Well tonight I made a new dish I created thanks to hubby. He complained we have been eating to much pasta and he was tired of it. This of course is after I made sure to have mash potatoes and meatloaf this week. Got to love my husband. I came up with this tasty dish that even the kids loved.
2 lbs Kiebasa
14.5 oz can of diced tomatos with basil,garlic and oregeno
8 oz pepper stir fry (frozen food: green, red, and yellow peppers and onions)
3 cups instant rice
3 cups water and juice from tomatos
2 beef boulion cubes
Bring water, juice, tomatos and boulions to boil then add rice.Remove from heat and simmer for 5 minutes. In the mean time, Cut and cook Kiebasa after it starts to brown add pepper stir fry and cook to remove all liquid. Then combine rice and kiebasa together. Enjoy!
A great recipe that you can use to be creative with your leftovers is my Leftover Egg Casserole. It’s ideal for giving a new spin on those leftovers crowding up your refrigerator. I find it’s a great thing to prepare the night before and take to my friends when we have breakfast together. Also to add a little fun during the weeknights I do a breakfast for dinner meal weekly. This really fills my children’s belly even on these cold winter days we are having. Since this is a fix it and forget it type recipe, I can make it during the day or even let the children help me do it the night before, they get a lot of enjoyment out of ripping the bread apart. So, when the children come home I can pop this in the oven and help the kids with homework or just spend some quality time with them.
So from my little corner of the world to your’s here is my Leftover Egg Casserole:
Vacuum sealed foods will always last longer than other storage methods, aside from canning. Regular plastic wrap, foil, zip-lock bags, and even air tight containers cannot preserve foods as well as vacuum sealing. Why is that?
Food ripens as a result of oxygen exposure. Fruits, vegetables, and meats will begin to spoil after a certain amount of time because they have been exposed to the air. Often mold and bacteria will develop, leaving the food undesirable because of the change in odor, color, and texture of it. Sometimes bacteria can develop without air, but mold does not develop without a healthy supply of oxygen.
When you vacuum seal your food, what you are actually doing is removing the air from the bag. Once the air is removed, mold, and some bacteria, are unable to live or grow. Over time, however, the food you store might spoil if it is not refrigerated or frozen. If you seal your food while it is very fresh, and store it appropriately, it will last longer than if you had used another storage method.
Other methods of storage allow oxygen to creep in through tiny openings. Loosely wrapping your food and putting it in the refrigerator can only save your food for so long. Even if you use an air tight container, the oxygen that is left inside of the container may be enough to allow mold and other bacteria to thrive and spoil your food. Look at it this way, mold eats oxygen to survive and grow. If you do not feed it the oxygen, it will die.
The only other way to preserve food for months at a time is canning. It is not as easy of a process as vacuum sealing, but it is another option. You can can your fruits and vegetables, even meats, and they will stay fresh even without refrigeration. If you have a lot of shelf space for cans, or you don’t have space in your freezer, you may want to consider canning. Most people do have space in the fridge or freezer, and vacuum sealing woks fine for them.
Ultimately, vacuum sealing will help to preserve food much longer than with regular plastic wrap, foil, zip-lock bags, or air tight containers. You can save money because the food you buy will not go to waste. It is good to understand the science behind vacuum sealing, isn’t it?
Buying off name brands is not a mark of less then stellar food. If you are wise in what you choose then you will be enjoying great food at much less the cost.
Frozen vegetables are a great example of where the lower price brand is just as good as they higher priced one. Since these are frozen at time of harvest not cooked as with can, they can be just as nutritous and yummy as those by the big names.
The same can be said for fresh produce, since with that you can pick which is the best. Those two areas alone could make a significant dent in your budget. Finding the cheapest food that taste as good as if not better than a known brand can be like finding extra money in your shopping cart.
When you take into account that off brand products don’t worry about advertsing, special prizes, or coupons to have you try them, their overall cost to produce the same products is less. They just pass that savings on to us by having lower prices.
Now as a word of warning not all food and products we find on our shopping list can be easily replaced by off brands. Some just don’t do the job that the more expensive brand name products do. Since your individual taste will need to decide what ones work for you.
So next time your shopping and see that box next to your regular product pick it up and try it. If it works great! if not the cost should be small enough to not matter. Just remember that because one doesn’t work that they are all the same. I have found a tiramsu that is better then I eat at a resturant and bigger (about triple) for about $3.00, at an off brand store. So if you look you will find great food at even better prices.
Since a large part of budget cutting has been done in groceries, as it seems to be the easiest to shave, we will be adding recipes that help you save money.
Whether it’s using old bread, left overs, or just the cheapest things in the grocery store we will be showing you haw to make nutritious and filling meals for your family. Since most recipes will be for families they should feed at least 4 and usually up to 6 or 8. These recipes will also have the busy schedules of todays moms in mind. They will be simple to make and great for slow cookers or fast preparation. We’ll also add tidbits about where to find the cheapest ingredients so that you won’t be spending all your time or money preparing heart warming meals for your family.
You don’t have to have a family you can just make these wonderful dishes just for yourself! Look for these to start being posted in the next week. KimB is our resident chef and if you have a recipe you want us to try or have comments or questions about these upcoming recipes contact her here.
