If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?
This is a slam dunk for me. I love reading. I have read almost every kind of book since I learned to read. I tend to remember odds and ends from the stories. My favorite place to go during school was the Research Library. It was amazing what you can learn there!
Okay, I found this on MSN and just had to share.
A short while ago, I starting reading an article written by a blogger in which she described how she would prepare for RV trips with her husband. The preparations always including securing the meats she would need for their meals, and then packaging them for use in the Instant Pots she took along. Any fresh fruits and veggies would be purchased at a nearby store to wherever they had stopped.
This got me thinking about what she was doing. Now, because of my husband’s health issues, we can’t take the trips we might have once done, but I could still prep things in advance. Only instead of just generally packing the cut veggies in larger containers, I could pack them in smaller ones that would hold just the amount needed for specific recipes. Hmmmmmmmmm!
The first thing you need to consider is which recipes you are prepping for. For most cooks, weekday nights can be a bit on the hectic side to get a good meal on the table. Now, I don’t know about you, but I have a number of “Go To” recipes that I frequently cook. There’s more than just enough to go through a single week, but not enough to go through two weeks. This way, the recipes rotate which day of the week I use them. So, gather your favorite recipes and pick 6 or 7 to prep for.
Be somewhat selective on which ingredients you want to prep and freeze. A good cookbook on Preserving Foods will help you to pick and choose. I would think that you want to prep ingredients that are easy to chop/slice/dice but aren’t hard to preserve. The book I gave you a link to is the one I use. It covers not only canning, but also freezing, pickling, and dehydrating food. Obviously, I don’t prep the seasonings. For one thing, trying to find a bag small enough to hold salt and pepper isn’t happening!
Some foods can simply be sliced or diced, then frozen and things will come out just fine. Think onions, peppers, celery and such. Other veggies need to be blanched before freezing, such as potatoes or carrots. Don’t quote me on this, but I think it would depend on the amount of water in the vegetable. If you’re unsure, check with your local county extension department. Try this link to find your local extension office.
In a previous post, Meal Prep for Country Cooks , I explained how I would prep my food. I also gave a link to a site where you could convert a recipe from individual pieces to cups for many veggies. Let me give you it again. How Much is in Produce Converter . This way you can measure out how much of the produce you need for the recipe and package just that much. Gather all the individual ingredients and package them together. Depending on how many ingredients you have, a large freezer bag might be all you need. Just make sure you LABEL it!
Meal prep is something that many of us leave until the last moment. I’m not talking about taking the meat out of the freezer or refrigerator. I’m talking about chopping up all the vegetables that go in that soup, stew, one-pot meal. I’m talking celery, carrots, peppers, onions. (Onions are the worst in my humble opinion!)
Before you jump up and tell me that you can just buy those items already chopped up, stop and think about it. What is cheaper, buying the already chopped up items and having to take what is available, or doing it yourself and including the items that your family likes? Last time I checked prices in the grocery store, it was cheaper to buy the produce in the produce section or at the produce market than to pay someone else to do all that chopping.
There are tons of books/pins/blogs that detail how to accomplish this. I love to look through these places for ideas. I don’t have a problem with the ideas they present, just the quantities!
It’s just my husband and myself, that’s it! I don’t need to cook a meal for more than 2 unless we are talking about soups. So what’s more convenient for me is ingredients that are prepped in such a way that I can simply measure out how much I need.
I got this idea the second time I bought a bag of celery stalks and part of them went bad before I could use them all. I grabbed a small cookie tray that would fit in my Side-by-side freezer and lined it with parchment paper. Then I grabbed my celery, cutting board and knife before starting to chop. 5 – 10 minutes later I had the tray filled with chopped celery. I popped it in the freezer and waited. About 2 hours later, I came back, and the celery was frozen enough that I could dump it from there into a freezer container. The pieces remained separated enough that I could easily just get what I needed out. I repeated this until I had all the celery done.
I took one large onion and cut it up using a mandolin slicer. It took maybe 5 minutes to do. This is going into the refrigerator for use. I’ll cut a few more up and freeze them to use later.
This is sliced Starfruit. A friend of mine has a tree in her backyard. She has started freezing the slices and then adding them to drinks instead of ice cubes.
Think about what you want to store the frozen vegetables in. I use a mixture of freezer bags and freezer containers. This makes it easier for me to see what is in the bags. Just remember to date the bags/containers so you know when you froze them.
Yeah, so do mine. My favorite cooking magazine, Cook’s Illustrated, once tackled this question. According to their tests, a small onion = 1/2 cup of diced onions, a medium onion = 1 cup, and a large onion = 2 cups!
Now, of course, you probably won’t only be dealing with just onions. Which led me to another website, https://www.howmuchisin.com/produce_converters Great website! Having found this, I plan to go back through my favorite recipes and make notes.
He came to us roughly 14 years ago. A scruffy little charmer who quickly wormed his way into our hearts.
He found us at a time in our lives when we were marking the passage of time by the TV show we were watching. An enthusiastic kiss alerted us to the need for a walk.
It didn’t take us very long before we were taking him everywhere with us. By utilizing a bicycle basket, even a quick ride to the store was a opportunity to keep him with us.
Over the last few months we started to notice him slowing down. A walk that once took 15 minutes now took 20. He started to not want the snacks he once enjoyed. We bought a doggie stroller for him.
Just about a week ago, he stopped eating. He would still drink so we tried everything we could think of to get him to eat. It’s not working. This is Odie today
We’ve finally realized that there’s nothing we can do. The life expectancy for his breed is only 12 – 15 years. He’s reached the end of his story and we can’t change that. But honestly, I’m not ready to lose him. So tonight just like we did last night, we’ll sleep in the living room so we can keep an eye on him.
Book Reviews by the Reluctant Retiree 