Meal Prep Mania!

I hate to cook when I come home from a long day at work. I won't do it. I just won't. I refuse. Even if I plan to do it, I won't do it.  Additionally, as a single person, when I do make a meal, I often have to eat if for days. This bores me, and before I know it, it's 555-PZZA to the rescue.  I end up spending more money than I have on food that is easy, but not especially tasty or good for me.

To combat that, this year I cooked up a storm over Winter Break, and I froze everything in individual portion sized bags, giving me enough dinners for about 3 months of weeknight meals.  So, if I stick with my plain I will have healthy meals each night that I can heat up in less time than it takes to order a pizza!

Here's what I made (linked recipes where available):

Budget Bytes Black Bean Quesadillas (vegetarian):
This is probably my favorite meal. I could eat it daily. The recipe makes 8-10 quesadillas. I swapped out frozen corn for peppers because I had some in my veggie drawer that I needed to use; they seem to freeze and reheat well.

One Pot Spicy Thai Noodles (vegetarian).  This is another one of my favorite recipes. It makes a ton of food, and I've yet to meet someone who didn't love it. SO GOOD. Even skeptical meat-lovers loved it. You could easily add meat to it, but I don't think it needs it.   I decided the zucchini won't freeze and reheat well, so I swapped it out for frozen peppers and green beans. I also barely cooked the veggies, so when I reheat, they will cook the first time (I hate overcooked veggies).

Turkey Kielbasa Lentil Soup:
I've blogged about this before; it's one of my favorites. I added a bunch of crushed red pepper to make it more spicy and added another half of a package of turkey kielbasa. Delish!

Crockpot Ziti
So yummy! And easy. I used a combo of Italian sausage and beef. You could make this meat-free and use mushrooms instead, but I think the meat flavors really takes this over the edge as one of my favorite new recipes.

Turkey Tortilla Soup:
I used leftover Christmas Dinner turkey, and it's pretty tasty. Not my favorite, but it's a cheap way to make turkey leftovers stretch. I just threw everything in a crock pot and cooked it all day,.

Pinto Bean Soup (can be vegetarian): 
Swap out the chicken broth for veggie broth to make it vegetarian (seems silly not to; I had left over chicken broth from another recipe, so I didn't). I also added a package of taco seasoning on my friend's recommendation, and it gave it some zip! That said, I don't think I'll make this recipe again, although bean soup is so easy and cheap, so I'll keep testing them out.

Budget Bytes Country Breakfast Bowls (Breakfast For Dinner) (vegetarian): 
I'm most skeptical about this recipe's ability to reheat well, but BudgetBytes has never steered me wrong before. Fingers crossed!

Chili: 
No recipe because I didn't make this; my mom did, and I snagged a couple of portions of it because it was so tasty. She used fire roasted tomatoes instead of regular diced, and it really took the chili up a notch. No recipe, but I recommend that tip!  My favorite vegetarian chili recipe uses quinoa, which sounds bonkers, but actually is really good; I'm sure I'll make a pot of this before winter is done.

Meatloaf:
No recipe, but it's hard to mess up meatloaf. Just throw beef, breadcrumbs, onion, ketchup, mustard and some seasoning together and cook it. So easy. So delicious. I can't believe I didn't like it when I was a kid; what was wrong with me?

My friend's Pasta Sauce (vegetarian):
No recipe. I made this vegetarian by swapping out the meat for more portabella mushrooms. Smelled delicious, although it all went into the freezer, so I'll have to update later!

pin 11: barley chocolate chip cookies

The Pin: Barley Chocolate Chip Cookies
The Verdict: Yum, yum, yummy. These definitely have an oaty taste, but I approve.
Nutritional Label

My barley obsession continues. I recently made a pot of stew and threw in some quick cooking barley for good measure, and it may have been the best part of the stew. Well, okay, maybe not, but it was darned good addition. Okay, on to the cookies!

I want to be clear, just because these cookies are made with barley four instead of white flour, they are still cookies. So while they might be healthier than regular cookies, they are still in no way actually healthy. A lot of sugar and butter went into the making of these cookies. But, white flour did not! I made a nutritional label (linked above) for those curious about that sort of thing.

The dough smelled and tasted good  a( little grainy as opposed to smooth), and it was not as creamy looking as regular cookie dough - defiantly denser. In fact, when I put the dough on the cookie sheet I just used my hands, there was little stickiness.  They cooked up great, smelling wonderfully as they were baking, but did spread out a little more than I'm used to with my cookies.

I am often critical of chocolate chip cookies. So, I was wondering if these would meet my standards.  Luckily they did.

While they have a slightly different taste from normal chocolate chip cookies, it's a pleasant taste - almost like oatmeal cookies, but not quite that strong.  I would still make my normal cookies for parties or functions, but if I just have a hankering for some home-made cookies, I would make these again in a heartbeat.

**If you make this with margarine, it will cut the fat by 1/3. I usually use butter, but I know some people aren't picky and may like that information. **

pin 10: homemade pasta sauce

The Pin: Great Grandma's Pasta Sauce

The Verdict: Easy-peasy, basilriffic, yummy, but not the end-all-be-all sauce

Okay, I don't normally call out people's grammar or punctuation as I know my blog is filled with errors (my journalist friend Greg has said I could benefit from a copy-editor) as I often write in a hurry. BUT, this blogger hit one of my pet peeves with her misuse of the word infamous.  She wrote, "Jason’s grandmother makes her infamous pasta dish."  as everyone seems to like this pasta dish (she is recommending others make it), I believe she meant "...her famous pasta dish."  You see, infamous means something that is famously BAD. Okay, I'm done now.

On to the review:
Making this sauce is a snap. While you do have let it simmer for 2 hours, if you make it on a lazy day (snow day, Sunday, whatever), it seems well worth it. Then again, I'm a basil and garlic whore, and there is A LOT of basil and garlic in this recipe.  My house smells amazing!

Half way through the simmering process, I decided it needed a bit more zip, so added more oregano, pepper, and salt.

I made a batch of it, and will freeze it in single/double servings packs, so when I want some spaghetti I can just grab a pack and be done.

This sauce is tasty, and I will enjoy it more than Ragu. It is so easy, I will for sure make it again, using the recipe as a base and add whatever herbs I fancy. I recommend it for novice sauce-from-scratch cooks. :)

pin 9: whole wheat pizza dough

Pizza time! I have a pizza dough recipe I like (this honey wheat pizza crust),that I posted on my "Against the Grain" a few years ago, but I saw this recipe on Pinterest, and I thought it was worth a shot as I'm always looking for ways to make my favorite Friday meal healthier.

The Pin: 100% Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
The Verdict: Mixed:  Easy to make, insane amount of prep-time, super yummy crust.

Apparently I should read recipes more carefully because I planned to have this Friday, until I read that the dough should sit in the fridge for 24-72 hours. Yikes! That's crazy; this better be the best pizza dough ever. I made the dough Friday morning (late) and made the pizza for lunch on Saturday, so it sat in the fridge for the minimum time suggested.

Slight tweaks I made to the recipe: 

• I substituted honey for the white sugar
• After you take the dough out of the fridge, it should rise for an hour on the counter. My kitchen is usually cold, so I stuck it in a warm oven for 45 minutes.
• Sadly, I don't have a pizza stone, so I pre-baked the crust for 5 minutes before putting on the toppings. 
• Because I was just making 1 pizza (I halved the recipe), I didn't bother with the parchment paper, and instead just made the pizza on my pizza pan, but in hindsight, it would have been useful for faster clean up.

Crispiness:

On her blog, the author indicated that this pizza doesn't get "crispy," but I found mine got to a good crispness level.  Crispiness was an issue with my other recipe, but I had no such problems with this -- perhaps because I pre-baked the crust and/or didn't use the parchment paper? 

My sauce and toppings:
For my sauce I used the crushed tomato recipe (on the same blog post as the honey wheat crust) because it is still the best tasting sauce I've ever made. YUM. so easy. You should do it.

My go-to homemade pizza toppings are cheese, left over hamburger, and bell peppers, but this time I opted for basil leaves, turkey pepperoni & some left over bell peppers. I used mozzarella cheese (but I usually just use whatever I happen to have): I'm not a big cheese person, so her recipe called for way to much in my book. I probably used 1/2 a cup or so.

How does it compare to my Honey Wheat Crust?

• On the one hand, it has a lighter flavor (I taste more pizza than crust) and it was easier to get a crisper crust.
• On the other hand, I had to prepare the dough days in advance. LITERALLY (I'm really hung up on this).
• I think the 100% whole wheat is a better dough than the honey wheat, but not significantly better to win out over practicality. That said, if I plan ahead and just think to make the dough during a Scandal commercial break, I could make this a normal part of my menu. 

pin 8: chicken soup with lentils and barley

The heart healthy recipes continue! Fortunately, my parents gave me a small deep freezer and a super food saver for Christmas, so I will be eating well even when I'm busy. :)  Okay, down to business:

The Pin: Chicken Soup with Lentils and Barely*
The Verdict: Delicious! This is definitely going to be a staple in my meal rotation.

Just like the lentil and kielbasa soup, this is relatively easy to make, but it would definitely be too much to deal with on a weeknight. This is a perfect Sunday (or freezer) meal.

Changes to the recipe:

• I substituted leftover turkey from Thanksgiving for the chicken.  Having to cook meat beforehand for this soup would make the prep time on this a little much, so I highly recommend making it with leftover meat.
• I think it could have used more garlic and basil, salt & pepper. I used fresh (for both the basil and garlic), but could barely taste them. I also use low sodium everything, so found I did need to salt it. I pepper everything, so it's no surprise I needed to pepper it!

*Please note, one of the pins for this recipe (the one I pinned) only lead me to an ingredient list. From there, I had to Google the recipe to get the full thing. I linked to the actual recipe above. 

pin 7: lentil soup

Some of my readers know of my heart disease phobia,* and with that phobia in mind, I've decided to take control of my heart health in 2014. This means learning to cook with barely and lentils (among other things). As you can imagine, I've been pinning recipes on Pinterest like crazy, and this is the tale of one such pin.

The Pin: Lentil and Turkey Kielbasa Soup

The verdict: Pretty damn good!

I followed her recipe exactly, although I just bought the brand of turkey sausage that was on sale & I didn't accompany the soup with bread.  I have to say, this is a good winter soup. It is hearty (heh, pun intended), and the kielbasa makes this dish delish. It was also fairly easy to make: the prep time was minimal. 

A word about Lentils: I don't think I've ever eaten lentils before, and their flavor is strong, but not unpleasant. It is one that I think may take some getting used to, but overall, I like this dish, and will eat all 10 servings of it over the course of the winter. 

Things I might do differently:  Because the spice of the kielbasa is my favorite thing about the soup, I may play around with adding other spices/herbs - not much, just something to take it up a notch. I may also throw it in the crockpot, so the flavors can mingle a bit more.  I will also quarter or halve my sausage circles so I can have more bites that include the meat. My roommate, who likes things to have a carnival of flavor will likely say this is too bland for him.

For vegetarians: the recipe says you can omit the sausage and use all vegetable broth (rather than 1/2 veggie, 1/2 chicken), but I think you will really need to spice it up if you make this. There just isn't that much flavor outside of the sausage.

One last tip: After dinner mint recommended.

*My phobia began upon learning that women's heart attacks often present themselves differently from men's, and women sometimes have heart-attacks without knowing it, which can lead to their body being wrecked, or them being dead.  I spend about 30% of the time wondering if I'm having a heart-attack.  This PSA with Elizabeth Banks is both hilarious and terrifying; enjoy! (plays automatically)

week 3, pin 3

Week of September 23rd:
 Blue "Crystal Meth" Rock Candy (Breaking Bad)
Pin Rating: Excellent for novelty
Cost: $20 (if you have to buy a  $10 candy thermometer, which I did)

Tonight is the series finale of Breaking Bad, so Panda and I decided to give BrBa a proper send-off by trying to make some "Blue Meth" of our own (out of granulated sugar and corn syrup, of course!) for our series finale party.

Our first cook didn't turn out as we hoped.  The recipe instructs you to remove the sugar mixture from heat when the thermometer reaches 285 degrees, but we did not quite do this in time, and within seconds we had over-cooked our candy. 

Even just slightly over-cooking it produced yellowed (or carmalized) candy, so when we added the blue food coloring, our candy turned green. Knowing Lydia would not be pleased, we decided we'd better try again.

For our 2nd cook, we removed the mixture from the heat a few degrees before the recipe called for us to in the hopes we wouldn't have the same green problem.

When we added the food coloring it looked a little green at first, so we added several more ( 5-7) drops of Betty Crocker's blue gel coloring.  We then worried it was going to be too dark, but thankfully it turned the perfect shade of blue!

After pouring the sugar mixture out on the lightly greased cookie sheet, we let it harden and cool for about an hour, it was easy to break apart. We put the broken pieces in a ziplock bag and pounded the candy with  a meat tenderizer until getting the right look.

Over all, I am SUPER PLEASED with this pin!   It was fun, easy, and a great way to send off Walt and Jesse.

pinterest adventures: greek yogurt pancakes

This morning I made Greek Yogurt Pancakes. I like my fruit on the side, so I made these sans blueberry, and I also changed the flour from white to wheat. Note: the recipe says to use 1/4 of the batter to make the pancake, I think this is too much. I think you could easily get 6-8 pancakes out of the recipe, not 4.



Overall Flavor Rating: A - Oh my god, these were delicious! They tasted almost exactly like regular home-made pancakes.
Time/Prep-Rating - A+ - Super easy. It took about 3-5 minutes to mix everything, then just normal pancake cook time.
Things to change for next time: nothing! YUM!