Posts Tagged ‘Whole Milk’

Shopping day!

I picked up a few essentials and some good deals on splurges at Harris Teeter on my way home from client meetings.

I decided against getting more steak, even though the NY strip was only $4.99 a pound. We just *had* steak, and I already had the beef for tonight’s burritos in the crockpot. The boneless, skinless chicken was BOGO, but their regular price is over $4 a pound, so that wasn’t all that great of a deal, and I still have some chicken. (I usually stock up when it’s about $1.80 a pound.)

I did splurge on a discounted cherry pie. $2 off (making it $3.99) because the top was cracked in a few places. Seemed to me the top shell was just pre-cut! And, since I splurged on the pie, I needed vanilla ice cream to go with it. I got the store brand for $2.50. Total splurges! With strawberries and blueberries on sale, I couldn’t resist them either. I also got 3 dozen eggs (at 88¢ each). Plus a loaf of bread and a package of hot dog buns. (once I get my second freezer I’ll buy the larger, cheaper packages of buns at Sams Club). Lastly, I bought a gallon of whole milk for another crack at homemade cheese, for a total of $19.02 including tax.

Like I said, dinner was shredded beef burritos with tomatillo sauce. The sauce was “okay”. I’ll be looking for a new recipe though, as I thought it should have had a LOT more flavor. I have more tomatillos from my garden and more on the plants.

The burritos were wrapped in homemade flour tortillas. Slightly thicker than the store-bought ones, but SO much tastier. And cheaper. I glanced at the flour tortillas at Harris Teeter and they were over $3 for a package of 8! (I’ve since looked at “express lane” and see that they have another brand that is much cheaper, but I don’t know where those are in the store.)

We topped the burritos with homemade salsa (made with tomatoes and jalapenos from the garden).

My kids teased me because the cheese was store-bought.

Dinner got an A+ rating from one kid and an A from the other. I like them to rate the dinners occasionally, especially when most of it is from scratch, to see if its worth all the trouble. Personally, I thought the meat was a B-.

I’d only made half the tortillas before dinner and finished them when we were done. They’ll make nice snacks, or perhaps another meal at the end of the week.

Tomorrow the new ads come out, so I’m sure I’ll be using more of my budget.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Settling in back from our trip. Had to restock some food.

First trip: Central Meats. I was hoping they had rennet… am I on a mission, or what? They have lots of seasonings and preserving products, but no rennet. Bummer. But they did have a small pack of salt-packed sausage casings ($6.14 including tax). Now I’m all set to make my next batch of brats or kielbasa (pork butt is in the freezer). Not the cheapest casings in the world, but a decent price here locally for 50 feet or so.

Next, on to Sams Club. Pizza fixin’s were at the top of the list. They now have another brand of pepperoni, in a larger package (5 lbs), that worked out to about half the price per oz. of the Hormel, so I got it instead. Now I have enough pepperoni to last me well into 2010. Boy am I glad I had room in my chest freezer. I also got 5 pounds of shredded whole milk mozzarella, which will be used on the pizzas, as well as lasagna, baked ziti, and a few other recipes. Mike asked me to pick up some fresh brats, and it didn’t occur to me that I’d just bought casings… (duh), but we’ll go through them, as we love them grilled in the summer. And last, but not least, half and half for our coffee. Mucho slurge, but I don’t like my coffee any other way. I got 3 quarts since I don’t actually go to Sams that often. Total: $35.21

For dinner tonight we had meatloaf, baked potatoes and green beans from the garden.

The meatloaf was one I had in the freezer — frozen raw in a 1-gallon zipper storage bag. I flatten out the whole thing before I freeze to take up less space. I make them up when I buy hamburger on a loss-leader sale for no more than $1 a pound.

Meatloaf – Serves 5

1 ½ lbs Ground Beef
3/4 cup oatmeal
1 ¼ cups Milk (reconstituted dry milk works fine)
1 lg Egg
¼ cup Onions — chopped
1 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 ½ tsp Salt
½ tsp Dry Mustard
¼ tsp Pepper
¼ tsp Ground or Rubbed Sage
1 clove Garlic — crushed

Mix all ingredients. Spread in an ungreased loaf pan, 9×5x3 inches. Cook uncovered in a 350° oven until done, about 1-1/2 hours. (I usually make 6 mini meat loafs placed in a 9×13 baking dish and baked for 45 minutes — faster!)

Want to make more?

7 meatloaves:

10 lbs Ground Beef
5 ¼ cups oatmeal
2 ¼ quarts Milk
7 lg Eggs
1 ¾ cups Onions — chopped
½ cups Worcestershire Sauce
¼ cups Salt
4 tsp Dry Mustard
2 tsp Pepper
2 tsp Ground or Rubbed Sage
7 cloves Garlic — crushed

Mix all ingredients together well. Divide into 7 portions. Fold back the sealing edge of gallon-size freezer bags (to keep the zipper clean) and plop a portion into each bag. Seal the bags ALMOST closed and then smoosh the meatloaf mixture until it’s flat and fills the bag (how’s that for a technical term!). It should be about 3/4″ thick. Once you’ve got it flat, finish sealing the bag. Mark the bag with a Sharpie®. Stack flat to freeze. Once they are frozen they can be stored on their end like a book to make the most of your freezer space.

As usual in our house, breakfast and lunch are whatever each member of the family prepares for his or herself.

I decided that today I wanted a little red meat, so I planned a shopping trip. So, for day 2, spent $39.97. I got 7.5 lbs of hamburger, 5 sirloin steaks (we ate 4, one is in the fridge), 2.6 lbs of peaches, 3.1 lbs of cherries, one pkg of hot dog buns, one gallon of whole milk, ten 6 oz yogurts, two 10-pks of crystal light singles, and an 8-pc. package of roasted chicken pieces.

Along with the steaks we had a pasta salad (hubby made it) which used a bag of (free after coupon) Wacky Mac, part of a bottle of (free after coupon) balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing, some leftover olives and bell pepper from the homemade pizza on Sunday. Boy, was that delicious!! We also had microwaved corn on the cob, which I’d picked up on Sunday at Walmart for 25¢ each.

If you really want to learn how to grill a perfect steak, get the book The Cook’s Illustrated Guide To Grilling And Barbecue. Seriously, it’s wonderful and gives directions for both charcoal and gas grills. I am the grill master in my house now.

The other order of the night was to boil the hamburger, bag it and freeze it. Yes, boil it. It’s a perfect way to get dinner on the table FAST. I use it for tacos, spaghetti sauce, hamburger helper, shepherd’s pie, sloppy joes, and in any other recipe where you “brown 1 lb. hamburger.” One pound of hamburger equals approximately 2 cups cooked.

After cooking, draining and bagging the hamburger, I let the pot of fat and water cool a bit and skimmed off the fat, strained it and put it in the fridge. Tomorrow I’ll “render” it again (basically put it in a pot of water and boil it to make it easier to strain a second time). If I were using it for suet, I would be happy with having strained it once. But I plan to make soap with the tallow, so I want clean fat.

I’m done in the kitchen for the night and probably won’t do any cooking tomorrow since I have several meetings and a bunko game.

Powered by ScribeFire.