Full Freezer

Thanks to the Angel Food order the freezer is full. That is a good feeling. So, with plenty of food for the month its time for some pre-planning. Yesterday I baked 4 kinds of muffins (for breakfasts), the Amish Friendship Bread, and a loaf of sandwich bread. Because the bread machine doesn't make large loaves of bread I will have to bake a new loaf every 3 or 4 days.

Speaking of the baking of bread, I recently learned a bit of science behind the process. Check out the handout for bread. You may have to scroll down a bit. If I make whole wheat bread I will definitely follow her suggestions for dough enhancers. There is a LOT to learn about self-sufficiency and working in the kitchen from this website. Check it out!

I have a big bag of apples and I am going to attempt apple butter in the crock pot today. I just love apple butter, and I think that would be a great thing to have when the snow flies, I am going to get out a liner for the CP and see how it works. I will probably do that on Thursday as I will be doing some part time work Tuesday and Wednesday. I think I want something easy for dinner those two nights, possibly in the crock pot. Once I have a menu today I will update this post.

Angelfood for September

There is a new offering from Angel Food Ministries in the month of September. Named the "Bountiful Blessing Box" it is 24 items for $41. This is an additional offering, not replacing the Signature Box which is 17-18 items for $31. I think this is going to be well worth the investment. There are 3 of us at home right now and I think we can eat diner for 14 days, plus lunch for Hubby for 8, just on the $41 box!

It includes:
28 oz. Fully Cooked Pot Roast (Pot Roast in Gravy with Red Wedge Potatoes, Carrots, Celery and Pearl Onions)
3 lbs. Family Tray Pack Split Chicken Breast
28 oz. Fully Cooked Broccoli, Rice and Chicken with Cheese Dinner Entree
8 ct. Bean and Cheese Burritos
1.5 lb. Hamburger Patties (4 x 6 oz)
1.5 lb. Center Cut boneless Pork chops (6x4 oz)
1.5 lb. Breaded Chicken Breast Nuggests
1 lb. Lean Ground Beef
1 lb. All Beef Sausage (liked smoked sausage)
1 lb. Crunchy Breaded Fish Wedges
1 lb. French Cut Green Beans
1 lb. Garden Pease
1 lb. Sliced Carrots
1 lb. Whole Kernel Corn
1 lb. Broccoli Florets
1 lb. Cauliflower Florets
24 oz. Natural Cut French Fries
1 lb. Pasta
25 oz. Pasta Sauce
6 oz. Corn Bread Stuffing Mix
5.5 Pancake Mix
32 oz. 2% Shelf Stable Milk
1 Dozen Eggs
6 ct. Fried Apple Pie Sticks

All this for $41! I will have to do some research to see if the Fruit and Veggie box is cost effective. The only item in the box I haven't ever purchased is the avocado, and we should try something new now and again. If the grocery store can't beat the price I will probably order that as well.

August 23-28

Well, due to out of whack medication my organization has gone out the window this month. Its kept me either dragging my knuckles or super charged. When I drag I sleep, and when I'm charged up I clean. So far I have a clean kitchen and a mostly clean living room. We have company coming on Thursday, so I want it all cleaned up and presentable.

In the meantime we have to eat, so here's the menu:

Dinners:

Chicken and dumplings (includes peas and carrots)
Taco hamburger Helper, salad
Oven-fried pork chops, au gratin potatoes, broccoli
Chicken pot-pie
Steak, dill potato salad, corn on the cob
Pizza -homemade crust and sauce, salad
BBQ chicken pie with cornbread crust, green beans, pineapple crumble


Angel Food arrives on Saturday. We ordered 2 boxes so we will have an abundance of meat and frozen veggies.

Lunches will be:

Leftovers, Ramen, salad, tuna croquettes, pasta salad, and pb&j

Breakfast will be eggs, oatmeal, grits, waffles, or whatever we scrounge up

Menu 15 - 21

Sunday August 15

Crockpot Chicken, Green beans, Yellow Squash and Onion Casserole

Monday August 16

We will be travelling during the day at lunch time, so this is an eating out day.
Dinner will be Pork Chops, Baked Potatoes, and Broccoli

Tuesday August 17

Left over Chicken, Dill Potato Salad, Corn on the Cob

Wednesday August 18

Steak, Rice with Peas and Carrots, Homemade Bread

Thursday August 19

Chef Salad for the Daughter
Hamburger Helper and Salad for Hubby and I

Friday August 20

Pizza night

Saturday August 21

Breakfast for Dinner: Pancakes, Eggs, Bacon, Fruit Salad



Tonight was Friday so it was pizza night. We ordered in though because I spent my day at the quilt shop. It was nice to be some place that was not home, and to do something creative for a change. Plus I needed to get my sewing machine looked at. It is old, but should hold up for a little longer. When its broken I may not have one for a while. In the meantime I am trying to finish up some of my UFO's.

Bread Baking

I have a bread machine and that is the only way I bake bread. I would love to have a heavy duty mixer with bread paddles, and counter space to knead dough, but its just not happening in this place. I have to admit I am still trying to figure out how baking it at home is cheaper than buying it at the store (store brand is usually $1 a loaf). But it does taste better, and if I can find a decent sandwich bread then I will drag out the bread machine more often.

Today I am baking a "rebel" bread. I call it that because the instructions say to ignore the recommendations of your bread machine maker and add the ingredients in the order they are listed. GASP! Ignore the rules? Well, there is a little bit of rebel in all of us :) The recipe comes from Allrecipes.com and is named Best Bread machine Bread Recipe.

I'll post tomorrow and let you know if its going to be "the one".

Chicken Pot Pie - the easy way

I just wanna say, dinner tonight was darn good. Yes, I fixed it, so I should have known it would be, but that is irrelevant. :0)

I pondered a few recipes today. Then I thought, surely there is something in the kitchen that I can throw together and make a meal. Yup. Last night I baked a bag of chicken tenders. Tonight I took 3 of those, and chopped them up very finely. Mixed with a well rinsed can of diced potatoes, frozen peas and carrots, dehydrated onion, a can of cream of celery soup and 1/4 cup of left over chicken gravy (from a mix), and topped with a bit of biscuit mix made a wonderful chicken pot pie.

Tomorrow is an experiment day. I am going to make Boston Baked Beans. I have never been a big fan of beans, and never made them from scratch. Fortunately dried beans are cheap so if they don't turn out to be our "cup of beans" then its not a financial crisis!

I am also going out and pick the few pumpkins that grew in the garden so they can be processed and canned. This fall we will have wonderful Caramel Pumpkin Pudding Cuupcakes ala Hungry Girl. They are wicked good, decadent, and fabulous warmed up for breakfast on a cold, snowy morning or with vanilla ice cream for a tasty dessert. Last year there was a pumpkin shortage, and some parts of the country had trouble getting it on the grocery shelves. I heard this was true, from Hungry Girl and on my next visit to the store I stocked up! Don't want to be without my pumpkin :0)

I am working on the menu for next week. Also we have coffee hour at church on Sunday. That means tomorrow I will be making coffee cake, fruit dip, and gathering/prepping apples. Might do one other thing, but not sure yet.

The garden, other than the pumpkins is pretty much done for the year. No beans, they just didnt grow. The corn was spotty, some of it apparently didn't get pollinated. The beets did pretty well. I may find a few more baseball bat sized zucchini, or a yellow squash here and there but that's all. Even the cucumbers were a disappointment this time. Thank goodness for the Farmer's Market and Angel Food!

Successful Pickles

I decided I need to get the dill pickles canned but I didn't want to heat up the house with the hot water bath canner. My cousin suggested that I put it out on the grill. It was, I thought, the perfect solution!. So the water went into the pot and out to the grill. I really didn't think it would take that long to reach a boil, but I had not figured in a nice breeze. The water was on the grill for 2 hours and never really got to a boil, even with the burner set on high. But after an hour I decided I would put the jars in anyway, because otherwise they would cool off too much to be processed. So in they went. And hour later, still no boil, but it was VERY hot water. Finally I decided these would be the most expensive pickles in town, having been processed on a gas grill, so I took them out and set them on the counter to cool. Every single jar pinged and they are good to go :) Some are chips and some are slicers. These were made with actual cucumbers, but the zucchini chips will come about soon. The Cousin sent me this recipe, from the Ball Blue Book:

Zucchini Pickles
2 pounds of Zucchini, sliced (8 small) 2 cups sugar
1 sm-med onion sliced 2 t mustard seed
1/4 cup canning salt 1 t celery salt
1 t turmeric 3 cups vinegar

Combine zucchini and onion; sprinkle with with; add cold water to cover. Let stand 2 hours. Drain; rinse and drain thoroughly. Combine remaining ingredients in a large sauce pot. Bring to a boil. Pour vinegar mixture over zucchini and onion. Let stand 2 hours. Bring all ingredients to a boil; reduce heat and summer 5 minutes. Pack hot vegetables and liquid into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Remove air bubbles. Adjust 2-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling water canner.


She made a batch of these and thinks they are wonderful. The zucchini is abundant, cheaper than cucumbers, and I am also going to try it as bread and butter pickles -- some day :).


Yesterday I did a baking day. I made a loaf of Irish Soda Bread, a batch of homemade brownies, a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and blueberry muffins. The Soda Bread was very dense. I don't know if it is supposed to be or not. Still its good as long as you have it with something juicy (soup, stew, gravy). Half the brownies and half the cookies go to the freezer for later, and the others are for lunches. It's hard to cut the food bill if we are always buying snack stuff while we are out and about. And to be fair, if there is nothing planned for lunch, the the Hubby has to forage - either at the grocery store or at a fast food place. Both are direct hits on the reduced grocery budget.

Today I made some homemade soup for the Daughter. diced tomatoes, carrots, peas, mushrooms, onion, barley and a bit of broth. She had it with cheddar garlic biscuits that we really good. Also, spent a bit of time browsing at Hillbilly Housewife today. She has a new budget menu up for $75. I think its supposed to feed 4 or 5. It is a little heavy on the fried food side, but similar to what we grew up with (I remember my mother saving the bacon grease to use to pop popcorn in, or fry cornbread).