Stock Up for Spring! by Duck Momma

Stock pot with chicken and veggies

Warm weather is on its way. . . really. . . not that you can tell this week. But it is and when it gets warm, Goose and I will be busy enjoying it! After spending all day outside, finding the energy to fix dinner can be a big challenge. I am a huge fan of having plenty of rich homemade chicken stock in the freezer to make everything easier, from quick week night dinners to nursing early spring colds.

Stock is always a great way to use every bit of the items you buy. You pay for those chicken backs when you buy whole chickens. You pay for leek tops, celery leaves, and mushroom stalks. So use them! They are all still very flavorful, but might not be great served on a plate alone. In my stock pot you will find those chicken backs, leek tops, celery, carrots, red onions, fresh garlic, lemon zest, as well as some tougher chicken that I had in the freezer.

The lovely rainbow of herbs and spices in my stock pot

But it doesn't end there! I take great pride in my herb and spice cabinet and I love using them. Not sure what to use? Smell them. Do they smell like they would pair with a chicken dish? I typically use kosher salt (if you don't have sea salt this is an excellent substitute), black pepper, bay leaves, corriander, thyme, rosemary, lavender, garlic powder, oregano, and saffron. Its a wide array but they compliment eachother well and do a lot to make my large pot of stock even better.

So what can you do with all those odds and ends?Make life easier of course!
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Rueben Quesadillas by Tomato Mama

   

      Happy St. Patrick's Day! Here is my spin on an "Irish" meal to celebrate the day. Tomato Papa and I are big fans of Reuben sandwiches, but one day I decided to put a twist on the recipe. It's easy, quick and satisfying. Easy, quick and satisfying are good when I'm trying to cook and look after Pickle who is always into something these days!

     I used corned beef lunch meat for this recipe since it's fairly flat. Thicker meat would make for an unwieldy quesadilla in my opinion. I start by slicing up the lunch meat.

  
    Pile on some sauerkraut and swiss cheese slices (shredded would be fine) on a tortilla. Cover with the other tortilla and bake on a cookie sheet for 8-10 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

     Use a pizza cutter to slice them up and use thousand island dressing as a dip. Tomato Papa and I have gone back and forth about putting the thousand island dressing in the quesadilla, but we prefer to dip them. Enjoy with some green beer!

Thrifty Tomato Frugal Foodie

I've been on a mission to add some new frugal recipes to my repertoire. 

Check out the other posts in the series so far...

Eating Well On a Budget

Budget Cookbook series

This time I worked on The Frugal Foodie Cookbook : Waste-Not Recipes for the Wise Cook  by Lara Starr with Lynette Shirk. 

I love that this book is all about the idea that frugal cooking is NOT about just using only dirt-cheap ingredients, but getting the most out of the food you can afford. 

That is exactly what I learned from this book. It is full of wonderful tips and tons of tasty recipes that I was excited to try, but what I took away from this was delicious twists on some recipes I already make or love. 

I tried the Sweet and Sour Glazed meatloaf. I forgot to get a picture, but it got the seal of approval from Tomato-Papa.  Two helpings in he told me, "You can make this again" in between bites. 

I also made Sushi Salad. It was easy and fresh. Like a loose sushi roll.  I had recently gotten rice, cucumber, avacado, and crab meat on sale so it was the perfect storm for this recipe tasting. I made some fried cream cheese wontons to do with it and add some crunch, but I'm pretty sure the un-healthiness of them cancelled out any benefit from the salad. It was a yummy lunch anyway!

To wrap this book up I tried the Coffee Mug Cakes. They are basically Warm Delights ( Betty Crocker) with stuff that you have on hand in your kitchen. I have gotten W. D.'s a few times free with coupons, but they were just ok. I wasn't a big fan, but I keep getting them everytime they are free! I thought this would probably taste about the same, but this recipe is so much better! It really is an easy, quick chocolate cake recipe baked right in a coffee mug. Don't tell Tomato-Papa ( who is the chocolate lover in this house ) that I split the recipe in half between the two mugs so that I could just try a little. Next time, I will make him the full recipe in one mug. Topped with some vanilla ice cream it was a really great and frugal dessert! 

Up next...

Our Farmers Market by Duck Momma

Duck Momma's favorite stop at the market, Sweet Street Spices

Goose taking the trip seriously. . . to be fair, she just woke up

Tomato Momma and Pickle stopping for cheese! Mmm

Yesterday was Farmers Market day. We love our Farmers Market, it is really great to support local business, farmers, and artisans. Plus its just a lot of fun. This time of year is sort of the limbo point, its not really any season so the produce is a little more sparse but spring is coming and everything will start popping up!
I love finding fresh local produce, it almost always tastes better and can sometimes save you a bit.

We had some lovely finds though. I visited one of my favorite places on earth, Sweet Street Spices. They have such variety and make it so affordable, which is good thing because I have trouble controlling myself there. This time garlic, majoram, onion powder, cayanne pepper, corriander, and caraway seeds came home with me. I also found some beautiful heriloom carrots (which turned into goodies for Goose and glazed carrots for Momma and Daddy) and leeks!
Tomato Momma found crisp apples and tasty cheeses. Yum!

Even though it was a little empty this time, the sights and smells were delicious and we can't wait for next time!

One of my purchases, Heirloom Carrots. . . More on these to come.  . .

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Picture Perfect by Duck Momma

Being able to combine personal interests and my family is something I have been able to take a lot of pride in. I have always loved and played with photography. My dad was always amazing at it, and my grandpa got me started by giving me his Cannon A100 SLR camera. That was it, I was hooked like a hungry fish in at a bait buffet. . . ok not the best line but I was hooked.

I will skip the part where I go on and on about my fasination with film and the development process, the length of time it took to convince me to go digital, and we will move right up to the current moment, my little Goose.

Every momma wants to catch every moment, I have four different cameras about that I use. Minor shutterbug issues aside, I have been able to put my love of photography to great use. I have a lovely frame for month by month portraits. But those can get so expensive: sitting fees, shots taken, and what parent can walk away from great shots of their beautiful baby so the packages sky rocket. . .

I have the answer! Now this may not work for all, but if you have a camera you love ( mine is a Nikkon D60 that we got for a steal second hand) and a little bit of pretty fabric like faux crushed velvet (think holiday wear), you can do your own!

Using an online photo service like Shutterfly or Snapfish to print, diaper rewards points for photo packages, and my own house for a studio, we get sets of pictures every month and we can keep the grandparents up on their baby fix for under $10.00. Yep $10.00!

So if you ever thought of trying, Go for it! Besides whocan get your baby to smile better than you? Start snapping!

Goose 2 months

Goose 4 months

Goose 5 months

Goose 6 months

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Budget Cookbook Series by Tomato Mama

We are on a strict grocery budget here at the Tomato household. I try to keep a close eye on how much we spend on groceries. I use everything I can to help keep the grocery bill low. I coupon, stockpile, buy loss leaders, mark-downs, and comparison shop. It's a lot of work, but I've been doing it for awhile now and can see how much of a difference all of it makes to bank account.

I also have been collecting and concocting budget friendly meals for a few years now. It is important to me to feed my family as many healthy options as I can, but it is incredibly difficult to keep things tasty and interesting on a shoestring budget. While browsing at my local library, I came across the "budget friendly" cookbook section. I grabbed a bag full and have been impressed with what I found! 

What I'm looking for in a cookbook like these are new ideas. I want some ideas on how to use the food already in my pantry and freezer and I don't want to have to buy tons of new ingredients to make them work. 

Tomorrow I will post my first cooking experiment with a book called EatingWell on a Budget (EatingWell).  I'm trying a few recipes from this book and can't wait to share them with you! 

In the meantime, here are some ideas for saving money on cooking and getting your grocery budget healthy...

1. Know how much you can afford to spend on groceries and stick to it! The Tomato household grocery budget is currently $250 a month. I do not include toiletries and household items in this list right now. 

2. Make a meal plan! By looking at the grocery store ads and coupon blogs I plan about a week of meals at a time with the deals I find. I write down 7 dinner ideas, lunch ideas and breakfast options. I make a loose plan for what day I'm going to make each meal, but I'm flexible. 

3. Cook once, eat twice. When possible I make a double batch of a meal and freeze half of it for another night's meal.  One of my favorite meals to do this with is stuffed shells, but I also cook rice and waffles in large batches for freezing. 

4. Use coupons if you can. Not only that, but go to a grocery store that doubles your coupons to get the most bang for your buck. Not all areas get great coupons in their Sunday paper, but there are a lot available online as well. I do not use as many coupons as I used to, but they are still a big part of my shopping trips. ( More on this in a later post.) 

5. Look for markdowns at the grocery store. Every time I go to my local Meijer I find markdowns on meat, bread, pastries and fruit.  

6. Shop your local Farmer's Market. Duck Momma and I are lucky enough to have an indoor, year round market in our town and are planning a trip soon. We will show you how we did in an upcoming post!

If you missed it, here is a frugal meal idea I posted a little while back. It's one of the Tomato Family faves! 

Shredded Buffalo Chicken Sandwich

Mr. Meow: A Sock Puppet by Duck Momma

Why must dryers eat socks? Where do they go? Its like somewhere between washer and dryer and drawer there is an interruption of space and time... a sock twilight zone... And what do we do with those poor single socks left behind? We make sock puppets!

Mr. Meow was really pretty easy. A few tiny pieces of felt scrap, a lone sock, and some thread should do it.

His ears are made by folding the points of a triangle together and stitching them together. I tacked each ear approximately where I wanted and then continued all the way around. Its easiest with your hand in puppet position but be careful!

His nose and eyes are simply felt that I stitched together. A blanket stitch works very well.

It took a couple tries to get all his features where I wanted but in the end perfection doesn't really matter. Goose was impressed.

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Dinner Plans by Duck Momma

Its cold out, and it's so easy to get beat down by the winter blues. Its easy to get beat down by mid week" I don't know what to do for dinner" syndrome too, but hope is in sight!

Assuming you have some of the basics around, this meal comes in at around$8- $10 total (closer to$15 for a family of 3 or 4. ) Tonight we are having thick cut pork chops with a big hearty apple and onion saute, glazed carrots, and spinach with a little bacon!
First the pork chops: finding them in sale is the first key and it does happen so keep your eye out. Second is getting those chops in a brine. I made mine with kosher salt (key ingredient), black pepper, smoked paprika, onions, celery, apples, garlic, and carrots. This is all done the day before, so just chop, dump, fridge, and you're done!

Next lets work on carrots. I just wanted to use up the carrots I had, and they were a little small so my pieces aren't all identical, but the sizes are as similar as I could get.  This would be awesome if you had baby carrots. First chop up your carrots and pop them into water to blanch. You don't even need to peel them, which is really helpful if they are skinny carrots. Season your water with salt and we are just going to blanch. Cook til your desired tenderness, and into a salty ice bath to shock! After they have been schocked you can just rub the outside skin off with a dish towel. So easy and so fast! The carrots can hang out until close to dinner time. When you are ready melt and combile a couple tablespoons of buttter, garlic, about 1/4 or so cup of brown sugar and salt.  A splash of water will help things melt faster and you can cook it out. Toss in carrots and simmer to coat!

Now for those pork chops! They go right from the brine to a nice hot skillet with a touch of butter. Cook around 6 minutes on each side. Don't mess with them while they cook! After the 12 minutes let them rest on a plate while you work on your saucy saute!

Add long cut onins and thin apple slices to the same skillet you cooked your prok chops in. A pat of butter and about 1 cup white wine to deglaze. Let everything cook together and get saucy and wonderful. I added some salt, garlic, and smoked paprika (same seasoning I used on my chops!)
After everything is where you want it add the chops back in to heat through and smother with apples and onions. Yum!
Bacon and spinach are easy. Crisp your bacon and add spinach. I use frozen sppinach I thawed while cooking everything else.
Thats it! You are done! Its time to scoot up to the table and be super proud of yourself! Enjoy!

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Upcycle project 2: Mmm Strawberries by Duck Momma

I am so excited about this project.  I love strawberries. Not only are they one of my favorite foods, but they always inspire a feeling of summer and family. My mom and I pick strawberries every year and spend a day making the most amazing freezer jam. (I will be coming back to this closer to strawberry time, it will be little Goose's first year!) It has always been special to me.

These adorable little berries are made from a pair of pajamas that had a worn hole in the toe. I couldn't fix the hole but I saw a whole (yay puns!) new opportunity. Not only do I love the berries as I mentioned, I love simple toys. I want Goose to learn about her world and use her imagination. I also love cooking and I want to share that with her. Finally we love The Very Hungry Caterpillar and I am working on tangible "food" to count and observe as he eats!

• So with all that inspiration I started out by cutting out all the whole strawberries. and trimming them up.
• Next I stitched them back to back using a blanket stitch, (thanks Tomato Momma!) and began stuffing.
• It was then just a matter of repeating until I was finished! And 9 berries later, I have a very happy baby.

They are squishy and easy to hold. She was so excited about them, talk about success! Her selection of felt and cloth food is growing and hopefully so is her mind! We have already had so much playing with these fun little bites, I can't wait for the next wave of inspiration.

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