Cass Cooks, Too!

posted by Cass on Oct 31

Before I get into the Four Foods on Friday, I want to take a few minutes to let you know what’s going on with me. I know that looking over the past couple of weeks of entries here it appears that this blog may be all about Four Foods and other memes, but this is not the case. I desperately want to get this blog back to how it was a couple of months ago, before football became my life and I got so overwhelmed. I was having fun then, and I think you were, too.

Football season ended last Saturday, and only Cheer is left. We’ll be done with that the week of Thanksgiving, but this week, we had a vacation from practices, and I spent the bulk of the week streamlining and catching up and cutting the chaff, so I could have a clear focus and time to put into developing just a few blogs into what I really want them to be. I’m excited about that!

So, what does that mean for you? Well, if you look at the tagline up above, you will see I changed it. It says “Frugal Gourmet meets Scarlett O’Hara”. I really want to specialize in bringing you recipes that don’t break the bank, and still have people asking for more, more, more of that, so one thing I plan to do is provide recipes for some of the foods that come in the Angel Food boxes. Dollar for Dollar, ounce for ounce, it doesn’t get any more budget friendly than Angel Food.

Okay, that’s a huge long introduction, and I still have more to say, but I am going to force myself to shut up and move on to the Four Foods on Friday. Here are this week’s questions:

#1. What kind of pretzels are your favorite?
#2. What’s your favorite way to eat pancakes?
#3. Do you make garlic bread from scratch or buy frozen?
#4. Share a recipe that calls for mozzarella cheese.

1. I like the little rods, and I especially lke them with peanut butter. I put a dollop of peanut butter in a bowl with a handful of pretzels, and dip the pretzels in it. So good!

2. On a plate in front of me, LOL. Seriously, I like honey on oatmeal pancakes, and maple syrup on regular white flour pancakes and either on whole wheat pancakes.

3. I do both, depending on time, inclination and finances.

4. I use mozzarella pretty much exclusively, because it is lower in saturated fat than other hard cheeses, and I have to watch my cholesterol. The recipe that first comes to mind is my lasagna, but that is neither quick, nor easy, nor inexpensive, so I will skip it. What about stuffed shells?

Stuffed Shells

Large pasta shells
8 ounces mozzarella
8 ounces cottage cheese
10 ounces frozen spinach
2 eggs
salt
pepper
jar of prepared spaghetti sauce

Cook the pasta. Mix the other ingredients, except the sauce, together. When the shells are done, fill them with the cheese mixture. Pour the sauce over the top, bake until hot and bubbly. Serve with salad and garlic bread.

posted by Cass on Oct 24

It’s week #52 for Four Foods on Friday!

#1. Name something you use cream cheese in/on.
#2. Do you use yogurt in any recipes?
#3. Macaroni salad. What do you like/put in yours?
#4. Share a recipe that you use sour cream in.

1. I use cream cheese on turnovers. Yum!
2. No, but I would love to learn how to make cucumber yogurt sauce. And also the gyros that goes under it..
3. I made this tonight! I used radiatorefor the pasts. I mixed a packet of ranch mix with 3/4 cup or so of mayo. I added canned mushrooms, tomatoes, and some salad topping. It looked like this:

and it was sooooooooooo good!

4. Another recipe? Geez! You’re killing me here!
Okay, Easy Cheater Beef Stroganoff

Diced leftover steak or roast, or meatballs, or stew meat, browned
Cream of mushroom soup
mushrooms, canned or fresh
onion, if desired
garlic
sour cream

Brown the onions if you are using them. Throw the garlic and mushrooms (with a bit of the liquid if canned) and diced beef in the pan. Add the soup. When it’s bubbly, add the sour cream. Serve over egg noodles.

posted by Cass on Oct 21

I got a great deal tonight, and I want to share the goodness with you. The fact that I will get an egift card when people participate has very little with my pleasure in sharing my good fortune. Ok, maybe a little bit, but only a little, I promise.

First, go here. Set up an account. You don’t have to love the gecko, or even give him money, you just need the account. After you register, you will eventually get an email. It will have a link to a $25 gift certificate to Omaha Steaks. Go pick up that number, but be aware it can take up to several hours for the email to arrive.

Once you have that number, go to Omaha Steaks and enter your email address. In turn, they will give you 12 free burgers with any order. Click “Redeem here” under the picture of the burgers on that same page, and start shopping. I ordered 12 more four ounce burgers for 14.99. Then I applied my $25 gift certificate, and paid a whopping $3.98 by paypal, (shipping is crazy high, so use that gift certificate to cover it) and I will have 24 hamburgers on my door step next Wednesday.

Let me do the math real quick….. 24 burgers, $3.98, that’s less than 17 cents each, roughly four and a quarter cents per ounce. Go get yours before they wake up!

posted by Cass on Oct 20

Well, so, here it is Monday again. I apologize for my lack of posts here, but I have been pretty much sick as a dog since last Tuesday night. I am still sick, but I have decided that I can’t waste any more time being that way, and it’s time to suck up and deal. I’ll let you know how that works out for me, unless it works out badly, and then I will be in he hospital and unable to get back to you right away. On to the menu stuff.

This will be the week we eat out of the freezer and pantry for real, with no grocery shopping at all. Should be quite an adventure, and I love a good adventure.

Seafood Broccoli Pasta
Burritos
Chicken and Pastry
Spaghetti
Pork Tenderloin
Beans and Rice
Leftovers

posted by Cass on Oct 13

As I get ready to post this, Org Junkie is down, so I don’t know that I will be able to link in with her or not, but it’s Monday, and that means it is time for a menu, so let’s make one anyway! We are continuing our eat cheap quest (of course), and this week’s menu reflects some tasty but cheap choices.

Chicken patty sandwiches with cheese and fruit
Home made mushroom pizza
Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo and salad
Macaroni and cheese
Fried chicken
Seafood and pasta with veggies
Burritos

posted by Cass on Oct 10

#1. Pasta. How do you tell when it’s done? Do you cook on medium or high?
#2. Deep frying. What kind of oil do you use?
#3. Grilling. Do you grill on foil or directly on the grill?
#4. Share a recipe that involves cooking something two different ways.Example, for lasagna you might fry the meat and bake the whole dish.

1. I time it, and also it smells. I cook it on high, but sometimes, I turn ot off and just let the hot water do it’s thing. That buys a little time if the sauce or whatever is a little slower getting done than you thought.

2. Canola. The end.

3. On the grill.

4. I guess that would be rice stuffed chicken. Cook flavored rice on the stove top, and then shove it into a chicken. Bake the chicken. Viola, dinner! No one said it had to be a complicated recipe!

posted by Cass on Oct 8

Or Moemill as DaBaby calls it. And I realize this post may not be rocket science, but I needed something to post, and I figured if I wanted to make oatmeal in the microwave, someone else will too, and mine is pretty good. And if you doubt that, remember DaBaby is 2 and half years old, and she asks me for it regularly. So, here’s how I do it.

Measure out 6 cups of water and add 3 cups of oats to it, plus a pinch of salt. Please do not forget the salt, because oatmeal without salt is nasty, and you can’t just add it after the fact. No need to ask me how I know, just trust me. I cook mine for 10 minutes on high. You can downsize the amount to suit your family size, but this amount feeds my family of 9. And it feed them pretty cheap!

Now comes the fun part: additions! I add raisins or other dried fruit, and/or nuts. We really like the cinnamon spice dried apples, dates, blueberries or craisins. I use brown sugar or pancake syrup to sweeten it, and you don’t need very much sweetener if you use dried fruit. But don’t worry if you don’t have fruit on hand. Given enough syrup, the kids will eat it and love it anyway

posted by Cass on Oct 6

Boy, am I glad this week for a full pantry and freezer. Times are tough all over, and we didn’t have much money for restocking this week. That’s not a huge issue, because I’ve been shopping the good deals, and also, there is still a lot of food left from Angel Food. A little milk and oatmeal, and I can eek us out for another week, and we can eat well without taking out a personal loan for food.

Learning to shop frugally is an ongoing adventure for me. Right now, we are spending between five and six hundred dollars a month. 6 months ago, we were regularly spending between eight and nine hundred. I’ve shaved the equivalent of a auto loan payment off our grocery choices, just by making better decisions in the store. We are eating healthier and we are eating a better variety, and we are doing it for less. I’m really happy with that, and I haven’t even started using coupons yet! I said yet, because I do plan to start using them as soon as I make myself sit down for a few minutes and figure out how to start getting my hands on the Sunday paper for less than 2 bucks a week.

You may notice some repeats on this weeks menu. There were several nights last week where we had something off the “official” menu. Both of my older girls like to cook, and so if they have something they want to make, I let them do so, as long as we have the ingredients. This week’s menu is a little more rigid, since we will be using up the tail end of the frozen foods. That’s ok, because I will be going shopping this coming weekend. I don’t know exactly when, since we have football all day Saturday, and I have church on Sunday morning and I am singing in a talent show on Sunday night. Anyway, here’s the menu:

~pintos (these are already cooked and the famfam says they are delish. I started them before I left for the day yesterday, just adding a large can of diced tomatoes, about half a cup of dried cilantro and a bit of salt to a pound and a half of pintos, then cooking all day in the crockpot.)

chicken on a can
ribs
chicken and pastry
fried catfish
burritos

Hey, here’s an question for ya. How do you think the recent bailout will affect food prices? I know at first glance it seems like the two are unrelated, but I’ve found that everything effects food prices in one way or another. Is the government’s 700Billion dollar attempt at saving the banks a good thing for the people? Or do you think more families will be needing debt consolidation just to afford the basics? And if they do need it, will they be able to get it with the tighter strictures on lending?

posted by Cass on Oct 3

It’s time again for Four Foods on Friday. Here are this week’s questions:

#1. Turnips. Love em or leave em?
#2. What’s your favorite roasted dish?
#3. Salsa. What kind of you like?
#4. Share directions on how to make your favorite quick meal, meaning start to finish in about 30 minutes or less.

I love turnips. They are so creamy and tasty. The greens I can take or leave, but the roots (rutabagas) are awesome.

Roasted. Roasted. Hmmm, roasted. I have a hard time defining that, since I think in terms of baked or fried, LOL. We really like roasted chicken though, cooked in any number of ways, including stuffed with rice OR roasted on a soda.

Peach pineapple, hands down. It’s put out by Great Value (Wal-Mart) and it is so tasty. Love it with chicken!

Nothing takes only half an hour when you are cooking for 9, except breakfast or canned soup. But I can come pretty close with Egg MomMuffins or pancakes. We like pancakes. I really thought I had posted how to make Egg MomMuffins, along with pictures, but I can’t seem to find it just now. It’s a basic play in that fast food item it most sounds like, and I cook the whole thing in stages on Uber Griddle.

posted by Cass on Oct 1

I told you on Monday to expect a post on Angel Food Ministries soon, and here it is. We used them for the first time this past month, and I am totally impressed. We’ll be using them again, that’s for sure! We bought two boxes and here’s what we got for 60 bucks:

2 pounds of pinto beans
2 bags of pizza poppers
7 pounds of chicken bites
2 pounds of ground turkey
2 pounds of broccoli
2 bags of french fries
2 pork tenderloins
4 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breast
2 boxes of mac and cheese
2 boxes of chicken flavored rice mx
2 boxes of oatmeal cookies
2 boxes of shelf-stable milk
3 pounds of steak
8 cheddar-beef brats
2 dozen eggs

There may be more that I am forgetting, but I really don’t think the price can be beat, and the quality is excellent! We had the steak last night, and it was so tender that some of the pieces came apart from their own weight as I was putting it on the grill. I got read to cut mine at the table, and it just shredded apart.

I don’t know how we’ll use all of this, but I definitely see chicken and noodles, chicken and pastry, chicken and dumplings and chicken and rice in our near future, all made with the chicken bites.

And next month? We’re doing it again, and the boxes will include:

1.5 lb. Ribeye Steaks (4 x 6 oz.)
4.5 lb. (Avg) Split Chicken Breast Family Tray Pack
26 oz. Heat and Serve Meatloaf and Brown Gravy
1 lb. Chicken Breast Fajita Strips
1 lb. Boneless Center-Cut Pork Chops (4 x 4 oz.)
1 lb. Fully Cooked Meatballs
1 lb. All Meat Hot Dogs
1 lb. Frozen Sliced Carrots
1 lb. California Blend Vegetables
1 lb. Pasta
28 oz. Marinara Sauce
48 oz. Hawaiian Punch
32 oz. Borden 2% Reduced Fat Shelf Stable Milk
12 ct. Corn Tortillas
One Dozen Eggs
One Dessert Item

We’ll get two boxes again, and we may get one of the “special” boxes as well. If you are trying to stretch your food budget, I seriously recommend Angel Food. As we go through the month, I’ll let you know more about how we used some of the different foods!

P.S. The french fries are also good. We had some with the corndogs I picked up BOGO at Piggly Wiggly on Saturday.