Pineapple Smoothie

I should probably save the best for last, but instead I'm doing it first! This is currently my favorite smoothie. I love the flavor, and it actually hits all four of my pregnancy nutrition weak points! I took pictures last time I made it, and here is how it comes out:

How To Make A freezer burrito

 When I first saw the recipe for Brown Bag Burritos I was a little skeptical. I wasn't sure how well Burritos would freeze. I thought the tortilla would get soggy as it thawed, and honestly, freezer burritos just didn't sound very appetizing.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Of the freezer cooking days I've done, involving a total of 3 families over three months, one of the FAVORITE recipes has been freezer burritos, particularly with those of us who go to work every day. They are incredibly convenient. Just grab one (or two) of the foil wrapped frozen burritos out of the freezer, toss them in a lunch bag, and let them thaw through the morning. They'll be just about thawed when lunch time rolls around, and a minute or two in the microwave will get them piping hot and ready to eat. No soggy tortillas, just tasty burrito goodness.

The last couple months we've done Brown Bag Burritos (recipe link above). Recently I tried another recipe, Chicken and Rice Burritos, which I like even better than the old stand by. I'll post it in the next week or two. 

In the meantime, I thought I'd give a step by step tutorial for how to make a freezer burrito--regardless of what you stuff it with. 

Start with a large tortilla (be sure to use the burrito size--small tortillas are good for tacos, but don't work well for burritos. I learned that the hard way). Place the desired amount of filling in the center of the burrito, fold the edges in (this keeps the stuffing from running out), and roll from one end.

After rolling the burrito, place it in the center of a paper towl, and roll the paper town the same way the burrito was rolled. First fold the edges of the paper towl over the ends of the burrito, and then roll it up from one side. The purpose of the paper towel is to keep the burrito from drying out when it is warmed up in the microwave later. Your burrito should now look like the paper-towel burritos above.

Take the paper-towel covered burrito and place in the center of a square of tin-foil. Repeat the burrito roll. Fold the edges of the tin-foil over the ends of the paper-towel-burrito, then roll up from one side. The purpose of the tin foil is to protect the burrito from freezer burn. Remove this before warming the burrito up in the microwave.

For a more detailed look:

Place the paper-towel burrito on aluminum foil square

Fold edges of foil over ends of burrito

Roll up burrito fro one side

Finish rolling foil so burrito is completely covered

Depending on how ambitious you were, you may end up with a pile that looks like this:

Or a Freezer that looks like this:

Freezer Cooking Day, March 2011

I can't believe how quickly February flew by!! It's been nearly 6 weeks since my last freezer cooking day, and the time has come for round #3. This time Amanda and I are being joined by a friend of ours, and with the addition of her family we are cooking for a total of 8 people.

The first step was to determine how many meals we needed per family for a month. This was an important first step, because the number of meals needed effects most of our other decisions.

Then we sat down together and picked out what recipes we wanted to do. We settled on 9 recipes, about half of them are "lunch" recipes and half of them are "dinner" recipes. The only difference between the two is how much preperation is required once taken from the freezer. The "dinner" recipes can be chicken breast, casseroles, or anything that needs a bit of cooking and/or preperation before being eaten. Lunch recipes are self contained, and the MOST preperation needed is a minute or two in the microwave. Because 4 of the 8 people we are feeding are working full time, it was important to us to have "brown bag" lunches available.

Once we had determined the number of meals and what exactly we were cooking, I took all of the  ingredients from the recipes and compiled one large shopping list. This step had a fair amount of surprises--for example, working with the 9 recipes we had chosen, cooking for 8 people, for one month, requires 40lbs of chicken (plus 102 individual chicken breasts), 40 lbs of ground beef, a cup and a half of chili powder, and 77 garlic cloves. Let's just say we won't be mincing our own.

When the list was finished we had a few things we needed to do. First, we wanted to know approximately how much we could expect to spend. So we brain dumped onto the list (which sounds a lot worse than it was). Between our memories and last weeks sale adds we got a pretty close approximation of the overall cost. Then we determined what stores we needed to go to, what items we were getting at each store, and divvied up the stores between us.

As of this morning the shopping has been accomplished, and the cooking will begin in earnest about 24 hours from now. As I won't be the only one in the kitchen this time, I'm planning on taking plenty of pictures!!

Adventures in Housekeeping--Freezer Cooking (the bean edition)

My apologies for missing last Wednesday's Adventures in Housekeeping. Last week was such a whirlwind ride that I really don't remember much of what happened--only that it happened fast!!

Last Saturday my sister-in-law and I had our second monthly Freezer Cooking Day. Friday morning we had already picked out our recipes and done the majority of the shopping when my 5 months pregnant sister called to say she was so sick she couldn't keep water down. She hoped to be well enough to cook by the next day, but wanted me to know just in case.

I told her I wasn't about to let her spend all day cooking after having a stomach bug.

So, Saturday I was on my own.

Here are the recipes we planned:

Yummy spinach soup stuff--Amanda

Tasty blended tomato soup--Amanda

Coconut Corn Soup--Sophie
 
Ministrone--Sophia


Brown Bag Burritos  These looked pretty awesome. A tasty freezer meal good for packing to work and something to break up the "soup overload"

 Marinaded Chicken Breast--  plus some other marinades

Chicken Spaghetti--Too tasty to skip.

Chihuahua Chili--I picked this mainly to spice up an otherwise poultry dominated meal plan. My man likes his meat.

Enchilada Sauce--To be used in the other recipes.

As you can see, a number of the recipes called for beans--particularly as I wanted to make my own refried beans. I've  never done much with beans before, mainly because I don't usually like them. As I've been married, though, I've learned that beans are a GREAT budget stretcher. This month it was time to start taking advantage of that.


Unfortunately I didn't do a lot of research about cooking with beans before I (enthusiastically!) dived into it. Therefore, I didn't realize that beans double in size after soaking overnight. I didn't know that when 24 cups of pinto beans are called for, that actually means just 12 cups of dry beans. 


I thought that if I wanted 24 cups of beans I should, logically, soak 24 cups. On the off chance, I reasoned, that beans expanded after soaking I should probably just soak 20 cups. Just to be safe. And if that wasn't enough we could just make do, right?


Right.


So, Saturday morning, I was faced with ALL the largest bowls in my house (three) plus ALL the crockpots (three again, one large two small) bubbling over with soaked beans. It must have been about 40 cups of pinto and 10 cups of black, but I can't really be sure. Measuring wasn't particularly possible.

My mom just laughed when she saw it. So did my husband, actually. 

My mother graciously donated most of her day to help me cook, which really was a life saver. Tomorrow I'll post a bit more about how the day itself went, and what the final results were. (plus what in the world I did with all those beans!!!!)

 

experiments in housekeeping

Of all the rooms in the house the kitchen is the place of my greatest triumphs and most frustrating struggles. It is the most difficult room to keep clean, probably because it is also my most productive work place.

 Of all the areas of struggle the spot of GREATEST difficulty in the kitchen is my sink. It is so hard to keep all the dishes done! As soon as I wash one I find 2 more that are dirty! But I get an immense amount of satisfaction when I do wake up to a clean, empty sink.

When I was first married I made it a point to always get the dishes finished before going to bed. That worked well until the bedbug crisis in December, at which point all housekeeping switched to 'survival mode.'

Now we are past that crisis and, particularly with the recent sighting of some ants, I am determined to get back on the dish-free bandwagon. So this week my experiment in housekeeping is to have a ZERO tolerance policy for dishes in the sink. Instead of focusing on having the dishes done at night, I'm focusing on not putting them in the sink in the first place. Dishes get rinsed and immediately put in the dishwasher.

We will see how it goes. My husband has kindly agreed to help out in the evenings, so perhaps with his help this experiment will be a success!