My November Meal Plan

I made an inventory of my freezer's contents yesterday. The purpose of doing so was threefold: one, it allowed me to plan out meals using what I already had on hand; two, it will allow me to clear out my freezer in preparation for the upcoming holidays; and three, it will save us money in preparation for the holiday season.
When I made my inventory, I took everything out of the freezer and scribbled down what I came across on a piece of paper. I then typed the list onto the computer. Once the list was typed up, I used the cut and paste functions to sort items according to frozen vegetable, stock item (such as broth, frozen diced green pepper, etc.), meat, or frozen entree. I then cut and pasted items from the different categories to make up meals. From my one freezer (I have a side by side freezer and frig combo), I was able to come up with 27 meals! For some of the meals, I will have to buy things such as salad or buns, but most of the meals are complete.
I have decided that the month of November, with the exception of special days and holidays, will be strictly an eat what's on hand month. I am interested to see if I can actually stick to this. Would anyone care to join me?

2 Pecks Apples =

3.5 quarts applesauce
3 quarts apple butter
2 quarts canned apples
2 quarts apple cider
1 tired mama

Happiness Is...

Top Kitchen Tips

Here are some of the top kitchen tips that I've come across in various books:

1. Use a raw spaghetti noodle to see if a deep cake is done baking.
2. When a recipe calls for dough to be formed into balls, use a melon scoop to ensure that the balls are uniform in size.
3. If you make your own bread crumbs or croûtons, make them with the leftover heat in your oven after you turn the oven off from baking another item.
4. Rather than paying too much for premade dough in a plastic tub, make the dough yourself ahead of time and store it in your own plastic tub. Sugar cookie, chocolate chip, and peanut butter dough all freeze well.
5. Use an onion chopper to quickly make graham or saltine cracker crumbs. The crumbs will have the added benefit of being more uniform in shape than those made with a rolling pin.
6. Instead of warming stick butter up repeatedly to take small pats off of, use a potato peeler. The pats will be uniform in size and you don't risk the danger of allowing a dairy product to warm and cool repeatedly.
7. Out of confectioner's sugar? Run granulated sugar through the blender. The texture won't be exact, but it will be close enough.
8. When you need to add butter or shortening to a recipe with your mixer, heat the blades in hot water first. The warm blades will aid in the butter and shortening mixing quicker and will prevent the butter and shortening from sticking to the blades.
9. To make it easier to find recipes in a cookbook, highlight the titles of your favorite recipes in the cookbook index.
10. A pipe cleaner can be used to clean the nooks and crannies of a mounted can-opener. Don't forget to clean the blade of your can opener regularly!

For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out Rocks in My Dryer!

The Price of Bread

Because I'm just ever-so-slightly OCD, after my last post I decided that I simply MUST figure out how much exactly it cost me to make bread from scratch. I calculated the cost of basic white bread from the Better Homes and Gardens Complete Step-by-Step Cookbook, and also the Betty Crocker's New Cookbook (both recipes make 2 loaves of bread, but the calculations are for one loaf). If you are to make the bread using the BH&G recipe, each loaf will cost $0.63. If you make the bread using Betty Crocker, each loaf will cost $0.51. The BH&G recipe uses milk, while Betty Crocker does not. I feel as though the BH&G recipe makes a better loaf of bread, but if you're going to butter or otherwise adorn your bread, the Betty Crocker one is just fine. Of course, as with figuring the cost of anything homemade, the price of water, electricity and time cannot accurately be determined. Making bread should only be done if you find it to be enjoyable. And to be frugal, you should probably do all of your bread-making in one day, or at least make bread on a day that you will otherwise be using the oven. Heating up and using the oven for just bread is not the best use of electricity, although on a cold day it is a nice way to warm up a room :) If you haven't checked out my previous post, please read it and give me your opinion!

Super Cook

If you're stumped as to what to make for dinner, or if you're trying to clean out the pantry, check out supercook.com! All you have to do is enter the ingredients that you currently have, and it will show recipes that use those ingredients. This is great if you're trying to make the groceries last until payday, trying to stick to a budget amount, or if you stocked up on some random things because you got a good deal on them.