Deanna. I know you are a faithful reader here and I appreciate that so much. I value your friendship more than you could know. i know you spent your day with family, so, of course, it was a blessed day..........
What's up here? Not a whole lot. I thought and thought about what to do with the Instant Pot and the Slow Cooker. I really wanted both off my countertop. It doesn't look like I'm gonna manage that this trip around the kitchen. But I did manage to stash the Instant Pot though. And, in lieu of stashing the slow cooker, I will manage to stash 2 more small appliances--the blender and the can opener. I use the slow cooker more often than the Instant Pot. I'd like to use the IP more often, but I feel like that will require me to learn a whole new way to cook, and, honestly, I'm pretty happy with the way I cook now. IF I were still working and had someone besides me to feed, I think I'd probably feel differently.
I've been watching videos from a new person on YouTube. New to me, not new to YouTube.........Anyway she does a lot of cooking videos. She seems to track down recipes on the 'net and then cooks them and does the whole taste test thing, in addition to rating them as to amount of prep work and how well her family liked them. She did one recipe I've made before and really enjoyed. But, somehow, through one traumatic event or another, I'd forgotten about it. Well, I've just added the necessary ingredient's to the shopping list and it'll be back on the menu this week. There is also another recipe she tried and recommended and I've added ingredients for that to the list as well. I'm planning on a pickup tomorrow.
Last month's food budget was way out of line, due primarily to a high dollar order that was to be delivered. Yeah, well, Instacart swore it was delivered, but I swear it was NOT delivered to me. I complained to both the store ("that's between you and instacart, Ma'am"). Instacart flat out refused to refund what I was charged. Sadly, that pretty well means I won't be shopping at Smart & Final any more in that they do not have pick-up. The good news is that I've managed to keep this month's food budget in line, with some left over to help atone for December's overage. Yup, even with the two new casseroles mentioned above.
Of course, I love casseroles. They enable me to prep once, cook once, and eat 6 or more times. I just freeze the leftovers in single servings and pull one out when I want it. With the two above I'm going to try something I've never done before. I'm going to try prepping both and baking both at the same time. I figure that will save a bit on the gas bill.
Speaking of the gas bill, I'm about to cause that to go up. I have been accumulating ground beef. A pound here, two pounds there, whenever I see it on sale. I am sure I now have enough to fill at least one layer in the canner. I use only the wide mouth jars when I'm doing meat. It's a lot more of a painstaking experience to get the meat out of a regular mouth jar. Anyway, I can fit about 7 wide mouth jars in a layer in the canner. If I have more jars because my treasure hunt in the garage freezer yields more meat, I can double-stack the pints. And one gets about a pound of meat per jar. I know I have about 5.5 pounds of ground beef in the inside freezer, and there's more outside. At this moment, I'm not sure how much I have outside but at least several pounds. I generally figure I get about 5 meals, minimum, from a jar of ground beef, so if I fill 7 jars, that will give me the main ingredient for about 35 meals already cooked and ready to go. If I do 14 jars, that's about 70 meals worth--in addition to what is already on the shelf. Hoping to get this done tomorrow. And that main ingredient will be shelf stable and already paid for! And now you see why my Instant Pot does not get used that much...........
Well, that's all from me for now. I'll probably be back to let you know how the casseroles turned out and how many jars of meat I managed to can. I know you'll be holding your breath for that information.........
Thanks for the birthday wishes! We celebrated here with family.
Posted by: Deanna | January 30, 2022 at 03:13 PM