Ideas for food dishes to take to friend

I have a friend getting hip replacement surgery next week, and will be home for 6 weeks. First 10 days or so will probably be the roughest, so I volunteered to sign up for 2 days of meals for him.

I will probably make 2 penne pesto chicken casseroles this week, and take portions of one to him in easy to reheat containers. I also want to include some snacks and goodies, and easy breakfast items that won't require much effort for him. He lives alone, so I need to be mindful of that.

Ideas? Suggestions of things that you've done? Would appreciate your help!

Spiced Carrots

These are on the menu plan for this week, so I went ahead and made extras for the freezer as well.

2lbs. carrots, washed, peeled and cut into thick coins
1.5 cups apple juice
1 cinnamon stick
1t cumin
3/4t ginger
1/4t coriander
1t lemon zest
2t honey


In medium saucepan, combine carrots, along with everything but the zest and honey, and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for around 8 minutes, until carrots are tender but firm. Remove from heat. Toss cinnamon stick, add zest and honey, toss to coat, and serve.
This worked out to 3 portions for our family, at a cost of under .50 per serving.

Freezing Broccoli

Broccoli crowns without the big stalk are on sale at Fareway this week for .99/lb. This is a great price, and we eat a lot of broccoli here, but I'm not sure we're going to get to it for a few days, so I took 10 minutes when I got home from the store to make sure the broccoli will be ready when I am! First, you want to wash it and cut it into spears or florets like I did here. Next, bring a big pot of water to a roiling boil.


Once the water is boiling, you drop the broccoli in for about 90 seconds, til it turns a pretty bright green. Drain
To stop the cooking process and to keep the pretty green color, make sure you rinse well in cold water. Let the excess water drain, and then you can divide into freezer bags to your liking.
I purchased 2lbs. of broccoli exactly. I was able to divide it up for 3 dinners. .67 each for nice broccoli spears at dinner. I will pop this into a steamer to cook. Easy!

Easy Make Ahead Meals- Sirloin and Mushrooms in Gravy

As we head into the last few weeks before the holiday, it seems it is especially crazed around here. I have a TON of deadlines at work, along with client parties and other things that will have me away from home more often. So as I gear up for the next couple of weeks of shopping, baking, and all of the aforementioned work stuff, I want to have dinners ready to go as much as possible.

I will be sharing some of the recipes along with my menu plans as I go. I like to use fresh unprocessed ingredients as much as possible, but in times like this you will see me use a few convenience items to help cut the prep time down. This is one of those recipes. It uses a jar of beef gravy. I'm the first person to tell you to make your own gravy, but in this case, it helps me put this recipe together much faster, and right now, I'll take the time!

I made this dish in about 20 minutes this morning. It will go into the freezer, and then later this week, all I have to do is thaw, heat, and serve over egg noodles. Mashed potatoes work too.

Sirloin and Mushrooms in Gravy

3/4lb. sirloin, cut into small bite size pieces ($2.50)
10 oz. container white button mushrooms, sliced ($1.00)
1/2 onion, chopped (.15)
2T olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced (.10)
salt and pepper
1T worcestershire sauce
1T sherry
1 jar beef gravy (.50 after coupons and holiday sales- I stocked up)
3T chopped fresh parsley (optional but adds a lot) (.15)

In large saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion, mushroom and garlic, and saute, about 4 minutes, until onions are translucent. Season with a sprinkle of salt and pepper here. Add sirloin, and continue cooking until beef is no longer pink. Add gravy, worcestershire, sherry and parsley, and heat through. Serve over egg noodles or mashed potatoes.

With egg noodles, this dish comes in right around $5.00 for me. Easy and economical for a beef dinner!

****This post is linked to Simple Saturday

Busy Week- My to do list, part 1

This is going to be one of those weeks where I have a LOT to accomplish, and I find that I have to write it all out day by day to stay on top of it and not feel stressed out. My in laws will be here on Tuesday, and R's buddy will be coming over for dinner on Monday, so it's even more important that I stay on task. Here's the Thanksgiving Menu:

Turkey
Sausage Stuffing
mashed potatoes
gravy
sweet potato souffle ( Nonny making)
cranberry and orange salad (Nonny making)
waldorf salad (Nonny making)
green bean casserole
rolls
pumpkin pie
chocolate chip cake squares

Here's the next couple of days...I'll post the to do list through Thanksgiving when I post my menu plan for the week.

Sunday-
Make Bakers, Walgreens and Aldi trips
bake extra turkey
cook italian beef in slow cooker for Tuesday
make pasta bake for Monday
make potato casserole
freeze turkey in portions
save carcass for Monday

Monday-

Make chicken sour cream quiche for Wednesday
make turkey stock

Freezing asparagus for later

I love asparagus. Love love love it. The boys call them "trees", and I love using them in soups, pasta, salads, and on their own roasted or tossed in a lemony vinaigrette. What I usually don't like is the price. So when it goes on sale at a decent price ($1.99/lb at Target this week), I like to stock up.

Thank you Schwans for inspiring the way I freeze them. First, add about 3-4 inches of water to a large pot and bring to a boil. While that is heating, prep your asparagus. Wash, dry, and take 1 stalk of asparagus, holding each end with one hand. Bend the asparagus until it snaps. That is the place where the stalky part ends and the yummy part starts. I just put that shorter piece next to the rest of the bunch, and cut them all to that length.

Once the asparagus is prepped, and the water is boiling, coat a cookie sheet with a piece of foil or wax paper. Drop the asparagus into the boiling water for 1 minute. After a minute, drain, rinse in cold water, and let drip dry for a few minutes. Arrange the asparagus on your cookie sheet and place in the freezer.

After the asaparagus is frozen, drop into a zip bag and label. Now, whenever you want asparagus, you can grab the exact number of spears out that you want because they won't all be stuck together. Reseal and place the bag back into the freezer for the next time!

When your freezer meals come in handy

I have even more awe and respect this week for those that deal with chronic pain. I have been living with severe shoulder pain for the past few weeks. Some trigger point injections will hopefully improve this situation, but it is amazing how something like that can affect everything. Your mood, your energy level, your ability to do even simple things around the house. You can take pain medication, but I find that taking enough to kill the pain makes me even more ineffective around the house.

After the doctor nagged at me yesterday, I decided to actually listen (what a concept, huh?) and take it easy for the day, despite the bags and bags of tomatoes and cucumbers building up that need to be processed into sauces and pickles.

I also deviated from my dinner plan, as I'd already spent some time in the kitchen yesterday morning making a batch of sausage and cheese biscuits for the freezer for the boys' breakfasts, and didn't particularly feel like spending more time than necessary. (I'm left-handed, and this is my left shoulder, so even chopping gets to be painful)

So I finally got to use the lasagna that I'd made for the freezer back in mid-April. Right after I made the pans it got really hot and I've been avoiding the oven as much as possible. Yesterday was not so bad, though, so I took on of the lasagnas out, barely thawed it, added about a 1/3 cup of water, sealed the foil down tightly and baked it for about 90 minutes at 350. It was awesome!

Taking the time to make some meals and freeze them can really save you when you need it the most. Often I will just make double what we plan to eat and freeze half. Takes you no extra time, yet you have something ready to heat and eat.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with all these tomatoes and cucumbers! :)

Make Ahead Meals

Wow. I'm really becoming a believer in prepping things as much as possible in advance. It has saved my bacon this week! I mentioned in one of my posts yesterday that it's been just a crazy week at work. I had an idea that is was going to be nuts, so I planned accordingly and tried to have all of my meals done right to the cooking portion.

So yesterday, I can't tell you how heavenly it was to get home, pull out the mini meatloaves that had been thawing in the fridge, pop them in a baking dish, quickly mix up my ketchup/mustard/sugar sauce and pour over and pop them in the oven alongside the twice baked potatoes that I had also had prepared and thawed. 40 minutes later dinner was ready! It was a really nice meal that typically takes longer to prepare, and I barely had to lift a finger. Which was great, because if I'd had to labor much, I think we would have been heading the fast food route, and I really hate doing that if I don't have to!

I will be posting more ideas, recipes and tips on how you can prepare in advance. It doesn't require a lot of time to really get ahead, but boy will it ever save you the time when you need it!

How to make things go faster at meal times...

As I've mentioned before, hubby and I have the family roles all shuffled up. He stays home with the boys, while I work full time. He does much of the housecleaning, laundry and organizing. But he doesn't dust, he doesn't "girlify" stuff, and he doesn't cook or grocery shop.

Yes, he grills. Yes, he CAN cook. He tells me if I tell him what to cook, how to make it and what to get, he'll do it. Might as well do it myself. As for shopping- I've blogged about his shopping trips before. Just better to keep him off of that duty when I can. :)

I don't mind doing the cooking and shopping, as I love to cook, and I love to see the boys get excited about foods I make. Since my job sometimes requires a 12 hour day, though, I've had to get creative. When weeks got hectic, we used to just grab takeout or run through a drive through. Not healthy or economical. Now that we've decided to keep a tight budget, I've had to find ways to produce quick food here that suits my requirements. I'm really getting less and less into processed foods. We have them, but we try to keep them to a minimum.

So I've really started getting into make ahead meals. Some women do Once a Month Cooking. That's a really big commitment for me--I might not want to eat those foods at the end of the month ;). But I do prep a lot of the next week's meals in advance, and when I can, I make extras for other meals.

Take, for example, the chicken enchiladas I made for the freezer. I have the enchiladas individually wrapped in wax paper. In the same gallon bag, I've also place a bag of the sauce that you pour over the enchiladas, and a bag of grated cheese for the top.

And look- even written directions for hubby LOL.

I also like to do side dishes, like twice baked potatoes, and other things that take a while to prepare.
These carrots are in a butter/sherry sauce, with parsley---all we'll need to do is pop them in a microwave container and heat them up at dinner. MUCH faster than trying to make them from scratch that night. And cheaper, too. I can buy a 2lb. bag of carrots for $1, and make 4 meals worth. Not too shabby.

Meal planning and thinking things out ahead just a little can save you a LOT of time and money in the long run. No more fast food (unless you are craving it LOL).

Make Ahead Projects today

Wow! A couple of hours in the kitchen produced a LOT of results! I've taken a lot of pictures that I will post later, but in the meantime, a run down of what I've gotten done:

-2 dinners of chicken enchiladas

-3 bags of cooked, chopped chicken

-3 bags of grilled chopped chicken

-big batch of chicken broth that is probably about 10 cups

-1 bag of part cooked broccoli that I will freeze for next week's chicken and broccoli alfredo recipe

-2 meals worth of buttered carrot coins with parsley, sherry and spices

-baking biscuits right now for tomorrow morning's cinnamon biscuits

-have potatoes and eggs cooked to make potato salad for tomorrow's dinner

-3 meals worth of twice baked potatoes that I have on a cookie sheet in the freezer- I will bag up when they are frozen

Found more strawberries at .99/lb, and I still need to batch those up for the freezer, but other than that, I'm done. These things will come into play to make this next week's dinners much faster and easier to prepare. Glad I got take and bake pizzas for tonight! :)

Constructive Day

Made trips to Walgreens, Menards and Aldi.

Planted my Earthbound Farms organic lettuce seeds. Going to attempt to grow those in containers that I can move in and out of the house, but worried that lettuce would just be too tempting for the bunnies if I planted it in the garden.

Planted my green beans in transferrable fiber pots, and moved more of my pepper plants to bigger pots. Watered all the herbs and flower seedlings.

My tomato plants are starting to look AWESOME, and I'm itching to get them out in the yard. Still a little early here, though. I will take pictures and post soon.

In the kitchen, I finished breaking down the 20lbs. of 93% lean ground beef we got at Fareway. Final tally:

5 dinners worth of mini meatloaves
2 big pans of lasagna
3 bags of premade taco meat
10 packages of premade burger patties ready for the grill.

I also made a bag of sausage and cheese biscuits for the freezer for the boys' breakfast rotation. I purchased a 4lb. box of strawberries yesterday, and today I washed, hulled and chopped into 6 bags for the freezer for smoothies, etc. I used a bag of my baby carrots and made a freezer batch of brown sugar glazed carrots.

Wanted to make a big batch of twice baked potatoes for the freezer but I guess that will just have to wait! Pretty productive none the less.

Make Ahead Meals-Lasagna

This weekend I'm making freezer meals to use later this month. I am breaking down 2 10lb. tubes of ground beef we bought at Fareway this week, and along with mini meatloaves, hamburger patties, taco meat and pasta bakes, I also took the oportunity to make a couple of big trays of lasagna. Here's what I used:

1.50lbs. ground beef $3.00
1.5 boxes of lasagna noodles $2.25
2 8oz tubs of cottage cheese $1.50
1 cup of grated parmesan .75
1 8oz package of mozzarella, grated $1.25
2 eggs .15
1 8oz package of white mushrooms, chopped $1.00
1 medium onion, chopped .30
1 jar of spaghetti sauce .00 (can my own)
1 jar of tomato sauce (or 16oz can) .00 (can my own)
1 can of crushed tomatoes (24 oz can) $1.00
1 box frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained $1.00
2 bay leaves
2t italian seasoning
1t sugar
1t garlic pepper
1/4t nutmeg
1/2T garlic pepper

I used aluminum pans for this- spray each with non-stick spray. For sauce, heat large pan over medium high heat. Brown beef, onion and mushroom until meat is no longer pink. Add both sauces, crushed tomatoes, bay leaves, italian seasoning, sugar and 1t garlic pepper. Let simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

For filling, place cottage cheese, 1/2 cup mozzarella, parmesan, 2 eggs, spinach, nutmeg and garlic pepper in a large bowl. Stir.

To assemble, place about 1.5 cups of sauce in the bottom of each pan. Lay 4 uncooked noodles in each pan. Spread 1.5 cups of filling in each pan. Place 4 more noodles in each. Spread another 1.5 cups of sauce in each pan. 4 more noodles, then 1.5 cups more filling in each pan. 4 last noodles in each, 1.5 cups of sauce to top, then sprinkle remaining cheese over top. Seal well with foil and place in freezer.

To serve, thaw in refrigerator, then bake in oven with foil still on for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove foil and bake 10-15 more minutes until top is golden.

Each pan of lasagna will easily serve 4 hungry people with leftovers for $6.10. My cost is a little lower with the homemade sauce, but you could also take out the mushrooms and spinach if you desire.