Gourmet for pennies

So That Nice Man I Live With and I have been on a bread kick as of late.  I think it's the colder weather, our bodies feel like they need to add some extra layers of fat (as if that were needed).  The problem is, bread at the store is expensive.  My favorite place to get bread in Columbia is rather pricey, considering that there are only two of us and it tends to go bad before the loaf is finished.  We buy our meat at Sam's Club or the commissary in bulk and put it in the deep freezer in the garage in portioned off sizes.  It helps me stay more in control of what I eat when I can only have what has been thawed out and it makes for less waste at meals.  The last time we mass bought meat, one of the items we purchased was a 10 pound tube (yes, really, a tube) of ground beef.  I put the beef in 1 pound portions in zip lock bags (another item we buy in bulk) and put them in the freezer.  Well, it turns out that there are only so many times TNMILW will eat spaghetti and chili.  So this week we started making gourmet hamburgers.  Well, I really like yeasty roll kind of buns, particularly the kind they make at Publix.  Those are not on the Have To Have grocery list.  So I made my own. 

Here is the recipe:

• 2 cups warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 2 (.25 ounce) packages instant yeast
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 6 cups all-purpose flour, or as needed

1. In a large bowl, stir together the milk, butter, warm water, sugar and yeast. Let stand for about 5 minutes.
2. Mix in the salt, and gradually stir in the flour until you have a soft dough. Divide into 25 pieces, and form into balls. Place on baking sheets so they are 2 to 3 inches apart. Let rise for 20 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Bake the rolls for 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool slightly, then split them in half horizontally to fill with your favorite burgers. 

 

We paired the burgers with home made raw fries seasoned with kosher salt.  Those were made by using the slicer side of the 4-sided grater and frying in 375 degree canola oil for about three minutes and then set them on a cookie cooling rack to let drain.  That meal would have cost us $30 easily at a gourmet burger joint in town.  Instead, we used things we always keep in the house and had left overs for lunch the next day!

Aaaand Revamp!

So while spending time with some wonderful friends recently, I discovered that pretty much everyone has money problems.  It's not a military thing or a young family thing.  Everyone is tightening their belts these days and a lot of people don't know the best way to do it.  So as I prepare for 2011 and the changes that are coming, I am challenging myself to write in this blog at least once a week and to find a new way to be Fabulously Frugal every week. 

It was too pretty not to post!

This is today's lunch.  Chicken stir fry with vidalia onions and sugar snap peas.  Delicious!  I did splurge and do white rice, but that's more because I didn't want to wait 40 minutes for brown rice.

Good God, I Love Bacon...

So, in the theme of frugality currently running in our house, tonight's meal was made entirely from things we found in our fridge and freezers (that's right, plural).  Tonight's dish is actually a twist on a meal That Nice Man I Live With has been making me for years.  We started by cutting up an onion into rings and spreading a layer on the bottom of a casserole dish.  Then, we took those little babybel cheese things and cut them in half.  We then took the cheese pieces and wrapped chicken around them and then wrapped bacon around the chicken.   The chicken is then placed on top of the onions and then we spread a beer/cream of mushroom soup mixture on top and cook it in the oven.  It smells amazing. 

Oh, and by we, I mean That Nice Man fixed all of this.  I made the brown rice and will be heating up a can of green beans to accompany the meal.  We all do our part.

...Ooops?

So I am officially really bad at keeping this blog up to date.  Since I have all of two followers, I'm just going to make this a more food-based blog.

Since February, I've lost 23 pounds.  And most of that has been in the last couple months.  A big part of that has come from eating at home.  At a restaurant, I feel like I'm being wasteful if I don't eat everything on the plate since we're paying for it and restaurant food never tastes good later if you take it home and reheat it.  But at home, we almost always have left-overs that taste as good or better the next day.  My current favorite dish is Sour Cream Porkchops with Vidalia Onions.  The recipe was in a recent issue of Paula Deen's Best Dishes.  I am a huge visual person in terms of picking out food and the cover recipe was bacon pimento mac and cheese.  Really, how could I not pick up that magazine?  Well, the only recipe I have yet to use from that is the pork chop recipe, but I've made it three times in the last month, it's That Good. 

I will eventually make the mac and cheese recipe, but I'm doing so well with the weight loss, I'm going to wait until something sad happens and I'll make it then.  Because that's what we do in the south, we take carb-heavy foods to sad events.  Your grandmama died?  Here's a chicken and cheese casserole with extra fried onions on top.  You lost your job?  Here's some pasta salad.  Or ham.  When my Granny died, we received four hams.  I still love ham, though...

So I'm going to try and make an effort to be more diligent about writing on here.  Up next: Byron's going off Active Duty so we're living on what I make teaching piano lessons for the time being.  What can we do with ten pounds of pork chops, ten pounds of boneless/skinless chicken breasts, five pounds of ground beef, five pounds of frozen green beans, three pounds of bacon, various frozen fruits and veggies, and roughly twenty pounds of rice?  Sounds like a challenge to me!

May Your Stockings Be Stuffed With Cream Cheese

So as an Army Wife, I am used to being invited to parties where I am expected to Buy Crap in the name of "Social Outlets" for other Army wives. Personally, I prefer not to host said events, but I don't mind going to them, because there's usually free food, and that food almost always involves various uses of cheese. And I do love cheese.

The latest Buy Crap Party I went to was a Tastefully Simple party. I bought a few things. Everyone was very nice. Almost all the recipes I bought included sour cream and/or cream cheese as the additional item(s) needed to make the dish. I think if I didn't enjoy cooking, this would perhaps be a company I should own some major stock in, or at least find a way to get a discount... However, I really enjoy cooking. A lot. So I came home and started thinking about recipes and how I could make the dishes those smart folks at Tatefully Simple are selling for prices I'm too cheap to pay more than once (for the novelty value). For example: Key Lime Cheese Ball. Now, I tried it at the party. It was ok. I have a margarita pie recipe that would taste even better in cheese ball form, for free because I already have all the ingredients at my house. Next up, figuring out how to make beer bread from scratch taste as good as this.

So I headed home, inspired to make something delicious for dinner. Instead, I made a pretty normal meal (small steak, wilted leaf salad, baked potatoes), BUT I found a magical website (I'm having fun with the link button today) that just made my Christmas a whole lot easier! I figured since there's a whole two of you that follow this blog, it was probably pretty safe to post it here. Today, after class I spent all afternoon on the phone with my mother-in-law (she's in on the Christmas gift secret because it's her recipes and her mother's recipes that comprise most of the gift) and then copying recipes into a family cookbook. I'm super excited. I think this is probably the most personalized gift (other than the scarves I made a few years ago) I've ever made for That Nice Man I Live With's family.

I'm a terrible influence and proud of it!

I was chatting with a friend on the phone. And over the course of our conversation, her language went from everyday conversation to rather rude and vulgar. I asked her about that and she said she only did it when she talked to me and I said that I must be a bad influence and doing something right!