Big Batch O' Waffles

Today my son had no school because of parent-teacher conferences so no dragging three kids out of the house at 8:20 am for me (yeah!).

I had a terrible nights sleep because Jilly Billy has turned anti-crib but managed to still drag my butt out of bed a 7 am, mostly due to the fact that my kids were moaning that they were starving to death.

Something came over me and I decided to make a big old batch of waffles. I used this recipe which I've used before but this time I didn't make them dairy free but I did use half unbleached flour and half white whole wheat flour. I doubled it so that I would have lots to freeze for mornings where I'm not feeling so Martha Stewart like (which seems to be almost every morning).

Yeah for cooking huge amounts of stuff and then freezing it!

Homemade Chicken Soup- A Really Frugal Meal!

We had roasted chicken for dinner the other night which came out awesome. I decided, since I am somewhat getting back into my cooking groove, to use the leftovers to make homemade chicken soup.

Yesterday morning, after breakfast, I took as much meat as possible off of the chicken carcass to use in the soup and put it into a bowl in the fridge. Then I proceeded to take all of the skin off of the carcass- why you may ask? Because I decided to go all out and make my own chicken stock.

I threw the chicken carcass into a large stock pot along with a quartered onion, a couple of bay leaves, carrots and celery ends and then filled the pot up with enough water to almost cover the chicken. I simmered the chicken for I don't even know how long- I suppose you just kind of know when it is done. The smell that emitted from that pot made my house smell wonderful!

I set up my straining contraption which consisted of a small pot and a colander with a paper towel in it (you can also use cheesecloth which is probably way better but I didn't have any on hand- just make sure you change the paper towels out frequently). I scooped out the large chunks of chicken and vegetables with a large slotted spoon (hence the Target bag- I have so many Target bags in my house that I am starting to this I have a problem) and then slowly poured the rest of the chicken stock into the colander to strain the smaller pieces of food out.

Here is what my chicken stock looked like after straining. I let it cool on the kitchen counter for awhile and strained off as much fat as possible. Then I put the covered pot into the fridge until I was ready to cook.

Cooking time! I put the pot on the stove on medium-low and added the chicken meat that was in the fridge, chopped celery, chopped carrots and salt and pepper. I let the soup simmer for awhile until the carrots and celery were tender (there was that wonderful smell again). I added cooked egg noodles and let it all simmer for a bit longer while my rolls cooked in the oven.

Here is the final product- it was simply delicious and we only had a little leftover which I had for lunch today. Both of my kids liked it and my husband loved it so I felt all warm and fuzzy inside. Now that it is getting colder out I will be making a lot more soup- maybe next time I will make a double batch and freeze some.

I don't really know what the actual cost of this meal was but the chicken we used was about five or six dollars (on sale for .79/lb) of which we were able to use use for two meals including the soup, the carrots and celery were from a meal last week and were about to go bad, the onions were something I had on hand, the bay leaves were already in my pantry and the egg noodles were free from a sale awhile ago. So in other words it was really cheap. A great tip I have for anyone who want to start making their own stock is to save chicken carcasses, carrot ends, celery ends, onions, etc. in a big freezer bag in your freezer, this way you will always have the ingredients you need on hand and won't be throwing anything away.  

Quick, Easy, Healthy and Cheap Recipe

Last night my husband had to work very late which threw off my plan for dinner. 

I was going to make a new recipe from Rachel Ray Magazine but I wanted my husband to try it too so I scratched that one. I could have just made the kids something quick but I was hungry and wanted a real meal.

That is when I decided to go to my old standby recipe- Parmesan Tomato Spaghetti. It is the easiest recipe (if you even want to call it a recipe) and is healthy and cheap too. Plus, my kids love it which is amazing because they can be pretty picky.

The ingredients I use are whole wheat spaghetti, a can of diced tomatoes, parmesan cheese, olive oil, salt and pepper. The pasta was free and the tomatoes were most likely less than .50 a can.

Pour the tomatoes into a pan and season with salt and pepper. You could also add whatever else you have on hand such as onion, peppers, spices, etc. Simmer tomatoes to cook down. As my tomatoes simmer I like to chop them up a bit because my family doesn't like big chunks. While simmering the tomatoes, cook the pasta according to the directions on the box.

Here is what my tomatoes looked like after simmering- yum!

Drain cooked pasta and dump into a bowl. Add olive oil and mix together. Then add your tomato mixture and mix it all up so that the tomatoes are evenly distributed. Add as much or as little parmesan cheese as you want and mix. That's it- your yummy spaghetti is done!

Here is what my dinner looked like- I love parmesan cheese so much that I added a lot more to my pasta.   I also had some string beans and a piece of whole wheat bread with butter.

In case you're wondering what I feed my kids, here is one of their plates. My kids are not big on the veggies so I just put one string bean on each plate and make them at least try a tiny bite. I gave each of them half a pear to make up for their lack of vegetables. To round it out they each also got a piece of whole wheat bread with butter and a Simply GoGurt. I am not big into making separate meals so my kids pretty much eat what my husband and I eat.

So that was it- a quick, easy, healthy and cheap recipe that everyone enjoyed.

Delicious Meatballs- Minimal Effort (because I'm lazy)

Wednesday night for dinner we had meatball subs- a hearty and simple meal that we all love (when I say we all I mean my husband and I- my son has been anti-meatball lately and my daughter is pretty much anti-meat).

I have made meatballs baked in the oven, simmered on the stove and a mixture of both methods but my favorite way to prepare them is in my trusty Crock Pot! They always come out unbelievably tender with no crusty outside layer (I am like a five year old and do not like my food burnt or crusty).

As for my ingredients, I use whatever I feel like at the time. A little of this and a little of that usually suits me well. This time I used 97% ground beef that was marked down at Target, whole wheat seasoned bread crumbs, an egg, grated Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper (if I have onions on hand I use them too but they're not something I will go buy just to make meatballs).

I throw everything into the bowl into whatever amounts look right to me and then get my hands dirty and mix it all up.

Yum, a big ball of meat. Once mixed I roll the mixture out into balls.

Then plop- the meatballs get thrown into the slow cooker with a jar of sauce (no homemade sauce in this house- I have time limitations called two kids who won't leave me alone for more than a mere minute). Once in the slow cooker, cook on either high or low depending on how much time you have. Cook meatballs until they reach 160 degrees on an instant read thermometer.

Not only does making the meatballs this way make them tender and delicious but it also frees up precious time before dinner. I can make these earlier in the day and then when it is time to eat we have fresh cooked meatballs ready to eat instead of me rushing around trying to throw everything together. Plus, the house smells wonderful all day- yum!

Mashed Potatoes- Here's a Tip...

I made mashed potatoes for dinner to accompany our pork tenderloin. I really love mashed potatoes but they never seemed to come out right when I made them.

Then I read an issue of Cook's Illustrated that solved my problem (that magazine makes me swoon). Instead of boiling the potatoes, you steam them!

Steaming the potatoes cooks them evenly all the way through which means no gross lumps and it leaves in the potato flavor (boiling them literally boils out the flavor and many of the nutrients).

It is really easy to do- put a large pot of water on the stove and bring to a boil. Place a metal colander inside of the pot, put the cut up potatoes (I cut mine into one or two inch pieces depending on the size of the potatoes I am using) into the colander and then place a lid on top.

I steamed my potatoes for about 15 minutes but it all depends on how many potatoes you are using and how big the cut up pieces are. Just dump your hot potatoes into a bowl and make your mashed potatoes as you usually would.

I promise you, steaming potatoes is the way to go and makes mashed potatoes completely fool proof.

Lazy Dinner Recipe

Last night the menu plan called for pasta and homemade breadsticks but I really did not feel like making breadsticks. To me, just having pasta with sauce is a little boring and a little lazy but I also did not feel like making meatballs. What was my solution?
I made meatball sauce...

Meatball sauce was something I invented last week when I also didn't feel like making meatballs. My on the fly recipe consisted of ground beef from the freezer, grated Parmesan cheese, Italian breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. I threw everything into a non-stick pan and mixed it all together with my spatula and then cooked it until the ground beef wasn't pink anymore. Then I pured the meat mixture into a pot, added a jar of marinara sauce and simmered until dinnertime.

It came out really good and required minimal effort, which is why I cooked it again for dinner last night. I'm sure breadsticks would have made the meal that much better but I was feeling lazy so everyone is lucky they didn't end up with peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. And yes, taking a picture would have required too much effort on my part.

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

My neighbor had a cookout today so I decided to make some ice cream cone cupcakes to bring.

They came out really good and are so easy to make! You just fill up each cone about 2/3 way full with cake batter and cook in the oven per the cake mix instructions (mine took about 20 minutes). Then just ice (I made butter cream frosting and used a bag and tip to put it on the cupcakes) and add sprinkles and you're all done.

The one bad thing is that they are hard to transport- I made it across the street with them intact but one wrong move on my part and they tumbled over onto each other. But all is good because they were still edible and the kids really liked them.

Big Old Batch of Pancakes for the Kids

I used my last frozen homemade pancake this morning so this afternoon I whipped up a batch of new ones.

Here are the regular pancakes.

Here are the chocolate chip ones (a special treat for my three year old son).

This is the recipe I originally used to make wheat pancakes but after much tweaking I now have my own hybrid recipe:

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup ground flax seed

2 eggs

2 cups milk

2 pureed bananas

Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately and then mix everything together.

I use a 1/3 cup measuring cup to pour the batter onto my griddle (I cook the pancakes at 325 degrees).

I cool the cooked pancakes on wire racks and then place them in airtight containers and put them into the fridge. After a couple of days I freeze whatever is left over by placing the pancakes on a baking sheet in a single layer. Once frozen I pop them into freezer bags. When I'm feeling lazy and don't want to cook (isn't that always?) I just defrost the pancakes in the microwave for about a minute each.

When I made these pancakes I added a container of pureed sweet potato baby food that I found in my cupboard. I also added some chocolate chips to part of the batter per my son's request. I have also made apple pancakes with this recipe- I just replaced the pureed banana with pureed apples. I pretty much just use what I have laying around.

Because these pancakes are for the kids I try to make them as healthy as possible. I do not add sugar, salt or oil for this reason. I don't use all whole wheat flour because it makes them a bit too dense, to the point where my son won't eat them.

When I am making Sunday pancakes (Sunday is our family day- it is the only day that we are all home) I use this recipe. It is absolutely not healthy but they are darn good and the best homemade pancake recipe I have made yet!

Roasted Tomatoes

My neighbor gave us some tomatoes the other day and I let them sit on the counter just a bit too long. What to do with tomatoes that are a little too ripe... roast them!

I cut each tomato in half and cut out the stems. Then I drizzled olive oil in my baking dish, put the tomatoes in the dish cut side up and drizzled them with olive oil. You can pretty much add whatever spices strike your fancy- I added oregano, parsley, salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Put the dish into an oven preheated to 200 degrees and cook for 10 hours- yes I said 10 hours. Believe me- it is so worth it! Your house will smell wonderful!

This is my finished product all packaged to go into the freezer. These tomatoes smell amazing- like the most delicious pasta sauce in the world. I don't know what I will use them for but whatever it is will end up tasting great!