WEEK #4: BONELESS PORK LOIN

Of course it is a long way from the fourth week of the year, but I finally had time to sit down and pull out my menus for week #4.  The big bulk buy for the week was a vacuum packed boneless pork loin from Sam’s Club.

When I first started cutting up pork loins for my family I did so per the instructions given me by a meat cutter at Sam’s. He had explained to me that the cuts I will explain are basically all the same meat, just cut differently and sold at hugely different prices.  He also suggested to me a book that explains how to save money on other meats by doing similar cutting or substitution on all sorts of meats.  That book was Confessions of a Butcher: Eat Steak on a Hamburger Budget and Save $$$ by John Smith, you can read my review on the book here.   Now the slicing instructions are right on the pork loin wrapper on how to do it. 

However, if your store doesn’t supply the instructions here is how I cut one.

I buy the large, approximately 10# boneless pork loin that is in one of the vacuum packages. 

I first open one end and drain all the liquid that I can to help minimize the mess while I am cutting it up.

Generally these are larger than my cutting mat so I rest the part that doesn’t fit on the mat on a plate or platter until I can advance it to the cutting mat as I make progress with it. 

The tools of my trade are a very sharp large knife, a good pair of kitchen shears, and four plates.

As I cut I leave all fat on the meat to help prevent the meat being too dry when it is cooked. It can be trimmed off later if need be.

Starting on one end of the pork line I trim off the tapered end until I have a flat area that would be one side of a boneless pork chop.  The part I trim off I cut into small cubes to use in pork stir fry, chili, casseroles and similar dishes that would require diced pork.   OR I put them on a plate to be ground up for recipes that use ground pork or to make homemade sausage.  I use the kitchen shears to quickly cut the meat into the size cubes I want to work with. This is plate #1.

Plate #2 is for boneless pork chops/pork steaks.  These are simply slices of the loin in the desired thicknesses for these products.  I do a variety of thicknesses depending on the menu for the week.  Everything from Basic Fried Pork Chops to thicker ones to stuff or grill.

The middle of the loin I cut into the proper size for roasting or otherwise preparing a pork loin dinner.  Plate #3

Moving on down the loin I cut several thick slices, that I then use the kitchen shears to cut into strips.  These are either boneless pork ribs or pork fajita meat.  Plate #4.

The remaining bits are cut up and added to plate #1.

How much of what type of cut you create is up to you.  If you are planning on several meals in the future that would call for browned  pork cubes.  Then cut more of those up, brown now and then preserve in your preferred manner for speedy food preparation in the weeks to come.  You can either can or freeze them. The same goes for if your recipes call for browned ground pork.

I personally often cut two small pork loins from one large loin for two different ways of cooking it on different weeks.   Or I may choose to ground half the meat to have ground pork on hand, either browned and canned, or frozen raw for meatloaves in the future.

Once all of it is cut up I either vacuum pack it for freezing or can it per the Ball Blue Book canning instructions. I can a lot because I have limited freezer space, plus we tend to have several power outages in a year and I prefer to have my meat dollar better protected.  Unless I am cutting it up to use that day, of course.

So now on to the menus for the week.

BREAKFAST OPPORTUNITIES:

Greek Yogurt either with the fruit cooked in or topped with:

            Granola

            Grape-nuts or other cereals

            Fresh Fruit bits

            Dried Fruit

Granola/EnergyBars

Raisin Bread, toasted

Cold cereal choices

            Rice Krispies

            Corn Flakes

            Grape-nuts

Hot cereal choices

            Cream of Rice

            Farina

            Multi-grain cereal 

Beverages

            Orange Juice

            Grape Juice

            Milk

            Chai

            Water

Fruit

            Dried Mango

            Dried Blueberries

            Clementines

COMMENTS:

My son and I love Greek Yogurt to the extent it was starting to bust our grocery budget with the amount we were purchasing each week, even using coupons.  So I decided to try my hand at making my own yogurt. 

I may never purchase grocery store yogurt again!  I used my dehydrator to make it and it was so super easy.  Even more important it was delicious, coming out the perfect thickness we love! You can read the step by step instructions, complete with photos here.

The flavor opportunities are endless, unlike purchasing it at the grocery from their limited variety.  We did find we prefer using preserves or marmalade to using jam or jelly for that type of flavoring.

I do now make a lot of plain yogurt to use in so many, many recipes. 

LUNCH OPPORTUNITIES

Fish Tacos, after the fish sticks are served later in the week

Leftovers of any sort

Sandwich ingredients

            Fish Sandwiches a La Mickey Dee’s after the fish sticks are served

            Shaved turkey breast—see comments

            PB&J

            Toasted Cream Cheese Sandwiches on Raisin Bread

            Baby Spinach

            Sprouts

            Mayonnaise

            Mustard

            Chipotle Yogurt Dressing

COMMENTS;

We love fish sticks, so you will often see them popping up in my menus.  They are scheduled for dinner one night this week, but I will cook extra when I do so we can have fish tacos or fish sandwiches for lunches.  As long as you do it in short bursts 15-30 seconds you can re-heat fish sticks for these foods in a microwave and have a quick lunch.

I discovered years ago that purchasing a turkey breast or boneless ham and asking the meat cutter to shave it for me was far less expensive than purchasing lunch meats.  I also own a meat slicer so sometimes I will purchase large ones of these to use for the bulk item of the week.  This week I just purchased a small one for use in lunches and breakfast burritos.

The Cinnamon Raisin Bread Cream Cheese Sandwiches are your standard grill cheese sandwich made with those ingredients.  It is a very nice change of pace.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #1:

Spicy Pulled Pork

Cheesy Potatoes

Cole Slaw

Buttermilk Artisan Bread slices

Blonde Brownies

Water

Tea

COMMENTS:

The pulled pork recipe is an adaptation of a recipe I saw on Pioneer Woman.  We enjoy pork loin cooked this way as a main dish or on sandwiches, in wraps, or in burritos.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #2

Three Way Chili

Cheddar Biscuits

Jarred Salad

Chocolate Frozen Yogurt

Water

Tea

COMMENTS:

Canned or frozen leftover Moo Gurgle from the week before makes this a quick and easy meal to throw together on busy nights.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #3

Breakfast Burritos

Fruit Salad

Milk

Tea

Water

Leftover desserts

COMMENTS:

The burritos can be filled with any variety of leftover meats you have from this week and last.  We particularly like putting in the pulled pork from night #1 this week or the shaved turkey that I purchased for sandwiches.

You don’t have to follow a recipe for fruit salad, any mixture of fruit you like will be a refreshing lift from the burritos.  I personally eat extra fruit salad on this night rather than a sweet dessert.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #4:

Butter Fried Pork Chops

Fried Potatoes

Cole Slaw

Peas and Pine Nuts

Pineapple Upside Down cake

Tea

Water

COMMENTS:

Definitely a heavy on the calories meal, but oh so good.  These Butter Fried Pork Chops are different from the Basic Fried Chops, but just barely. Peas and Pine nuts is exactly what it says.  I use either fresh, frozen or canned peas and prepare them in my normal manner, only I toss in a handful of pine nuts that are either plain or toasted.  It’s simply a twist on peas and pearl onions, without the onions because my ds does not care for onions.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #5:

Chicken and Dumplings

Jarred Salad

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Milk

Tea

Water

COMMENTS:

To make the chicken and dumplings I used home canned chicken from Week #2: Chicken Leg Quarters.  The salad and cake were of course leftovers from earlier in the week.

DINNER WEEK 4, DAY #6:

Corn and Cheese Chowder

Bread Bowls

Fruit Salad

RefrigeratorNut Cookies

Milk

Tea

Water

COMMENTS:

The original recipe I use for the chowder calls for bacon pieces in it, however, for the pork loin week I browned up small bits of the trimmed pork from plate #1 to season the soup.  I also used all pepper jack cheese to make it a spicer soup.

The refrigerator nut cookies were my dad’s favorite cookie.  He would have me make up a triple or quadruple batch of them the day I mixed them up and freeze additional rolls of them for future treats.

This is when I learned that I could do this with any cookie dough for fast slice and bake cookies on hand at all times.  Doing so saved me many a headache when my kids were in school and I was informed at a late time that the kids needed cookies to take to some meeting or another as they were growing up.

DINNER WEEK #4, DAY #7:

Fish Sticks

Macaroni and cheese

Peas and Pine Nuts

Leftover jarred salad or Cole Slaw

Refrigerator Cookies

COMMENTS:

Any leftover pulled pork can either be canned per the instructions for cooked meats in the Ball Blue Book canning cookbook, or frozen for future meals.

The other leftovers can be used for lunches for this week or next.  I believe you could freeze the leftover corn chowder, but I’ve never personally done it, because we consume the leftovers quickly for lunches.  

In fact most of the meals in this week would reappear in one of our lunches later in the week/next week because they all re-heat well and give us a large variety of lunch foods to stave off lunch boredom that could lead to visiting a fast food joint and wrecking your budget.

SNACK OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE WEEK:

Yogurt with any variety of toppings or plain

Clementines

Fruit salad

Blonde Brownies

Chocolate Frozen Yogurt

Refrigerator Nut Cookies

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Popcorn

Granola Bars

So there you have it Week #4, using foods you have previously stored in conjunction with your purchase of a single large pork loin that you cook for this week’s meals and for future meals.

You now basically have a month’s worth of meals you could use each month for a year, or you can continue to come back as I slowly at 52 different meal plans over the future weeks/months.   I am making a serious effort to work on my blogs more, but life happens here on the Rock ‘n Tree Ranch and the New Life on the Ranch can be both fun and a lot of work.  Please be patient with me all 52 are coming, eventually.

Jan who is sorry the 52 weeks are so slow in coming in OK

 

 

 

 

IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME

When I was in public school I was fascinated by ancient history.  Mainly the Greeks and Romans.  The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World held great fascination to me.  The Greek gods of mythology  were some serious folks, fascinating to read about.

In high school I had a Greek pen pal, it was interesting to exchange letters with a person overseas and get a peek into his every day life.  Remember this was long before computers were  common place.  The internet did not exist then.

As time went on I became more interested in day to day life here in the USA, US history and cooking good foods of all types. My fascination for things Greek turned more to olives, and other Greek foods such as cabbage rolls, gyros and most recently Greek yogurt and thus the reason for today’s post. 

My son and I have fallen in love with Greek yogurt as a quick breakfast or snack, it might have something to do with all those episodes of “Burn Notice” we watch.  After all they are constantly grabbing a cup of yogurt out of the fridge to eat while discussing a plan.  Strange you never see them putting any yogurt into that refrigerator.  Is it actually a self filling yogurt machine?  Hmmmm, have to check on that more in the future.

But back to the subject at hand Greek yogurt making.  Now my husband is not a fan as yogurt as a snack, unless it’s the frozen type they serve at so many stores across this nation either in waffle cones or cups.  So while learning to make and use yogurt I better include how to make the frozen yogurt as well. 

So my adventure into yogurt making begins.  I am blessed to have a very nice Stx 600 dehydrator that came with the yogurt/bread proofing door/drawer for it.  This will enable me to control the heat and let the yogurt cook at a constant temperature.  I know you can do yogurt in the crockpot, in a yogurt maker, in the oven or even on a heating pad too.  There are lots of recipes on the web for doing that, however the problem with crockpot yogurt and some of the other methods, I’ve read, is the temperatures on these often vary greatly and in order to make good yogurt you need a very controlled heat. 

Since the Styx 600 has a thermostat and is actually set-up for yogurt making, complete with a yogurt setting, I decided that was the best way to go for me. 

After much research and discussion I went with the Basic Greek Yogurt Recipe for yogurt that calls for using whole milk and live active cultures from grocery purchased yogurt for the first batch.  Once I have a successful batch I will use my own yogurt for the culture for future batches.  

You will notice when you  link over to my Patterson Pantry Recipes Blog that I have included using powdered milk in the recipe notes if you prefer to go that route. 

For current usage I use the whole milk because after doing much research we discovered it was cheaper to purchase a gallon of whole milk than to purchase powdered milk and reconstitute it for cooking.  I do, however, keep powdered milk in my food storage for when I am out of milk, or want to add a little extra protein to a dish without adding excess liquid.

Now on to the yogurt making experiment.  I spent much of the first day doing research on the web, gleaning this bit of info and that recipe idea from hither and yon.  I learned a lot, some of which I will share with you here.

1.     It is better to start with your milk at room temperature so that you spend less time heating it.  It is also better to have your fresh yogurt culture starter at room temperature so that when you add it to the heated milk you don’t bring the milk temperature down too far.  It also blends in easier to the warm milk.

2.     When using gelatin in some of the recipes it should always be softened in water first.  This aids in getting it well mixed in.

3.     If you are adding powdered milk to liquid milk for added protein in your yogurt you should add it to the top of your milk and let it set for about 10 minutes before stirring it in so that it will rehydrate to some extent.

4.     If when you add powdered milk, or powdered yogurt cultures to your yogurt ingredients lumps form don’t panic, these will dissolve as you heat the yogurt mixture.

5.     If you adding jelly, jam or frozen or canned fruit to yogurt you can add it safely in with the milk as you are originally heating it.  However, fresh, and possibly dried fruit may contain enzymes that would cause the yogurt to curdle if you do it then.  So do not add those until after the yogurt is made.

6.     You can freeze leftover plain yogurt with live cultures to make future batches of yogurt in small containers and the cultures will go dormant.  Thaw slowly and naturally before making your next batch of yogurt. So invest in one small cup and then between it and the yogurt you make in the future you will always have live cultures.  Thus a $1 investment can save you a lot of money in the long run.  Sometimes, if your yogurt starts being too tart, you will need to invest in a new fresh starter.

7.     Fruit on the bottom and sundae style yogurt are basically the same animal, the only difference is you dump the fruit on the bottom yogurt out in a bowl so that the fruit is on the top and thus a sundae.

8.     Frozen yogurt is not just yogurt that has been frozen, there are a few extra steps in there, but not many.   Some recipes for this call using plain gelatin in the mixure while others merely add flavoring, sweeteners and the use of a freezing method.

9.     99% of the “how to’s” are for just plain yogurt, which can be a bit tart if your starting cultures are not very fresh.  Most of those will say you can add sweetener and flavorings at serving time.  Which you can do, but often this will cause the yogurt to thin out, which is less than desirable.  But with some research and combining my own cooking knowledge I have included recipes for flavored, fruit and yes even chocolate yogurt, and of course, chocolate frozen yogurt in my recipe blog.

10. For years I've heard mention of yogurt cheese, but never saw any in the stores.  Or so I thought.  Guess what Greek yogurt and yogurt cheese are basically the same thing.  They are made the exact same way.  The only difference in the two is you might strain the cheese longer.  I plan on experimenting with mixing herbs and such with the yogurt before straining it so the dried materials will rehydrate as it strains and flavor the cheese thoroughly.  I can't wait to have crackers and homemade yogurt cheese!

11.  I found a very good website/blog on yogurt and kefier making and using and now receive their newsletter.  If such a newsletter is of interest to you go to:  yogurtfromhome.com/   I am in no way affiliated with them.

12.  The drained whey from making Greek yogurt or yogurt cheese is good to feed to your barnyard critters.

So the next step was the "where did I put it? " step. You know the one where you put something up for safe keeping, and then can't remember where you put it?  Well that hit big time on Mother's Day when I had the goal in mind to make the first batch of yogurt on that day- -news flash it didn't happen that day.  I got too busy writing this blog on my "day off" from house work and such. 

As anyone who reads my Patterson's Princess Plan blog will tell you I am fed up with having trouble finding things so I'm slowly, oh so slowly marching through this house organizing, inventorying and other wise getting my "stuff" together.  Unfortunately the yogurt door for my dehydrator was not one of the items organized yet.  I looked on and off all day for it.  The bad thing is I actually found it where I thought I'd put it, but something had been placed on top of it and silly me didn't think to move those mylar bags to look in under them until the third trip to that storage cabinet.  Yes, that unit is now on the get organized and inventoried soon list. 

The following step was to dust off the dehydrator, sterilize the jars I'd be using and other get it together items before I started.  That is a habit I developed years ago.  When I'm preparing to cook, or preserve food,  I gather all the ingredients and tools needed to make it together first, just in case I don't have something on hand.  Luckily that was not the case this time. I had everything and got it all together on Mother's Day to start the process the next morning.

Monday morning I was moving slow, so it was nearly noon before I set the milk and yogurt starter out on the stove to come to room temperature as I went about my daily chores.  I finally got around to starting the making of the yogurt around 1:00 pm.

Just as my milk was about to get to the 185 degree mark I heard a strange knocking in the utility room.  Since I had the washer and dishwasher both running I thought it best to check it out. It took me about a split second to know what had happened.

The water company had said they would be replacing our new meter with an even newer one around the end of the month.  I guess they consider the 13th to be the end of the month.  With no warning, on a busy Monday they had shut my water off and yanked my meter.  It was nearly two hours before I had water back.  Thank goodness I'd done all my sterilizing of jars and such the day before.  I will admit I was still a bit miffed, and I let it be known, that they didn't even have the courtesy to knock on the door or honk from the safety of their truck if they are afraid of our geese and dogs (smart people are) to let me know their plans.  They just went straight to meter that is down behind our barn in the woods where I couldn't even see them and do it.

As soon as the milk was to the cool down stage I marched theough the woods to tell them they were inconsiderate louts.  They were, of course, defensive.  Claimed they didn't know which house the meter went to.  That didn't work since there is only the one house in this area, but enough on that.

Back at the house I started pre-heating the dehydrator.  This is when I actually realized that only 1/2 pint jars were going to work for yogurt in it using the supplied door.  Luckily that was what I had sterilized.  I was also thrilled to see it would hold exactly 20 of those 1/2 pint jars.  Turned out I had 19 1/2 pints worth of yogurt mixture made up.   Boy did I luck out on that!  Note to self, in the future check this information out BEFORE starting.

A dehydrator, like the Excalibur, that has a solid door on it would work for any size jar.

Next I prepped the jars while waiting for the milk to cool to the point where I could add the yogurt culture.

While I do cook with  yogurt I didn't want 19 half pints of plain yogurt with this first batch--maybe in the future.  So in nine of the jars I put about 2 teaspoons of either cherry preserves, strawberry jam, or orange marmalade (3 jars each) in the bottom.  Then I topped it off with the plain yogurt liquid.  If all goes well this should make fruit on the bottom regular yogurt.

Of the remaining ten I plan on making Greek Yogurt or yogurt cheese out of nine of them and keep the remaining half pint as plain, since I have nearly a quart of plain yogurt in the fridge already.  This last 1/2 pint will be used as starter for future batches.  Dh will have to wait for frozen yogurt later in the week, because I need six cups of plain yogurt strained to be three cups of Greek yogurt to make the frozen yogurt.

In the future if I should want to make a larger container, say a quart to make strictly plain Greek Yogurt out of I will simply use my flexible cutting board taped to the front of the dehydrator to seal the front when I take more than two trays out. 

I used my canning funnerl to fill the sterilized jars.  There was exactly 19 half pints.  How great is that? 

Once the jars were all filled I filled the shelf in the dehydrator, which had been pre-heating for an hour then set the timer.  One of the great things about this dehydrator is it will automatically shut off at the exact time you tell it to.  So I can go to bed tonight with it running and removed the "hopefully" completed cooled down yogurt first thing in the morning.  I'm thinking orange marmalade yogurt for breakfast!

It's the next morning now and I am proud to say this experiment was a HUGE success!  It set up perfectly, it's not too tart or too sweet and the orange marmalade is perfect in it for a light and wonderful fruit flavor.

Later today I'll start draining some of the plain to make it into yogurt cheese.  I'm thinking I'll flavor it with dill for a cracker spread. 

Jan who can't believe how simple the whole process was in OK

                                                                                     

FABULOUS FRUIT

It’s funny the way a thought will travel through the universe and be shared by so many. 

Recently I’ve became more and more interested in including more fruits and vegetables into my family’s diet. Where fruit is concerned I’ve been slowly adding a little more pineapple to sweet and sour recipes.  Fruits to desserts or as dessert, yogurt, simple fruit syrups for breakfast foods or dessert toppings,  and side dishes  like fried apples and red hots apples were joined with a lot of encouragement on my part to replace one sugary drink a day with a glass of fruit juice.

I’ve also been including fruit salads with at least two dinners a week.  This is where the universal thought comes in….are you ready? 

Just this last few days the topic of the discussion that was brought up by someone who lives across the country from me, and I swear we had no prior communication prior to this on the subject, was fruit salads.  Maestro play a little “Twilight Zone” music please.

Over the days since then there have been discussions of various fruit and vegetable combos, adding the fruit to yogurt and a few recipes.  Some of which will be making an appearance in my menu shortly.

That got me to thinking, if the ladies and gentlemen  on budgethomemaking@yahoogroups.com were interested in incorporating more fruit in their diets, then so might be others in the nation. Thus this blog post was born. 

Adding fruits and vegetables to your every day diet above your normal current intake has many positive aspects to it. 

1.     Fiber: We all know we need more fiber in our diet for a variety of reasons ranging from regularity to cholesterol control.  Fruits and vegetables are an excellent source of fiber.

2.     Specialty diets: if you need to avoid glutens, dairy, and other allergens for various health reasons they just might be the answer.  Check your own diet restrictions for any restrictions on fruits or vegetables.

3.     Weight loss: Who doesn’t worry about their weight? Filling up on fruits and vegetables sans sugars, carbohydrates and other fillers is a great way to lose weight.

4.     Availability: In this modern age you can get just about any fruit or vegetable year round.  They are canned, frozen, juiced, dried and freeze dried.  Some may not be in your store, but a web search will turn them up.

5.     Variety:  The variety of fruits and vegetables, as well as the ways to serve them either cooked or raw is endless. Don’t believe me?  Check out any good seed catalog like Baker’s Seeds (their catalog is a feast for the eyes, you can order both a 2013 and 2014 catalog now online) or sellers like amazon.com and you’ll see what I mean immediately.  

6.     Uses: The world wide web is loaded with recipes for various uses for these wonderful menu additions.  Pick a fruit or vegetable and simply put it in your web search link of choice along with the word recipes and you will be amazed. 

So on to fruit salads, as the afore mentioned budgethomemaking@yahoogroups.com was discussing.  Just exactly what do you classify as a fruit salad?  When I was growing up a fruit salad was one of four things. 

The first was of course a Jello based salad be it either in the Jello like the Classic Jello Fruit Salad, or with the Jello unmixed and used as flavor and binder as in Vickie’s Pink Stuff .   These were all the rage at church socials and other pot lucks, because they traveled well and held up well while being held until after the meeting.

The second, my mom’s favorite,  was a simple fruit salad of chopped up bananas and apples combined with a sectioned orange and drizzled with corn syrup. This you made ahead of time and let it "meld" for a bit before serving.

The third was my grandmother’s simple holiday favorite.  She would place on a small china dessert plate a leaf of bright green lettuce.  In the middle of this she’d place a single canned pineapple ring. In the center of the pineapple ring a dollop of Miracle Whip or mayonnaise was added to the middle of the pineapple ring. This was topped with a maraschino cherry, complete with stem.  Simple and fast to make, attractive to the eye.

Then of course there was the fourth, the classic cottage cheese and canned peaches favored by many dieters.

Fruit salads have come a long ways since then.  My personal favorite is a variety of versions of the Broccoli and Red Grape Salad that you often see on salad bars in many restaurants.  Of course I do a homemade version, but it is definitely worth eating.

Grapes and raisins are a great add in to chicken and tuna salad for either eating as a salad, on a sandwich, or in a wrap.

Spinach salad with fresh strawberries is delicious to say the least.

But the simplest of all is frozen fruit salad.  This is where you open your freezer door and pour yourself a mixture of all the different frozen fruits in there.  Sprinkle with sugar or honey if desired and eat this as it thaws.  Particularly refreshing when you have been working outside in the summer heat.  

Don’t forget fruit salads for breakfast, like Citrus Fruit Salad, or Fruit Salad Parfaits.

Appetizers can be a Fruit Salad Platter rather than the normal Veggie Platter you so often see at potlucks. Instead of the ranch dressing dip that is served with the veggies consider serving a variety of fruits such as melons, strawberries, kiwis, bananas, mango, apples, fresh figs, papaya, and other firm fruits cut into appropriate size with one of these fruit dips.  Yogurt Fruit Dip,  Caramel Fruit Dip, or  Cream Cheese Fruit Dip from Mini Fruit Pizzas.

Then how about fruit salad sundaes like a Banana Split, a  Fruit Bowl Sundae , Mini Fruit Pizzas ,or Chocolate Covered Bananas  for dessert?

The ideas for using fruits for salads are endless, use your imagination to add taste and elegance to any meal.

Jan who loves the versatility of fruit in OK

WEEK #3—GROUND BEEF #2

February 28, 2013

While doing clean-up on my blogs I discovered I'd never got this post up and running.  It was originally written for the week of July 4, 2012 and for some reason never left the draft mode. I did some adjustments to it and so here it is.  Finally!  Hopefully I'll get the rest of the 52 weeks up soon.

July 4, 2012

It’s ground beef time again.  As I said in the beginning we eat a lot of ground beef, so technically every other week my menus will be ground beef based for a while.  After all what can’t you make with ground beef?

Please note that most, if not all, of the recipes I do with ground beef could be done with other ground meats.  You might have to make a few allowances for fat content or such to keep things from drying out, but pretty much you can interchange the ground meat ingredient without much change.  Unless, perhaps with wild meats, such as venison, but if you are cooking with wild meats you most likely KNOW what you need to do to make the recipe work. 

As usual I’m running a little behind on my menu posts, so this is being done during the July 4^th week and therefore you will be seeing our holiday cook out menu for that day during the week. It will look like a huge menu for just the three of us, but we LOVE leftover grilled meats, so when I am cooking I am doing so with planned leftovers in mind.

Today is Tuesday and I have the Donvier in the freezer preparing for our homemade ice cream for tomorrow’s dessert.  And the chicken leg quarters to grill, along with tomorrow’s ground beef and bologna are already thawing in the refrigerator.  I’ll boil the eggs for the deviled eggs later on today. 

My son has already made a delicious huge batch of chocolate chip cookies both for sharing at work today and to go with our ice cream tomorrow.  We are in full holiday mode here.

We’ll have zero fireworks because we don’t want to burn the place down, not to mention the fact that the cost of those does not comply with the budget we have going right now.  We’d rather save money we would have spent on fireworks to travel to Walt Disney World in the future on a shoestring budget to have a wealth of fun and enjoy their fireworks while there.  If you are interested in how you can travel to WDW cheaply, and still get the most fun see my blog posts on the subject. How to Plan a Frugal Trip to Walt DisneyWorld,  Payingfor your Magical Trip, Saving Money While onthe Trip—Getting There,  Saving Money While on the Trip—Food! GloriousFood!,  and Saving Money While on the Trip—Souvenirs and Other Things.

So instead we  will have a great day of watching the latest Harry Potter movie and other movies we have recorded scheduled, complete with popcorn and a little Pepsi (an uncommon treat around here any more), along with a cookout and some down time as a family. During the evening hours we’ll watch fireworks on tv in the cool of the house.  Both men are off work for the holiday and that makes for an even better time. 

In this week’s menu you will also see the appearance of using my muffin tins for things other than just muffins.  For a whole list of ideas on other uses of the muffin tin and other common household items view “Muffin Tins, Not Just for Muffins and Cupcakes Any More. “

Anyway, here is the menu for Week #3—Ground Beef #2.  Hope you have a Happy and Safe July 4^th!

BREAKFAST OPPORTUNITIES:

Basic Cake Donuts/Muffins

Raisin Bran

Grapenuts

Oatmeal

Farina

Fruit salad

Dried Fruit

COMMENTS:

My husband loves cake donuts, but we don’t love the calories from frying donuts.  So for Christmas  I purchased him two donut pans and we’ve been experimenting with different recipes.  We’ve found that muffin recipes work well, especially if you add a little glaze.  As time goes on there will be various other donut recipes posted as we find ones we like.  This was the first, other than the one that came on the pan—which we can’t find right now, that he really likes.  He eats his unglazed.  Me I want the glazing—gotta have my calories you know!

LUNCH OPPORTUNITIES

MuffinTin Corn Dogs—once we’ve had them for dinner

Spaghetti and Meatballs—once we’ve had them for dinner

Home canned beef soup

Jarred salad with cucumbers from the garden

PB&J

Potted Meat Salad sandwiches.

COMMENTS:

In an effort to stick with keeping things cool in the house I’ve taken to cooking various muffin tin meals.  These make great individual servings, that leftover well and re-heat quickly.  They also cook in record time.  After all the shorter time the oven is on, the better it is when it’s 100+ degrees outside.

WEEK 3—DAY 1, GROUND BEEF 2

Red Topped Meat Loaf

Mashed Potatoes—make a big batch for uses later in the week

Peas

Jarred salad

Toasted French Bread

Applesauce Spice Cake

Tea

COMMENTS:

Red Topped Meatloaf is the basic ground beef meatloaf with the ketchup topping we all grew up with.  You can either cook it in your Summer Kitchen in either your turkey roaster or crockpot.  Or if you prefer in muffin tins to speed up cooking in your oven.

We like potato salad made with mashed potatoes, so later this week you will see the leftover mashed potatoes appear with the holiday big meal. If you prefer a different type then go ahead and prepare your potatoes while boiling the potatoes for the meatloaf then cool and refrigerate for being one step ahead in that meal preparation.

WEEK 3-Day 2

MuffinTin Corn Dogs

Frozen French Fries

Pork ‘n Beans

Refrigerator Pickles

Tea

Applesauce Spice Cake

COMMENTS:

As I mentioned earlier we are trying to cut down fried foods in our household—except on the fourth—sorry doc, so I’ve been experimenting with how to have our favorites without frying them. 

On one list a woman recently posted she made these using a pre-packaged cornbread mix.  Since I make all my own mixes I first tried them with my Cornbread Master Mix cornbread and it came out a bit too dry and crumbly for our liking. 

So then I decided to use my Corn Dog recipe that uses that master mix and found we liked the texture and firmness better.  An additional tweak I did was on the second batch I used my mini loaf pans instead of muffin tins and found they accommodated the shape of the hot dog link better. 

WEEK 3-DAY 3

Moo Gurgle Tacos

Mexican Rice

Guacamole

Flan

Tea

COMMENTS:

Moo Gurgle is our quick and easy homemade taco filler recipe that we use in numerous ways.  My husband made it as a teenager and then introduced it to me while we were dating nearly 40 years ago. 

It didn’t earn its unique name until we had teenagers of our own, however.  A group of them went to our lake house together and wanted to make tacos while there. 

They called and asked me for the recipe and I rattled it off—forgetting to tell them to drain the meat after they browned it.  Being teenagers they purchased the cheapest, fattest ground beef they could.

All the kids called me “Mom” so when I was asking them how the tacos turned out one young man said “Mom, those moos really gurgled!”, referring to the thick grease in the taco filler.  Thus the name was born “Moo Gurgle”.

WEEK 3-DAY 4—July 4, 2012

Charcoaled Hamburgers, plain

Charcoaled Hamburgers, bbq sauce

Grilled Bologna

Char-grilled Chicken Leg quarters

Deviled eggs

Potato salad

Butterfly potatoes

Onion strings

Zesty Onion Ring Dipping Sauce

Cole Slaw

PEPSI

Homemade Ice cream

Chocolate chip cookies

COMMENTS:

We thoroughly believe in this house when you fire up the charcoal grill or a wood fire you use every bit of the fuel you put in the grill.  We also love grilled leftovers, so while we’ll cook all the above on the fourth not all of it will be eaten for certain.  It will be a pick and choose meal.  “This is what we cooked, choose what you want and the rest will reappear in other meals.”

All the hamburgers with bbq sauce consist of is a beaten egg mixed with bbq sauce and then mixed into the ground beef patties and grilled.  One word to the wise, they do tend to fall apart easily—despite the egg for a binder, so cook them on foil on the grill.   I use Kay’s BBQSauce as the sauce in them.

We make up for all of the non-fried foods this week in this one meal.  Butterfly potatoes is our name for the potatoes that you see at fairs of all sorts that are potato chip thin and cut in a spiral.  I was lucky enough to acquire one of those potato cutters at a craft fair years ago and we have enjoyed it ever since.

I’ll try to get one of the guys to create a pattern for it and I’ll put up photos of it as well asap.

We are Pepsi addicts in this household, but once we decided to become super gazelle intense on paying off our debt Pepsi is one of the things we removed from our life.  Now we each drink one sweetened beverage a day (juice, tea, lemonade or kool-ade) and the rest of the time we drink water or unsweetened tea.  I will admit it’s hard going from lugging around a Pepsi all day to going to a single sweetened beverage (I generally do a juice), but it has saved us so much money it is unbelievable. (Do the math on how much you pay for soft drinks in a week and multiply that by the month/year—you will be astounded!) Plus all three of us are losing weight and are feeling better. 

So the Pepsi for this one day—two 2-liters, is a special treat.  The bottles will be washed out and saved for future events—stay tuned for those.

WEEK 3-DAY 5

Smoked Chicken Salad in Tortilla bowls

Lime Cilantro Rice

Refried Beans or home canned pinto or kidney beans

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Tea

COMMENTS:

What grilled chicken isn’t eaten on the fourth will be deboned, cubed and tossed in with picante, refried beans, corn, lettuce, rice and whatever else we happen to think of for a cool salad on a hot summer night.  We may even forgo cooking the tortilla into a tortilla bowl and simply roll it all up in a burrito style tortilla much like Qdoba burritos.

WEEK 3-DAY 6

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Garlic Toast

Jarred Salad with Italian dressing

Leftover desserts from the week

Tea

COMMENTS:

I generally make a double or triple batch of the spaghetti meatballs—which are different than my Master Mix Meatballs and either can or freeze them with or without the sauce for future grab and run meals.  

Both men also like for me to cook extra pasta for the meatballs and will take the leftovers to work for lunches. 

WEEK 3-DAY 7

Biscuit Cup Tacos

Either leftover Mexican or Lime Cilantro Rice

Tea

Leftover Flan

COMMENTS:

Truly the tail end of the week and a meal of all leftovers, simply reproduced in a slightly different manner.  Quick to bake in the toaster oven in the Summer Kitchen.  Look for any leftover Biscuit Cup Tacos to make an appearance at lunchtime next week.

Jan who wishes you a Happy and Safe Independence Day in OK