Today’s meal went amazingly well.  The Keema was ready to go when the rice cooker shut off.  Talk about timing!  Miss M joined us as well as Miss E.  I did add about 1/3 pound of ground beef to the meal, but the rest was the same.  This is one of my favorite meals ever.  I added peas to stretch the meal but also because Miss M loves them.  So I spooned out 2 portions to freeze for DH and I on the 22nd, then I served the rest.  Guess what?  No extra leftovers!

Tomorrow is not a scheduled cooking day, but I'm probably going to make burgers or smoked sausage (two of Hubby's favorites) for dinner.  I also went to Aldi tonight and picked up some evaporated milk to have on hand for Thanksgiving.  59 cents a can, can't go wrong.

Thursday is report cards at school.  I still can't believe we are at the 1/4 of the year mark already, although I do appreciate my extra hour from Sunday.  I also appreciate the morning sunshine, albeit temporary morning sunshine!

Last night's baking for the Church dinner was almost a disaster for 2 reasons.  1.  I didn't have evaporated milk for the pumpkin pie I was making and 2. My apples were too soft for my apple peeler corer slicer.  It went of without a hitch because I found out at my recipes that I could use the milk I had on hand and just had to add cornstarch so it would be a thicker fluid and the right texture to work with my recipe. That and the apples peeled and sliced fine by hand.

At dinner, I had a slice from the pumpkin and DH had a slice from my apple pie ( I recognized the glaze and slice in the crust I made when transfering it onto the apples.).  Hubby enjoyed his as much as I enjoyed my pie.

Tonight we had the kids over for pizza from our favorite place.  I made a salad to go with dinner.  I was gathering the salad dressings and DH will only use Marie's brand Italian Garlic dressing.  It is expensive, but we buy it when it is on sale.  Which brings me to my point.  I looked at the date.  It was last month.  Hmmm, was it spoiled or still good?

Frugal Tip:  I went to Stilltasty.com and it told me that it was good for 6 months past the date!  I love Still Tasty dot com!  It's saved our budget many times!

Tomorrow I will make the Keema recipe for 4 and freeze 2 plates first from the skillet to serve on the 22nd.  We will eat the remainder in the hopes of no left overs like last week with the One Pan Chicken Curry.  That's the goal.  4 dinners total, serve 2 that night and freeze 2 for 3 weeks later.  

So far so good for us, I have room in the freezer because the meat in the meals came from the freezer.  Then I'll only need the space for the 14 dinners that will rotate out of the freezer.  I'm aiming for the bottom shelf of my freezer since there's a bit more shelf depth.  We'll see how that works.  My other thought is to use the basket in my freezer downstairs.  The problem with that is it needs to be defrosted, but I could do that if it would work better.

Dinner on Wednesday went well. We had Salisbury Steak as we planned. It flew together easily and I was able to freeze my extra dinners with lots of the gravy for Day 17. I will make more potatoes that night since Mashed Potatoes don't freeze really well. I may make them the night before when cooking our meal on Wednesday. We'll see when we get there. Miss M joined us for dinner and since there were sliced onions in the gravy, guess what was left behind on her plate? Yup, a few pieces of onion. That's my girl!

Then last night I made our dinner #3. Baked Curried Chicken. MMM Good! That is one of my favorites! I must confess, I did do something different last night. I made 2 separate batches of the seasoning sauce. I put one batch on early in the game, the second was put on the pieces after I turned them over. The result? The best I've ever made, well, except for the chicken skin sticking to the pan, but that made the seasoning get deeper into the chicken itself. I cheated a bit and used "potato boats" for our potatoes, but DH loves them, so who am I to deny him that at our meal? When I make the frozen dinner, I will make some curried rice to go with. That will be an awesome pairing! Can't wait for that one.

Frugal tip: Cutting back on the oil in this recipe not only saves calories, it saves money by saving the oil for another recipe. And it still works well, it is more of a paste that stays where you want it to!

Dinner tonight is with the kids from the team at a local restaurant here in Peoria. Our top kid is running tomorrow and his friends are here to support him. Dinner is our way of supporting him and his accomplishments. Tomorrow will be a long day. I have to bake apple pie when I get home for our church dinner on Sunday. Busy Busy weekend!

One of our first recipes ~ Pork Chops and Pilaf

This was a favorite when we were first married.  Love the rice.  It is similar in flavor to Greek Lemon & Chicken soup.  So yummy!

I cooked tonight and last night, I'll blog about them tomorrow night.  So tired tonight, getting ready for our trip to the State Meet.

Late night last night.  World Series and our fair city has the champion!  Lots of smiling tired kids at school today.  Here's the recipe for next Friday!

Pork Chops and Pilaf

6 lean pork chops

Seasoned salt

1 ¼ c. uncooked rice

1 ¼ c. sliced green onions w/tops (separated)

2 ½ c. chicken broth

1 T. Fresh lemon juice

1 ½ t. lemon peel, minced

2 c. cooked mixed vegetables

Preheat oven to 400°.  Sprinkle chops with salt and brown on each side in a lightly greased skillet.  Remove chops.  Add rice and white part of onions.  Cook until golden brown.  Stir in broth, lemon juice, and peel.  Bring to boil.  Transfer rice mixture to a 13 x9 inch covered casserole dish.  Place chops over rice mixture.  Cover, bake for 25 minutes.  Stir in vegetables and the green onion tops.  Adjust seasonings if necessary.  Replace cover and continue baking 25 minutes longer.  Fluff rice lightly with fork.  Serves 4-6.

*I guess I was so tired, I thought I posted this!  :p

Mom's Spaghetti Sauce...

This is how my Mom made Spaghetti Sauce when we didn't have fresh tomatoes from the garden.  We had a massive garden when I was growing up and Dad grew tomatoes, peppers and basil. Dad was an organic gardener in the 70's.  We had so many tomatoes and peppers that we would be able to process sauce at the end of the season that would take over our freezer downstairs.  It. was. awesome.  I have fond memories of putting the cooked sauce through the food mill and cranking that contraption until we had gallons of sauce.  Mom would use that instead of the canned sauce as it was not thick enough on its own.  I do remember asking my Dad the silliest question when I had a garden of my own.  He laughed when I asked how much water you add to the tomatoes when starting to make the tomato sauce.  Of course you add none, tomatoes are mostly water.

Spaghetti Sauce with Meat

½ lb. ground beef

1 diced onion

1 clove garlic, pressed

6 oz. can tomato paste

15 oz. can tomato sauce

¾ t. Italian seasoning

½ t. basil

½ t. salt, optional

Brown the ground beef in a skillet until no pink remains.  Add onion and garlic and continue to sauté until the onions are transparent.  Remove from heat and mix in the tomato paste.  Transfer the mixture to a saucepan.  Stir in the Tomato Sauce.  Heat to boil over medium high heat; reduce the heat and simmer over low heat.  Add seasonings and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.  Serve over hot cooked noodles.  Serves 4.

Keema for Everyone!

This is a favorite dinner of those who are currently in the nest.  Miss K finds it spicy, but I think if we just cut out the cumin and reduced the chili powder and black pepper, she'd have a change of heart.

This recipe comes from "The Encyclopedia of Asian Cooking," Octopus Books Limited, London, UK, 1980.  It was one of the first cookbooks I bought when first married.  It now has the requisite splatters on the well loved recipe pages and the binding is starting to break.  It is from the India, Pakistan and Bangladesh chapter.

Keema
(Spiced Minced[Ground] Beef)

1/4 c. ghee*
2 large onions, peeled and sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
1 t. turmeric powder
2 t. chili powder
1/2 t. ground coriander
1/2 t. cumin seeds
1 t. salt
1 t. ground pepper
1 lb ground beef

Melt the ghee in  a pan, add the onions and garlic and fry gently until soft.  Ad the spices and seasonings and fry for a further 3 minutes, stirring constantly.  Addthe beef and fry, stirring, until browned.  Continue frying untilt he meat is cooked and the curry is dry.  Serve hot over rice.  Serves 4.

*clarified butter ~  I've used butter with no issues
Frugal Tip:  I also add peas to this as well as cubed potatoes to stretch the meal.

So my calendar is up.  I think it's less intimidating if it is viewed as an agenda. I'll post all the recipes a week ahead of time.  Some of these have been in our family since hubby and I were dating and some as recent as this past calendar year. (When we discovered he'd eat ribs, he just hated bbq sauce--no smoke flavor or hot/spicy sauce for him)  We are evolving, it's slow (30+ years), but it is evolving.

Having a background rich in frugality (New England, Swedish, depression era grandparents), I was always trying to find new ways to make things cheaper, but better.  Some things worked and some things didn't.  One time I made an Onion Parmesan Quiche for dinner for my husband who hates eggs.  He tried to fix it for both of us by sprinking cinnamon on it (I would have gone for Garlic Salt or Curry Powder myself).  Needless to say, we tossed dinner in the garbage (mind you it was almost a dozen eggs, 2 cups of milk and the cheese besides) and we walked to McDonalds for dinner.  I cringed the whole walk over.  That was 34 years ago when $7 was a lot of money for us.  It was before kids, before 2 full time jobs, and when minimum wage was a mere $3.35 per hour!

I became wiser and learned how to cook for "Mr. Pickypants".  Soon afterward we would have 2 lovely little girls who, like their Dad, were picky.  Not exactly the same picky, and one was pickier than the other, but our family learned to adapt and then we were able to stick to a decently low food budget.  I tried to stay under $50 per week until my kids reached their teens, when $75 per week worked pretty well.  

Currently Miss K is out of the nest, Miss M is with us still and we have a track/cross country team of about 50 or so to feed, I now try to stay around at around $100 per week, especially with those "track snacks" and water bottles.  Love it when I can get fruit snacks for the team for 74 cents for a box of 10.  Rumor has it that Scooby Snacks make fast relays.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Anyway I digress.

Cooking starts tomorrow, Cross Country practice will be early, so I'll have enough time to make dinner before the little ones start ringing the bell.  I have space in my freezer for the dinners I'm freezing, so I am truly ready to start this adventure...