In our household, we run very busy lives. Between our normal day jobs (which sometimes involve night work for both of us), our own businesses at home, and daily life (including trying to hit the gym 3 times a week), we’re rarely free to make dinner in the evenings. If I get home from work at 6 (which is early, if I go to the grocery store or gym, it’s around 8 when I’m getting home), by the time I work on orders Etsy and/or eBay, it’s too late to even make a dinner. We both love to cook and we have some amazing cookware thanks to my great thrifting and our lovely wedding presents, so cooking is really enjoyable for both of us, we just don’t have the hours in the day.

A few times so far in 2017, including just last Sunday, we’ve had freezer cooking bursts where I or both of us, cook up the meat I’ve purchased that week and make meals for the coming week and also for the freezer. It really only takes a couple hours and we get about 5-10 meals each time, depending on how much meat I’ve bought. Instead of freezing whole meals, we really only freeze meat. Thanks to Aldi, I’m almost ALWAYS have fresh produce in the fridge which takes about 5 minutes to steam and thanks to the Instant Pot, if we want rice, I can knock it out in about 20 minutes. So that’s less than a 30 minute meal which is about all I have time for, plus so much less mess when the meat/stove portion is already cooked! Most of our meats thaw so quickly that even if I forget to take one out before work, that frozen taco meat can be heated in a pan or microwave in such a short time.

I stock up on meats, #1 when we need meat, and #2 when it’s at a great price. My “buy” prices for meats are currently: Less than $2/lb for boneless skinless chicken breasts, less than $2.89/lb ground beef, $2/lb or less for ground turkey, and $0.69 chicken legs/thighs. Of course your prices are going to vary based off of prices in your area and the type of meat you’re buying. We don’t do much pork, but that’s another great addition.

Our favorite freezer meat recipes are listed below. These are simply ideas and you’ll want to pick ones that your family loves. These are our favorites and we are happy to eat them every week, usually it’s about every other week as we don’t cook dinner every single night.

• Korean Beef (I’ll steam broccoli and make rice)
• Taco meat (use for tacos, nachos, taco salads, etc)
• Chicken tenders/nuggets *raw* (I’ll slice the large breasts into smaller pieces before freezing because it makes it faster to cook and I prefer the smaller pieces for stir frys)
• Hamburgers (I’ll steam a veggie and it’s a great night for frozen fries or potatoes!)
• Plain cooked ground meat (use for spaghetti and meat sauce, baked ziti, or any casserole meal that calls for ground meat)
• Shredded BBQ Chicken/Pork (I fill a crockpot or Instant Pot with chicken or pork, add BBQ sauce, some water, and seasonings – let cook, shred, freeze)

We always store in freezer bags (quart size works well, gallon if you need bigger). You could use a foodsaver as well! We label each bag with a Sharpie. We freeze enough so at least one person, if not both of us gets leftovers for the next day. It’s really hard in my opinion to portion out how much meat should go in one bag, but sometimes I’ll grab a dinner plate and actually put the meat on my plate to get an idea of what my typical serving is, then I’ll eyeball and multiple by 4.

It’s so nice to come home from work and not having to make a huge meal and mess, but have a great dinner on the table! I always try to keep our favorite fresh veggies on hand for steaming, like broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and asparagus. I’m also a huge fan of canned green beans 😉 If we’re going to be eating rice more than once that week, I’ll make a double batch and refrigerate the half for another dinner. We aren’t the healthiest eaters ever but we try to be mindful and avoid as many processed foods as possible, but usually after grocery shopping after a long day at work, I’ll come home and put a frozen pizza in the oven. It happens 😉 We try not to overload on carbs (rice is our favorite though) and I ALWAYS make sure to have veggies on hand. At the moment, with our busy lifestyles, this is what works best for us! I hope this motivates you to spend a few hours one night or Sunday afternoon cooking up some of your family’s favorite meals!

This week has been one of my busiest weeks all summer. In addition to working outside the home for over 50 hours, I had 50lbs of peaches, 25lbs of tomatoes, and 10lbs of blackberries to can. On top of all that, I’ve been taking care of my chickens, trying to find time to blog, and shipping off some of the vintage goodies I’ve been picking up at flea markets and reselling online this summer.

With the wonderful help of Savvy Momma and Nerdboy, we were able to put up 16 jars of blackberry jam, 4 jars of blackberry BBQ sauce, 24 quarts of peaches, 5 jars of pickles (it was 6 but 1 exploded), and 6 jars of peach honey. So you are probably wondering where the 25lbs of tomatoes ended up, right? They are in the trash. And not just 25 pounds of whole tomatoes, but 25lbs of hand picked, peeled, diced, cooked tomatoes with fresh herbs and garlic that my mom and I spent the entire day preparing. I was cooking it down on the stove (hotter than I should have) so I could quickly can it up before going to bed. I sat down for a minute at my laptop for the first time all day and that’s when I smelled it. The bottom of the pot (dang cheap, thin pots) scorched leaving my entire pot of tomato sauce smelling like smoke. It was awful. The smell was sickening all night long. I tried everything I could to save the sauce; I moved most of it to the crockpot, added a raw peeled potato, more seasonings, more garlic, sugar, lemon juice, wine… and even peanut butter (I read it online. I was desperate). Nothing helped. I let it cook in the crock pot some more in case some miracle would come in and save it. Finally, my mom pulled the cord of the crockpot, the sauce cooled down, and it was dumped outside. Are you shedding a tear with me yet?

It’s such a shame to waste all of those beautiful tomatoes and all that time we spent on them, but there was nothing I could do. We ended up with a lot of nice canned goods we’ll be able to use all year. It has already been a few days since the tomato sauce incident so I’m doing my best to forget it ever happened and to move on. I’ll be asking for a set of new big pots of Christmas. Nerdboy and I are tired of using an SOS pad to scrub the pots down after every.single.use. They are just so thin and don’t transfer the heat around the entire surface of the pot.

Our next canning adventure might be apples if we feel like it in the Fall. I’m sure we’ll do a few more jars of stuff in between since I haven’t pulled out my Presto Pressure Canner in awhile (lets you can anything low acid, like soups, beans, and more!). I love that canning allows us a way to preserve food when it’s in season and then enjoy it all year. The peaches are so wonderful (though I wasn’t thrilled at the quality this year) you can eat them out of the jar with a fork, dump over vanilla ice cream, and of course, make a peach cobbler! To make peach honey, we made a “peach juice” from all the tossed peach skins and pits boiled in water. From that strained juice, I added some sugar and a little pectin for a thickener. It will make an excellent sweetener for hot tea and also a great sauce for pork or ham! I love using up the parts people normally trash to make a usable and delicious product! We did the same with apple skins and cores last year when we made apple jelly.

I’m off to grab some hot tea (with peach honey!) and maybe a brunch with eggies from my backyard. I have to go start yet another busy weekend! I need to sit down sometime soon and do some *gasp* school preparations that I have been waiting until the very last minute to complete.

Now that Halloween and Thanksgiving are behind us, the pumpkins have to leave the front porch. We always buy a few pumpkins every year for decoration and usually one to carve. These pumpkins are the ones you’ll see at Walmart and Aldi’s around here for $3 – $3.96 each. You’d pay about $17 each for these guys at the pick your own farms around here, which is why Walmart and Aldi’s get my pumpkin business.

Normally, the old pumpkins get tossed in my garden to compost and the seeds regrow into pumpkin plants the following summer. And then the bugs eat my pumpkin’s vines. This year, I wanted to try something new to try to get my money’s worth out of these pumpkins. It took hours and hours, but I made 12 cups of pumpkin puree and 8 jars/containers worth of pumpkin butter.

Making pumpkin puree (or butter) really isn’t difficult, just time consuming. You should definitely give it a try instead of tossing your old pumpkins! Canned pumpkin at the store is pretty pricey, so this is quite the savings.

1. I started with 3 large carving pumpkins. For best results, you’ll want to use a pie/sugar pumpkin, which are smaller and sweeter, but they are also much more expensive. My goal was to use up the pumpkins we already had, so I used the carving pumpkins. The taste isn’t quite the same, but it’s not bad.
2. I rinsed each pumpkin off with water and then chopped them up into large chunks. Make sure you scrape out all the gunk and seeds. You can save the seeds for your garden or toast them later.
3. Place your pumpkin chunks (skin and all) on a greased baking sheet. Skin side up. I could get 2 pans in my oven at a time. I think I ended up baking 7 pans worth of pumpkin.
4. Bake each pan for about an hour on 375 degrees. You want the pumpkin meat to be soft enough to be scoopable with a spoon.
5. Let cool so you don’t burn yourself
6. Scoop out the pumpkin meat and sit it aside. The meat should easily separate from the skin. Compost the skins.

     7. Once you have a bowl of pumpkin meat, blend it to make a nice puree. I used my Magic Bullet because I didn’t feel like getting out my blender and I couldn’t find my food processor.

 

1. Dump the puree right into your crockpot
2. Add sugar (I had about 14 cups of puree, and added 6-7 cups of sugar). Many recipes that I saw called for a 1:1 ratio of pumpkin- sugar, but I wasn’t doing that!
3. Add spices to your liking: Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Ground Cloves, and Cumin
4. Cook on low overnight with the lid propped open! You need the steam to be able to escape so that the butter can reduce down. I prop my lid with wooden spoons.
5. In the morning, give it a stir and put it on high to finish it up. Add more sugar or spices if you want. There’s no strict recipe, just keep adding until you get the taste you want.
6. The butter should be thick and dark.
7. When you’re ready, turn the crockpot off and fill your jars or containers with the butter. You CAN NOT can pumpkin butter as it is too dense and not acidic. Your butter can be stored in the fridge for a few weeks or frozen. It is not shelf stable.

So there you go! It’s really not hard work to make your own puree and butter. Give it a try before you throw away your pumpkins next time! And let me know if you have questions!