Food

This is the fruit (okay meat) of my labors. Will add more to post soon. Just looked at the clock and noticed the time. Church starts in about 3 minutes and I am not sure anyone is even wearing shoes yet. I am dressed but my hair and teeth are currently unbrushed. Yikes!

Update 6/1/11:

We were a little late to church, but our church is not terribly uptight about that, thankfully, so all was fine.

Okay, so recipes. I really like allrecipes.com. They have user ratings and reviews so it makes it easier to find the best recipes. And you can also save the recipes you like, which is going to make it easier for me to find and post them here. Yay!

Schnitzel: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Wiener-Schnitzel/Detail.aspx I substitute pork for veal, boneless loin or chops -- whatever's on sale. Around here, you can usually find something for $3 or $4/lb.

Chicken strips: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Breaded-Chicken-Fingers/Detail.aspx My family pretty much goes crazy for these things.

Chicken and dumplings: http://www.food.com/recipe/cracker-barrel-chicken-dumplings-83701

I don't really use a specific recipe for meatloaf and shepherd's pie anymore, but I'll describe the basics:

For meatloaf, my standard thing is to use one cup of ketchup, one cup of oatmeal, and one egg for each pound and a half of ground beef. I almost always add chopped onion and sometimes I substitute other stuff for the ketchup, like spaghetti sauce or salsa, especially when I don't have enough ketchup. I also sometimes add a little brown sugar and/or mustard. 

For shepherd's pie, I saute onions and/or green peppers in a couple of table spoons of butter, then make a white sauce with chicken broth. I mix this sauce with cooked chicken and a package of frozen vegetables (we like peas and carrots) in a casserole dish. Then I spread mashed potatoes on top of the chicken mixture and bake for around thirty minutes. This last time, I used some chicken and broth from the chicken and broth for the dumplings. Considering it's usually not too hard to get a whole chicken for around $1/lb, it's two pretty cheap dishes.

I didn't end up making the peanut butter oatmeal bars until last night, but did finally get them done. I wanted to make a couple of batches, but didn't have enough eggs, so maybe next time. This recipe does have a lot of sugar, but it also has stuff that is pretty healthy, like whole wheat flour, oatmeal, eggs, and peanut butter. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Peanut-Butter-Oatmeal-Cookies/Detail.aspx I press all the dough into a large cookie sheet, then once it has baked and cooled, cut it into bars with my plastic-bladed pizza cutter. We have them for breakfasts and snacks, etc.

Weekly Cookathon and requisit whining

Resting my feet for a few while the food cools. Today I made one chicken shepherd pie, one normal sized meatloaf and several individual sized meat loaves, breaded tenders from three humongous chicken breasts, chicken and dumplings, and a butt load of schnitzel. I've been cooking for hours and I hurt for real. Tomorrow I need to make more peanut butter oatmeal bars and, perhaps, a butt load of  mashed potatoes. If I can still move. I think I over did it a bit, but this is all stuff we will eat and it is so good. Wish I was hungry.

If I didn't already post recipes, I will try to do that soon. Maybe some pics, too. I should send a kid to look for the camera . . .

Kitchen Splurge

I am not one of those people that just loves to cook. Over the years I've learned to cook pretty well, but I try to get out of it as much as I can. This has led to a reliance on prepared foods and restaurants, neither of which are good for the budget. Lately, I've been making an effort to cook more from scratch. Since I don't really enjoy it, I want to get it all done at once, so I've been making and freezing food for several meals at once.

Over the last few weeks of doing this, I've noticed some deficiencies in my kitchen equipment, so I picked up several things to make my work less frustrating:

• small bamboo cutting board (so I can stop using dinner plates for cutting onions)
• plastic cutting mats (for rolling cookie and dumpling dough)
• bottle brush thingy (got it so I could clean the kids' plastic drink bottles, but it is too big)
• large glass jar for sun tea
• potato peelers (planning on recruiting the kids for this chore)
• rubber spatula (the old one is disintegrating)
• ceramic casserole dish (the old one is dead)
• extra long rubber gloves
• pretty, light-weight apron (to keep grease and bleach from ruining any more of my shirts)

 And probably some other stuff I can't remember. Anyway, I'm kind of looking forward to having an easier time of my next cooking marathon.