Monday, March 30, 2009

Saving my sanity at the dinner table (fully made dinners)

Well I'm coming off at least I hope I am an entire month of a flu-like-plague, or is it a plague-like-flu. As a result, even though I am well stocked with boxed meals and frozen meats, after this last week, which included a relapse of this bug, not to mention spring break, I don't have really anything complete to cook for dinner.

I'm working on making some more organized menus, but in the meantime, this is what I "made" tonight for dinner.

Betty Crocker - Roasted Garlic Potatoes
Green giant Steamers - Cheesy Rice and Broccoli
Fast Fixins - Popcorn Chicken

Believe it or not, it was a more complete dinner than usual, and it was a big hit! Maybe I'll be able to put more real meals together more often, in time, but for now, it's nice to know that my stockpile allows for an entire meal that feeds all 5 of us.

My boys are back in school this week, so I hope to replenish the things that allow me to turn my meat into a meal. Stay tuned, I'm sure I'll have another Culinary Catastrophe soon enough!

Friday, March 27, 2009

Culinary Catastrophes - Revisited

Well tonight I finally served the Mini Meat Loaf and Glazed Baby Carrots from my first escapade. I'm sorry to say that my efforts to steam the carrots resulted in over/undercooked (if that's possible) and on my second 2 minutes of cooking I actually exploded one half of the bag! Good thing it was on its side or that would have been messy. The mini meat loaves, however defrosted quickly in hot water in their bags and 2 minutes later in the microwave I had a meal ready.

Verdict: 4 out of 5 members of my family LOVED the meat loaf, 3 out of 5 loved the carrots, but I think that's my fault so I will definately be trying that again.

Stay tuned for my next round of...

Thursday, March 19, 2009

One bad banana...

Spoils the whole bunch...or so I hear.

I promise this isn't becoming a food blog. I don't know nearly enough about it to make it my focus, but I have recently decided that I read way more blogs than any sane person would ever consider, and so I am going to start sharing info that my limited readership might be interested in that they wouldn't normally read elsewhere.

With that in mind...I read today over at Carrie's Cooking a great tip for extending the life of your bananas. Check it out. I always seem to be walking the tightrope between running out of banana's too fast or rationing them into the point where they brown. I'll take any help I can get!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Culinary Catastrophes...the results show

Well, as a result of not freezing but leaving the Lasagna Rolls in the fridge, I ended up with very tough edges BUT I beat my 4 out of 5 family members objective. EVERYONE LOVED IT! My picky 5 year old ate the entire thing and my husband informed me that I should be making this "more often, say once a week or more" ;) I guess we have one more item to add to the "my family will eat it" category. Whoohoo! Thanks New Frugal Mom!

I'll be sure to let you know how the rest of the meals end up working out just as soon as we eat them!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Culinary Catastrophes

I was thinking that in my ongoing efforts to try to find better ideas of what to cook, that I would chronicle my journey. Remember this is not the blog of an expert but rather a first timer who was never very good at saving, spending less, making real meals, etc. Might as well share it all. Who knows, maybe I'll manage to make a eatable if not somewhat tasty dish that 4 out of 5 members of my family (at least) will be willing to eat. Or, maybe I'll just add some "sure glad that's not me" stories that can make you feel better about your cooking. Here goes nothing...

I have started this series by attempting to make New Frugal Mom's Double Duty Dinner Lasagna Rolls and Mini Meat Loaf.

First off I should tell you that I have never made Lasagna other than Stouffer's before and as such I didn't even know the correct size pot to use to cook the noodles! I started with a pot large enough for my standard "Not quite Spaghetti" dinner, (not quite, because my 5 year old son refuses to eat actual spaghetti noodles so we alternate whatever random shapes he picks and add spaghetti sauce). I started the water boiling, put 3 noodles in and waited somewhat impatiently for them to soften enough to sink into the pot. After a good 30 seconds, it became clear to me that this was going to be an exercise in futility. I moved the (by this time) 5 noodles to a large stock pot along with the already boiling water. Add some more water to make up the difference in volume and another 3 noodles and I was finally ready to start the timer on the suggested 12 minutes for the lasagna noodles.

By this time I had already mushed up the meat loaf mixture. I'm not sure what cheese is typically added to meat loaf (as I have never been much of a fan and thus never made that before either), and the ingredients listed simply stated Sargento Cheese. Of course had I bothered to look at the detailed picture included on the site I might have noticed it was a mozzarella and provolone cheese mixture, but alas I did not and the result was the use of shredded cheddar cheese instead (because when I finally got ready to make this, it was all I had).

I mixed up the meatloaf and pushed it into my new silicon muffin tin. By this time, my poor lasagna noodles were ready (I hoped). Again having never used them, I made a beyond foolish not even rookie mistake. I pulled out a pair of tongs and promptly tore the corner off one noodle. It was then that I remembered that the directions stated to rinse them in cold water "to prevent them sticking" Now please understand that I make pasta on a fairly regular basis (see above) but whenever I undertake a new recipe I tend to get flustered and fail to use common sense, and this was two meals at once! At any rate I picked up the pot and strained the remaining noodles under cold water, leaving them in the sink.

It should be noted that as I had prepackaged food saver bags of 1 lb of ground beef, that I opted to use only 1 lb of ground beef as opposed to the 1.71 lbs or I assume roughly 1 3/4 worth that was listed in the ingredients list. I had already opted out of the onions and peppers so I used the 1/4 lb of ground beef left over from the amount needed for the meatloaf and fried it up in a pan. After frying it up I added the sauce and cheese (again Cheddar) and mixed it all together for the Lasagna Rolls.

I took the meatloaf out of the oven and let it cool on the stove, pulled out a cutting board for the lasagna noodles and ladled it with no where NEAR 3 tablespoons of the meat, sauce and cheese mixture. At this point the lack of mozzarella cheese became impossible to ignore, but being a cheese obsessed household we have a steady supply of string cheese. I used two sticks to painstakingly string tiny strands of cheese to cover my six (not 8) rolls, some of which definitely have more meat in the meat sauce than others.

I rolled up the lasagna noodles, made up some more sauce (sans meat) and ladled some of that onto the top of the rolls. Then I took the remaining half of a string cheese and used it to cover in strips the top of the rolls. I put the dish covered with foil in the oven, along with the meatloaf tin. I'm not sure just how much grease should have been associated with the meatloaf cups but in an effort to fully cook the meat I stuck it in for 3 of the lasagna's 20 minutes.

I took the meatloaf tin out and let it cool, eventually placing the cups on a paper towel in an effort to soak up some more of the grease. After removing all the grease I could, I placed them all in a food saver bag, making sure to separate them slightly. I sucked out most of the air and hit the force seal button when it became apparent that the grease was encroaching on the top of the bag, thereby preventing any sealing from taking place.

Meanwhile I took out a 1 lb bag of baby carrots, poured half into a food saver bag and added the brown sugar, butter (in this case margarine) and cinnamon. I sealed that bag without sucking the air out (as I hope this is what you do in order to steam it in the bag), and took the lasagna rolls out to cool. It could be the minimal cheese and could be the missing two rolls but whatever the reason they look nothing like the picture on the site.

I didn't have time to make the Twice Baked Potatoes.

This entire process took New Frugal Mom less than an hour. Me? I came in at just under two hours! On top of that, since I am freezing this for dinner another time, I don't even know how good it's going to taste! But, I'm finally finished with the beginning process. Technically all I have to do when I'm ready to eat it, is put them in the microwave, so I shouldn't be able to mess that up, but we'll see ;)

I'll check back in to let you know how it ends up tasting!

Saving my sanity at the dinner table.

As I have mentioned before I have been following some cooking sites in the hopes that I can add some easy things to the dinner menu that my kids will actually eat!

Recently I came upon a few other recipe and cooking sites that have led me to even more. I started out building up a stockpile, but the plan has grown to building up stores as well. After checking out a guest post on $5 Dinners by Once a Month Mom I was led to another site FSME or "Food Storage Made Easy".

I sit here with my freezers and fridge bursting at the seams and yet I still struggle to figure out what to make for dinner that night. I'm still sitting on two frozen turkeys and boy do they take up space! I looked at OAMC but what would be the point with no room to freeze anything? Thanks to the Once a Month Mom, I now have list of 10 tips for organizing your freezer. Then I can go to the FSME site and follow the baby steps training to organizing my food storage and then back to OAMM and I can start setting up dinner to be ready whenever I need it.

I'm sure that having a food storage is designed to be saved and not eaten until the SHTF (**** hits the fan) but being able to organize it allows for me to be more organized with the food I do plan to eat. The thing is, the world doesn't have to come to an end for a food storage to be useful. With everyone out there feeling the pinch financially or having lost their jobs entirely, not having to buy groceries for awhile, could be a big help. On the other hand making dinners to freeze for later is sure to make for an easier time when it comes to dinner as well.

All that's left is for me to get the kids to eat it ;)

If cooking a month all at once is too big a first step, check out this Double Duty Dinners post over at The New Frugal Mom. Most often I can't get my kids to eat what most other creative dinners people come up with, but I think I may be able to have success with this one.

Wish me luck!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Super Savings Saturday

Well it's been awhile since I first got sick and I am just now coming out of it (I hope). I managed to get some good deals over the course of the week. No pictures this time but I do want to share the totals.

Albertsons: My store's deals are Wed-Tues. I went once on Tues and once on Fri
Tues-
Spent: $58.05
Saved: $58.47

Fri-
Spent: $35.91
Saved: $44.43

King Soopers: I went once for the old deals on Tues
Spent: $26.92
Saved: $12.81

Walgreens: Two and a half transactions for this one.

First:
5 Huggies wipes at $6 each
5 $5 off coupons
Total spent $5.43
Saved: $31.95
plus $10 RR printed out

Second total Spent: 32.73 after $10 RR used
Saved: $28.20

This included 3 Sambucol items for $13.99 with a $4 IP $10 Easy Saver coupon, but I forgot the $10 one so the above total should have been $1.95 spent. I later went back and they gave me the $32 difference back. I bought a set of gloves for $3.99 and received $28.25 back.

Not the greatest amount in the spent categories but as I said, I've been sick and I had to make up for some of the things I needed and hadn't bought earlier.

Want to see other great savings?? Visit MoneySavingMom


Thursday, March 12, 2009

You learn something new every day.

I live in a place populated with just about every major chain of stores I can think of. Safeway, Kroger (King Soopers), Albertsons, Super Walmart, Super Target and Kmart (they removed all the Supers). But of the 3 major grocery stores, I was under the impression that only King Soopers doubled coupons and even then, only .50 or below. Then I discovered that Safeway not only doubled .50 and below coupons, but they also double anything else above .50 up to a total of $1 or .99 I never paid that much attention. I thought that was unique in my area, until I discovered by a fluke that King Soopers does the doubling up to $1 as well! This opens my options considerably, especially since King Soopers is much closer to me than Safeway.

I don't know if it's always been this way with my grocery stores, but according to
grocerycouponguide coupon policies seem to be changing across many stores all over. What about you? Have you noticed any coupon policy changes?