The May/June 2002 Issue of Chewin' the News from 30 Day Gourmet Freezer Cooking . . .

Anyone who thinks that life gets easier when the kids get older is obviously still living exclusively in the world of diapers and naptimes. Today is just an average day and I’ve already:

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE MY LIFE! It’s just crazy that’s all. Just like yours. Which is why I need a plan. I would rather have a plan and not follow it than have no plan at all. For me, having a plan means adapting what I put in my freezer to the crazy days of summer. I realized a few years ago that we really eat differently in the summer. More quick meals, more stove top and microwave meals, more “on your own” meals. Since the kids aren’t in school, I also need to plan for breakfasts that aren’t just cereal or Poptarts and lunches that they can make by themselves. My hubby’s FedEx schedule also changes in the summer and he’s not home 4 nights a week. Well – actually he does come home eventually – and hopes to find some dinner saved for him. Which can be a problem – as those of you who do dinner without dad know.

So here are the ideas that I’m trying to implement this summer. Hope they are of some help.

Top 10 Summer Freezing Strategies:

Easy Breakfast Recipes:
You always save money cooking from scratch but consider the health benefits too. Pre-packaged foods have SO many preservatives and extra sugar in them. I’ve found that these homemade versions are much more filling and it’s easy to make the substitutions that you want to make (whole wheat flour, low-fat cheeses, etc.)

Granola Bars – My hubby packs his own lunch each day and also takes several snacks with him – especially for the days when he is gone until 8 pm. He’s 6’1” and weighs about 145 (with his steel-toed boots on) so I can hardly deny him the food. He likes the homemade granola bars from our Freezer Cooking Manual much more than the Walmart brand and thinks they are more filling.

Breakfast McBiscuits – The great thing about this recipe from the manual is that my 17-year-old LOVES them. Those of you who have raised a teenager know what an accomplishment this is. I haven’t tried making my own biscuits yet. I bought mine at Aldi’s and also used small dinner rolls from the bakery outlet. Getting a piece of meat, an egg and some cheese into them at breakfast-time is GREAT! I’ve even thought of buying little boxes from McDonald’s to put them in. Ha!

Tara’s Favorite Muffins – This is such a yummy recipe. If you haven’t tried it yet – whaddaya waitin’ for? I just made 2 dozen yesterday. A dozen blueberry and a dozen chocolate chip. Okay – yes. I prefer the chocolate chip. Good thing Bob and the kids love the blueberry, huh? These freeze great! I’m planning to take several dozen to my family reunion next month.

Make-Your-Own Lunch Recipes:
It doesn’t matter whether you are a work-away-from-home mom, a work-at-home mom, a cooking dad or a senior with a retired spouse “underfoot” – you don’t want to be responsible for making lunch for everyone. This isn’t a parenting newsletter so I won’t preach but here’s a suggestion. Never promise lunch to anyone tall enough to reach the refrigerator door and the microwave. I know you won’t believe this but I’m typing this at 12:15 pm. Not 5 minutes ago, Adam came into the office, plopped down in a chair and said “What’s for lunch”? My reply? “I don’t know. What is for lunch? Go check the list and make a decision. See ya.”

Here are a few suggestions for foods that you can make ahead of time (most are pre-baked) and package for quick re-heats.

Taco Rice – The great thing about this Freezer Cooking Manual recipe is its versatility. It can be warmed up and eaten over tortilla chips with salsa, rolled into a tortilla as filling, or used in a taco salad.

If your family would prefer a “Taco Bell” taste, try the Taco Filling recipe from our March 2001 newsletter.

Pizza Burgers – This recipe-of-the-month has become a favorite around here. Easy to heat up in a toaster oven.

Awesome Mac ‘n Cheese – I cooked up a double batch of this Recipe of the Month winner to try and convince my kids that I could make something that equals the Walmart version. I didn’t bother to tell them that it would also be healthier, cheaper and would fill them up faster. I also use this as a side dish for the “TV Dinners” below.

Chicken Nuggets – People who eat fast food a lot sometimes have trouble “switching over” to what I like to call “real food”. If you decide to make your own chicken nuggets, warn the family that you are NOT trying to make nuggets like the ones at __________ (insert their favorite fast food joint). Those nuggets are usually very LOW on meat and very HIGH on breading. They are fried in a vat of hot grease while you wait. That won’t work if you are going to freeze them. Once they get used to homemade, though, the others will taste “yukky”. Give these nuggets from the Freezer Cooking Manual a try and let me know how it goes.

Broiled Roll-ups – This is a Recipe of the Month winner that I hadn’t made for ages. My hubby liked them a lot, the kids thought they looked weird but tasted okay and I think they’re great!

Homemade Pizzas – What did we do as kids in the 60’s without pizza? My mom started making her own pizza when I was a teenager from the Chef Boyardee boxes. That is still my favorite pizza sauce. I can remember the first Pizza Hut coming to our town when I was in high school. Yikes! We have a few recipes on the site for pizzas. If you’re a manual owner you can access the Pizza Pack recipe in the 50 Free Recipes section. This is a great step by step recipe for those of you who have never made pizza from "scratch" before. Non-members can check out the March 1999 Recipe of the Month winner for Self-Rising Pizza Crusts.

Fruit Slush – This recipe from the Freezer Cooking Manual is adaptable to whatever fruits your family likes best. We seem to major in oranges and strawberries around here. Again, putting them into individual cups with lids works great!

Click here to see a pix of our Fruit Slush in little cups
Click here to view/print the Fruit Slush recipe

Snack Attack Recipes:
Pudding-wiches – If your family likes graham crackers and chocolate they will love these Recipe of the Month winners! As snack foods go, they are on the healthier side. Milk, pudding, graham crackers and eating them straight from the freezer is best!

Click here to see our batch of Pudding-wiches
Click here to view/print the Pudding-wiches recipe

Snackin’ Mix – I’m showing my age again but I can remember my mom making Chex Mix every December to give the friends and neighbors. It was just like the “oldies” commercial that they ran on tv last Christmas with the kids and mom in the kitchen. What’s so funny to me is how many of my kids’ friends think that Chex Mix only comes pre-packaged from the store. Make it yourself! It’s much healthier, tons cheaper and you can choose the ingredients you like best (I toss in extra wheat chex and nuts and go easy on the pretzels).

of Snackin’ Mix spread out to cool
Click here to view/print the Snackin’ Mix recipe

Teddy Bear Snack Mix – Little ones will love this mix. Use small ziptop bags and store them in the freezer.

Frozen Peanut Butter Bars – If you’ve been a 30 Day Gourmet for long, you are sure to have tried this recipe from the manual. I talk about it all the time. It’s one of my kids’ favorites. Actually, every adult who has eaten them loves them too. Taste best straight from the freezer!

Pudding Pops – This recipe of the month winner is a great summertime snack. Super-easy to make and I think that the kids liked pulling the stick out of the cup as much as they liked eating them. I used some plastic cups that I had around but they were too big. Even for older kids, I would use very small cups or small popsicle molds.

Vegetable Pizza – Okay, confession time. I have eaten these at all of my friends’ houses but had never tried making one myself. Hey – they looked kinda hard! Well, guess what. It’s a pretty easy thing to do. Obviously, you can’t freeze the pizza with the raw veggies on it. But that’s not the hard part. You CAN freeze the crust with the cream cheese topping and then quickly add the raw veggies before serving.

“TV Dinner” Ideas:
Several people have e-mailed lately asking whether they can make their own “tv dinners” for the freezer. I may devote a whole issue or ebook to that later, but the short answer is – You sure can! The trick with tv dinners is to avoid overcooking the food. Lots of us make a big batch of mashed potatoes and serve the whole thing hot for dinner knowing that half of it will be left over. Then we put it into the refrigerator and get it out a few nights later and warm the whole thing up again and repeat the process until it’s all gone. That poor last serving has been cooked about 10 times.

So assembly your food and divide it into servings sizes to put straight into your tv dinner trays. Here are some that I have done successfully.

Barbecue Chicken Wings – purchase them on sale and marinade them in barbecue sauce for a few hours. Bake or broil the wings. Don’t overbake! If you like spicy, check out our Spicy Buffalo Wings recipe.

Crispy Rice Chicken – This recipe from the manual is a favorite here. For tv dinners I would choose smaller pieces so that they will reheat in the same time as the rest of the dinner.

Meatballs – Meatballs are a great choice for tv dinners. Use the recipe in the manual for our Master Meat Mix (it includes 7 sauces) or any standard meatball recipe.

Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes – I laugh when I think about the grainy texture of the mashed potatoes that we used to look forward to eating in the TV Dinners that my mom bought when we had a babysitter. If that’s what you think of when you think about eating potatoes from a plastic container, please try this recipe. You’ll love ‘em!

Pasta or Rice – Pasta and rice can be fully cooked and frozen easily. Have you ever priced out the store’s frozen spaghetti dinners? Try putting the spaghetti into a measuring cup. You’ll be shocked by how little you really get.

Don’t forget – we’ve made some changes to our contests for 2002 and I’m lovin’ them already. Lots of you have sent great entries. Keep ‘em comin’. You don’t need to re-submit your entry each month by the way. I’ll keep them all and choose from the whole file.

Our apron winner will now be chosen from our Crazy Cook’s Stories. I know you’ve got ‘em so send ‘em on. I love reading about all of the zany things that happen to you because you cook the 30 Day Gourmet way. You can submit your story by e-mail or on the message boards.

Our Crazy Cook for June is Carol from Ringgold, Georgia. Here’s Carol’s crazy story:

Our Cook of the Month contest is changing to the “Do a Good Cooking Deed” contest. Tell me how you use 30 Day Gourmet cooking to help others and if your story is chosen I’ll send you $25. Again, you can submit your story by e-mail or on the message boards. It’s okay to nominate someone else, too.

Our May “Do a Good Cooking Deed” winner is Cathy from Rosalia, Washington.

Our June “Do a Good Cooking Deed” winner is Connie from Lawrence, Kansas. Great idea for those summer brides!

RECIPE OF THE MONTH $25 WINNER – chosen by Tammy, our message board moderator.

Submit your recipe for the Recipe of the Month contest!
You too can submit a recipe for this contest! Just post it on our Cook’s Corner message boards under the appropriate recipe category. All submitted recipes are considered, as long as your profile contains your email address so we can reach you. The winner receives a check for $25.

May's Recipe of the Month winner is Beverly Lubs, with her Crock Pot Mac and Cheese recipe. What a great recipe! Seems like everyone is looking for new side dishes, and this one is easy and very tasty. I’ve never made Mac ‘n Cheese from scratch before, but don’t think I’ll be making it from a box again!! I mixed the sauce ingredients together while the macaroni cooked, and the recipe went together in a matter of minutes!

I made a single batch, but could have easily made a double batch in a 6 quart crock pot. The recipe calls for sharp cheddar and extra sharp cheddar. We don’t really like sharp cheddar, so I used mild for all the grated cheese. Next time, I will use mild and sharp, which I expect will give it more flavor. I used the stand-by elbow macaroni, but think shells or bow-ties would work nicely. I also plan to try Beverly’s variations in the future!

All the adults who tried this recipe for me loved it. My kids thought it was just “OK”... they’d rather have the orange stuff from the box. But I hope to change their opinion on that soon! This recipe will definitely be added to my next cooking day!

Meet Beverly, our winning cook:

June's Recipe of the Month winner is Katie Gordon. Her winning recipe is for Barbecued Beef Loaves. This one is a keeper for my family too!
My father-in-law is in the final stages of cancer, and I made this recipe to take to their house to feed the family over the weekend. There were more than 12 people there, kids and adults. And everyone, without fail, loved this recipe! My mom helped me make a few different recipes that day, and I left a couple of these loaves with her for dinner for her and dad. They really liked them too!

The barbecue sauce is wonderful, for such a simple recipe! It’s thick and stays on top of the loaves as they bake. I made a double batch of the recipe, and only used the vinegar amount for a single batch. I was a little hesitant to use the full amount, because I had a problem with too much vinegar in a recipe last week. But if I wasn’t trying to cook at 1 A.M., with very little sleep, I probably wouldn’t have had that problem!! So I’ve learned it’s much easier to add more vinegar if needed, instead of trying to fix too much vinegar in the recipe. I’ve also learned not to cook at 1 A.M., but that’s a different story!

I used 92% lean ground beef for this recipe, which works great. There is very little fat to run off as it bakes, and the loaves stick together and hold their shape very well. This recipe makes very dense loaves, so they are filling. Make your loaves similar size and thickness for even cooking throughout. I also found they reheat nicely for leftovers, too.

Here’s a little from Katie, our June winner:

Thanks, Katie, for sharing your recipe with us! Congratulations to both of our winners this newsletter... your prize check is in the mail!

Q & A from Nanci
Q.	I was wondering about cooling down all the prepared food items for freezing. I read somewhere that you shouldn't cool hot foods at room temperature because bacteria produced rapidly when foods went from hot to warm. I usually cool one thing down in the fridge but if I cook 30 meals and food items I certainly can't do that. Do you just leave everything out on the counter until it is cool enough to freeze. If so, about how long does it take? Thanks in advance for your help.
A.	Great question – especially in these warm summer days. This can be tricky - especially if you have lots of hot stuff sitting around on cooking day. Lots of the foods that we do are just "pre-assembled" not "pre-cooked" so they aren't really getting hot. (Examples: meatloaf, meats in marinade) With other recipes, we cook the meat ahead of time, cool it and put it in the fridge to use the next day for assembling our recipe. We pre-cook ground beef for sloppy joes, chicken for chicken divan, etc. That way we are actually stirring up a cold recipe and it can go straight into the fridge or freezer. A good article to read about cooling your foods can be found here: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/foodsci/agentinfo/projects/fss1.pdf.
Q & A from Christi, author of Freezer Cooking on a Budget
Q.	I already clip coupons and shop supermarket sales. It seems like I am already taking advantage of cutting costs where I can… How can budget freezer cooking really help me reduce my family’s food costs even more?
A.	Every family is different, but one thing that remains the same for every cook is the ability to find ways to reduce the amount of money you spend on food. By clipping coupons and shopping sales, you are already finding ways to make this happen for your budget. But there are many other ways to cut costs above and beyond that. Freezer cooking On A Budget helps you find ways of reducing costs in the kitchen and keeping your family satisfied at the same time. Here are some different things that may work for you: starting a price book to compare costs at different supermarkets shopping your pantry store before you plan a cooking session making your own mixes and marinades for a fraction of the store costs using the art of substitution to maximize your food dollar keeping your meals exciting so your family won’t feel cheated at the dinner table These are just a few examples of how you can continue to save money while cooking the 30 Day Gourmet way!

In light of the upcoming summer weddings, I thought you’d enjoy this funny that I read on the internet the other day. I can’t find the original source. If anyone knows, I’ll be glad to give credit.

Bachelor's Guide to Food Storage
ICE CREAM - If you can't tell the difference between your ice cubes and your ice cream, it's time to throw BOTH out.

DAIRY PRODUCTS - Milk is spoiled when it starts to look like yogurt. Yogurt is spoiled when it starts to look like cottage cheese. Cottage cheese is spoiled when it starts to look like regular cheese. Regular cheese is nothing but spoiled milk anyway - if you can dig down and still find something that's not green and not too hard to eat, bon appetit!

We had four new consultants join us since the end of April. Click here to check out the whole list with contact info on the website. Please contact them if you’d like a 30 Day Gourmet speaker for your local group of frustrated cooks!
Welcome to:

I found a fun website while knocking around the internet the other day. It’s called www.recipecontests.com and has bunches of info about what else – recipe contests! You can check out 3-4 current recipes and read quite a few stories for free. Beyond that they want $20 a year to be a member but if you end up winning $20,000 in a recipe contest – I guess it would be worth it. The yearly fee also entitles you to view 1000 winning recipes on the site.

I’d love to know if any of our cooks have won a contest. Send me an e-mail and tell me your story would you?

Chewin'

the News

MESSAGE BOARD UPDATES FROM TAMMY

RECIPE OF THE MONTH $25 WINNER – chosen by Tammy, our message board moderator.

Nanci

30 Day Gourmet