Celery

Don’t let that celery sit in your refrigerator and wilt!  I have done that so many times.  I buy it because it’s on sale and then never do anything with it, or buy it when I need a stalk or two and then forget about it.  What works for me is to divvy things up soon after I buy it.  If I think to myself that I will cut it up later to pack in my lunch, it usually doesn’t get done.  Even if you forget all about your celery and it wilts and looks pitiful, it can still be used for chicken stock – chop it up and freeze it.  Don’t pitch it.

Celery is a great value food.  It was on sale for .68 this past week at Meijer.   Here is what I did with it.

1. Chop up a bowl full of celery sticks and add water.  All ready for my work lunches.
2. Slice it up for the freezer for soups and pot pies.  Freeze in 1-cup portions.  For this batch, I made 4 freezer portions.
3. Save out 4 sticks for my snack.  Yum!
4. Freeze the scraps for chicken stock.

That’s quite a lot for sixty-eight cents.

 

Completed – October Pantry Challenge

We finished the October pantry challenge on November 7.  Yay!  I think the hardest part for me was NOT looking at the Meijer weekly ad to see what was on sale.   On Friday, November 7, I looked at the weekly ad, made a list and went to the store.  There were too many good buys to pass up.  I consider this the end of that challenge!

I spent about $100 in the month of October for things like milk, sour cream, bananas, bread, butter, cheese, etc.  What was difficult was, since I wasn’t shopping the sales, I had to pay more for some things when I needed them.  That was awful.  I couldn’t find a good sale on butter anywhere, and if you have to pay full price, could pay up to $6.00 for one pound of butter!  I think I definitely save more money shopping the sales at Meijer each week and stocking the pantry.

I started out with 35 meals I could make from the pantry, and still have 13 meals on the list that we didn’t eat.  This was due to eating leftovers and occasionally eating out, or just eating sandwiches (Panini) because they are quick.

The good part was I saved about $500 by eating stuff we already had.  I had a pork loin, ham and turkey in the freezer and that made many meals.  In addition to the main meals we made, here are some other dishes and desserts I made through the month with stuff on hand (and a few items from my last few CSA bags): apple pie, chocolate cake, potato salad, cupcakes for work, ham salad, pudding, cole slaw, brownies, applesauce, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin cookies for a friend, pumpkin bars, cake pops, toasted pumpkin seeds, popcorn, egg salad and pumpkin pie.

These are some things I learned:

• I’m buying way too much each month for two people
• We don’t eat canned vegetables (frozen or fresh are so much better with no preservatives)
• I have a deer steak and pheasant in the freezer that is still there – not game eaters, I guess.  These were given to us.
• We eat a TON of cheese
• I love having a stocked pantry, I can put many different meals together without running to the store.
• I have a lot of home canned meat (pork, turkey, chicken) that we didn’t eat much of

These are the changes I’m going to make:

• Try to keep a running list of pantry items (hard to do and not fun); maybe start first with just meat
• Don’t buy a lot stuff we don’t eat much of (canned vegetables)
• Pay more attention to the meat in the pantry and don’t keep buying turkeys and chickens if I have canned turkey and chicken!
• Do the pantry challenge at least twice a year, maybe once a quarter

All in all, the pantry challenge was a big success and saved time and money.

 

Time for Fall Squash

I got some squash in my CSA bag this week and had purchased a sugar pie pumpkin.  Since that would be a lot to eat at once for us, I decided to bake it and freeze it.

Cut in half, remove seeds and stringy parts.  Place butternut squash and pumpkin face down, spaghetti squash face up on foil-lined cookie sheets.  Pierce skins with a knife on the upside down ones.  Bake at 400 degrees for one hour.

Let cool a bit and scrape the insides out.  I mixed the pumpkin and butternut squash together.  I used a fork to pull out the spaghetti squash (on right).

I blended the pumpkin/butternut squash in the food processor a bit to smooth it out.  Then I packaged up two 2-cup portions of the orange squash, and packaged up the entire spaghetti squash for the freezer.

 

And the best thing about all the fall squash is…..toasted pumpkin seeds!  Yum!  Pick out all the seeds and rinse all the strings and pulp off.  This takes a long time.  Spread on parchment paper to dry overnight.  Then season with olive oil and whatever seasonings you want (seasoned salt, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, cayenne pepper, chili powder, etc.)  Bake at 250 degrees for 1 hour, stirring every 20 minutes.  The butternut seeds were small so I kept them on one end of the cookie sheet and took them out of the oven after 40 minutes so they didn’t burn.

October Pantry Challenge

I read a good tip in Good Cheap Eats.  The best way to save money on your grocery bill is not coupons, as I might have guessed.  It is eating what you have and don’t waste it.  And one way to do that is have a Pantry Challenge and see how long you can go eating what you have already purchased.  You will eat some of those things you have been putting off preparing and then will be able to decide if you ever want to purchase that item again or not.  You will also use up items that are nearing or past expiration dates.

I have a fairly well stocked pantry, including cupboards and freezers.   I took a complete inventory this past weekend.  As I made up my menu for the month (basically 31 dinners), I didn’t even have to work at it to put together a menu.  Except for purchasing fresh produce and dairy, I had more than enough food to eat well for one month.  So I am contemplating doing the challenge once a quarter.  Stock up for two months using sales, and then eat from the pantry.

We have chickens and if all else fails, we can eat eggs (or eat a chicken…ha!).  I hope to save about $500 in the challenge months by not getting groceries. I do plan to purchase bananas, milk, sour cream, cheese, etc. as needed, as well as health and beauty items.  I am going to keep track of what I spend in October.

There are just 2 of us and we pack our lunches with leftovers.   I have 1 ham and 1 turkey in the freezer and that will make us quite a few meals with more leftovers for the freezer.

I normally spend some time each week making my weekly grocery list – matching sales at Meijer with coupons (meijermadness.com is great source).  Then I spend every Friday shopping.  This little pantry adventure will also save me about 10-12 hours a month in grocery shopping activities.

We will be eating a lot of corn…I have about 30 store-bought cans, 12 homemade pints, and about 40 freezer quarts.  I don’t think I need to buy corn for a couple years!  I have 2 or 3 CSA bags already purchased that will provide some fresh produce.  I plan to make bread in the bread machine – we’ll see how that goes.

This challenge will benefit us in so many ways and help us with better planning for the future.  I will keep notes and let you know at the end of the month how we did.  One kink in the plan is that I won’t even be home much the week of October 6 – so I either need to prepare meals in advance, or give my husband the list and say “Here’s what you have to pick from!”  🙂  Maybe I can get him to cook up the turkey that week.

Fruit and Veggies

These were made from Simplicity Pattern #2245.  They weren’t too difficult and pretty fun to make.  This would make a nice gift for little kids, or something for them to play with when they come visit you.

Easy Strawberry Shortcake

I found this easy shortcake recipe…you mix up the biscuit mix and just bake in an 8 x 8 pan.  Much easier than drop biscuits or rolling out biscuits.  For my strawberry topping, I mashed up most of 4 cups strawberries, reserving a handful for garnishes.  I added 1/2 cup sugar to the mashed strawberries and let that sit a couple of hours on the counter.  I added the sugar due to these strawberries not being very sweet.  The recipe is from my recipe collection.

Serves: 9Sue Gronholz, Columbus, Wisconsin

Ingredients:

2 cups	all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons	sugar
4 teaspoons	baking powder
1/2 teaspoon	salt
1/2 teaspoon	cream of tartar
1/2 cup	butter or margarine, softened
1	egg, beaten
2/3 cup	milk
2 pints	strawberries, sliced
1	whipped cream, optional

Directions:

In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cream of tartar. Cut in butter until mixture is the size of peas. Add the egg and milk mix well. Spread into a greased 8-in. square baking pan. Bake at 375° for 20-25 minutes. Cut into squares and top with strawberries and whipped cream if desired.

Cheesy Leeks

I received leeks in my bag from the CSA and had previously never had one.  I found a Cheesy Leek recipe on the internet that we loved.  It reminded me of cheesy broccoli.  Yum!

 

Checkerboard Cake

Is there anything more fun than a checkerboard cake?   I made this one last night just for the fun of it.  It takes a little extra work but it’s nice to make something a little different.  I used a white cake mix and a chocolate cake mix and a homemade chocolate frosting recipe.

Here is one I made for Easter a couple years ago.

See Wilton’s cake instructions with recipe.   (Mine don’t look as nice as their picture!)   There is also a link to the cake pan.  I got my cake pan at Hobby Lobby a while back using a 40% off coupon.

Sweet Pickled Eggs

My husband loves pickled eggs, but he does not like beets or eggs pickled in beet juice.  So I found this recipe from Allrecipes and he loves it.

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I end up with 10 eggs and lots of onions rings (from 1 large onion).  The onions are the best part.  I make it easy on myself for the brine and just dump all the ingredients in a pan and bring to simmer until the sugar dissolves.  I don’t make a brine bag.  Then I dump the entire brine mixture into the jar over the eggs and onions.  I stick a label on top with a date 2 weeks from the day I make them so we know when it’s eating time.

Drunken Cherries and Brownies

This process started back in August when I bought some cherries on sale at Meijer.  I pitted them, added them to pint jars, and covered with vodka.  I made one jar of peaches with brandy.  Then the waiting began.  I gave away most of these at Christmas and saved the peaches and one pint of cherries for me.

Today, I finally made a recipe using the cherries.

Dark Chocolate-Cherry Brownies

1 stick butter, more for pan and parchment paper6 ounce bittersweet chocolate, chopped 2 large eggs ¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup dark brown sugar, packed½ cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla ½ cup all-purpose flour ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1 cup drunken cherries, drained*

Butter a 8×8-inch baking pan and line with buttered parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In top of a double boiler set over barely simmering water, or on low power in a microwave, melt 1 stick butter and chocolate together. Cool slightly. In a large bowl, whisk eggs until frothy. Whisk in salt, both sugars and vanilla. Add the chocolate mixture to the bowl, stir to combine. Sift in the flour and cocoa, fold together until barely combined. Fold in the cherries. Spread batter into prepared pan. Bake for 30 minutes or until shiny and beginning to crack on top. Cool in pan on rack.  (*I saved the leftover cherry juice in the same jar and will use that for another purpose, another day – do not pitch it!  What you left is cherry liqueur and can be used in candy and other goodies.)

I turned the brownies out onto a pan (wish I had a square, flat serving dish!) and topped them with some leftover ganache I had from another baking project.

So yummy and moist.  I think the next time I might halve my cherries because one cherry is a big bite by itself.  The cherries do have a strong alcohol flavor – so eat responsibly! Remember, the secret is to get your fruit on sale in the summer and make these up for Christmas presents.  Pass them on to friends (very good friends) along with a couple recipes, such as the one above.