Freezer Cooking

June 9th, 2010

Also known as “How I cook 3 meals a day for 7 people and not spend every waking minute in the kitchen.”

This is the salsa I made last cooking day that has lasted us nearly 2 weeks of snacking now.  Yum!

I’ve been talking alot lately about food.  I suddenly want to make up for all that time I spent not eating the instant frozen stuff my family ate during that very sick pregnancy.  I want it all!  Oh food, glorious food!  And I’m just now getting back into the swing of juggling kiddos and cooking at the same time.  I forgot how much I loved it.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of all those dishes, and work, and crying baby who gets sick of me at the stove.  But I have to feed these sweet munchkins anyway, I don’t have a tremendous amount of money to do it, so I might as well make the best of it.

I’ve been following Life as Mom as she’s been freezer cooking this last weekend.  I love what she does.  Someday I’d love to grow up and be just like her.  However for this season at least, I don’t do it quite the same.  The concept is there, just implemented differently.

First of all, we either have less money than her, get paid on a different schedule (ours is every 2 weeks), or just don’t budget as well.   Either way, the idea behind freezer cooking (or cooking ahead, as it’s also know) is to make your time in the kitchen work for you.  Instead of dreading every meal, you can plan ahead, work hard when you actually have the time, and then coast for the rest of the days.  My thought is: I have to cook and clean anyway I’d like it to be on my terms.

The Menu Planning

Every two weeks I go through my cabinets, fridge, and freezer.  I make note of what I have.  All those random half meals.  Then I get pen and paper and list meals that I know of that we could make from what we have.  I use one piece of notebook paper for this list.  Next to that list of meal ideas I start a new column and list all the ingredients I don’t have to complete that meal.  This becomes my grocery list later.  If there is something like “Sirloin Tips thin cut steaks” in the freezer that I bought on sale once but have no idea what to do with it I go to Allrecipes.com go to their ingredients list and type in what I have.  Then I look through their recipes until I find something that sounds feasible and add the needed ingredients to my grocery list.  I do this until I have nearly 14 meals.  Then I brainstorm a few breakfast and lunch ideas.  Lunch (especially during the week when I’m homeschooling and time is slim) is usually nearly effortless (same with breakfast) or leftovers.  Muffins, pumpkin bread, apple spice bread, pancakes, french toast, cereal, granola, fried bologna, fried weenies, sausage, bagels with butter, cheesy egg wraps, and egg casserole are all favorite breakfasts.  Lunches that aren’t leftovers include hot dogs, pb&js, macaroni, summer sausage/cheese/crackers, carrots with ranch dressing.  Think quick finger foods.  I add these things to my list.  Snacks are cheese, fruit, veggies, popcorn (pop it yourself on the stove – much more cost effective), bagels, frozen yogurt pops, apple sauce, again, think: easy.  I again add any of these I want to my list.  I check my basics: flour, sugar, butter, etc. to see if I have enough and add any to my list.

When that menu plan is complete, I rewrite my grocery list by where I know items are located in the store.  I’m sure there’s a more time efficient way, but I don’t know it.  I do this because when I shop for 2 weeks (the Big Shop as my friend calls it!) I almost always have all 5 kids with me alone.  I need to streamline my time in the store. 

You can also see one of my frugal menu plans here.

Getting Home From Shopping  

I recruit the help of all 4 of my walking children and we get all the groceries in.  Then, they go play while I take everything out of the grocery bags.  I learned the hard way, don’t just look through the bags you’re more likely to miss something that needs to be refrigerated and you’ll kick yourself.  I put all cold items away.  I leave all the shelf items where they are (unless I have a toddler who will destroy all that is good and then I just set them out of reach until I can get to them.  I set nearly all my meat in the fridge.  Then I go about my day.  The next day is cooking day – no way I could do both in one day.  In that down time, I look over my menu and think about what I should put first on my list.  I make the actual daily menu at this point.  I take into account what I need to use before it will go bad.  Anything with lettuce and tomatoes goes first on my list, all casseroles with canned ingredients gets bumped to the latter part of the 2 weeks.  Then I decide, based on that what meat to freeze as is (roast sandwiches?  roast goes in freezer), and which I will be mass cooking. 

Cooking Day

I make a new list for the morning of the cooking day to know exactly what needs to be cooked.  I mentally note what I can cook all at once – every one of my burners can be on at once and the stove running.  I’ll have to rotate breads and potatoes or anything else that needs to be in the oven.  I plan what I’ll fix for dinner that night so that I know what to have completely done for the evening.  Then I get to cooking.  The idea for me is less of “I’ll have whole meals ready in the freezer” and more of a “I can throw a dinner together in less than 30 minutes.”  I boil and shred all my chicken.  I chop all onions, shred all cheese, brown all ground beef.  Most of the time I don’t have time in one day to cook everything for the 2 weeks.  So, when I have a morning free later in the week and want pancakes or french toast I pull out both griddles and cook at least 3 meals worth at once.  I’m already planning to cook, I’m already going to have clean up, I might as well make the most of it at once and get a free ride later.  When I’m making cheesy egg wraps I make a bunch: roll them all up, cut them in half, and set them in the fridge, then on church morning (read: crazy rush hour) I can pull out the food, zap it, and set it on the table.  The main idea on cooking day is to consider the most time consuming parts of your meals and do them all at once.  That way you can just throw together a meal. 

I live blogged what I did one shopping trip and how my cooking day looked.  I’m warning you, it’s crazy, but worth it.

More Power To Ya!

You can do this.  Even if you are not a stay at home mom.  Really.  Make your time work for you.  It’s yours – own it!  You can have “fast food” ready when you need it.  I promise, it’s doable!

Fried Bologna

June 5th, 2010

While we’re talking food…

How do you eat bologna (and do you pronounce it “buh-lone-y”)?

Do you even eat it at all?

Do you prefer it plain and cold {yuck}?

On a sandwich?  Mustard or mayo?

My fav is fried.

Is it that a southern thing?

Is it just a me thing?

Freezer Twice Baked Potatoes

June 4th, 2010

Did you know you can freeze potatoes?  You can!

I make a big batch of these, freeze them for later, and then eat them as snacks, sides, and send as lunches with Matt.  Oh so yummy!

Gather your ingredients:

• 5 lbs large baking potatoes
• 1/2 cup butter softened
• 1 cup milk
• 3 ounces cream cheese
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

*and I like to add those Salad Toppins into mine for added flavor and crunch.  I don’t measure this part, just shake some in until it looks right.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Wash and dry potatoes.

Spray potatoes with cooking spray or rub with olive oil and sprinkle outside of potatoes with garlic salt.

Pierce potatoes with fork several times, wrap in tin foil, and bake on cookie sheets for 1 – 1 1/2 hours or until potatoes “give” when gently squeezed.

While they are baking, in a large mixing bowl add butter, cream cheese, salt and pepper and mix well.

When potatoes are done, unwrap and cut potatoes in half lengthwise with a serrated knife.

With a large spoon scoop out the inside of potatoes leaving a layer of potato attached to the inside of the skin.  This can be tricky.  I insert spoon on one side, lift out, insert spoon on the other, and gently scoop.

Put scooped out potato in mixing bowl as you go and mix to combine with butter mixture, adding skim milk as needed to make potatoes the consistency of slightly stiff mashed potatoes.

It’s at this point that I mix in the Salad Toppins.

Holding the potato shells in the palm of your hand to support them, scoop and press potato mixture into each half of potato shell.

Return filled shell to cookie sheet.

Sprinkle cheese on top and pat it to make it stick to the potatoes.

Now you have a decision to make.  Eat some now or save them all for later?

To eat now:  return the ones you want to eat immediately to the oven and bake about 15-25 minutes until hot and melty.

To freeze for later:  loosely lay plastic wrap over the tops and set the whole cookie sheet as is into the freezer. 

When they are completely frozen, wrap each half in plastic wrap individually, place in gallon ziplocks (if you so desire) and return to freezer. 

Matt really wanted me to tell you they taste much better than they look here!

When you’re ready to eat one, remove from freezer, remove plastic wrap, place in microwave for 2 minutes.  Ready to eat!

How I Prepare For The New School Year

June 3rd, 2010

I’m just now getting around to that last question on my “Get to know me” post.  You can read my responses to the other questions of “How do I know 5 kids is enough and how do I give them enough?” as well as thefirst round of random Q & A.

Jules ~ ”How do you know what to get them for each year to fill what the requirements are? Like obviously they need the usual, BUT how do you know which ones to get? I’m always stumped over buying curriculum and finding that it really doesn’t work for our kids..it always feels so wastefull to me on some level:( I guess maybe if our kids had less problems with writing it would be easier.”

First of all, I should tell you we are an eclectic homeschooling family.   Eclectic means (roughly) picking and choosing different curriculum and resources that seems best at the time for each child and each subject. 

Last year's first day of school picture

We chose this method because, quite frankly, we started homeschooling rather abruptly and with no money in a “homeschooling budget”.  We had a few hand-me-downs, but no money for the actual workbooks.  I had seen what the kids were “learning” in public school Kindergarten and thought “Good grief, it takes 8 hours to watch Snow White and color in a circle?  I can do that.”  Combine that with putting our child in school too early (see Arkansas’ Kindergarten Waiver, if you have doubts about your fall birthday child).  Add a little bit of reluctant learning issues to a first time homeschooling Mama that had no idea what I was doing and you have a very mosaic learning environment!     

I tried the set curriculum my sister-in-law so sweetly gave to us, but it was too much for my too-young boy.  Physically, he was not able to write as much as the curriculum called for.  His fine motor skills were not where they needed to be.  I didn’t know that.  So, I pushed really hard.  Can you imagine pushing a child not ready to potty train?  Not ready to ride a bike?  Not ready to crawl?  You’re asking for failure.  It’s a developmental milestone.  You can’t start with filling out numerous pages if you can’t actually physically write well.  Eventually I learned to quit trying to force him through the tears and reevaluated that I wanted him to learn the information and separately strengthen his fine motor skills.  After much debate, discussion, and frustrations on the part of Matt and me, we took a long hard look at what we actually wanted him to learn.  Consequently, I moved to a more oral approach.  Same free materials, just asking him the questions and covering the information without the extensive writing required.  Simulataneously I incorporated more playdough playing, more lego building, more lincoln log stacking, finger painting, and requiring a very reduced amount of handwriting.  I had pushed so hard he had shut down wanting to learn anything.  He’s a smart child, but he had reached his limit and decided he hated learning.  I took the pressure off.  And ventured into the scary “Unschooling Movement”.  Stopped all our reading curricula, math worksheets, handwriting assignments.  I moved to lapbooks, unit studies, and read alouds.  We watched a lot of the Discovery Channel together, performing experiments and exploring the world around us, answering questions all along the way (Google became our best friend).  I fell in love with Homeschool Share’s lapbooking resources. 

Our 3 year old's first lapbook

He discovered history through our Little House on the Prairie read alouds.  It came alive.  Learning was real.  We talked math all the time.  How do you divide X amount of treats between X amount of people in our house?  Our van has an adjustable odometer where the kids can see it so we started making guessing games (estimation) of how many miles it would take to get home from different locations.  I made this chart to explain fractions and decimals.  It became visual.

 

How has all that worked out in the real world?  I worry.  Are they completely clear on what nouns, verbs, adverbs are?  Not as much as I would like.  Can they spout off their math facts in a few seconds.  Not so much.  They can work out the problems, but not as much as I want them too. 

So what do I do?  How do I know what they should know?  Each summer I go to our the Arkansas Department of Education’s website and look at their “Refrigerator Curriculum”.  Sketchy, at best, and even they admit not comprehensive by any means just a light overview of what you can expect your child to cover for the upcoming school year.  I print it out and reassure myself throughout the year that if that’s what they’re learning in school, then I’m probably okay.  A couple of summers ago Matt ordered Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School.  Each year I start with the oldest child’s upcoming grade and read that section, making notes of what I’ve covered, what needs review, what will be new.  Then I go back starting with the beginning of the book and review myself on what each upcoming child needs to learn for their year.  A refresher course for me.  Additionally, I have a few of the Core Knowledge Series books.  Let me say up front, I’m not a fan of all of their “must-learns”.  I’m just not.  But I use their books for some of our read aloud times.  Right now we’re reading through the First Grade book, learning everything from different religions to music theory.  It’s not our curriculum, it’s a supplement to all that we do.  Right now my oldest son is enthralled with the Civil War and the American Revolution.  He loves reading about them, watching shows about them, creating pictures about them.  And we find ourselves covering American History that easily.

We do not stick with the unschooling method, nor are complete advocates of it.  We feel about it like we feel about most things, we’re middle of the roaders.  There’s a balance to strike.  We do alot of lapbooking, Usborne unit studying, hands-on fun for awhile and then we move back into worksheets, workbooks, set curriculum for awhile.  That has worked for us so far.  With the fourth grade on the horizon for my oldest, second grade for the middlest boy, the ability to write much more, and a daughter who writes and reads before she turned five, and fresh from the state mandated test a couple of months back, I’m thinking hard about purchasing workbooks for all that set curriculum from my sister-in-law for the fall. 

Which also answers the “When does our school year begin and end?” question.  We’re year rounders.  Again, I don’t know that we’ll always stay that way, it’s a year by year assessment.  But with our rocky start, having babies fairly frequently, a very sickly last pregnancy, and our propensity for Parker adventures I would say that there’s a good chance it will stay that way.  We work hard, we take breaks.  We take field trips, we socialize.  We get out in the good weather, we hunker down in the bad.  It’s an ebb and flow.  We do ”officially” start our new year on our local school schedule (which allows an easy transition with their church classes and gives me a set starting place each year)and we well exceed the “required” amount of school days within the year.   

Will we stay with the workbooks, boring, dry, comprehensive all year long?  I don’t know.  We’ll start out with it, then we’ll probably transition in our “down time” (times that I sense that I’m losing the kids’ attention) to more unit study, lapbooking fun, and then cycle back to the workbooks.

Would I recommend what we do?  I don’t know.  You do what works for you.  If our first child had been our over-achieving reading and writing girl I’m quite certain we would never have started down this eclectic path.  If we didn’t have so many children so close in age I’m sure we would buy fancy sets and read like fiends to them.  But that’s not our life.  And ours, is not your life.  We do what works until it doesn’t work anymore.  And I’m positive we worry too much along the way!