The magic can

This is my favorite tip for freezing soups, stews, purees, chili's and sauces. I have two "magic cans" that I keep on a storage shelf in the basement right beside lots of freezer bags. When I am ready to store some liquid I line the can with a freezer bag like so

Once the can is lined I add the amount I want to freeze. For things like chili I like to freeze some in one cup portions so they can be used for lunches. Other things like gravy, soup and sauces I just dump them into the can. When your liquid is in the bag you simply pull it out and tie it up. Quick, easy, and no mess.




For more great kitchen tips head on over to Tammy's Recipes

Stocking the Pantry

Having a stocked pantry that is well organized has really helped save me time when it comes to creating a grocery list and whipping together last minute meals and treats. Here are a few things that I keep on hand in my pantry.

1. A basket filled with extra baking supplies (you can tell from the picture I picked the basket up at the local dollar store). Here I keep extra sugar, brown sugar, chocolate chips, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder...you get the point.



2. The next basket I keep lots of extra canned goods. I have evaporated milk for my donair sauce, cream soups for my fast and frugal meals, tomato sauce and paste.

3. This next basket is great for keeping lots of homemade mixes. I have ready made flavored rice mixes, taco and fajita mix and then for those times when I want to whip something together fast but I have a baby crying and holding on for dear life to my leg I can simple throw all the drys in and just add the wets by reading the directions on the bottle. This is also good for days when I want hubby to whip something up; he just has to dump and add the wet!



Here are a list of great mixes to have on hand. Also any mix can be made in advance by just placing the dry ingredients all together in a reused glass jar.

Pancakes
Wafles
Corn bread
Cookies
Muffins
Brownies
Cakes

For more frugal ideas head on over to Life as Mom

Rescue mission

I hope that my kitchen tip today can save your pots just like it has save my favorite pot many many many times. This little trick came from my friend Niki and it has helped me so much so I just have to share...now that I have pictures of this little trick.

I am sure all my readers are such great cooks that this probably never has happened to you before but for me this usually happens when I am steaming squash. I usually only put a little bit of water in the bottom pan because I really don't like my squash wet and feel that if I steam it in as little water as possible then it turns out dyer. I am not sure if that is good theory but my squash always taste delicious... my pot on the other hand sometimes comes out of the battle not looking good.

This is what happened to my trusty pot just last week as I was once again multitasking too many things while trying to cook supper.

So now you can do two things. The first thing I use to do was soak the pot, try to scrub it, soak it again, more scrubbing then finally I would break down take out the SOS pad and scrub until my arm hurt. Now this is what I do instead!

Add some baking soda to the pot
then add some vinegar and water.

Now I know this is shocking but put the pot back on the burner and bring the mixture to a rolling boil for 15-20 minutes depending on how bad of shape the pot is in! Let it cool and take a cloth and wipe it clean!!

You may not believe me but it works so well that you don't have to get out the SOS as you will be able to whip it with just a regular cloth. Here is what the pot looked like when finished!!


Another rescue mission completed!

For more kitchen tips check out Tammys Recipes

Kitchen drawers

This is a very simple way to keep your life stress free. I don't know about you guys but I hate going to open the draw then having to play with it giggling it back and forth trying to get it open. This is what my drawers were like until I invested ($2) for these wonderful containers.


Of course I had the big white one for the silver wear but the other stuff was just floating about in there. So I used a long container to hold my measuring spoons and two square ones to hold the Popsicle sticks and all the mini baby spoons. The chop sticks and large knife tuck in nicely now that these containers are there.


This second draw was the worst nightmare as I was always playing with it trying to get it to open. So I condensed then organized into these baskets.



This was definitely $2 well spent!

Organizing the freezer

As you all know I have been slowly trying to utilizes the space in our house better by becoming more organized. I find it helps keep me (or should I say hubby) be stress free when everything has a place and not just thrown in a pile. Today I introduce you to my new freezer. *note this is the freezer over my fridge not the deep freeze...I haven't braved that project yet*. This project to me was a brilliant idea and I just love how organized it has stayed and how easy it is to find things for both hubby and I (oh and the two teenage boys we had babysit for us last week).



The idea to organize the freezer into basket sections came when I started making baby food. It was so cluttered that I couldn't find anything and when I did it was so covered in freezer burn you could hardly make out what it was. And you all know I didn't want to come home finding hubby feeding the baby the wrong thing!!

So I headed down to the local dollar store and stocked up on these wonderful bins. I placed them in the freezer and made categories for each of them.


This top blue bin is filled with meats. Mostly portioned pizza meat, hot dogs and cheese so its what hubby and I call the pizza bin. The bottom green one has left overs or portioned out sub sauce, pizza sauce, tomato paste and crushed tomatoes. The big cool whip container is not the yummy whip topping you think it is but its actually gravy. This bucket comes in handy for days when you just need to make home made poutine.


The other bins house our veggies, fruit and of course baby food. And like always there is some miscellaneous stuff is on the top shelf. My baking supplies such as chocolate chips, nuts, butter milk and liquid egg are kept on the freezer door.


So let me know how you keep these spaces organized. I know my friend Niki did a great post on her organized fridge.

For more tips on how to be Frugal check out Biblical Womanhood

Cupboard Makeover

I originally had the brilliant idea to ask some women at our church to save their baby food bottles for me so I could put my homemade baby food (frozen cubes) into them for when we were going to be out with the babe during a meal time. However I had to start thinking fast for other ways to use these wonderful glass jars when we started coming home each Sunday with grocery bags filled with them. It didn't take to many weeks of the bags laying around before I had the idea to use these to place my left over spices in. You know the spices that you try so hard to make fit into the spice jar but just don't make the cut.



You see all the leftovers used to be kept in their individual baggie from the bulk barn and stored in a large Tupperware that didn't have a lid because it wouldn't fit. This was just not working for me as I would always mange to buy more of a spice that I had buried deep down in the bottom of baggie mountain. So after removing all the labels from the baby food jars I simply filled them up with the left overs, labeled them with my kitchen sharpie and stored them in these aluminum dishes from the dollar store. The baby jars work great because you can see through which helps and they can be easily labeled and stored.


Now I don't know about the rest of you but my spice rack holds about 20 spices. Its a nice one and I love it, but not all the spices that I enjoy or use often can fit into the rack. So to fix this problem I created a portable spice container which is located at a convenient space right inside the cupboard.

May of these spices are used daily so they basket is great as I can take it in and out of the cupboard quickly and don't have to dig through all the other spices to get at it.

Any reusable container (lots of glass jars) have been washed out and made containers in my cupboards. I love it as it helps reduce all the plastic bag confusion in the cupboard.



This is the bean/lentil section of the cupboard and the picture below is the snack/ salad fixing part.


Other ideas for containers that I love to use are:

Any left over glass jar
Hot chocolate containers
Peanut containers (great for baking powder and soda since I buy these at bulk barn)
Peanut butter jars
Small plastic containers such as sour cream and yogurt

What are some things you find helpful to keep the cupboards tidy?

Welcome to the Kitchen

Hey come in a welcome to my kitchen!



I know that its small but it sure does the trick. After living in a one bedroom apartment with a small kitchen that had only one sink this kitchen is high class for me.

I wanted to take this week to show you all how my kitchen works, share with you some tips for maximizing space and show you some of my new organization skills that I have been putting into practice.

First is counter space. This is something that is very important when you bake, especially breads, to have as much space as you can. It's hard to get counter space these days since they house very important kitchen essentials such as the coffee maker and toaster. Plus we have lots of bulky appliances that make our lives easy just to name a few there are toaster ovens, sandwich grills, inside grills, blenders, food processors and the list goes on. One thing that I find helpful is to store appliances that are not used everyday somewhere besides my counter top and just have the important "used daily" ones out. For me that's the coffee pot and toaster. Another unit that takes up lots of space is the microwave.

This microwave stand was a great gift given to us by a dear friend when we moved into our place. It saves so much counter space and fits nicely into our kitchen. It is also great because the top shelf holds all our place mats, table clothes and a little basket that has our cloth napkins. And the bottom shelf (which is closed-in in the back) has my cook books.


* oh ya and another thing that is always on the counter is a block of knifes and a bucket filled with cooking utensils.