Feeding the masses

I'm not talking about feeding hoards of teens this time around, although this would work well for that, too.

L's sister and 3 kids were here for a little over a week and each year it seems they spend more and more time at our house as opposed to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Yet, their schedule is very flexible and dependent upon the needs and desires of the grandparents, obviously. So, one day I was faced with the assumption I'd be feeding some or all of them dinner, oppressive heat, inefficient AC in the front part of the downstairs and no AC (and minimal air circulation) in the kitchen, yet the threat of thunderstorms (minimizing my desire to cook out).

So, I tossed two roasts into the crock pot around 11 pm the night before (after trimming as much fat off them as I could...they were frozen solid when I put them in) along with a bottle of bbq sauce, cooked on low all night. Removed the meat in the morning and let cool a little so I could dig through it....cut it in smaller chuncks (about 4" or so) and picked out as much of the fat pieces as I could. REturned the meat to the crockpot. Kept it on low. Took the crock pot to the deck and plugged it in (a garage would work as well and I've used our front porch when it's been raining--I think I'm the only one here w/o a garage that would work well). By dinner time, voila! bbq shredded beef.

For sides, I mixed frozen (although fresh works just as well) whole green beans with olive oil, garlic, and kosher salt in a disposable aluminim pan, covered and stuck it all on the grill along with a dozen potatoes that I'd chopped, seasoned, mixed with oil, popped into a similar coverd pan. That stuff just needs to cook, so if it had rained, no back and forth tending was required...just put it on and take it off about 30 or so minutes later (you can pre-cook the potatoes in the microwave it you want to).

We put some grapes and melon slices on the table during the meal and told the kids that a fancy bowl of cut up fruit (gonna-rot peaches with blueberries and sliced gonna-rot strawberries) was desert, and we were done.

By the way, I believe for those of us without a cow in the freezer, that roasts are BOGO this week at Kroger.

Oh, and I have enough meat left frozen for 1.5 meals (sandwiches and potato topping?) and enough for lunches or a meal with only part of my family in the fridge--the cousins didn't eat too much because they'd had a late lunch out earlier.

smallfoodprint blog administrivia

First of all, I hope I didn't step on any toes by adding email privilege to everyone...now, any post to the blog should go to not just the blog itself but to everyone's email inboxes. Debbie, I didn't use your gmail address since you use the .rr one for personal email as far as I know.

Second, there is a way to post to the blog via email. I don't know how to do it and can't get beyond contemplating how it might be done. If you want to try to figure it out, log in to the blog, go to "settings" then "email" then scroll down. More power to you if you figure it out.

Third, regarding organization of the blog: There is a "label" option at the bottom of each post in compose mode (bad sentence, but I hope you get what I mean). For this entry, I used the labels "administrivia, email, labels, reply" Posts can be searched by those labels and will be housed under them as well. So, if we used "5-ingredient or less" or "chicken" or "party food" or "101 things to do with zucchini" clicking on that label in the blog will pull up every single post of that topic.

Fourth, there is also a reply function to each published post. So, if I post a recipe and someone else posts a response (a modification, a suggestion, a more specific recipe--since I don't really USE recipes, or a "that was great and my kids ate it all", or whatever), the response will be threaded with the original post (also streamlining the archives and searching of posts).

Questions?

Chicken meal everyone loved

2 t. minced garlic
2 T olive oil
1 T chili powder
1 T. cumin
1/2 t. salt
1 T flour
1.5 c. chicken broth
3 T tomato paste
3 c. diced, cooked chicken
1 green pepper, sliced
1/4 c. green olives, sliced.

Saute garlic till soft
Stir in chili powder, cumin, salt, and flour
Add chicken broth and paste.
Cook 5 minutes on low
Stir in chicken, pepper, and olives and heat through.

I'm the only one who eats olives and green peppers. Everyone else picked them out. But, I thought it was yummy. Thad in particular commented several times on the sauce.

Spaghetti/pizza/meat ball sandwich sauce

I have been attempting to find a tomato sauce recipe my whole family will eat.  I think this may be the beginning of such a sauce.  If you have any suggestions-I'd love to hear!!  This is just a very basic, and easy to remember.

@ 1 TBSP of olive oil

some chopped onion (one small or half)

mushrooms (of course optional)

1 tsp salt

1 big clove of garlic crushed

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano 

sprinkle of pepper

   Saute on med/low above ingredients til totally limp-@ 10 min.

Add 28 oz can of concentrated crushed tomatoes (I use Walmart's brand $.97)

If like chunky, add small can (15oz) of diced tomatoes. (Aldi's for $.45, I think)

Taste.  May need a little more salt if added the diced tomatoes.  Add 1 tsp of sugar for the kids if needed. :)  

I've used this as pizza sauce (with Debbie's delicious pita wheat recipe) and no one complained.  It's a start..... :)

 

ice packs

Brenda is probably already aware of this having had babies at home, but the rest of you might be interested:

you can make your own squishy ice packs for injuries by adding rubbing alcohol to water in a ratio of 1:2 in a zip lock bag and freezing. Or you can fill a ziplock baggie 1/2 with dish soap and freeze.

I suggest double bagging.

Mine lasted years until we moved and I threw them away. The ones I've made recently won't last as long because I didn't have any top quality bags.

pita ad nauseum

So, my flat pitas didn't go very quickly. I ate some as toast yesterday. Slightly dry.

So, tonight, I sliced them in half and put butter, cinnamon and sugar on three and butter and garlic powder on the other three halves. I put them in the oven with dinner (which was at 400) and baked the pita halves for about 10 minutes or so.

Very popular:)

POC

Pita recipe (more)

Be sure to let the balls rise for at least 20 minutes. My first pitas today were tough, chewy, and didn't break apart. The last two were perfect.