Freezing Produce

During this time of year its hard to get produce without breaking the bank. One thing that we have done to help keep us on budget is buy produce during prime seasons and freezing. We do this with fiddle heads (that hubby picks), squash, blueberries, strawberries, and apples. Another thing that I do is when I go grocery shopping early in the morning I find lots of produce on the 50% off rack. I stock my chart up with green peppers, red peppers, mushrooms, and any other fruits that are not too rotten. When I come home I wash them up, cut into chunks, and freeze in a single layer on a cookie sheet.



Once these are frozen 3-4 hours after wards I bag them up in freezer bags and place them in the pizza topping basket in the freezer.


I love to have frozen produce in the freezer. Although you can't use this stuff for salads or veggie sticks its great cut up in chili, spaghetti sauce, casseroles and fried up on pizza.

For more frugal tips check out Biblical Womanhood

Baked Oatmeal

This morning we woke up to lots of snow on the ground. Without complaining hubby was up, dressed and out the door to snow blow the drive way. It helps that he is still in the honey moon faze with the snow blower and enjoys doing it. Since he was up and so was the baby I decided that he would need a delicious hot breakfast when he was done.

Friends of ours enjoy baked oatmeal at least once a week. I had never made it before but last time we were down at my parents house my mom tried the recipe. We all enjoyed it so that is what I whipped together this morning.

I followed a recipe I found at all recipes.

3 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup  brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
In a large bowl, mix together oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Beat in milk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract. Spread into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes.


The house smelled so delicious as this was cooking. We enjoy our oatmeal topped with yogurt, fruit and toasted nuts. 

falafels

Here is it readers one of my new favorite crock pot recipes. I have heard so many people say to me I have a crock pot but I just don't use it. WELL now is the time to get that baby out of the box and put it to good use. There are lots of recipes out there for great meals that can be made in the crock pot. I am sure that many of you know the site 365 days of crockpotting. The wonderful crock pot chef Stephanie decided to use her crock pot everyday last year and post each recipe. She has finished her little one year challenge and is working on her own cook book from it. If you need some recipes to start your crock pot adventures check out her list of recipes here.

I have enjoyed the recipes I have tried from her site and when I saw this Falafel recipe I knew that I had to try them. So last week I meal planned it, made pitas and bought the ingredients for it. I was a little unsure about them when I started but the recipe was super easy to follow and in 3 hours they were done!

They turned out nice and brown and some even got really crispy. I think that next time I will have to cook mine for less because 3 hours was a little much and some were dry. I think that the next time I made them I will roll them in sesame seeds before I place them into the crock pot.

We put ours on homemade pitas that had been smothered in Tzatziki sauce (that I purchased on sale) and topped with spinach, green peppers and red peppers.

Here is my brave (and very hansom) husband getting ready to take the first bite! hehe We both enjoyed them and thought they were a very good meal. I did try to make some couscous to go with our meal but it was very bland!! If any readers has some yummy couscous recipes please share them with me!

For more fun works for me head on over to rocks in my dryer.

Meal Plan Monday

I can't believe another Monday is here already. I didn't have time this weekend to meal plan so I am a little behind and had to do some meal planning as I walked the aisle at the grocery store this morning. That is never a good thing; I realized that meal planning saves SO much time and money. When I don't have a plan for the week I find I just buy whatever and that always leads to over spending.

Here is what I came up with for a menu this week

Monday: Soup and sandwiches

Tuesday: Spaghetti Pie and Bread sticks

Wednesday: Left overs

Thursday: Sweet and sour sausages

Friday: Pork chops, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes

Saturday: ??

Sunday: Going home for a yummy supper and SUPER BOWL TREATS!!


For more ideas check out Organizing Junkie

Pizza Pockets

This is one recipe that does take some time but the benefits of having quick and easy lunches or suppers are worth the little bit of work. Since hubby and I have been married I have never once bought pizza pockets. They are a tiny little ball of dough filled with processed meats that have been pre deep fried and will cost you a fortune for four...which would be one meal for us. Since I make pizza at least once a week I thought why not whip up a batch of pizza pockets to have in the freezer for days that I don't have leftovers for Micah to take to work or night when we need to eat in the car.

So one day last week I mustered up the courage to make my pizza dough into pizza pockets. Here is my step by step process.

First I started out by making a batch of my yummy pizza dough



After the dough had set I punched it down and divided it into 12 balls.

While the dough was resting I whipped together some ingredients for the inside of the pockets. I had sauce, some fried ground beef, grated cheese, pineapple chunks and I fried up onions, green pepper, red pepper and mushrooms.

Then take each dough ball and roll it out to make some what of a circle.



Place 1-2 Tbsp of sauce in the center and top with toppings. Then fold in half and using a fork press the edges together.

I then baked the pocket in the oven on 350 for about 12 minutes.

When the pan came out I let it cool off a bit then placed in the freezer for about 3 hours.


Once they were frozen I popped them into a freezer bag where they are ready to be taken out and placed into the oven. You can heat them up at 400 for 10-12 minutes. At work Micah likes to defrost it a little in the microwave then heat it up in the toaster oven.

These are such a frugal thing to make for the little bit of work it took. Now I have fast suppers or lunches for us. This is something that we will keep in the freezer!!

For more frugal ideas head on over here

yummy muffins

I really love this recipe and thought that I would share it. I did originally get it from another blog and please forgive me for forgetting which one it was, if it was yours send me the link and I will for sure link it up!



Chocolate chip muffins


Ingredients

1 3/4 cups white flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup buttermilk (used 1 cup skim milk with 1tsp vinegar)
1/4 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
1 cup chocolate chips (you could use a little less...some where VERY chocolaty).

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all the ingredients together, except for chocolate chips. After it’s mixed, stir in the chocolate chips. Fill greased muffin tin (or use your silicon baking liners) and bake for about 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. These muffins can also be frozen and reheated in the microwave or oven.

Makes 12 muffins

Here is my nice clean muffin tin; because of my wonderful silicon baking liners. If you haven't started using them head over to my previous post(link above) and find out for yourself why you should RUN out and get some. This $3 purchased has given our family fresh baked muffins at least once a week.

Whats in the middle???

Oreo dessert is one treat that hubby always request on his birthday along with Mexican pile up. These are two very yummy treats that we enjoy eating. I will post on Mexican pile up later; but this post is all about the Oreo's!



First off I got a huge bag (the family pack) of Oreo's cheaper then a smaller bag. I can't believe how expensive these little round cookies will put you back. Thank you Lord that I found such a great sale.


Recipe

32 oreos
1/2 cup melted margarine
2 L vanilla ice cream

Chocolate Sauce

1/4-1/2 cup evaporated milk
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup margarine
1 square semi sweet chocolate
1/2 cup peanuts


1. Place Oreo's into a large Ziploc baggie. Using a rolling pin crush, crush, crush until the once rolled Oreos are nothing but a fine powder. Pour the crushed Oreo's into a small bowl and coat with melted butter. Spread into a 9*13 pan to form a crust and freeze.

2. Take out your 2 L of ice cream and allow to soften for a bit. Next take out your frozen crust and spread soft ice cream on top; freeze again.

3. The last step is easy you simply make up your chocolate sauce
melt margarine and chocolate square. Add sugar and milk. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and boil gently until thickened for about 15-20 minutes-stirring frequently.

4. Place chocolate sauce in fridge and allow to cool for about 10 min. You don't want to add super hot chocolate sauce to frozen ice cream. When cool drizzle chocolate over the top and top with peanuts. Freeze again until ready to serve

* One thing to note is that it is best if you freeze in a deep freeze. For some reason it doesn't freeze as hard in a fridge freezer.


I usually always place mine in a 9*13 pan but one friend of mine who LOVES the recipe does here's in a round spring form pan. So it looks more like an ice cream cake. If you are going to do it this way I would recommended putting something as a middle layer in the ice cream like crushed Oreo crumbs or even putting a layer of the chocolate sauce in the middle with peanuts then again on the top.



For those of you who know Micah he doesn't really like to venture outside of a recipe. So you can image how shocked I was when he suggested a few changes we could make to Oreo dessert. A Christmas treat that he received this year was a 2 L tub of black raspberry cheese cake ice cream, which is his favorite. Since this was still pretty full he suggested we use that instead of vanilla. I thought since we were using that kind of ice cream I would add some frozen raspberries to the top that were frozen in the freezer. This was a great combo and very delicious. Everyone at the party enjoyed it!!