Freezer Cooking: Marinades

The next step in my freezer cooking process was something quite simple. Marinades. The thing that often stops me from wanting to cook anything is the prep. Don't get me wrong. I love to cook. But, when I've been running around all day or have been at work, sometimes I just don't feel like standing in the kitchen for an hour or more. This led me to preparing marinades to stick in a bag with meat and throw in the freezer.

My first step in marinating was looking for something on hand and simple for half a pork loin I had in the freezer. I found one at www.busy-at-home.com and it was made up of mostly things I had in my fridge.


MAPLE GLAZED PORK LOIN MARINADE:

• 1 (3 lb)  boneless pork loin
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup barbecue sauce
• 1/4 cup maple syrup (I just used our pancake syrup.)
• 1 teaspoon grated orange rind

Mix all the marinade ingredients and pour over pork loin.  Bake at 375° for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or in crockpot set to low for 6 to 8 hours.

To freeze: Place the loin in a zip-top freezer bag and pour marinade over the top.  Seal the bag, being careful to push out as much air as possible.  Freeze.

To cook from frozen: Empty contents of bag into crockpot.  Set temperature to low and bake 8-10 hours.

Beyond a prep photo, I didn't really think anyone needed a step by step for mixing a marinade. Mix and pour into a bag. Freeze. I will post the chicken marinade below. I'm sure you can find a better one than this, but it came from everything I already had on hand.


CHICKEN MARINADE:

This one came from www.cooks.com  

1/2 C oil
1 C Vinegar
1 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
2 tbsp. salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 egg
paprika

Mix together all ingredients. Add chicken. Refrigerate for several hours.

Nat's notes: I am a little skeptical about this marinade. It seems relatively simple, however I'm not sure I'll be thrilled with all the vinegar. I will let you know how it is once we eat it. Anyway, again you can pour in a bag and freeze.

Enjoy!

Oh, and to be continued...

Freezer Cooking: Burritos

Alright, the second part of my freezer cooking day was spent making lunch burritos. Anything easy to grab and pop in the microwave is a plus in my book. In my opinion, if it's difficult to get to (even the process of making a healthy salad for lunch) then you're more likely to run out and grab something like McDonald's or Wendy's or any other quick unhealthy fast-food. And let us be honest with ourselves...if we run to McDonald's for an easy meal, even if a salad is a possibility, we're not getting a salad, now are we?

So, burritos. Not the healthiest lunch, but these are rather portioned and smaller. Grab a piece of fruit with it and lunch isn't so bad.

Again, I got this recipe from www.moneysavingmom.com and it was relatively tasty and really easy to make!

LUNCH BURRITOS:

Makes 20 burritos

• 2 pounds ground beef
• 2 cans refried beans
• 2 cans enchilada sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/3 cup diced onion (you can also use dried or minced onion)
• 1 taco seasoning packet
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 20 burrito-sized flour tortillas

Brown ground beef with onions. Drain and add all remaining ingredients except tortillas (and cheese, if you want to sprinkle the cheese on instead).

Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20-30 minutes.
Spoon 1/4-cup of the meat mixture onto a tortilla, sprinkle with cheese (if you didn’t melt cheese into the mixture when you simmered it). Fold sides in and roll up tightly.

To freeze: Wrap each burrito in a paper towel and then in a foil square. Put burritos in two airtight ziptop freezer bags and store in the freezer for 2-3 months.

To serve: Pull out desired number of burritos. Remove foil  and heat a single burrito in the microwave for about a minute or leave the foil on and heat one or more burritos in a preheated 350-degree oven for 30 minutes or until heated through.

These can be eaten plain or served with lettuce, cheese, salsa, and/or sour cream.

 Again, I started by separating all of my ingredients. I had left over cheese (some cheddar and some four cheese Mexican mix), so I made sure to to use that up. This is where I also had ground turkey in my freezer, so I used that instead of ground beef. I only had 1.3 lbs of ground turkey, but it turned out fine.

 See? Yum!

 Recommendation: Use a bigger pan. This was the biggest frying pan I had, but it was near to overflowing. Next time, I might use my wok. However, be careful with wok cooking as it heats up rather quickly and you don't want your food to burn. When simmering, the bottom of the meat did burn a bit, so don't overheat. It was still delicious.

 Next step: 1/4 C of mix and sprinkle with cheese. I used extra cheese, but if you don't have it on hand, just portion. Don't overfill the burrito tortilla. It makes it easier to wrap.

 I wrapped each burrito in a paper towel and then in foil. I placed 6 in a freezer bag and labeled with the name and date. They can supposedly last for 2-3 months, though I think they won't last us that long. If baking in the oven, make sure to remove the paper towel! If in the microwave, take off the foil!


Alright, kiddos. To be continued...

Adventures in Frugalhood: An ex-spinsters guide to saving money and freezer cooking.

Okay...

So, it has obviously been awhile, as my "Adventures in Spinsterhood" is no longer quite accurate. Regardless, I hope to pick up blogging again and make my blogs a little more helpful. That being said, after a month of being relatively sans job, Chandler and I are on a tight budget. I stepped back quite drastically at my job to relieve stress and, lo and behold, stress always comes to find me...tucked away in dark corners known as bills and relationships! Well, this led me to get a little creative and I am now attempting a go at monthly freezer cooking.

Freezer cooking 101: According to Natalie

Freezer cooking appealed to me for a couple of reasons. The main reason is it's supposed to save you a lot of money by promoting cooking at home. The second reason is it is supposed to cut down on dirty dishes, concentrating them to once a month (and, of course, plates as you go along). I'm also hoping it promotes, in our household, a little thing called portion control!

So, if you're curious, the following post will be a list of recipes and pictures to guide you toward a cheaper standard. We could all stand being cheap. Take that as you will.

Before you even start thinking, "Ooh! saving money! Let me get to the store!", freezer cooking takes a bit more preparation than that. For someone who likes to just "do" things, I found it a bit tedious. First, take a look at what you already have in your freezers and cupboards. The first step to saving money is utilizing what you already have. I do a lot of baking, so I tend to have a lot of flour, sugar and other such baking needs. I stock up on meat, especially when it's on sale, so I looked up recipes that coincided with the meats I already had on hand. Chandler helped me, so we took a basic inventory of what we had. Next, I picked the recipes. I made a list of what I needed and made a trip to the grocery store.

Now, I must say, the Safeway down the street has everything on sale because it is being renovated, but coupon shopping has done wonders for me in the past. Also, always use your club card whether you shop at Safeway, Giant or Publix. Trader Joe's has some great deals as well! Try to stick with things on sale. This will save you a lot of money and I love seeing how much I've saved on my receipt!


Alright, blah blah blah, on to the recipes!

My first choice was from this great website I found called www.moneysavingmom.com ...no, i'm not preggo.

BANANA BREAD:


Makes 2 loaves

• 4 cups flour (all-purpose, whole-wheat, or a mixture of both)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup oil (I used melted coconut oil.)
• 2 cups sugar (I used turbinado.)
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 6-8 bananas, mashed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 6 Tablespoons milk

Stir together dry ingredients. Beat together remaining ingredients. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and blend until just combined. Pour into greased loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the bread comes out clean.
Cool in pan for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack. Cool completely.
To freeze: Slice loaf, if desired, and covered in plastic wrap, then in foil (or in a ziptop bag).
To serve: thaw on the countertop for a few hours or defrost an individual piece in the microwave for 20-45 seconds. We love to serve ours warm with butter.



Nat's notes: I ran out of regular milk that Chandler drinks and only had coconut milk. I find I'm sensitive to lactose and dairy isn't that great for you anyway. I also had just enough coconut oil to use up, so I used that alternative.  Anyway, using these alternatives turned my banana bread into something QUITE delicious!

So, I started by separating my ingredients. Easier that way!

I didn't think you needed to see the process of mixing the ingredients. The recipe on that website said to add the wet ingredients to the dry, but in all my baking, I always add dry ingredients to the wet. Makes it easier to mix. Less dry ingredients flying all over the place. Also, I had an open bag of chocolate bits, so I not only sprinkled it on top, I added it to the batter. SO good.

Post baking. I let it completely cool, sliced it so we can eat individual pieces and then wrapped it in cling wrap and foil.


Tah dah! First step in freezer cooking! It was super easy and I feel great that we have so much food for breakfast or a snack already!

Now, every meal we eat, we mark down to keep track of how sufficient this is actually going to be. A little blurry, but here's what I mean. Today, we ate two slices of banana bread, two lunch burritos and two hot pockets each (they're relatively smaller).

My next recipe will be continued in a follow-up blog!

The Girl in the Yellow Dress

My dear friend, Topher, came for a visit on his way back to Florida. He's moving back home after four years in Boston, so I thought this occasion necessary for a celebratory dinner. Having him come visit was just the amount of sarcasm and fun I needed and he was just the right friend to cook for as I start my adventures in spinsterhood...pleasantly fun, wonderfully conversational, perfectly gay.

I figure if I'm going to start my adventures off correctly, I should be cooking for me and only me. I don't want to get caught up in the idea of the 1950s housewife cooking for her man. I have no qualms with this ideal and the thought often seems delightful to me, however, as I truly start my journey in being single or a Spinster or whatever you want to call it, my best bet is to leave the "cooking for a man" out of the equation to begin with. However, Topher is a long time friend who I can, thankfully, talk openly with about my experience with men without the underlying nudge that I'm saying something inappropriate.

And so, we ate. I sliced a french baguette that we ate with cheese, basil pesto, artichoke dip and Irish butter. I then skewered seasoned lamb and baked herb-roasted potatoes, served with red wine. It was lovely. Soon after, my neighbors came over for drinks and cheesecake.

In the life of this girl you're reading about, things have been complicated. Most thoughts going on in the mind of a woman are complex, to say the least. And this blog and journey is an attempt to smooth out the course of my mind. I have this very lovely friend and I really got to know her after I came out of my long term relationship with said ex and was confused and frustrated and sad and angry and she gave me a gem. In my conversation with her, she told me I reminded her of herself when she was my age. And there was a time when she was single and care-free and she called that the time of the girl in the yellow dress. And she told me I was that girl...in the yellow dress. And that 26 is a complicated year and 27 will be much better.

Well, I saw her the other night and I haven't seen her in awhile, and as she always seems to do, she gave me a gem. She was watching me rehearse my new character for the Renaissance Festival and she was so genuinely excited about this new character because she saw how grounded this character was. She told me I wasn't grounded in my character last year, who was constantly changing and perhaps that was because I, Natalie, wasn't grounded and was trying to figure myself out. And my new character was secure and grounded because I was those things.

In life, we're constantly searching and I believe, if we don't search or try to change constantly, we become stagnant and that's not living. It has taken me a year and a half of complicated breakups to see that everything I need, I have. The search and change is always within yourself. And constantly reaching out to gain what you think you need or want is futile. For me, what I need is God. And God is within me. And so, my Adventures are an attempt to come to terms and settle into a deep happiness within myself. And I think that's where we should start.

Terms of Agreement

I'm not much of the writer, so bear with me. For the past year and a half, after my big break with the big ex, I have been searching for myself. Maybe, this is a redundant fact stated by many twenty-somethings in an attempt to sound deep or maybe, it's a fact of being a woman in your 20s, regardless of where you are or what you do for a living.

I'm an actress. My entire life is built on words and the use of those words to build laughter and entertainment, stun an audience into silence, cut to the heart of the receiver. My effective use of the English language has filled my heart with joy and also, hurt me and others in many ways. Before I realize what I'm about, my words are slicing to the heart of, not an audience, but a loved one. A mother. A boyfriend. A stranger who has crossed me the wrong way. And it flows effortlessly from brain to tongue to receiver, often without a second thought and driven by my everlasting need to be heard. And not just heard, but understood and empathized with.

That being said, after a handful of failed relationships (some more life altering than others), I am alone. And for the first time, in a very long while, I am content with that fact. I rejoice at the knowledge that I have changed into a completely different woman in the past 5 years and I am finally ready to get to know that woman. I've got a lot to offer...to myself. And as I journey through my Adventures in Spinsterhood, I hope to learn to turn that word into a term I hold with pride, as men cling to the term "Bachelor." I refuse to be embarrassed, but empowered. And there will be food, by golly. And lots of it. And that food will be prepared for me and the occasional friend, who I deem worthy to partake of my lovely, single, womanly goodness.

So, if you decide to read about the adventures of a single girl and her slightly eccentric dog, I hope you laugh or cry or, at the very least, are left thought-provoked. And, if you are left with none of these things, comment and challenge my views of the world ahead of me.