Food Budget, Day 4

I spent a good portion of the day in the kitchen today. I still do not have a mom in labor, so I thought I would cook to keep myself busy. It was really just a way to avoid the other projects that I need to do.

From the garden we picked some peas, zucchini and rhubarb. My rhubarb has been overly abundant this year. These are special plants to me since they belonged to my "Big Grandma." I took them from her garden when her house was sold and have moved them with me to three different houses. The just keep growing and giving me lots of red stalks.

I put a chicken in a stock pot and cooked. I made a rhubarb cobbler for dessert tonight. The zucchini was larger than I like for eating, so I made some zucchini bread for breakfast. The peas were cleaned and added to tonights salad.

We had oatmeal for breakfast (one of Nora Beths favorites!), sandwiches and broccoli for lunch (Shianne asked for seconds on the broccoli - her favorite!) and I made a spinach salad for dinner. The salad had spinach, peas, red cabbage, green onion, pasta and shredded chicken. I served this with some homemade buttermilk biscuits. Very yummy for a hot evening. This in one of the only salads I can get Lamar to eat. The veggies all came from my garden or the farmers market. I had picked the chicken up on sale about 1 month ago for 50 cents/lb. What a deal! I always stock up when it is at this price. I was well below budget today. We even had dessert!

I received many e-mails today about how I pre-cook hamburger and freeze it. At least I know people are reading this blog! I thought I would share some more of my time saving tips with you.

When I cooked the chicken on the stove today I added veggies and herbs to the water to make a very flavorful stock. I strained the liquid after cooking, let it cool and placed it in my fridge. After the chicken cooled, I picked the meat off and placed all the scraps/bones back in the stockpot with the cooked veggies/herbs. I added water and boiled again for about 30 minutes. This made even more yummy stock. I will let all the stock sit in the fridge tonight and in the morning I will skim off all the fat and freeze the stock in 2 cup increments so I can use it in future recipes. I try to avoid purchasing stock when it is so easy to make.

Whenever I am cutting up large amounts of veggies I put the scraps in the stockpot with some herbs and water and cook for about 1 hour. This makes yummy veggie stock. I then freeze it like the chicken stock.

Along with the ground hamburger tip, I also pre make meatballs, cook them and freeze them. very handy to throw in soup, pasta, make meatball sanwiches or even throw together a quick appetizer (think football season!)

I really do not like food to go to waste. I tend to freeze all kinds of things. The important thing to remember is to label all food. You do not want to defrost baked beans thinking you are going to have chili!

Whenever I make pasta sauce, enchilada sauce, mole or any other sauce, I always double or triple the recipe. It is just as easy to make a large batch as a small one. Of course, these get labeled and put into the freezer. Another great freezer item is leftover taco mix - great to make nachos with or add to taco salad. There have been many a night that dinner has been saved at the last minute because of all the random stuff I can pull out of our freezer.

If I have extra pasta left over, guess what, it goes in the freezer. This is great to have on hand and heat up with some cheese for your little mac and cheese lover. I also freeze mufffins, french toast and pancakes for the girls to have in the morning for breakfast. Shianne loves to heat these up herself and serve Nora Beth.

Does anyone have any other great tips? I am always looking for something new. Although I enjoy my time in the kitchen, I am always looking for new ideas to make it easier.

Put out some good thoughts for moms to go into labor!