Sunday, May 30, 2021

Food Coma How To

 Aren't these just the prettiest colors ever?  I do love our Stars and Stripes.  I have an entire bucketload of quilt material like this that one day will magically sew itself together in time for the Fourth of July 2030.  It's actually weird to see any crazy year starting with 2021.  I got past Y2K with no problem, but the twenties have me weirded out, let alone the 2030's.


Anyway, here's what happened to all that food that you saw on my counter.  The total bill added up to $110.  Although I do prefer fresh ingredients, several of these recipes included canned beans (think white chili) and tomato sauce.  The plan was to get 30 meals ... that's $3.66 a meal.  Not too bad considering they all have meat in them.


Of course I didn't have the fancy dancy bag holders to keep my ziplocks upright, but I survived and didn't dump ANY on the floor.  There's a little prep involved, like crying for 30 minutes while you chop up all those onions.  My tip is to breathe through your mouth the entire time.  You will only taste onion for the next three hours.

I chopped up those huge chicken breasts into smaller pieces to make cooking easier and grabbed every bottle of spice I could find in the cupboard, then drained and rinsed every can of beans.  THAT was a pain, but a necessary one.  And away we go!!

Dump in can after can, scoop in tablespoons of Better Than Bouillon, tablespoons of spices and ..... WAIT!  I forgot the corn.  I cut kernels off four ears of fresh corn, cleaning up all those that jumped out of the bucket onto the floor.

Next up ... add the raw meat.  Yup that's right ... the RAW meat.  If I live after the first meal, I'll know you can add raw meat and not die.  Then I very carefully squeezed out all the air from the bags and sealed them tight.  A tender squishing makes them lay flatter in the freezer.  

Recipes included honey sesame chicken, vegetable beef soup, white chicken chili and turkey chili.  One small problem, the store didn't have any ground turkey ... so I went with ground pork.  That may be a mistake.


When done, I ended up with 38 meals ... meaning the cost is now down to $2.89 each.  Just WOW!  Now to see if it tastes good enough to eat.  Here's the honey sesame chicken.  The recipe said you could take it out of the freezer and pop it right in your slow cooker or instant pot.  

I took it out the night before to thaw a little.  I might even defrost it in the microwave a tad before cooking.  Instant pot, frozen is okay, but I cringed when I thought of that meat defrosting in the slow cooker all morning.


Here you go .... just dump it in, turn it on low 4-6 hrs and wait.  Yes this is supposed to have sesame seeds in it for more flavor, but my little Mexican store didn't have them.  I think I will survive without them.


The smell was WONDERFUL!!  I could feel the food coma coming on.  When I couldn't stand it any longer, I shredded the chicken while cooking up a pot of rice.  Lots of things go into my best china and don't taste that good.  THIS was delicious!!  


I'm thrilled that I spent so little for a meal.  Of course you can add garlic bread, a salad or whatever else you desire, but for me, this hit the spot.  Now to see if those other recipes I made will taste the same.  

In the meantime, I was given a huge bag of cherries.  I'm not a fan of eating cherries, but I do LOVE cherry pie or cherry crisp.  Let's see if I can enter a food coma by overeating dessert!!  I succeeded quite nicely.  I'll post those pictures tomorrow, because right now I'm waddling over to the couch.

In the meantime, I have spotted no skunks ... thank goodness ... but with the fence now complete, I'm back to patrolling the north forty for holes under the OTHER side.  The weather has been so fabulous, I may even drag one of those lounge chairs guarding the wall, back to the patio for some sun time.




12 comments:

  1. I’m hungry
    Next time before you slice run the onion underwater ....no more 😂

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmmmm never tried that!! I bet it works perfect!

      Delete
  2. For cutting onions, take a slice of bread and put a corner into your mouth while letting the rest of it hang out of your mouth...the 'hanging bread' really does absorb most of the onion smell and juice. YES, it looks funny...but I doubt Cooper or Jesse will tell anyone...but Jonathan is a whole other matter. :) [while in the restaurant business I found this helped more than anything else...of course, I would have to face the "Mr. Burdick, so-and-so is back there cutting onions and eating bread"]

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's hilarious!! Hey, if it works, I'm all for it.

      Delete
  3. Looks like you'll have a lot of tasty meals to make quickly when you need them. You can cook right from the Freezer in the Crockpot.
    Be Safe and Enjoy.

    It's about time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's the idea. Back in the day those meals weren't very good. For some reason they have much better recipes now.

      Delete
  4. Most of my crockpot recipes call for raw meat and cooking for many hours so why would frozen meat be a problem?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Only because it takes a long time to thaw out and then come to temperature. That long sitting in a crock pot on low might be a problem. I don't want to test the theory! LOL

      Delete
  5. Wow! You put me to shame! You don't have to come up with supper ideas for 38 days!!!??? The prep work was worth it. :)
    Good job, that supper looked yummy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right????? It's always the "what's for dinner" that's hard. Cooking for the most part, is easy ... well for most people any way!!

      Delete
  6. We are not that organized to create that many meals on one time. If you do try Dave's suggestion with the bread, make sure you take a picture!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm going to take a picture just for the laugh!!!!

      Delete