last week...
This week...
it's almost all melted now, so we've gotten out of the house, but haven't visited anyone because our cold seems quite harsh, lasting a long time, and VERY contagious.
We've had houseguests, so I've been trying recipes on them and I got in on a deal for 20 pounds of chicken at 1.69 a pound from Zaycon Foods , so I've been cooking that up for meal swaps.
I cooked 7 pounds for this awesome cheesy penne dish in my crockpot. I put in as many breasts as would fit, as much water as would fit and cut up 2 carrots and 2 celery on the top. High for 2 hours, cooked overnight. In the morning, I had 6 cups of chicken broth for the freezer and 7 pounds of cooked chicken. This recipe was awesome because it makes 2 8x8 pans, which is what we swap, so I just had to double it twice and I had the 8 pans I needed for swapping. I chopped up the chicken with my food processor slicing blade. I also used the blade to slice up 2 big 40 ounce containers of mushrooms from Costco and then the cheese grating blade to do 1.5 pounds of parmesan from Costco.
Tip of the day: slicing/shredding, etc. in the food processor usually saves me $2 or more per pound of ingredient.
I also used 4 boxes of whole wheat pasta I got for $1/box last week (I never pay more than that. Sometimes I can get it .75 if I also have a coupon). I also used a jar of sundried tomatoes and a package of sliced provolone that I just cut up to melt in the sauce. I probably could have gotten an even better price on the provolone at the Business Costco in Lynnwood, which carries bulk meats and cheeses I think in 3-6 pound minimums for deli counters that have slicers (or people willing to cut up and put through their food processor) but I didn't have any other reason to trek that way, so there you go.
I also shredded some for freezer burritos for this month. I've been using beef & chicken I've gotten on sale, mixed with black beans (I used dried beans cooked for 2 hours on the stove for this batch, cheaper than canned) ; brown rice; shredded cheese and I either seasoned the meat with spices (online recipe for taco seasoning-cheaper than the packet) or added some mild salsa. Roll in large burrito tortillas (now have a recipe, so can make them myself in the future) and then foil. You can microwave them 2 minutes from frozen for a quick lunch or dinner and I'll bet for sure they are cheaper than even the $1 crappy ones with preservatives you get on sale at the grocery store.
My other meal swap meal this time was Asian Chicken in 1 gallon freezer bags from my Once a Month Cooking cookbook I don't do the program because we are pretty picky and I also have found the swapping better for my food budget rather than doing their grocery list because I can buy stuff in bulk on sale. But I love that they are all tried in the freezer and tell what to package them in, etc. I then put 1 cup of brown rice in baggies with instructions on cooking in sandwhich bags to go with.
Now I'm ready to swap for January, February and March. I try not to do more than 3 months not only for storage, but also the fact that most meals start deteriorating after 3 months. Most of us eat our meals the month we get them, so I don't worry that my March meal will not be good, but I don't want anything going bad. I aso recommend making sure you are using Freezer bags rather than just storage bags. I've been having a lot of leaks in the fridge when defrosting and I think we have some inferior bags going around....
My other experiment this week was Drunken Noodles which I've never tasted let alone made. Paul wanted me to try it, so I found a recipe and got ingredients as best I could. We used thinly sliced chicken breast, green peppers and we couldn't find the Thai chilies so we used dried red chili peppers. I added 8. 2-4 would have been plenty, but my cold appreciated the extra spice! It was quite good, esp considering I'd never made them before but the recipe does feed a crowd, my wok was filled to the brim, so next time I'd either 1/2 it or make it when we have company.
the other new addition to our family this week was a Keurig coffee maker. Paul's friends decided since I'm the only one who drinks coffee, it would make more sense to have $150 coffee maker that only brews one cup than my free coffee maker that brews 10... but I digress. It's fancy and I appreciate it and it's fun to brew stuff quickly. anyways, it comes with a "make your own" K-cup so I'll be experimenting with cocoa, coffee & tea in the coming weeks I'm sure. They went to Costco for butter and cheese and came home with that. This is why Costco is so evil. and fun.
We also made a mind jar when I got bored and pulled all the arts & crafts stuff out on the table during the snow and we also made a crockpot brunch casserole. It's an entire crockpot. Make it if you have a houseful or a brunch to go to (I'm thinking our next MOPs meeting?) as well as a crockpot Mac & cheese that was creamy and delish.
We're home today to hopefully finish off being sick and Monday we'll begin school again and hopefully get back on track. It's a busy week and then we'll have to add in making up all the things we missed from last week. I predict there will be more crockpot and timesaving recipes coming....
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