Freezer Meals

Yesterday Becky and I made freezer meals.  She wanted to do this last winter before Amelia was born so that she'd have some easy meals while the baby was brand new so we did it and it was great.  It was a lot of work but for me, when it came to midterms and finals it was so nice to have something in the freezer ready to go. I'm sure my family appreciated having dinner during those weeks as well.  So, I decided we should do it again for this semester.  

Here are some rules/suggestions to follow if you'd like to do freezer meals:

1) You need a good friend to work with.  Here are my helpers:

Becky and Amelia (who was decidedly bored with the whole process) and Tiernan and Joshie. Tiernan is very often my sous chef. He does a fabulous job. 

(The junior helpers aren't as much help as you'd sometimes like but they do make the day more entertaining! Oh! And they think they are loads of help!)

2) Good music that you play really loud. When the junior helpers arrived I had to turn it down a little, well, quite a bit, but you still need fun music. And I'm not talking Kenny G put-you-to-sleep stuff, I mean something that makes you want to dance and keeps you going.

3) Plan ahead. You need to plan the meals you want to make, make a good shopping list and shop the day before. Don't forget things like foil pie plates or pans and good quality freezer bags. If you are really on top of things (we weren't so good at this this time) you will plan ahead far enough in advance so that you can watch for sales on the items you'll be using.

4) You need an apron. Ok, maybe you don't but I sure do. I think I'm perhaps the messiest cook ever. The apron is in the washing machine as we speak. 

5) Back to planning, you should take a few minutes to make note of where each dish will be cooked and how much time it will take.  Stovetop, oven, crockpot, etc. You can't have everything on the stovetop all at once so you have to coordinate. 

6) Have fun. I realize that to some of you this sounds like drudgery (and by the end of the day you're body will agree) but you'll be so glad to have a freezer full of good things to eat. And when you have a really super crazy schedule, as is prone to happen on occasion around here, you'll be even more glad that you have them in your freezer!

Here are some of the things we made:

Breakfast Burritos

Tuscan Bean Soup

Split Pea Soup with Ham (left) and Taco Chili (right)

We also made (but don't have pictures of) Spaghetti Pie, Chili Verde, Texas Beef Skillet, Chicken Caesar Casserole, and Florentine English Muffins.  In the end we each left with 10 dinners. I did the burritos before they arrived (because Becky had just made those at home) so I also have those in my freezer. And, because we're crazy, we also cooked and shredded about 22 chicken breasts so we each have a nice store of shredded chicken breast in the freezer.  

If we were just doing our meals it would have taken from about 9:30am to 4:30pm but since we did the chicken too that took until about 7:30pm. Next time we're probably not doing chicken on the same day. Right? 

And my dad was gem and cleaned up the kitchen last night. Let me assure you, I had already done 3 loads of dishes and taken the trash out 3 or 4 times and swept twice (I mentioned that I'm a messy cook, yes?) so I don't mean to imply that we left everything for him to clean up but the stove was rather a mess and there was yet another pile of dishes. And I planned on scrubbing the stove this morning but I sure am grateful that Dad got the jump on that! :)

Steinbeck is for the Birds!

Who decided that John Steinbeck's books are classics?? I tried to read The Grapes of Wrath when Megan was reading it for school - it was terrible. And terribly boring. I never finished it and have no desire to ever return to it. 

This year I am determined to read the books Justin is reading in English so that we can talk about them, etc. (And I'm secretly hoping that it will give me an edge when he says he's read something - then I can quiz him and see if he's being honest or not...) The first book this year was Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. In the first 12 pages there were 17 swear words and the Lord's name was taken in vain 10 times. I assure you that there were instances of one, and usually both, on every single page in the book. No exaggeration.

Now I will say that it's a story with complex themes that can be pulled apart and analyzed, which is exactly what English teachers love to do, but I just didn't think it was that great. Certainly not a book that should be on everyone's 'must read' list. I guess I just feel like there's no reason to read a book that is filled with crap when there are so many books out there that truly are great! Why is it hard for the English department to find them?

Next up is The Great Gatsby - I can only hope it's an improvement.

Justin fell in alright

Yesterday Justin's friend was teaching him how to do a "fall in" trick on his skateboard - and it worked. He fell. And banged up his toes, has a nice bump on his knee and I'm thinking he maybe has a concussion. His jaw hurts pretty bad and he has a bad headache and was dizzy for a little while. Poor kid. Maybe this will be a good incentive not to try falling tricks any more. It seems they aren't so good for you. But then I do tend to avoid pain whenever possible, so maybe that's just me. He'll probably try again but hopefully not until his head has had proper healing time.

Denvocratic National Convention

It's finally taken over! The Denvocration National Convention is in town this week so I just thought I'd put word out there that if any big news or interesting news, etc. happens in the world you might think of letting me know because in Denver all we care about is the convention and Comrade Obama. Don't get me wrong - this an historic event and important, and I'm into politics, etc., etc., etc. but really, I'm not kidding when I say it's all we talk about on the news, in the paper, on the radio... you get my point. I think the whole state of Washington could fall off into the ocean and we wouldn't even hear about it.  

I'm glad I get to stay nice and snug in my little corner of the world this week. :)

Shout out

I just thought I'd give a shout out to a favorite of mine on laundry day!  Becky recommended Shout Color Catcher sheets in the wash and I'm hooked.  

You use a sheet in the washing machine when you have new clothes, or clothes that are dark and may bleed the first few times you wash them - think of the dark, dark jeans that are the thing these days...  They work like a charm!  They catch all the bleeding color and keep it from messing up your other clothes.  These are right up there with Magic Erasers in my book!  :)

9pm on any given Sunday

What is it about the 9:00 hour on Sunday evening that reminds kids (read: teenagers especially but not exclusively) everywhere that they still need their moms?  

9pm: "Mom?  Can you help me with my homework?"

Mom:  "Hmm, didn't get that done yet, huh?"

Kid:  "Seriously, can you just help me?"

Mom:  "Sure. What do you have to do?"

Kid:  "Two papers."

Mom:  Blank stare followed by "Did you say TWO PAPERS?"

Kid:  "Yeah, well, pretty much. Well, one is just a poem [at this point mom is remembering the last time she had to help kid write a poem, it was not an easy or short process...] and the other is a paragraph about the American Dream and what it means."

Mom:  Thinking the paragraph might not be too bad - and at least it's not really 2 whole papers - but the poem might kill us.  "Ok well, let's get started."

10:30pm:

After a long evening of "your ideas are all stupid!" and "just HELP me" and "just write it down then I'll put it in my own words" followed up with "great! Do it yourself then" and "I've already graduated from high school so this is for you to do" and "think of how much less stress you'd have if you'd started this earlier" --- 

Kid:  "I don't even care if it's long enough, it's close enough. I'm going to bed."

Mom:  "Great way to start the year.  Can you please bring your planner AND write in it tomorrow?"

Kid:  "Maybe.  Night mom.  Love you."

Mom:  "Night, love you."

And let the school year begin!

Makin' Waves

I made a few waves today with the feminists in my Lit class as we were discussing a character in a short story.  In a nutshell the lady finds out her husband has died in an accident, grieves for about 2 minutes then she's elated as she realizes she's "free, free, free." To her dismay hubby walks in the door, clearly alive and well, and she falls down dead from the shock. The story is set in the year 1894.

We were discussing possibles for the story such as did she ever try to be happy in her relationship? Clearly since she couldn't be the CEO of a multi-national corporation back then so there was no possibility of happiness for her. Unless her hubby died. A girl in our class said she understands the woman's grief and sense of relief because you know back then she couldn't have even talked to her husband. Men didn't care one bit about women on any level, and never wanted to hear anything they had to say or what they wanted, etc. And on she went. 

I finally raised my hand and said I had to disagree. (I'm so, so tired of hearing how poor women have been miserable for their entire existence until about the 1960s!)  I said that "too often when people look back at history they assume that no one was happy until modern times, that no one had anything good in their lives and that's just wrong. It's just not true." Then I read the part of the story that says her husband's "face never looked upon her save with love," which seems to indicate that he loved her. Or am I misreading? Certainly a possibility.

I refuse to believe that all women in history have been miserable. That's just ridiculous. This story seemed to indicate that this marriage may have been arranged - we get to choose our marriage partners these days and that doesn't guarantee happiness any more than an arranged married guaranteed misery. I think that people have been and will always be able, in most cases, to find some level of happiness and contentment within their sphere if they try. If we don't put any effort into it then that's to our own detriment and the same was true for women of the past and will be for women of the future.  I didn't give this whole spiel (and believe me, I could go on but I'll spare you...) but I think even my short comment annoyed the girl in the back who prefers to think only modern women can possibly be happy. I wonder how much she limits her own happiness, even today, by dwelling on what she still thinks she can't do?

cell phone dependency

Justin lost his cell phone in a creek while we were in Utah and it's really made me realize how dependent I am on that little piece of technology! Hopefully his new phone will arrive soon but in the mean time it makes simple communications not so simple. Sometimes I have to walk all the way up to his room (2 flights!) just to remind him to set his alarm to get up for school and sometimes I just want to send him a text while he's with his friends so he can remember that his annoying mom is thinking about him.  That's of course with the hope that he'll 'remember who he is...'  haha!  And further, how did parents ever know exactly where their kids were after school before the advent of cell phones? Not that the cell phone is a fool proof plan for that but it does at least help. I miss his phone!

Real Life

Ah sigh, it's back to real life tomorrow. I've been enjoying this summer and even came to the conclusion that summer might not be my least favorite time of the year any more. (Don't get too excited, it's still not on the top of the list...) We had great visits with our friends and lots of fun with our family in Utah and then here the last three weeks! I can't lie though, I'm ok with hearing less tattle tailing for a little while... 

School starts tomorrow and I haven't even got my backpack in order or the clothes folded or most of my books purchased or anything. I think this is officially the least prepared I've ever been for the start of a semester - hopefully that doesn't indicate how this semester will go! (I better go set my alarm right now while I'm thinking about it.)