Saturday: I made pizza today and discovered a small jar of tomato sauce I'd set aside. I get between 3 and 4 pizzas from an 8 ounce can of tomato sauce. Apparently I'd set aside most of a can and poured it off into a glass jar and stashed it in a basket, which I'd normally not have done. Thank goodness it was still good! I used some on my pizza and then poured off the rest into the Spaghetti Bolognese sauce I reheated for supper tonight.
Sunday: I had seen a small jar of milk at the back of the fridge and I was sure it was the beginning to sour milk I'd poured off the last jug. I waited too long to retrieve that jar from the back. I had to pour it out.
I used some of the current lot of not quite fresh milk to top up the buttermilk jar. It's sitting on the counter now. I'll pop it back in the fridge tomorrow.
Monday: If I cannot get to the fridge on Sunday to determine what we have then I make it a point to do it on Monday.
Here's what's in my fridge this week:
1 quart jar of fresh apple juice, left from making apple jelly
1/2 can vienna sausages
2 chicken sausage
beef fat I trimmed from steaks last week (this went into the dog pans for added calories. I meant to put it out on Thursday evening and it got 'lost')
apple scraps left from making jelly (already in the process of becoming vinegar)
Japanese fruit cake (this is going into the trash. John finally confessed he's not fond of it and as no one else in my family is fond of why try to keep it going? I'm not a stoic when it comes to food, even if I do dislike waste)
1 cup homemade cranberry sauce
*1 cup sloppy joe meat
*1 cup homemade cheese sauce
*1 container leftover spaghetti
*1 pt, 1 qt., and 1 cup chicken broth
*3-4 cups poultry meat pieces picked from frames last week
*1 cup chicken gravy
*1/2 can Turkey Spam
*1/4 # of Deer Sausage
*1 open jar salsa Verde
Fr. Onion dip
Ranch dip
*Potato salad
*green beans
2 cups rice
1/2 can pineapple rings
1 quart homemade applesauce
*6 pieces fried chicken (still have 2 pieces to figure out what to do with...)
*1 open package of about 6 flour tortillas
Current Plan: We had the potato salad and 4 pieces of chicken for our lunch today.
The green beans, chicken broths, half the poultry meat and the six tortillas sliced into strips are going to become tonight's supper of Chicken N Dumplings.
I'll use the chicken sausage, deer sausage and Spam for breakfast meats this week.
I'll push the Vienna sausage to John for a high protein snack.
I've taken the sloppy joe meat, cheese sauce and leftover spaghetti with meat sauce and mixed well then put in a casserole for an easy supper. I'll put bread crumbs on top along with parmesan cheese and Mozzarella. With a salad and green veg this will make a good quick meal for me to have on hand this week.
The remaining poultry meat, chicken gravy and salsa verde will be used to make a pan of enchiladas. I'll probably serve the leftover rice on the side.
I'm putting a star next to everything I've already planned to use. What's left is what I need to play with this week and determine how best to put it to use!
For those of you interested I combined information from The Spruce Eats and Three Rivers Homestead to make my apple cider vinegar. I took my apple scraps and poured four cups of water over them, added 4 tbsps of sugar and 1/4 cup of unpasteurized apple cider vinegar with 'the mother' (I used the Aldi version of Bragg's) and put in a glass jar, stirred to combine and covered with a linen napkin that I tied a ribbon about to keep fruit flies from being drawn in. Now it's all wait and see...
Tuesday: Used half the Spam and a little portion of smoked Gouda to make what was meant to be an omelet but turned into scrambled eggs. I also stirred a spoonful of the French Onion dip into them. That was pretty good!
I had leftover chicken soup, but no dumplings, leftover last night. I added in half the brown rice from the fridge to make the soup a bit more hearty for lunch today.
Late yesterday afternoon I was feeling restless so I went into my pantry and started doing some minor rearranging. It gave me a chance to note that there were a few areas that needed to be restocked more aggressively and a few where I could reasonably buy only one or two of an item each month and still have ample stock.
I've decided that I'll start writing down every item I remove from my pantry or freezer in a month's time and note what I'm using the most of, and what I use less of. These totals will help me to see what a year's supply might look like. I can tell you for sure that canned green beans and tomatoes are my two most heavily used canned items for sure but there well might be other areas where I'm missing the mark. I'll keep this record for a full year total and use it to determine what we need to manage.
Wednesday: I was out of fresh milk and wanted to make oatmeal...Powdered milk to the rescue. I didn't want to make a quart jar of the stuff since we were shopping today so I figured out how much dry powder to add to my water required. I love when Gathering allows me to use what I have!
For supper tonight we had the spaghetti/sloppy joe/cheese sauce casserole and John must have said ten times how good it was...Another hit from the kitchen and all I did was use what we had in the fridge that I wasn't sure what to do with.
Thursday: While digging about in the fridge freezer trying to make room for the baking supplies I keep in the freezer (nuts, chocolate chips, coconut) I discovered a bag with four Banana Chocolate Chip muffins. We had those for breakfast this morning, warmed in the oven before serving.
Katie and Chad brought me me a bag of pecans they'd picked up. I shelled out some of those this afternoon and even though I'm hardly finished I had two cups of pecan halves and pieces. I should get at least that many more.
I was unsure of my apple scrap vinegar. It had gotten very thick and didn't seem like it had enough liquid at all. I tried to question someone with more experience but got no reply. I decided to go with my gut feeling and increase both the liquid and the sugar in this batch. I can let it sit a couple of days longer to make up for the added liquid. Ultimately in two weeks I'll strain the pulp out of the liquid and then pour the liquid into a clean jar which will sit with a cloth covering for up to six months or until it smells like vinegar.
I'm ending early this week. I'm going out tomorrow and won't be puttering around my kitchen. I'll start fresh on Saturday.
4 comments:
Try to keep a good supply of canned meats. Whatever you like. Many stores have had short supplies since March. Any protein meals like chili and ravoli and such are good too. Meat is one thing supposedly can be in shorter supply down the road. I sure see Many new products featuring meatless meat. You understand nutrition so I know this is nothing new to you. Meats seem to last about forever bought canned. Then too you can can your own.
We are seeing enough tp in stores but little to no kleenex. We see envelopes of yeast off and on but no jars anywhere since March. On a side note, things like Kitchenaid mixers are selling out fast. Remember everyone is making bread and such. With it being the Christmas season and that too it is hard to find them round here. I think a bag of your favorite flour and such would make a really good gift this year for sure. Would sure enjoy it. :-) If you have enough jelly your family would probably love a jar for a gift. !! I make boysenberry syrup and gift it. Bye for now! Sarah
P.S. Thanks for the fragment ideas. I would have never thought of some of those combos but now that I have read many of yours I am doing better combining too. Yes,... I too have found some amazing new dishes this way. Thanks again. Sarah
Do the tortilla strips turn out to be tasty dumplings? Do they puff up or stay thin-ish? I had been thinking of trying them, but didn't want to waste my chicken and broth and effort and then have the dumplings turn out weird tasting. I have been using small flour tortillas to make thin crust pizzas for my husband and I, since we don't do carryout anymore, for now. In the past we would stop with the carryout during the worst of flu seasons. On the main road near where we live there is every kind of fast food place, it makes me hungry for their french fries when we drive on that road. I crisp the tortillas in my heavy nonstick skillet until they are like pizza crusts, and then I top them and put them in the oven until the cheese melts. They turn out really good tasting to my husband and I.
You brought back memories when you mentioned putting fat on your dogs' food. In late fall and winter mom always poured meat drippings or a bit of bacon grease over our outside dogs' food. She also bought an extra loaf of cheap white bread for our pets.The cats wouldn't eat bread, but our two dogs, our big white rabbit who lived cage free in our fenced backyard, under the protection of our giant 100 lb collie and another wild looking amber-eyed yellow dog that just came to our house and stayed, and even our pet squirrel that lived in a big cage in the backyard loved white bread. I would take their bread slices, and the cat food out and call out kitty, kitty, kitty and all would come running or hopping. The cats for their Little Friskies, and the rabbit, and both dogs surrounded me for their slices of white bread. The squirrel would race around up and down in her cage that hung from the apple tree, and make that chucking sound that squirrels make. She got a half slice of bread each day, along with nuts and fruits. Outside animals that live in the cold need the extra fat and carbs to stay warm.
I can't imagine what would happen to my little old 8 lb Pomeranian if I ever gave him bacon grease over his food, or a slice of bread, but I imagine he would have stomach distress, and I would be cleaning up a mess. Tonight, I was living dangerously. I had Chef Boy R Dee Beefaroni, because I had a trip to the dentist and the inside of my mouth got scraped, so I needed something soft,mild, and quick to microwave. I didn't eat the sauce and I decided to spoon just a little over Fuzzy's food. Mama Mia! He was wagging his tail so hard, he almost knocked his old arthritic legs out from under himself. He ate every "Special Limited Ingredient" kibble. If he doesn't get a problem from it, I guess he will have Beefaroni sauce on his kibbles for a while until the sauce leftovers are gone.
Susie, the dumplings turn out like my grandmother's old fashioned handmade dumplings. They are soft and tender but not puffed up. They are like a thicker homemade noodle which is essentially all they are anyway. John prefers the big biscuit-y type of dumplings but now and then I crave a bit of comfort food from my childhood. Plus it's convenient and it allowed me to use up the tortillas before they dried out.
Sarah, I have a freezer slap full of venison, enough to last a year I think. I do have a few canned proteins on hand and will keep putting a few of those aside.
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