite style of chicken and dumplings? I’d love to be convinced by your recipes.
Pin It2012
Magic Onions
I’m sure many of you have seen the pin on Pinterest about the magic regrowing onions. You know, this one:
Source: homemadeserenity.blogspot.com via Janelle on Pinterest
I’ve seen a lot of pins that end up being too good to be true so I wanted to test this one and see how good it was. So after I used up the entire tops of some green onions making a meal for the Chinese New Year, I popped the bulbs into a glass and added a cup of water. I wasn’t a believer but they were just going to end up in the trash so why not try?
I woke up the next morning and gave it a look. WOW! That was just 12 hours and my onions were already shooting up. It took about 7 days but they were right back to the old height.
Some Tips
- Change the water daily. It will start to stink fast.
- After 14 days if you still haven’t used the onions then place them in a plastic bag in your fridge so they don’t get out of control.
- You can reuse the bulbs multiple times. The bulbs do get fatter so just cut a bulb in half if it gets too big.
Onions don’t cost a ton but I save the most on time, I don’t find myself needing to run to the store for a single ingredient when I can grow it in my Missouri kitchen in the middle of winter.
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