Cleaning Out the Pantry!

I collect food. When there is a threat of a bad storm, I go shopping. When canned tomatoes are on sale, I stock up. When I see something new that might be yummy, I buy some. When our staples run low, I refill the canisters - and then some.

The abundance of food in our pantry makes it difficult to keep everything organized and then we don't know what we have, so we buy more. That is how we ended up with 10 cans of tomato soup when only one person in the house eats it!

For the last 2 months I have been attempting to eat down the pantry, fridge, and freezer. I have only made purchases when absolutely necessary. I have made regular purchases of milk, eggs, butter, and frozen veggies. Otherwise, if I lacked something for I recipe, I tried to be creative. It has been a challenge, but it has meant we had some amazing dinners without spending anything!

In July I shopped the Crest meat sale. I spent $150 on meat. I had a ham, a pork roast, and ham hocks left from a pig we purchased a year ago. It has been 8 weeks and we have only eaten half of the meat from that purchase. In the last 3 weeks, I have spent less than $60 a week to feed our family of five! That is how much food I have stashed away in the pantry!

I have had a lot of fun! Here are a few of the amazing dishes we have had.

Pintos and ham hocks was my first experiments. I soaked the beans all night, and then started cooking them early in the morning. They simmered ALL DAY LONG and they were amazing! The homemade wheat bread and corn on the cob made a great dinner. I purchased nothing for this meal. Everything was in the pantry (beans and bread ingredients), freezer (ham hocks), for the garden (corn).

Split pea soup has never been a favorite of mine, but Jonathan loves it. I had a bag of split peas in the pantry, onions from the garden, a few carrots left over, and the last of the ham hocks to use up. I found a recipe online and we experimented. I am happy to say, that I did enjoy the soup.

The biggest win of this adventure was my artichoke chicken, pita, lentil salad, and hummus. I wanted to make a yummy artichoke chicken recipe that we had tried before and loved. I only had half a jar or artichokes (something that usually sends me running to the store), and I needed Parmesan cheese, but only had feta. I used the feta instead, added enough roasted red peppers to make up for the missing artichokes, and threw in a few capers for good measure. It was delicious!

The same thing happened with my lentil salad. I needed mint, shallots, and kalamata olives. I replaced them with basil, onions from the gardens, and fresh tomatoes and bell pepper from the garden.

I decided that I would make some pita and hummus to go with the chicken and salad. I had all of the ingredients in the pantry. I even added some roasted red peppers to the hummus. We also ate some leftover cucumber salad with our meal. It was all delicious and it made for some yummy leftovers too!

I love how creative I have been with our meals! I have also been more mindful in my shopping. Which has lead to healthier meals and a lot of fun in the kitchen. Well, and maybe a few more dishes to wash. 

Who Wants Pumpkin Pie?

That is the question I may be asking all winter! Some friends gave us a GIANT pumpkin! It weighed more than my 6 year old, and was not much shorter than my 2 year old! It sat in my kitchen floor for a couple of weeks. I finally worked up the willpower to get started on it. I knew it would be an all day process. I cut into it at 10:00 am and finished rinsing the last dish at midnight. Jonathan and I took turns working on it. There was some sit and wait time, but the project took over my kitchen for 14 hours!

How do you prepare that much pumpkin? In pieces. Slowly. With lots of patience.

Step 1: Cut and seed the pumpkin. I did this in stages. We only cut up what we could fit in the oven. It took six batches to get it all roasted.

Step 2: Place in a roasting pan coated with vegetable oil. We had a large and a small pan. So we were able to do quite a bit in each batch.

Step 3: Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 60-90 minutes. A small batch in one roaster takes about 60 minutes. With both pans we needed up to 90 minutes. You want the pumpkin to be soft through to the skin.

Step 4: Remove from pan and cool. (If I was just doing one small pumpkin or a butternut squash, I would let it cool in the pan; but I wanted to get the next batch in the oven!) It took about an hour to be cool enough to pick up.






Step 5: Scrape the flesh from the rind. I used my Pampered Chef Scoop Loop to both seed the pumpkin and scrape the flesh out. It worked much better than anything I have tried before!




Step 6: Place the flesh in the food processor and puree.














Step 7: Place the pureed pumpkin in a strainer lined with flour sack cloth or other similar lint-free cloth.








Step 8: Squeeze as much water as you can from the pumpkin.

Step 9: Measure and bag the pumpkin. We did some 1 cup bags and some 2 cup bags because those are the measurements the recipes I use call for. Package the pumpkin according to the way you think you will use it.

Step 10: Freeze!

What did we end up with? 27 cups of pumpkin puree! My pie recipe calls for 1 cup of pumpkin. A batch of pumpkin bread (2 loaves) takes two cups. The soup recipe I found takes 2 cups. We still have 4 winter squash in our own garden that we need to process. We will have our fill of pumpkin pies, cakes, breads, cookies, and more!

My Monday Munchies - Yummy Spanish Rice!

I have been trying for years to make a decent Spanish or Mexican rice to serve with our tacos, enchiladas, or fajitas. It never turned out the way I wanted it. I tried other people's recipes. I made up my own. I bought mixes. Nothing has satisfied my taste buds.

Until tonight! I finally got it just right. And it was so easy!

What do you need?

1 cup white rice (or brown)
2 cups water
1 jalepeno
1 medium white onion
2 cloves of garlic
salt to taste
broth from the meat you are serving
1/2 cup-1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes

What to do?

Dice the onion and mince the jalepeno.

Bring your water to a boil.

Add the rice, jalepeno, and onion. Cook UNCOVERED. This is opposite of what your rice instructions probably say. It will ensure that all the water cooks away quickly so you can add the broth at the end.* Be sure to stir the rice a few times.

Let the rice cook.

Quarter your tomatoes.

When your meat is done cooking and the liquid has boiled off of the rice, add 3/4-1 cup of broth to your rice. Cook until the liquid is gone again. Your rice should be the perfect consistency. Mine cooked for a total of 20 minutes.(If the liquid boils off of the rice before the meat is done, turn off the heat and let it sit. You don't want it to burn!)

Toss your tomatoes in just before serving.

The rice was tender and full of flavor. The tomatoes gave it just a little kick!

*Why did I add the broth at the end instead of cooking in the broth the whole time? I wanted the juices from the meat I was serving. This made the rice mesh well with the rest of the meal because the seasoning was the same. Had I waited for the meat to be done before starting the rice, I would have had cold chicken. Another option is to start with chicken, beef, or veggie broth instead of water and cook according to the directions on the package.

My Monday Munchies - Our Favorite Potatoes!

Today's recipe is one of our favorites! Jonathan maintains a good sized garden in our backyard. We have 2 4x8 beds of potato plants (about 70 plants!) He recently brought in the first harvest of potatoes and we cooked them up for dinner.

What you need: 

A couple lbs of potatoes, diced (I had about 6 cups diced)*

1-2 large onions (if you like a lot of onion, do 2)

6 cloves of garlic (we really like garlic, if you do not like a lot of garlic I would do 4 cloves)

1 stick of butter

1-2 cups of fresh chopped herbs

Salt and Pepper

 1. Chop your potatoes and onions.

2. Melt the butter over medium heat. (You can use your favorite oil if you want. We have used olive oil before. We just prefer the taste of butter. If you use oil, heat it until it sizzles when you put the garlic in. I usually test it with a wooden spoon first.)

3. Press your garlic into the butter. (You can mince it, but I prefer my Pampered Chef garlic press!) Saute the garlic for a minute to flavor the butter.

4. Pour in the potatoes and onions. Cover and let sit on medium heat for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes start to soften. 

5. While the potatoes cook, chop your fresh herbs. I used basil, oregano, thyme, and chives. I ended up with over two cups. I really don't think you can have too much!

6. Stir, and then continue to cook uncovered until the potatoes are the desired tenderness and starting to brown.

7. Add your fresh herbs, salt and pepper to taste. Toss and let cook for another minute or two.

These are very flavorful potatoes. They take about 30 minutes. I always make enough to have leftovers for breakfast!

*Don't use store bought Russet Potatoes. That is all I had on hand one day, so I diced them and cooked them up. No amount of seasoning and butter helped those potatoes! I love Russets for baked potatoes and mashed potatoes; but this recipe just needs a different texture of potato. The Russets did not hold the flavor like a red new potato, Yukon Gold, or fingerlings. Pick a good potato and you will get the best results!

My Monday Munchies - Making Ground Beef

My aunts gave me the most amazing wedding gift - a Kitchenaid Stand mixer! For someone who likes to bake, this is a great addition to your kitchen. While shopping one day shortly after we were married, I noticed all the accessories for the mixer - juicers, meat grinders, and pasta plates. How cool to be able to make homemade pasta! That one went on my Christmas list. My mom gave them to us, but none of us read the part that said you needed the meat grinder to use the other attachments. Oops!

I had the pasta plates for years before we found the meat grinder brand new and in the box, at a garage sale for $20! I have had the meat grinder for 5-7 years now and have never used it - until today!

We have a grocery store chain in Oklahoma called Crest. Once a month they have a huge meat sale. I can spend $200 on meat and come home with enough meat to feed our family for 2-3 months. 

During one of my last shopping trips I ended up with 3 roasts (the have bags with a variety of cuts - I had 3 ground beef, 2 steak, and 3 roasts). I already had a pork roast and a beef roast in the freezer at home. I also had stew meat. 

When I checked the freezer this week, we still had two roasts! They need to be used soon and I don't really want roast and potatoes in this heat. I hate to spend money when we have food in the freezer. So I decided to test out my meat grinder.

I had no idea what to do! So I Googled "Make your own ground beef" and I found this site. It's so easy! I already have everything I need. So I thawed the roast and got started.

I assembled the meat grinder and attached it to the mixer according to the directions.

I sliced the meat into thin strips. From what I read on the other site, it might be easy to jam my meat grinder, so I wanted to be careful. My Kitchenaid instructions said partially frozen, or really cold meat worked best. Mine was still slightly frozen when I started.

I ran the strips through the grinder with the coarse grind plate. This was quick and easy! (All of the recipes in my instruction manual said to use speed number 4, so that is what I did.)

I changed the plates and reran all the meat through on the fine plate. This took a little longer and I had to use the meat stuffer to press it all through. I was very happy with the results!

I weighed out the meat. I had a little over two pounds. I cooked and seasoned half of it for tacos and froze it. I don't know when we will eat it and I did not want the meat I worked so hard for to go bad! The other pound will become spaghetti sauce for dinner tonight.

Here are some helpful hints from my first experience with the meat grinder:

1. Clear a 2-3 foot radius on your counter. It spits. I had cleared a good space, but I had to wash the knives and knife block, the stove, and a few other things that were not far enough away!

2. Wear an apron. You don't want your clothes covered in meat.

3. If you want great taco meat, grind it twice. For hamburgers, I might just run it through once with the coarse grind plate. 

Will I do this every time I need ground beef? Probably not, but the next time I get a good deal on roast I will be stocking up!