Freezer Meals 1

So, I mentioned a while back that I'm in freezer cooking mode, right? I loooove the idea of Once a Month Cooking (OAMC) which has been a big deal in the circles I frequent on the internet (*cough*Pinterest*cough*) lately. However, I haven't quite leveled up to the point of making 50 meals in 2 hours, or whatever these amazing women do.

Instead, when I sit down to do my weekly meal planning/grocery list composing, I try to make one or two of those meal ideas something freezable. Then I just make double or triple and freeze the extra. It hardly takes more time than cooking the meal in the first place, and having those meals ready to go has been helping us quash the urges to eat out on those lazy nights.

Here are a few of the things we have frozen lately:

	Sausage and Jalapeno Chili I've made a few tweaks to this recipe to suit our taste. I leave out the ground beef and use 1 lb beef kielbasa, sliced into about 1/4" thick semi circles. I change out crushed tomatoes for diced. I cut the brown sugar in half. And I add 2C cooked kidney beans at the end (about a can). Defrost in the fridge and serve with warm corn bread. Mmm.
	Indian Chicken Curry This is my favorite fella's specialty. He also dices the chicken, adds diced potato and carrot, and uses tomato sauce in place of stewed tomatoes. Serve over rice, and feel free to add extra veggies (zucchini is good).
	Chicken Enchiladas There are tons of recipes for enchiladas out there. Mine are pretty basic chicken with (usually) canned green sauce. I bought a few cheap 8x8 metal pans for freezing stuff that can go straight into the oven. Just prep, line with plastic wrap and then foil, and write the baking instructions on the foil. No need to thaw (just make sure you remove the plastic), and I like that they aren't disposable.
	Poverty Meal This one made me laugh because my family ate it all the time when I was a kid, but I never had a name for it. Pretty appropriate! I "fancied it up" a bit by using rotini instead of macaroni.
	Spaghetti Sauce This chunky, vegetarian spaghetti sauce is so easy to double or triple and freeze. The only change I had to make (to make my fella happy) was to shred the carrots so they weren't as noticeable. I have also been experimenting with adding hot Italian sausage seasonings, such as garlic, fennel, and red pepper flakes. I'll post a recipe if I ever figure out the best measurements. :)
	Soup Stock It's soooo easy to make and freeze your own broth. I've used this vegetable soup stock recipe a few times, but it's really as simple as learning what you like in broth, cleaning and rough-chopping the veggies, chucking it all into a soup pot with herbs and seasonings, covering with water, and simmering for a few hours. Strain out the solids, and you have broth! I save bones from roast chicken and meat in my freezer for when I have an afternoon at home to keep an eye on the stove. You can also add (clean) eggshells to add calcium.

Do you have any favorite freezer recipes? I'm always on the lookout for new healthy and tasty recipes. Please share!

Dog-Proofing and Lasagna Gardening

My Dog Likes to Garden

When I first started this blog, my intention was to chronicle my attempts to learn to garden. Then we got a puppy. 

A puppy who liked to dig. 

What dirt?

She dug under the wire fence I had so carefully built around my new garden, and trampled and gnawed every last plant. Needless to say, I was pretty discouraged at that point. Fast forward to two years later... I've been daydreaming of having a garden, but there were a couple of obstacles keeping me from starting. The first was still the dog. I filled in her holes, but the lure of that mysterious, off-limits place was too much for her, and she'd just dig them right up again. 

Finally it occurred to me to dig-proof the base of the garden fence the same way I had the fence at the back of the yard. I bought a cheap roll of foot-wide chicken wire and some long metal stakes with hooks on one end from the local hardware store. 

Chicken Wire and Wire Stakes

I rolled the chicken wire out flat along the base of my garden fence and staked it down. Then, after she still managed to dig between the fence and the chicken wire the next day (gah!), I filled the dirt back in and used some more wire to tie the near edge of the chicken wire to the base of the garden fence. It's been several months and, as far as I know, the garden area has remained untouched by canine paw. 

Taming My Jungle

Next roadblock... weeds that are taller than I am. And yes, that leafy thing to the far left is a tree. Did you know trees could be weeds? I sure didn't! 

And this is after I spent an hour hacking at it earlier this week

I've put off starting a garden so far this summer because of the immense amount of work I imagined it would take to pull up all those weeds and turn over all of that heavy soil. I don't know why I didn't think of searching the web for an easier way to prep a garden bed before, but I'm sure glad I finally did! 

I came across something called Lasagna Gardening. It requires no digging and sounds just about my speed. Start out by chopping or ripping out the biggest weeds. Then, put down a layer of newspaper (I'm going to use phone book pages, since we have several of those laying around that I haven't quite gotten to recycling). The paper kills the remaining weeds and prevents new ones from sprouting up by blocking out the sun. Plus, it is biodegradable. And, my favorite, free! Then, you put down layers of "green" and "brown" plant clippings and vegetable scraps to form a compost lasagna. 

Depending on what time of year you start your lasagna garden, you can plant your seeds right in it or let it break down into fluffy, nutrient-rich soil for a few months first. My first attempt at a compost heap did not go so well, so I will leave the details to the experts. Here is the website that explained it to me. 

Have you ever tried lasagna gardening? What do you do to make gardening less work and more fun?

Cleaning A (Really Yucky) Stove Top

This one's a mini post. I wanted to get some pictures to add to my hamburger post, and realized that my stove top was pretty gross! I'll save you from a picture, but just know it had a few layers of stuff baked on around each burner.

I got started on it with my favorite cleaning method, and thought I'd share. This is a very simple technique I ran across a couple of years back using household items (table salt, white vinegar, and baking soda). Take a look! There really isn't anything that I need to add to this video. Thanks so much for sharing, autonomess!