Homemade Cooking From-Scratch Projects

Just because I haven't posted as many homemade projects over the last year doesn't mean that we haven't been doing them!  Here is a roundup of some of our projects from summer-fall 2011.

Peach Ice Cream - This was super fun to try with the girls - what kid wouldn't want to make ice cream?  I had gotten this large ice cream maker at a yard sale a while back, and we had never used it before.  It is the kind that uses rock salt and ice, which, let me tell you, is a bit of a messy process.  The resulting ice cream tasted fresh and delicious, but I had trouble getting it the right consistency.  In the end I just put it in the freezer to harden it up.  This project was one that was all about the experience, rather than about saving money and doing it on a regular basis.

Wheat Thins - This is a great recipe and shockingly easy.  We have made them a number of times - whenever I can't get a good deal on store-bought crackers.  My Silpat baking matis so helpful for rolling them out and transferring them to the cookie sheet.

Kale Chips - This was one of the many, many recipes using kale and other greens that we made during our CSA summer.  I wouldn't say that anyone in the family was ready to replace regular chips with these, but most of us liked them.  It is pretty great when all three of your preshool kids are asking for more kale!

Tomato Sauce - I had never really made homemade tomato sauce before, and I was excited to try it.  The first recipe we made was this one from Jamie Oliver.  I really liked the fresh taste, although my husband thought it was a bit bland.  My 5 year old enjoyed getting to chop the tomatoes!

Fried Okra - When I was in kindergarten in North Carolina in the '80's, one of my favorite foods in the cafeteria was fried okra!  It was fun to recall that memory and try making it myself.  I think I was the member of the family who ate most of this, but I certainly enjoyed it.  You do have to watch out for the tough, chewy pods though.

More Tomato Sauce - Near the end of the summer, the farm had an awesome deal on ten pounds of tomatoes!  I decided to go for it and made another big batch of sauce.  With this recipe I first blanched and skinned the tomatoes.  This sauce had fewer veggies and I thought tasted more like a jarred sauce (in a good way).

Raspberry Lemonade - This one is pretty self-explanatory.  I think I made this after our raspberries from the farm were a bit manhandled by "helpful" little hands!

Potato Chips - This was so much fun and something else I have always wanted to try.  We had a great time harvesting potatoes at the farm, and then we came home and made potato chips.  The key with these is of course to slice them as thinly as possible.  I don't have a mandolin cutter, so I just had to do the best I could with a nice.  The thinnest chips came out the crispiest, but all of them were absolutely delicious.  Homemade chips do not stay crispy long, however, so this is something to make and enjoy on a weekend, rather than to stockpile for long-term snacking.

I really love trying new homemade cooking projects, especially with my kids.  Sometimes I find that making the item is a great way to save money, and I incorporate it into my routine.  Other times it is just a fun experience to see how something is made.  It is really important to me that my children understand where their food comes from and that they are involved in preparing it.

What do you like to make homemade?

Frugal Success and Failure

It's been a week of both success and failure in the frugal life - don't so many weeks seem that way?

On Monday, I was pleased to actually accomplish an afternoon of "freezer cooking."  I baked calzones (and the kids made mini pizzas) and chocolate beet/carrot bread (tastes a lot better than it sounds), and I also cooked up big pots of black beans and rice.

It was very satisfying to get a bunch of cooking accomplished in one afternoon, even if very little of this will even make it to the freezer.  These days I can't seem to set aside a whole day for once a month freezer cooking - due mostly to the amount of time and energy it takes every day to care for and entertain three preschool kids!   Instead, I am trying to accomplish a couple of hours of cooking at the beginning of each week, because it takes so much stress out of the week to have some of the more extensive cooking done.

Unfortunately, the frugal success of pre-preparing several homemade items was tempered by a real bargain-shopping failure on Tuesday!

As another part of my attempts at better organization, on Sunday I had prepped my coupons for Bloom's super double coupons day this week.  We go to the farm on Tuesday mornings, and I had decided to try to stop at Bloom on the way home.  This was a risk, since we are all pretty tired after a hot morning in the outdoors, but I nevertheless gave it try.  Well, the kids were well-behaved; Bloom had all the items in stock; I found a couple of extra deals - I happily sailed into the checkout line.  And those of you who are up local couponing bargains will already have figured out my error - the super double coupons day was on Monday.

I admit - I was too embarrassed to take items off my order, since practically my whole order was double coupon items.  I purchased the whole order and was just grateful that it was relatively small.  In the end, most of the items were still an okay deal with the undoubled coupon, though I definitely would not have purchased a couple of them if I had not thought they were a more outstanding bargain.

In defense of my own mental state - Bloom ran several weeks of super doubles days on Tuesdays recently, so I guess my mind was stuck in that mode.  You better believe I'll be double and triple checking the dates of particular promotions in the future.

I was a little frustrated and disappointed leaving the store, especially as I had put the time and energy into prepping and carrying out the shopping trip.  But I try to chalk these errors up to a learning experience and let them go.  Frugal living always involves a certain amount of experimentation, and everyone makes mistakes.

I am grateful that the loss of a few dollars in doubled coupons won't make or break our budget right now  On to the next bargain!

Fruits of the Farm

A sampling of how we've been using our CSA produce . . .

 Everything above is from the farm, except the carrot . . . 

. . . into a spring stir-fry!

 Tart cherries

The contents of a box from two weeks ago - we've moved from spring greens into "chunkier" summer produce. 

 Sausage and Vegetable skillet - this was especially yummy over pasta.

 Grilled broccoli topped with purple basil and parmesan cheese

 Zucchini Ricotta Galette - this was delicious, and I felt so gourmet for  making a recipe from Smitten Kitchen.  (Thanks to Slow Mama for the link to this.)

 Peach cobbler

 Dark Chocolate Zucchini Bread - I made up this recipe, and I have to say it was delicious!  I will share,

Our grilled feast from yesterday - food for the week!

How have you been using summer's bounty?

Homemade Tortilla Chips

I feel like it is so long since I've done a DIY cooking or baking post!  Since Baby #3 came along, it is just so much harder to spend my days making homemade English muffins or bagels!  Still, I absolutely love trying new "from-scratch" projects, and slowly, slowly I'm getting back into them again.

Last week, I was watching some short videos on Swagbucks to earn more bucks, and of course I clicked over to the Food Network videos.  Paula Dean had a video on frying your own tortilla chips, and it looked so easy.  We love chips and salsa around here, and I'm always looking for ways to save on our weekend snack.

As luck would have it, I had just bought two 12-packs of Wegmans corn tortillas for $.50 each, so I decided to try this project that very day.

I fried the chips in canola oil, since that's the oil that I keep around for general baking.  I put about 3/4 inch in my stainless steel skillet, and heated it on my electric stove at about medium high.  I did have to keep turning the temperature down as I cooked, since of course electric stoves don't keep consistent heat.  The biggest problem I have with frying is that I don't have an electric skillet that keeps a constant temperature, so I just have to do my best with adjusting the dial.

Really, it was pretty simple to fry the chips.  After heating the oil until it bubbled when I splashed in a drop of water, I fried each chip for a minute or so on each side.  It was fairly easy to tell when they were done, because they started to really look like chips.  After they came out, I laid them on paper towels to soak up the extra oil and sprinkled them right away with Kosher salt.

The chips were attractive and delicious!  They reminded me of the kind of tortilla chips you get at a nice Mexican restaurant. Since I cut the tortillas into quarters, a package of 12 made 48 thick, substantial chips.  I'll bet that's about as much (at least by weight) as you get in a regular sized bag of tortilla chips, for which I pay $2.50/bag for Wegmans brand.  The packages of tortillas I used are over $1 regular price, but I bet if you purchased those huge bags of corn tortillas you could get as low as $.50 for 12, or even lower.

Of course, any time you fry individual pieces one by one it is a little time-consuming.  And since I certainly couldn't hold a fussy baby while working with hot oil, I had to do this in fits and starts.  Also, although the chips still tasted good a couple of days later, they weren't quite as crispy as store-bought chips.  However, it was neat to make a snack that was a little more traditional "chip" than our homemade corn chips.

I think this project would be great for a weekend or party, or for a Mexican dinner if you have a little extra time.  I definitely plan to try it again.

Check out more great frugal ideas at Frugal Fridays.

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February Freezer Cooking

For really the first time since Baby Gem was born at the end of August, I actually did a freezer cooking session for the month!  Well, it turned out to be two different sessions; one on a random weekday when everything happened to be relatively calm and one on Saturday. 

Here's what I made:
- Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
- 6 bran muffins (from a mix I happened to have)
- 1 lb. black beans cooked and frozen
- 6 lbs. of baked chicken fingers
- about 12 Apple Phyllo Triangles (using up an ancient roll of phyllo dough from the freezer!)
- big pot of chili (not pictured)
- 2 batches (18 total) of Bread Machine Bagels (not pictured)

I was glad to get this much accomplished, since finding time for cooking from scratch is a lot harder these days!

However, I still don't feel like my freezer is fully stocked for the month.  For one thing, we seem to eat a lot more a lot more quickly than we used to, between a hungry breastfeeding Mommy and growing kids.  It seems like we've already eaten a decent amount of this stuff!  Also I think that since I can no longer find the time to spend one entire day cooking and have to spread it out into smaller sessions, I feel less productive.

Still, it is so helpful to have some baked goods and dinner items prepared ahead of time, even if we do eat them up in a week or two.

PS - Over at Life as Mom you can see more freezer cooking results.

November Freezer Cooking

Over the past week or so, I've been trying to slowly do some freezer cooking.  This was challenging, as I am still at the post-partum point where it's a victory to get a homemade dinner made.  However, it was important to me to try get a little extra cooking in, so that I would have some backup food for those crazy days.

I managed to fit some freezer cooking during a couple of times when my toddler napped, and I did a bunch one afternoon when a dear friend took the girls for a few hours.  I also am accomplishing a lot by doubling/tripling/quadrupling the dishes I make for dinner.  It take hardly any extra effort to make a large quantity of something versus a small one, and then I have dinner for multiple nights or to freeze.  So right now I am making everything in huge quantities! 

Here's the cooking I accomplished recently:
- 12 homemade breakfast "hot pockets" using refrigerated crescent rolls
- 24 muffins (from mixes)
- 1 loaf chocolate chip banana bread
- 1 large pan baked oatmeal
- bag of homemade baked chicken nuggets
- huge batch of crock pot BBQ chicken - ate 3 times and 1 dinner in freezer
- huge pot of crock pot beef stew - ate 3 times

Some of this might not be technically "freezer cooking" since it never made it to the freezer!  It definitely would be nice to make everything over a day or two and sock it away, but that is just not going to happen in my life right now.  However, at least I stocked us up with a few homemade items to give us a start on the rest of the month!

WFMW: Shortcut Baking Day

This is the last week in which we're receiving meals from our church, so soon I will be back to cooking for my family on my own!  In preparation for menu planning next week, I attempted a mini baking day this week.  Here's what I accomplished:

- One french bread veggie pizza

- One loaf berry bread

- One small batch chocolate cran-raisin cookies

- One pound cooked red beans

My strategy this time was to make the quickest things I could find.  That meant using any baking mixes or other "shortcut" foods I had around. Thus I baked up a Williams Sonoma berry bread mix that a friend had brought with dinner, plus a jarred cookie mix that I had put together around last Christmas.  Then I took a loaf of Pillsbury refrigerated French bread dough (which had also come with dinner from a friend), unrolled it, and turned it into a quick pizza!  While I assembled everything else, the beans simmered on the stove. 

In total, I probably spent less than two hours on the cooking, while my two year old mercifully slept and the baby snuggled in a front carrier.  I had also been hoping to add the beans to a big pot of chili, but that ended up having to wait for another day.  I was happy to put together just a few dishes to give myself a head start on daily cooking!

These days, using shortcuts and having very modest goals Works for Me!

Homemade Hamburger and Hotdog Buns

I've been meaning to share a new DIY food I've tried this summer, but the time has gotten away from me.  However, there still should be plenty of time to barbecue, so why not make some homemade hamburger and hotdog buns?

I'd been wanting to try homemade buns for a while, so when a friend suggested a recipe, I tried it almost immediately.  Verdict: a keeper!  The buns taste like the form that store-bought buns are imitating; a tastier, fresher, better textured version of what you're used to.  It's always good when homemade food tastes like that!

The recipe shared by my friend from a cookbooks of her mom's is pretty similar to this recipe, although mine calls for about 4-1/2 cups of flour and makes up to 16 rolls.  The buns are really simple to make.  I use the dough cycle on the bread machine to mix the dough and for the inital rising.  Then I shape them and let them rise again, then bake them.  It really is hardly more trouble than making my regular sandwich bread.  I also like to substitute a cup of whole wheat flour for one of the cups of bread flour for a little extra nutrition.

I didn't do an exact price comparison, but I'm confident I can make a batch of 16 for less than $1.  Since the cheapest I can find store-bought buns is an 8-pack for $.99, I'm at least cutting costs by 50% in making these. 

Plus, you really impress people if you serve them hamburgers and hot dogs on homemade rolls!

Check out Frugal Fridays at Life as Mom and Mrs. Moneysaver for other frugal ideas!

Where I'm Storing My Freezer Cooking . . .

. . . my new freezer!!!

I've been wanting an extra freezer for a little while, but have been discouraged by the cost (hundreds of dollars) and our lack of a lot of extra space.  Even on Craigslist, I didn't see many freezers for much less than $100, and the ones I did see tended to be old, dirty ones from the garage.

So imagine my excitement at finding this one at a yard sale on Saturday morning, priced at $50.  And the sellers had mentioned that they were open to negotiation, so I offered $40 and was accepted!  This freezer is a Kenmore, is super clean, and is upright rather than a chest, which is convenient.  Plus it is only about 3 feet tall, which is about the smallest I'm going to get.

I'm really excited to see how having the additional freezer space may help me save even more money.  Before if I found marked-down meat, super-cheap produce, or another deal on perishables, I could never buy much more than we would soon eat.  Now I'll have much more ability to stockpile.

Additionally, when I am able to do a freezer cooking day I'll be able to freeze a lot more.  This is very pertinent right now when I'm trying to store up food for us to eat when the baby is born.  I'm hoping I'll get the new freezer pretty full before D-day!

Easy Freezer Meals

In addition to packing for the beach trip for myself and the girls this week, I've also been preparing food to freeze for my husband to eat while were gone.  It's important to me that he have easy and nutritious meals available without spending money eating out.  (Plus, then he has more time to work on the home projects he's planning!)  Here are some of the items I'm preparing for him: 

Breakfasts - Michael will probably eat a bowl of cereal at home, and then grab a yogurt to take with him to work.  I also made a batch of homemade bagels and frozen them.

Work Lunches - We used a Restaurant.com gift card to eat at our favorite pizzeria on Father's Day.  Since the gift card had a $50 minimum purchase (which goes far at this reasonably priced restaurant), we ordered two pizzas to go.  Then I froze them in  packages of two slices.  Michael can grab one of these each day as his lunch, with no sandwich-making or time involved!

I'm also leaving little ziploc bags of chips, granola bars, and invidividual cups of applesauce and diced fruit as snacks he can take to eat throughout the workday.

Dinners - Chili and lasanga were his requests, so that's what I'm making.  I'm freezing a small lasanga in aluminum foil, which he can thaw and bake and then eat over several days.  The chili I'm packaging in individual serving size plastic containers. 

He'll also have plenty of fresh salad and spinach from our garden, which he knows that he has to pick to maintain the garden.  He might even get the first tomatoes or cucumbers too!

PS - I hope this list doesn't make it sound like I'm an oppressed wife or something!  Even though it is some extra work this week, I'm happy to prepare this stuff for him.  I'm the one that handles the food preparation in our family, and I know Michael appreciates that.  In return, I appreciate the fact that he rarely complains about what I make and is willing to eat everything homemade instead of going out. :-)

Photo by pausimausi.