12 Dinners for $60!

I have only been recently doing freezer meals but, man, am I HOOKED! It all started with a few gal pals and our freezer meal swap club. Then a post came around about 20 Costco Meals for $150 and my immediate thought was "I can do that" and my next thought was "I'm gonna try and do better!" The outcome was a freezerful (I have a small freezer) of meals ready to go....and I am super excited about it! I now want a BIGGER freezer!

My freezer almost looks organized!

I know prices range a ton regionally so totals may vary for yourselves but this is what I was able to do in Northern VA. I also added 10-20 cents for each spice that I used (that price is probably way overstated but I wanted to make sure and include the cost) and for full disclosure, I found my meat discounted for quick sale because it was nearing it's "use by/freeze by" date. I buy a lot of my meat that way, it can save you an average of 50% off regular price!

12 meals for $60 (each meal serves 4-5)

Split Pea Soup (recipe for 1 dinner, just double for 2 meals)

1 1/2 cup dry split peas                     $1.20
2 teaspoons chicken bouillon               .10
1/4 teaspoon italian seasoning             .10
1 bay leaf                                              .10
3/4lb cubed ham(I used turkey ham)  2.00   
1 carrot, diced                                        .14
1-2 celery stalks, diced                          .20
1 med. onion, diced                               .26    
                                                $ 4.10 x 2= $8.20 for 2 dinners          
Place all ingredients into a gallon size freezer bag and freeze.
To cook: Place contents of bag into slow cooker with 4-5 cups water, stir. Cover and cook on high for 4-5hrs or low for 8-10hrs. The soup can be cooked first then frozen, I just prefer it this way.

Corn bread recipe (makes 2 - 8" loaves)
1 1/4 cup corn meal                    $0.50
1 cup flour                                      .20
3 tablespoons sugar                        .10
2 tablespoons honey                       .20
1 tablespoon baking powder          .10
1 teaspoon salt                                .10
2 eggs, slightly beaten                    .28
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted       .70
1 can creamed corn                         .49 
                                                     $ 2.67  for 2 loaves

Preheat oven to 425. Mix the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center, add the honey, eggs, butter and creamed corn. Whisk ingredients for a minute or two, making sure it is all incorporated. Divide into two 8in aluminum loaf pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Let cool completely before freezing.
To freeze: wrap once with plastic wrap then twice with foil. This will help retain its moisture.
To serve: I just let it thaw while soup is in the crockpot.

Chicken Pesto Alfredo (makes 2 - 8x8 cake pans)

1 box of penne pasta                       $0.89
1 - 15oz jar of alfredo sauce              1.09
3/4 cup pesto sauce                            1.89
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder                 .10
2lb chicken breast                              4.09
salt and pepper                                     .20
1 package frozen broccoli                    .98
1/2 cup pasta water                              .00 
                                                        $ 9.24 for 2 meals
Cook pasta according to directions making sure to reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water. While pasta is cooking, cut chicken breasts in half so that you now have 4 thin breasts. Season with salt and pepper and broil for 3-5 minutes until no longer pink in the middle. In a very large bowl add both sauces, garlic powder and pasta water, stir. Add pasta, chicken and broccoli, toss gently until everything is coated in sauce. Divide mixture into two 8x8 aluminum cake pans. Cover with a double layer of foil and freeze.
To reheat: Place covered frozen pan oven. Heat for about 45 minutes at 400.
Note: This is not a saucy pasta dish, if you want a creamier dish, add more sauce.

Beef and Broccoli (makes 2 meals)
1/2 cup oyster sauce                   $0.93
1 tablespoon sesame oil                 .45
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar           .60
2 tablespoons sugar                       .10
1 tablespoon soy sauce                  .20
1 tablespoon cornstarch                 .10
1 tablespoon grated ginger            .25
2 garlic cloves, minced                 .10
2 bags frozen (keep in bags)        1.96
2lbs thin sliced beef                     5.02  
                          $9.71 + 1.50(rice) = $11.21 for 2 meals
Divide meat into two quart sized freezer bags. Mix remaining ingredients (except broccoli) in a small bowl. Divide between the two bags and freeze.
To cook: thaw bag overnight(this also marinates the meat), heat saute pan and cook contents of bag until meat is almost cooked through. Add broccoli and continue to cook until broccoli is desired softness. Serve over rice.

Beef Stroganoff (makes 2 meals)
2lbs of stew meat, 1/2"cubes                   $5.05
1 onion, chopped                                         .26
1 can cream of mushroom                           .79
1 pack of onion soup mix                            .40
1-8oz container of mushrooms, sliced      1.09
1/4 teaspoon black pepper                           .10
1/2 cup milk                                                .12
8oz cream cheese                                      1.09
8oz sour cream                                            .65
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard                        .25
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce             .10 
                      $9.90 + 1.34(1.5 boxes of pasta) = $11.24 for 2 meals
 Place meat, onion, soups, mushrooms, pepper and milk in pot of slow cooker. Cook on high for 4-5hrs. Stir in remaining ingredients until smooth. Let cool before dividing into 2 freezer bags and freezing.
To serve: Thaw in fridge for a few hours. Cook pasta according to directions, while pasta is cooking reheat on low heat, stirring occasionally. When heated through, serve over pasta (can serve over rice too).

Lasagna (makes 4 - 8x8 cake pans)

1 lb ground beef                               $2.33
1 lb italian sausage                            1.19
2 onions                                               .52
4 garlic cloves, minced                        .20
16oz tomato sauce                               .50
28oz crushed tomatoes                        .99
1 1/2 tablespoon italian seasoning      .20
1 box lasagna noodles                       1.49
24oz cottage cheese                           2.29
2 eggs                                                  .28
1/4cup Parmesan cheese                     .30
1/4 teaspoon black pepper                  .10
16oz shredded mozerella                  3.99 
                                                      $14.38 for 4 meals
Cook pasta according to package directions. While pasta is cooking brown the meats with the onion and garlic in a medium/large saucepan. Drain the grease then add the tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes and italian seasoning, bring to a boil then reduce heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. In a medium bowl mix the cottage cheese, 2 eggs, parmesan cheese, pepper and all but about a 1 1/2cups shredded cheese. When pasta and sauce are done, start assembling the lasagnas. Here is how I did them:
Pour 1/4 cup sauce in each pan, fit one layer of pasta, spread 1/8 of cheese mixture over noodles, then spread 1/8 of sauce, then repeat pasta, cheese mixture and sauce. After second layer, top with remaining shredded cheese. Cover each pan with a double layer of foil and freeze.
To cook if frozen: Place in oven and cook covered at 400 for about 1 hour, remove cover and cook an additional 10 minutes.
To cook if thawed: Place in oven and cook covered at 375 for about 40 minutes, remove cover and cook an additional 10 minutes.

Here is a very basic outline for my order of operations.

1. Start cooking beef stroganoff in slow cooker.
2. Make corn bread
3. While corn bread is baking, assemble split pea soup bags and beef and broccoli bags.
4. Take corn bread out and cool on racks. Cook penne pasta.
5. While pasta is cooking, cook chicken for the Pesto Alfredo.
6. Mix sauces for Pesto Alfredo, toss in cooked chicken, broccoli and pasta, divide into pans.
7. Start cooking sauce and pasta for lasagna.
8. Shred cheese (block cheese is cheaper than pre-shredded) and prepare cheese mixture.
9. When sauce and pasta is ready, assemble lasagna
10. Add remaining ingredients to stroganoff, let cool slightly before dividing into bags.

Cost breakdown
Split pea soup                  $ 8.20
Corn bread                          2.67
Chicken pesto alfredo         9.24
Beef and broccoli              11.21
Beef Stroganoff                 11.24
Lasagna                             14.38
TOTAL                           $56.94

I hope this gives you an idea of what I did. I purchased most of my ingredients at Aldi, with a few things from Giant and Wegmans. If you have any questions, just holler! :-)

Butterless Blueberry Biscuits

These biscuits are the perfect addition to your Easter brunch table. And since they are made with sour cream instead of butter, you won't have to feel guilty for eating more than one!

Add scrambled eggs for a delicious breakfast

Love the color that the blueberries add

Butterless Blueberry Biscuits
Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 tablespoons sugar, plus a bit for sprinkling
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoon oil
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 cup blueberries (fresh is best but frozen works just fine)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425.
Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the sour cream, oil and milk in a small bowl.
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the sour cream mixture into it. Using a spatula, begin folding the ingredients together. When a dough starts to form, add the blueberries and fold just until combined. Make sure not to over mix.
Dump contents of the bowl onto a floured surface and lightly knead dough 5-7 times, making sure not to squish the berries too much.
Form dough into a 9x9 square (should be about 3/4 inch thick) and slice into 9 squares. Sprinkle sugar on top of biscuits before placing on a parchment lined cookie sheet.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, just until the biscuits start to brown. If using frozen berries, cook an additional 1-2 minutes to prevent a doughy middle.
Serve warm with whipped honey butter.

Yield: 9 biscuits

Add 1 tablespoon of lemon zest to sour cream mixture for an added bit of decadence.

April Menu

I went over budget in March by $22.36...these rising prices are making it very difficult to stay under budget. Eggs went up $2.00 per 3 dozen family pack and milk went up as well! I will just have to get even more creative with my menu :-)

This month will be another hard month to stay with-in budget but for a very good reason, my Mom and sister will be visiting and I have been known to get a little food crazy when family is town. It will be my own personal challenge...and maybe swapping a few menu items for more beans and rice can free up a bit of moolah. Good thing my boys LOVE them.

 APRIL

SUN	MON	TUES	WED	THUR	FRI	SAT
		1                   Fish   Tacos	2    Bean soup	3               leftovers	4 Chicken picante	5 leftovers
6 Split pea soup	7 Leftovers	8 Fish   Tacos	9 Home made Hot pockets	10 Clean fridge	11 Fish Packets	12 Leftovers
13 Baked Potatoes	14 Family trip	15 Fish   Tacos	16 15 Min. Meatloaf	17 Pancakes	18 Ground beef pasta	19 leftovers
20 Rabbit Stew	21 Leftovers	22 Fish   Tacos	23 Pizza	24 Sesame noodles	25 Ravioli Lasagna	26 Clean Fridge
27 Sweet n Sour chicken	28 Leftovers	29 Fish   Tacos	30  Chicken and Quinoa

Ice Cream Bon Bons

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ICE CREAM! I'm going to let you all in on a secret, are you ready?? I have a confession to make...I have a sweet tooth, okay, maybe its not so secret after all but are you guys aware that the sweet tooth is the #1 reason for ruined summer physiques? Alright, alright, I made that up too. Maybe sweets are my own personal physique messer-upper but you know what, I will never give them up. What I will do is make it easier for me to indulge in a treat without having to jog a 1/2 marathon to burn off the calories. These ice cream bon bons are big enough to satisfy my craving but small enough to indulge without feeling guilty. Whats even better is that the chocolate coating is a super easy homemade magic shell...no ingredients I can't pronounce, just some yummy chocolate and coconut oil.

Homemade pistachio or Double chocolate chip, such hard decisions!

Super simple "Magic Shell"

Chilled and ready to enjoy!

Ice Cream Bon Bons
Ingredients:

• A double recipe of Homemade Magic Shell, compliments of "Gimme Some Oven" (you will have some leftover, but I love having this on hand)
• Ice cream of you choice
• and a cookie scoop for easier portioning, but spoons work just as well

Directions:
Scoop 10-12 portions of ice cream (my cookie scoop is 1.5 tablespoons) on a parchment lined plate or cookie sheet, make sure it fits in the freezer.
Freeze ice cream balls for at least 2 hours (longer if you portions are big), overnight is preferred. You want them very firm for ease of handling.
When ready to dip, warm "Magic Shell" so that it is thin and runny but not hot to the touch.
Now for the fun part, dipping! You can dip using your hands which is easy but messy or you can use two spoons. You have to work fast because the chocolate hardens pretty quickly due to the cold ice cream.
Dip your ice cream balls and place on a parchment lined plate and freeze for 10-15 minutes.

Can be stored in any airtight container.

Yield: as many as you want :-)

100 calorie snacks (give or take a few calories)

This time of year is when I start "training" for our yearly backpacking trip. And by training, I mean increased walking with some light weights. But this year I need to lose a few post-pregnancy pounds and I don't do well with diets...I LOVE FOOD TOO MUCH! Losing weight is all about calories in (food) and calories out (exercise) and the way I monitor my calories is by making my own 100 calorie food packs. These packs actually range between 90-120 calories but its close enough for me, you can be more precise in your measurements if you prefer. I have about 200-300 calories for breakfast, 4-6 calorie packs between snacks and lunch then a sensible dinner. I don't count my dinner calories but I am pretty critical about it being sensible, lots of veggies and a protein or a smaller portion of what I made for the night. I usually come out a little less than 2000 calories for the day.

There are tons of options for the calorie packs which is awesome because I like variety. The kitchen tool that makes this all possible is my kitchen scale, this gives me a more precise weight (usually in grams) to convert into calorie count. You can get kitchen scales for pretty cheap now, I got my scale from Amazon.

A few of my snack packs.

Here is a list of some of my fave calorie packs:

• 5 slices pepperoni and 1/2 ounce cheese (different cheeses have different calorie counts so measure accordingly)
• 5 slices salami and about 1/2 ounce cheese
• 1 boiled egg
• 1 rice cake with 1 tablespoon peanut butter
• 1/2 ounce almonds and about 8 dried apricots
• 2 black licorice and 10 almonds
• 1/2 can of chunk light tuna and 1/3 cup cooked couscous with cucumber
• 2 tablespoons of hummus and as much celery as you want
• 10 baby carrots and 1 tablespoon peanut butter
• 1 apple (approx.) or 1 banana
• 6 dried apricots and 1/2 ounce of dark chocolate
• about 2 cups of popcorn
• 6-8 shrimp and 1/4 cup cocktail sauce
• 1/2 of a honeydew
• and so SOO much more :-)

With the kitchen scale you can pretty much make anything a low-cal snack pack and having it portioned out makes me so much more aware of how much I'm eating.

And for my homemade items, I use this calorie calculator to compute the total then figure out my serving size. It is amazing how much (or how little) 100 calories can be.

Note:
Another way to cut out a few calories is to use smaller plates. Standard dinner plates are between 10-11 inches in diameter. I use 8 1/2 inch salad plates for our meals and it really makes a difference. Place the same size portion of food on both plates to see the difference for yourself. It's definitely a mental trick but it works!

Peachy Corned Beef

My hubby introduced me to this dish and I am so glad that he did. I had only tasted the traditional corned beef of boiled meat, cabbage and potatoes before, in fact, I had no idea it was made any other way. Well, my husband had only ever had it the Peachy way (which has so much flavor) and I distinctly remember him asking me if I was sure I cooked the corned beef correctly the first I made it for him when we were newlyweds! After a few more questions and a lot of laughs we finally figured out that we both had very different memories of corned beef. So I asked my Mother-in-Law for a copy of the recipe, made it the following week and I have never made it the old way again. I crave this corned beef and make a point to purchase extra briskets when they go on sale after St. Paddy's Day just so I can have more of it in the few months that follow! And...with a pressure cooker it only takes an hour for tender corned beef!


The saltiness of the corned beef and the
sweetness of the peaches are an
awesome combination!

Peachy Corned Beef
Ingredients:

• 4 pound corned beef brisket
• 1 small head green cabbage, cut into 1/8's
• 4-5 medium red potatoes, quartered
• 1 can (29 ounce) peach slices, reserve 1/4 cup peach juice
• Glaze
• 1/4 cup peach juice
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Directions:
Cook corned beef brisket with spice packet until tender according to your preferred method. My preferred method is the pressure cooker (surprise, surprise) at high pressure for 55 minutes.
Let cool for an hour in the cooking liquid (do not throw cooking liquid away). When cool, cut into 1/2 inch thick slices across the grain and place in a 3 quart baking dish, overlapping the pieces. Arrange the peach slices around the edge.
Whisk the glaze ingredients in a medium bowl or measuring cup. Pour 3/4 of glaze over peaches and corned beef.
Bake at 375 for 45 minutes to an hour, pouring the rest of the glaze over the peaches after 30 minutes or so. While corned beef is baking, cook cabbage and potatoes in the cooking liquid to desired tenderness.
When corned beef is done remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes before serving. Plate it with your cabbage, potatoes and a little extra mustard on the side, oh baby!

Yield: 6 servings

These make awesome sandwiches the next day!

The heavy syrup canned peaches work best but I have been using the natural juice peaches for awhile now. They work well but the glaze doesn't get quite as thick.

Salsa Verde

Here is a little green to add to your St. Patrick's Day meals. Salsa verde is my version of ketchup, I put it on EVERYTHING! I love it on my eggs in the morning, I dip my grilled cheese in it for lunch and I smother it on my fish tacos for dinner. And let me tell you how awesome the house smells while all the ingredients roast away in the oven...YUM!

This makes me smile!

Salsa Verde
Ingredients:

• 2 pounds tomatillos, husks removed and washed
• 2 poblano peppers
• 2-4 jalapenos (depending on heat preference)
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 4-5 garlic cloves, lightly smashed
• 1 handful cilantro
• 1 tablespoon olive or avocado oil
• 1/4 cup lime juice (use bottled if you are planning to can this salsa)
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon each salt, pepper, oregano and cumin

Directions:
Preheat oven to 475. Place first 6 ingredients onto a large sheet pan or roasting dish, drizzle with oil and toss to coat. Roast for about 20 minutes, just until the tomatillos and peppers start to char.
While roasting mix remaining ingredients in a medium bowl.
Blend all ingredients together (may have to do this in batches) and pour into a medium saucepan.
Bring to a boil then reduce heat and let simmer for 5 minutes.

If canning:
Pour salsa into sterilized pint jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace, clean rims before placing the lids on securely. Place jars in a large stockpot and cover jars with at least 1 inch of hot water. Bring to a rolling boil and continue to boil for 12 minutes. Carefully remove from stockpot and let cool. Before storing, make sure that the jars sealed properly. Will store for 1 year.

If freezing or keeping in the refrigerator:
If you are not canning you can use fresh lime. Pour salsa in airtight container of choice (if freezing, make sure container is freezer safe). Will store in refrigerator for 2-3 weeks and freezer for up to 3 months.

Yield: about 4 pints

The reason fresh lime is not preferred for canning is that the pH can vary quite a bit and when you are canning, pH is important. Bottled lime juice is more consistent in pH levels.