As I've been working on freezer meals, I thought of a few freezer tips to share. :)

Separating frozen foods:

Freeze foods in a stack with TWO LAYERS (of waxed paper or something) between each item in order to remove the items individually. I've learned this the hard way (no pun intended) when trying to separate frozen hamburgers that I had placed a single layer of waxed paper between.

Two layers = easy separation, peel off waxed paper. One layer = possibly impossible to separate.

The same goes for freezing casseroles in a dish and planning to remove the frozen casserole from the dish: put two layers in the dish before filling for easy removal. :)

Steel wool scouring pads:

Store your in-use steel wool scouring pad ("Brillo" pad) in a ziplock bag in the freezer between uses to slow rust. Also, don't rinse out the pad unless necessary (not at all if possible) because washing away the soap speeds rusting.

(For the record, I no longer use steel wool scouring pads; I use Bar Keeper's Friend on our stainless steel cookware.)

Storing small or bagged items in the freezer:

For the little bags of nuts, dry yeast, ground flax seed, wheat germ, or other such items that are best stored in the freezer, use a wire or plastic mesh basket to hold all the odd shapes and sizes of things -- and keep them from falling out! :)

Stacking food in the freezer:

Maximize freezer space by stacking same-size items together.

When I'm stacking frozen fruits or veggies, I like to stack them in a "pattern" of sorts -- corn, green beans, peas; corn, green beans, peas. This prevents me from needing to move too many bags of food while trying to get to the kind that ended up all on the bottom! :)

Next week (January 24, 2012) Kitchen Tip Tuesdays will be hosted by Jessica at Good Cheap Eats.

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Dust-free KitchenAid mixer bowl + 8 more tips (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Freezer food labeling tip (SnoWhite at Finding Joy in my Kitchen)
3. Tip for freezing grated cheese (Anne Jisca at Anne Jisca's Healthy Pursuits)
4. Spice organization (Liz & Doug at Pocket Change Gourmet)
5. Handmade pasta tips (The Local Cook)

I love to tease Joshua when he compliments my cooking. "I used a secret ingredient." ;)

And one of my secret ingredients? Homemade kefir. It makes a great buttermilk substitute and turns out the best biscuits and pancakes! And since kefir keeps so long in the fridge, I pretty much always have some on hand when a recipe calls for buttermilk (or even just plain milk, in baking recipes).

I've also found that my kefir grains are pretty hardy. I'd been using my current kefir grains for about a year when I got pregnant with baby #5, morning sickness hit, and Joshua cooked dinner every night for a month. (Or two. I don't really remember because I was, umm, napping!)

One thing Joshua didn't do -- and I didn't do either -- was to care for my kefir grains. I know, I know. Those little "babies" I'd been tending, even taking them with me on the airplane when I went to visit my family in May... were then left in a jar on the counter for several weeks. Every time I thought about giving them some fresh milk, I wondered if they were even still alive and then just didn't touch them.

Finally, probably about 6 weeks later, I pushed past the "I'm a bad kefir-mom" feelings and took out 2 little kefir grains and started giving them fresh milk every day. It did take about 2 weeks for them to revive, and even longer for my beautiful thick creamy kefir consistency to return. But it did! They're alive! I'm so glad. And next time "life" gets too crazy to make kefir, I'll put them in the fridge to rest like I should have done.

Giveaway this week (3 days only!):

Cultures for Health is a company located here in Washington state and they offer starters and cultures for a variety of different healthy foods -- like milk kefir, water kefir, sourdough, yogurt, buttermilk, kombucha and more! Cultures for Health also offers supplies for cheese making, sprouting, and other fun stuff.

Cultures for Health offers 9 different kinds of yogurt starters, including some that will culture right on your counter (like kefir), skipping the tedious warming of milk and monitoring temperatures. (I know some people say that homemade yogurt is super easy, but I beg to differ!) :)

The giveaway (3 winners!):

Go here to enter the Cultures for Health giveaway. Giveaway is open Monday, January 16th, 2012 through Wednesday, January 18th, 2012. THREE random winners will be given the opportunity to choose a culture of their choice from Cultures for Health! :) (Disclosure: I am an affiliate with Cultures for Health. But I love opportunities for you guys to win something I love!)

Use this code to get 10% off your order at Cultures for Health placed January 16-20, 2012: TR2012

New to kefir? Go watch my short video showing how simple it is to make!

I've also written about:

How I use kefir in recipes

Smooth and Creamy Maple-Sweetened Kefir (one of our favorite drinks!)

Photo tutorial for making homemade kefir

How to make homemade yogurt (and why I make kefir instead!) 

All my freezer cooking last week? It went great. All my blogging plans for last week? Not so great. ;) I think I underestimated how much time I'd be spending cooking and how much food I'd need to make if I wanted to have enough left for 2-3 freezer meals after we ate dinner! :)

I'm not planning much freezer cooking this week, since I have other things I need to spend time doing before Joshua's surgery next week.

We're going grocery shopping on Thursday, which will be 2 weeks since our last shopping trip. I don't think I'll need to spend much, but I do need to get a few things to hold us over for the following 2 weeks. I'll share the items/prices after the shopping trip! :)

This week's menu plan:

Monday

My mom's meatloaf, baked potatoes, peas

Tuesday

Hearty beef and lentil chili, garlic bread, green beans

Wednesday

Creamy macaroni and cheese, leftover chili, green beans

Thursday

Teriyaki salmon, brown rice, and stir-fried veggies (I made bean sprouts for this!)

Friday

Pizza, cooked veggies (and I am doing "real" pizza, not the biscuit crust kind!!)

Saturday

Beef and spinach quiche, green beans, corn

Sunday

Not sure -- depends on Ruth's birthday meal requests :)

Lunches: Bean burritos or leftovers

Breakfasts: Oatmeal or fruit smoothies

This week's menu actually is mostly planned from my pantry/freezer (unlike last week!).

For our family, this pantry challenge is a continuation of fewer shopping trips, getting my freezers organized, and starting to make and store some freezer meals. So far, we're doing okay on the shopping, the freezers are pretty organized (and I know exactly what's in there), and I'm feeling more ready for the challenges ahead now that I've got a good start on my freezer meals.

Be sure to visit the other bloggers who will be chronicling their January pantry challenges:

Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
The Finer Things in Life
Getting Freedom from Debt
Good Cheap Eats

Forgive me if I'm silly for having just figured this out, but... :)

As I was making a cup of coffee last week, I suddenly realized that I could add ground spices to the coffee as I was brewing it!

I started with cinnamon and coffee, and made a delicious cup of... cinnamon coffee!

Then yesterday, I made a chai spice blend with some freshly ground allspice and cardamom (in my suribachi), nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. Mmmm... it tasted wonderful!

There was no powdery residue in my coffee, since my coffee-making method uses a paper filter. Using ground cinnamon and other spices might not work so well in a French Press. Try cinnamon bark chips or coarsely-ground spices instead? :)

Anyway, I'm just a little excited that I can take a bag of "plain" coffee and vary the flavors according to my mood... so easily! :) And, my "homemade" flavors tasted so good -- much better than a lot of the flavored coffees I've tried. :)

My favorite way to make coffee is with the AeroPress coffee/espresso maker Joshua got for my birthday last year! You can read my AeroPress review here. :)

See also: Cozy and Warming Chai Tea Lattes for a Winter's Day (No snow yet this year in Seattle...)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Cookie baking tips (Willa at Armstrong Family Fare)
2. Sweet potato puree tips (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
3. Make-Your-Own (DIY) tips (Adrienne at Whole New Mom)
4. Snowflake birthday party tips (Christy at One Little Word She Knew)
5. Essential sauces tips (The Local Cook)
6. Tomatillos tip (Jenny at Entrusted With)
7. Individually freezing bacon w/o cookie sheets (Gwen at Gwen's Nest)
8. Cooking and baking tips (Cheryl at The Bz House That Love Built)
9. Tenderizing chicken (Living So Abundantly)

Last week I mapped out my freezer meal plan. I love having meals in the freezer, because it makes menu planning (and dinner prep!) so much easier!

My problem is that I like using the meals more than I like making them. ;) So if they're there, I tend to use them... unless I'm planning ahead for a specific event (like the birth of a new baby) and making myself be a good girl and save the freezer meals for later. :)

Our new baby isn't due until the end of March, so normally I wouldn't have started my freezer meals quite yet. But, as it happens, Joshua will be having two major surgeries (craniotomies) before that time, so I decided to jump-start my freezer meal cooking and hopefully be ready for whatever happens post-surgery. :) (The surgeries are to treat two different conditions -- Trigeminal Neuralgia and Superior Canal Dehiscence. This You Tube video describes what Joshua experiences from having SCD.)

Anyway, my freezer meals will certainly come in handy over the next few months! I'm looking forward to getting the freezer stocked with prepared (homemade!) foods again. :)

My favorite freezer meal resources/tips:

My FoodSaver. We've had ours for 10+ years and it's so handy for storing food compactly and fighting freezer burn. I wrote more about why I like having a FoodSaver here! :)

The "mold" technique -- freezing casseroles and then removing from the dish. (I then use the FoodSaver to seal the "squares" of food.) Same size = easy stacking! Plus, I'm not wasting space by storing dishes in the freezer (not to mention the cost of disposable dishes!).

The "straw" technique. For softer foods like cookies or burritos, or individually-wrapped foods (like burritos, chimichangas, egg rolls, etc.), I double-Ziplock-freezer-bag them, using a straw to suck out the air in each bag. My freezer burritos stay fresh a long time in the freezer this way!

Life As Mom's freezer tips. Check out her site for lots more variety -- she's an expert! ;)

My freezer meal plan includes mostly main dish meals. If I have time, I'll do some of the make-ahead pantry foods (like granola!). Most likely I won't do any desserts, due to time and expense. For breads, I'll just use my bread machine as-needed. We actually haven't been eating a lot of bread these days. (We often have fish and rice is a good side for that. Joshua takes beans or leftovers in his lunch rather than sandwiches.)

And the best part of my plan? I'm planning these meals into our weekly dinner menus so I can just make a super big batch and freeze the extras (hopefully 2-4 meals' worth). I'll be spending extra time on "dinner prep" each night, but I won't be spending the whole day in the kitchen. Well, okay, I will -- because we do our school work and everything else in the kitchen too. ;)

Main dish freezer meals I'm making (frozen before baking unless noted):

Quiche (I made this crustless to save time)
Beef and Bean Enchiladas (add extra sauce)
Easy lasagna (add extra sauce)
Saucy Broccoli Chicken Bake (under-cook the broccoli, put a layer of rice in the bottom)
Chicken gravy (to serve with biscuits or rice)
Spinach rice casserole
Italian Beef and Beans (to serve with pasta)
Cheesy Chicken Vermicelli
Tuna Noodle Casserole
Creamy Macaroni and Cheese
Freezer-friendly bean and rice burritos
Breakfast burritos
Three-cheese baked spaghetti (add extra sauce)

Other easy meals from my freezer:

Crock pot BBQ chicken (serve with buns or over rice)
Salmon burgers
Pan-fried pollock (serve with rice)

Soups for the freezer:

Beef Vegetable Soup
White Chili
My Mom's Chili
Veggie Bean Soup with Spinach

Breakfasts or other:

Whole wheat berry pancakes (cooked; re-warm in toaster)
My mom's granola
Cinnamon Crunch Granola
Chewy oatmeal chocolate chip granola bars
Easy baked apple oatmeal
Maple Rosemary Bean Salad
Grilled chicken breast (for on pizza, quesadillas, etc.)
Cooked pinto beans

See also: My freezer meal plan and updates from before Moshe was born! :)

I'll be using lots of the groceries we got last week -- starting with the more perishable things like spinach and broccoli. For my weekly menu plans, I'm just picking things from these lists that I haven't made yet, and then making as large a batch as possible. :)

This freezer cooking is going to be my "big" project over the next 2 weeks! I hope to get the majority of it done in that time, and then in late February after both surgeries are over I'll evaluate what I want to make/add before the new baby's born! :)

A friend took me shopping this week and we stopped at H Mart, an Asian grocery store. I got the last few things needed to make egg rolls and sushi. :)

Spring roll wrappers $1.99
Spring roll wrappers $1.29
Dried mung beans (to sprout) $3.99/lb.
Fresh ginger $0.18
Red cabbage $1.83
Rice vinegar $2.49
Green onions $0.39
Baby bok choy $0.57
Rice vermicelli $1.29

Total at H Mart $14.02

Then last night, we went to Costco. It had been 3 1/2 weeks since our last Costco trip, with just one QFC trip in-between to get eggs and oranges.

My fridge was getting pretty empty:

The freezers still had frozen fish, chicken, veggies, fruits, and butter. :) AND 3 pounds of ground beef that I found when I organized everything! :)

Now, about Costco. I spent over $400! Before we went, I planned out my freezer cooking plan for this month. I realized that I was going to need extra eggs, milk, cheese, meat, and veggies if I was going to put a bunch of dinners in the freezer (hopefully a couple months' worth) AND still feed everyone for the next ~2.5 weeks until our next shopping trip.

I've tried stretching shopping trips or "eating from the pantry" without planning for it (i.e. BUYING FOOD!) and it was a disaster. I mean, we do need to eat. ;) The only reason we can wait 2 weeks (or longer) between shopping trips is because I buy EXTRA milk, extra veggies, extra fruits.

Shopping less frequently saves time, cuts the urge to impulse-spend, and helps me make sure I use up my whole 10-pound bag of carrots from Costco... but we don't actually eat less food. ;)

Read more to see what I got for $400 at Costco (with prices)!

Happy new year! :) We enjoyed having Joshua home from work today and having one last day off from our school work. Plus, I got to go out for coffee and new-baby shopping with a friend! I am not ready for a "normal" week to resume early tomorrow morning! ;)

It's cold and windy outside, and I'm putting chili on our menu plan this week. I'll probably make White Chili since I'm out of beef. I love how chili is easy, filling, and affordable! It freezes well, too.

Here are a couple chili tips! :)

Quickly thicken chili

To quickly thicken chili, stir in a can of refried beans or a small can of tomato paste.

Frozen peppers

Buy fresh peppers on sale (I like to use bell peppers) and freeze them. I usually freeze the peppers in halves and then dice as needed! That way it's easy to get a little of whatever color(s) you need for your meal and they're not frozen together in a frosty lump.

Using dried beans

If you're cooking for more than just 1 or 2 people, using dried beans can be well worth the little hands-on time it takes. I think dried beans taste better than canned, and cooking them in my crock pot is nearly effortless! Beans (or lentils!) are an affordable way to stretch chili, and leftover cooked beans can be frozen for later use.

Flavor options

Try adding a little ground cinnamon or a few semi-sweet chocolate chips to your chili!

Personally, I like adding a bit of brown sugar to tomato-based chili. I also love freshly-ground cumin in chili! Fresh spices are the best. :D

Dip it

Serve thick leftover chili as a dip with corn chips, or as a "relish" for hot dogs.

Wrap it

You can also serve chili in a warm flour tortilla. Sprinkle in some cheese, dab on sour cream, and even crumble in a few corn chips for a tasty chili cheese burrito!

See also: Tips for cheaper chili

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Tips for homemade baby food (Willa at Armstrong Family Fare)
2. Baking tip (Rachel at Trial and Error Home Ec)
3. Salad making tips (The Local Cook)
4. Tips for fluffy mashed sweet potatoes (Living So Abundantly)
5. Saving money on lunch meat (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
6. Softening coconut oil in the winter (Stacy at Stacy Makes Cents)
7. Cooking with lentils (Finding Joy in my Kitchen)
8. Using frozen eggs (Anna at Kolfinna's Korner)

I've tried so many homemade pretzel recipes.

At first, I thought I'd go for a non-boiled version, since that's easier. If they still tasted like pretzels, then why bother with boiling them?

Well, the ones I've made that aren't boiled tasted pretty good but tasted a lot more like soft bread sticks than a soft pretzel. (And in my experience, boiling is such a simple step for the amazing texture and flavor it imparts to both pretzels and bagels, it's completely worth the extra pot to wash.)

I've also experimented with whole wheat soft pretzels. Using white whole wheat bread flour (made from hard white wheat berries in my grain mill) and adding some natural dough conditioners, the whole wheat pretzels were good, and had a very good texture... but lacked that really-good-just-not-really-healthy flavor of a white soft pretzel dipped in cheese. ;)

My conclusion? When I take the time to make homemade soft pretzels, I'm going to boil them and I'm going to use white bread flour. For something that's such a special treat, I'm not going to worry about making them super healthy!

The kids love playing with pretzel dough and making their own "baby pretzels". With my oversight, Yehoshua (7) is able to form, boil, and bake his own pretzels. Eliyahu (5) and Ruth (3) had my assistance for theirs, and Moshe (almost 2) ate his dough raw. ;)

For dipping, I love Joshua's homemade cheese sauce. But really, these pretzels are so good we don't even feel like we need a dip for them! :)

Okay, so I know there are only 3 days left in December. ;) But so far this week we've eaten leftovers, fish sticks and veggies, and an oven-roasted chicken and potato wedges. I've had headaches and have taken our week "off" to just be lazy, play, and take naps. ;)

Monday was our two-weeks-since-shopping day, but we didn't want to venture out in the after-Christmas crowds. So, Joshua went to QFC right down the road and picked up a few things on sale:

8 lbs of oranges -- $4.99
5.77 lbs of bananas -- $3.98
18 Lg eggs -- $1.99 (x3)
Ginger Ale -- $1 (x2)
Tums -- $3.49

Total: $20.43

I still have enough milk, frozen veggies, carrots, and potatoes from Costco, so I think we'll wait until after New Year's and then make a big trip there for "everything". In all, I'm so happy with our grocery spending for December! I've had variety to try new things, but we've also eaten quite a few cheaper things like pinto beans, cooked carrots, potatoes, and oatmeal. :)

The ginger ale was Joshua's idea, and he made some homemade egg nog and added ginger ale to it. Yummy! Then, he put some of the homemade egg nog into his ice cream maker and we had some delicious egg nog ice cream! The kids had ginger ale/egg nog "floats". I guess it's the winter version of a "root beer float". ;)

In January, I'll be continuing my bi-weekly grocery shopping! Planning a menu and then shopping bi-weekly at Costco seems to be the easiest and most time-efficient way for me to save money on our groceries. :)

I'm also joining Jessica at Good Cheap Eats for her January Pantry Challenge!

As Jessica says, this freezer challenge is NOT:

It is NOT a total abstinence of grocery shopping.
It is NOT putting stockpiling on hold.
It is NOT oatmeal and rice and beans until the cows come home.

For me, this challenge will be a continuation of fewer shopping trips, getting my freezers organized, and starting to make and store some freezer meals. I'll share more details on my freezer meal plans soon! :)

Be sure to visit the other bloggers who will be chronicling their January pantry challenges:

Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
The Finer Things in Life
Getting Freedom from Debt
Good Cheap Eats

To boost myself out of "lazy mode", I've made a goal for each day the rest of this week/year. :)

This week's goals:

Today (Thursday): Clean up the house. We did some cleaning over the weekend, but I have a few things left: 1 bathroom, 1 load of laundry, and windows.

Friday: Organize our homeschool shelves, and anywhere else that's "overflowing". ;)

Saturday: Rest. :) Then, Saturday evening, write out my freezer meal ideas/plan/schedule.

My menu plan for the rest of the week:

Thursday: Pan-fried cod, green beans, black beans and rice

Friday: Spaghetti and meatballs, homemade garlic bread, green beans

Saturday: Leftovers, freezer-friendly bean and rice burritos, or something in the crock pot

Sunday: Eggs and oatmeal for breakfast, and then spending the day with friends (no cooking required from me!!) :)

I've enjoyed having a relaxing 4-day weekend with Joshua at home. We both love to cook, so with his extra time off we made gingerbread men with the kids, grilled some salmon, and I went through some cooking magazines from a friend.

Having no electricity on Sunday afternoon threw a wrinkle into my plan for chicken gravy and biscuits, so we had a snack lunch of cheese and crackers instead. Eliyahu made us laugh by his many comments along the lines of "This is the best lunch ever!! I mean, it's too bad we have no electricity, but I really love this cheese and crackers!!!" ;)

And now tomorrow feels like it should be Monday, but it's Tuesday! I didn't make a menu plan for this week yet, but I'll make a partial one and give a shopping update. (Hint: We got eggs and bananas and are going to hold off until after the holidays to go to Costco.)

Kitchen tips! Here a few shortcuts when you're baking cookies. :)

Rolling cookies in sugar:

When making a cookie recipe that requires the balls of dough to be rolled in sugar, put some sugar in a container with a tight-fitting lid and place dough balls in a single layer in the container. Put the lid on and gently shake to coat the balls with sugar! :)

Marking tops of peanut butter cookies:

To quickly mark the tops of peanut butter cookies, use a potato masher to mark a grid on each cookie. Dip the masher in flour first so it doesn't stick. My friend Tanya says she dips her fork in flour before marking peanut butter cookies, too. :)

Cookie dough chilling tip:

To save time waiting for cut-out cookie dough to chill, roll your just-made dough between two layers of waxed paper or parchment paper, to desired thickness. Chill the layers (fridge or freezer) and then cut cookies from each layer.

See also: Tips for cutting out cookies and softening butter

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Cinnamon-sugar blends/tips (Adrienne at Whole New Mom)
2. Remembering griddle temps & setting the table (Stacy at Stacy Makes Cents)
3. Tips for making successful deviled eggs (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
4. Veggie pizza tips (Cheryl B. at The Bz House That Love Built)
5. Christmas cookie tips (Christy at One Little Word She Knew)