Turkey Time!

Last night we cooked up 20 pounds of ground turkey! We did a group purchase of ground turkey from Zaycon and I told Nick that I would cook his meat up for him so he could freeze it. One of these days I'm confident that we'll learn to NOT start these projects so late! We didn't start until sometime after 8pm and didn't finish until 11 or so.

We browned half of it - this is 5 pounds spread out to cool before we bagged it up to freeze:

And we made the other half into taco meat:

The biggest problem is what to do with all that grease! Seriously. How do you get rid of that? We decided to let it cool completely and then put it in a double freezer ziplock bag, freeze until trash day and then throw it away. Hope that works.

As always, my favorite part is seeing the results at the end! Lots of small portions of turkey ready to freeze and use for dinner:

We realized that we should have done the taco meat first because the meat with sauce takes a lot longer to cool down before you can bag it up. The regular browned turkey cooled really fast. We got about 10 cups of the browned turkey from 5 lbs of meat and 9 cups of taco meat from 5 lbs of meat. 

And the house smells like tacos this morning! Time to open up the windows...

Absentminded Cook

Sometimes I think it's a wonder that anything turns out in my kitchen. Today I was making Snickerdoodles and I opened the oven to take the first batch out and this is what I saw:

(Well, I guess that's not exactly what I saw since these are stacked on a cooling rack but you see what I mean...)

Gadzooks! What in the world? I mean I haven't made Snickerdoodles in years but I don't remember them being terribly difficult and I know they aren't flat!

The dough was really soft and I read the recipe three times to see if I was supposed to chill it before rolling into little balls but no, no chilling needed... I just couldn't see what else it might be. I walked out of the kitchen because I wasn't sure if I wanted to bother with the rest of the dough or just throw it out or what - so I took a break.

When I came back I realized that I had only put in 1 3/4 cup of flour not 2 3/4 cups! Duh!! I would like to say that this is the first time I've ever done something like this but it's not even close. In fact, this seems to happen in streaks so perhaps I need to do only minimal cooking for awhile. haha. I did add more flour to the remaining dough and it's quite amazing, the dough feels better and the cookies look like - Snickerdoodles.

I'll just say I invented a new cookie - Snickerdoodle Crisps. ha ha! I tell ya, if my head weren't attached...

School Breakfasts

School is back in which means we're back to the eternal question - what is quick and filling for a teenage boy for breakfast? "Quick" is a key here for me, but if you ask him, "filling" is the key. I made breakfast burritos, waffles, and french toast and froze them so he can just take out what he wants to eat in the morning and warm it up and that works pretty well but really, that'll only last so long... We do make egg mcmuffins frequently but he's fairly sick of those. (I can't blame him, it's about all he ate last year.)

Do you have any great breakfast ideas?? It really has to be A) something that I can freeze beforehand because I'm not getting up in the 4s to make breakfast or B) really fast if it's made the morning of. I'd love any and all ideas. :D

Pears

Last Saturday Mom, Becky, and I canned pears. 110 pounds of pears which came out to be I think 56 quarts of pears. What a sticky mess. It's one of those times you just need a fire hose to spray down the kitchen because you use multiple rags and mop at least twice before the sticky goes away.

And you know how pears turn brown if they sit after you've cut them? Well, as it turns out the pear juice that you get on your fingers and under your finger nails also turns brown. Especially if your skin is dry. Then it just settles right into the little crevices in your skin and browns right up. It's gorgeous dahling! Especially since it's Wednesday and I can still see it. It looks like I haven't cleaned under my nails in ages. Maybe I'll just have to cut the long ones and start over...

I asked the J if he remembered these pears - they were his favorite when he was little but he hasn't had them in a very long time! He said, "Yeah, I love those with macaroni and cheese." Yep. That was his combo. He'd eat that as often as he could get it. And he never cared much for fresh pears because he preferred the bottled ones.

Some of our pears:

We had a few pears left over so I've been on a search to find great pear recipes. On Sunday I made a Pear Croustade for dessert that was yummy.

And on Monday I made Grilled Pears & Ham for dinner.

All this yummy fresh food is a blessing of summer!

This Week's Menu...

This is for you Adrienne. And it's a one time deal. haha!

Being the planner that I am (look for a future post about gold personalities) I try to plan a menu every week. I'm totally lost if I don't and we have things like "You Pick It, You Fix It" nights 4 out of 5 nights and chicken nuggets (or some comparable gourmet offering) the other night. Saturday is always a "You Pick It, You Fix It" night so I guess that would make 5 nights out of 6. Sundays, well that's a whole different story so they don't count in my week of planning. You can see that clearly it's better for everyone if I plan a menu!

Usually in the summer I'm really into cooking and I try new recipes constantly. And I make breakfast frequently. This summer that hasn't really set in yet. Maybe it's all the rain? Yeah, maybe not.

There are only a few new recipes on my menu this week. No, that's not so many - I'm kind of weird about that. You could say that trying new recipes is kind of a hobby for me. I checked a few cookbooks out from the library today - hoping to kick start something great - so we'll see what happens.

Generally The J gets after me if I don't make a good breakfast when I'm out of school but since he doesn't join the land of the living until after 11 or 12 these days breakfasts have fallen by the wayside. I kind of miss them but I'm not really going to cook a big (or even slightly involved) breakfast just for me.

So, here's my menu for this week:

Monday:

Adobe Chicken Wraps (recipe here)

Veggies on the Grill

Salsa and chips

Tuesday: (always breakfast for dinner night - hey Adrienne, don't I owe you a breakfast dinner still?)

Baked Cinnamon French Toast

Wednesday:

Sticky Fingers Ribs

I have decided sides for this one yet...

Oh, and I can't find the ribs in the freezer. There's a chance that someone, who shall remain aMOMynous, gave them to my brother. That's only slightly annoying, right? But I'm moving on...

Thursday:

Stromboli

Zesty broccoli

Friday:

Steak Hi-Hat (crockpot)

Noodles

That's probably as far as I'll get on Friday

I'm also known, mostly in the summer, to just change the menu rather frequently as I find new recipes to try. So who knows, we may not be having all of this after all. ;)

Cookin' Ahead

I made freezer meals again yesterday since school starts next week. I made 2 the day before and I made a few dry meal mixes the week before because clearly I had to have something to display for my "Cooking Ahead" class. And hey, I'm gettin' into the mix thing too and they're so easy.

When all was said and done, I ended up with 22 meals, mostly in the freezer.  I was smart this time, not on purpose mind you, I made shredded BBQ chicken and shredded BBQ beef.  I don't eat beef so the BBQ beef does me no good. (I had thawed too much chicken so I just used it for BBQ. I think I'll do that next time too. 

Now, don't stress, I did not make 20 separate meals yesterday.  I'm able to split lots of the recipes in half because J won't eat much, well, let me check my list...  Um, no, in fact he won't eat any of the meals I made. What does J eat?  That's a good question.  I'll let you know if I ever figure it out.  And I don't eat the ones with beef so really there are only two eaters in that case, so I can make multiple meals from one recipe. Not to mention, a recipe that feeds 8 will easily make 2 meals for us even if we all eat. 

At least one part of me feels ready for school to start again! Which reminds me! I also made a few quick little lunch things, such as Sweet & Sour Chicken, that I can take to school. I'm pretty excited to see how they work because I'll have a long pause between classes (see 'schedule change' post) and I'll need to be better about bringing lunch not just a snacker this semester.