Now is the time to fill your freezer with apple goodies!

First and foremost, I'll refer you to this post from 2007, and I can't stress enough how easy it is to make homemade applesauce.  You cannot go wrong.  If there is one thing you can safely experiment with, it's applesauce.  You can't overcook it, if it's not sweet enough - you add sugar.  If you want more spices, you add them.  You can make it on the stove very quickly, or in a crockpot simmering on high for 4-6 hours or on low all day, your choice.  You can peel and core the apples ahead of time, or just wash them, cut them up stem, seeds, skin and all, and after it cooks down and cools - run it through a food mill.  You can make it chunky or smooth.  You can use fresh apples, yes, but you can even use all those apples that may be getting a bit mealy in your fridge!  Don't throw them out!  Make applesauce!

To freeze it, just store it in ziplock freezer bags, squeeze the air out, and squish the bag flat so you can stack them in your freezer.  Thaw in the microwave when you're ready to eat, you'll never know it was frozen.  My husband loves homemade applesauce served warm over vanilla ice cream, a quick comforting dessert for sure if you've already got it in the freezer.

On another note, I'm currently in the hunt for a good apple pie/apple crisp filling that freezes well.  I'm going to try my favorite apple pie recipe, I'll let you know how it turns out!

Mega-cooking Meatballs

I hadn't done a mega-cooking session in a while, so yesterday I decided to turn 6 pounds of ground chuck into italian meatballs, and now I don't have to make meatballs for at least a couple of months.

Granted, 4-5 batches of meatballs hardly qualifies as "mega" cooking, but it still requires some special skills and equipment - namely a bowl big enough to squish it all around in!  I started up with my dutch oven, but ended up in a large stock pot.  You can easily tailor your own favorite meatball recipe, but in case you're looking for one, here's my recipe and how I got them from ingredients to freezer.

6 pounds ground chuck
4 cups seasoned bread crumbs
4 cups fresh bread crumbs
7 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup dried minced onion
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried basil
2 tsp dried parsley
2 tsp granulated garlic (or garlic powder)
1/2 tsp black pepper
4 tsp salt
4-1/2 cups milk

Mix together well the beef with all the bread crumbs.  In a separate bowl, beat together eggs, onion, spices and milk.  Add to beef mixture and mix well.  Roll 1-1/2 to 2 inch diameter meatballs, and place on lightly greased or sprayed cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  When cooled a bit, transfer meatballs with a spatula (they'll be flat on one side) to a waxed paper lined piece of cardboard or cookie sheet, flash freeze, and when solid - transfer the meatballs into a large ziplock bag for storage in the freezer.  You'll end up with @ 50-60 meatballs depending on the size you make.

To use later - simply drop these fully-cooked meatballs into simmering sauce.

Healthier baked goods

Did you know you can substitute 1/4 of the white flour your recipe calls for with nutrient-rich whole wheat flour?  Perhaps not all recipes will be able to stand up to the change, but most will - cookies. muffins, breads, pancakes - try it next time you bake!

Remember, though, whole wheat flour has short shelf life - so find an appropriate sized, air-tight plastic container and store your whole wheat flour in the freezer.  It'll keep much longer!

Chicken Pot Pie

The ultimate comfort food, chicken pot pie is surprisingly easy to make, and it freezes well!  Here's the recipe I'm in the process of making and freezing right now, it serves our family of 2 adults and 3 young children - you may need to adjust the size and quantity for your family accordingly:

For the filling:
2 cups chopped cooked chicken
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1/2 cup of fresh or frozen cut green beans
1/4 cup finely chopped onion, or substitute 2 tsp of the dried.

Mix all together in a gallon ziplock freezer bag, then make the sauce.

Melt 4 tbsp butter in a heavy saucepan, add 1/4 cup flour and cook for 30 seconds.  Whisk in 2-1/2 cups of milk.  Add 1 heaping tsp of instant chicken bouillon and salt and pepper to taste.  When mixture thickens, allow it to cool and pour into the bag with the chicken and vegetables.  Squeeze out the air, label and freeze.

When you're ready to make the pie, thaw the filling thoroughly and pour it into a 9" deep dish pie plate lined with a pie crust.  Top with the second crust, seal, slice a few vent holes in the top, and bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour.  You may need 1-1/4 hours if the veggies didn't get thawed enough.

I'll be putting four of these in the freezer, saving myself a lot of time later on when it's time to make dinner.  I may even have time to try making my own pie crust instead of using the refrigerator store-bought stuff, that's something I've always wanted to do.  With the filling ready to go, I can do that!

Cleaner egg cracking

Did you know that if you crack a raw egg on a flat surface, instead of the edge of a bowl, that you'll actually get a cleaner break and no shells in your eggs 99% of the time?  I didn't believe it either, until I tried it.  Try it the next time you need to break open some raw eggs!

Lessons learned via pork roast

Add these to the list of "duh" moments while in the middle of preparing a roast pork meal for my family.  Hopefully you'll learn from my mistakes, and not your own!

1) A bone-in pork loin roast takes twice as long to cook as a boneless roast.  This is important to know before you cook the potatoes and veggies.  It's also important to know if you'd like to feed your family before 7:00pm.

2) Dried, crushed rosemary is not a 1-1 substitute for fresh rosemary.  Good thing we like rosemary, because it was...um...VERY aromatic!  If the recipe calls for fresh, use less dried.  I'd say probably half.

3) Gravy freezes REALLY well.  Seriously.  If you have leftover gravy, freeze it.  I thawed some out last night that had been in my freezer for A YEAR - and it tasted like I had just made it.  Score!!!  I would have made fresh gravy from the pan drippings, but it was already 7:20 by the time we were sitting down to eat (see #1) so the thawed chicken gravy was a quick substitute.

4) Peeled, cut potatoes for mashed potatoes can easily sit in hot water after they're already cooked for an hour, maybe even more.  How do I know this?  Refer again to #1...

Happily, it all turned out well, Glen thought it was delish, my kids even asked for seconds, and Igor went for thirds.

Cool way to chop walnuts

I'm not sure why it took me so long to figure this out.  Who needs a knife, chopper or food processor to chop walnuts?  Just get a plastic bag and a rolling pin - or something similar.  Measure the walnuts into the bag, seal it, and pound it until they are the size you need for your recipe.

Blonde Joke #1

Hey - I can poke fun, 'cause I'm one! Enjoy a bit of levity today, I'm starting a "Blonde Jokes" category, and considering the title of my blog, I'd say it fits in well! :)

A blonde and her husband are lying in bed listening to the next door neighbor's dog. It has been in the backyard barking for hours and hours.

The blonde jumps up out of bed and says, "I've had enough of this." She goes downstairs.

The blonde finally comes back up to bed and her husband says "The dog is still barking, what have you been doing?"

The blonde says, "I put the dog in our backyard, let's see how THEY like it!"

In praise of the Black Box

I've always said, "Never cook with anything you wouldn't drink." Thanks to my brother-in-law suggesting I try this wine, I don't have to spend a lot of money doing just that. Black Box wine is the bomb, and for you less-than-hip types, that means it's really good! Each box holds the equivalent of four 750 ml. bottles of wine, and I purchase this for $21.99 at my local package store.

I'm making short ribs this weekend, and the recipe calls for a lot of red wine. I also use red wine in several of my sauces, stews and marinades. I don't use white wine as much, but for those of you who do, Black Box makes Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio. In reds they have Merlot, Shiraz and Cabernet. I'm sure they probably make others as well - check out their website here.

Happy cooking!

Freezer dinner 1/9/09

So I quickly thawed out some flash-frozen convenience chicken that I had in my freezer, and it's now going into the oven with some BBQ sauce slathered all over it. That, along with mashed potatoes and some canned corn ought to make Glen and the kids very happy tonight! Quick, easy, and it beats takeout any day.

Note - if I had any leftover mashed potatoes in the freezer, I would have used them, but I didn't - so I made fresh with extra, so that I could stash some in the freezer for a later date. :)

Dinner for a friend

Sometimes the best thing you can do for a busy mom is put a meal in her freezer that she can quickly prepare at a later time with minimal fuss. Here's what I did with a recipe of Yummy Apricot Chicken:

4-6 boneless/skinless chicken breast halves
12 oz jar of apricot or jam or preserves (peach works just as well!)
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup plain breadcrumbs

In a shallow bowl, mix together jam, lemon juice, soy sauce and salt. Put breadcrumbs in a separate shallow dish. Dip the chicken heavily in the jam mixture, coat with breadcrumbs, and place on a pan-coating-sprayed baking dish. Spoon any jam mixture left over the top of the chicken and sprinkle with any remaining breadcrumbs. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until done.

When the chicken was done and cooled, I placed it all in a Gladware baking "dish" - you know the kind that you can use in the oven and give away to folks? Well, the things do great in the freezer, too, because they have a nice fitting plastic lid and can go from freezer to oven or microwave. With the chicken, I cooked up a bunch of rice and froze that in a separate bag with my Foodsaver, and I included a bag of frozen green beans - and now my friend has a fully cooked dinner for her and her family anytime she needs it.