Thursday Notes

Alberways has cheese for 2 lb for 4.99 or 2.50 a lb.  It is two dollars a pound at QFC if you use a digital coupon and you buy it on a specific day. Limit 5, or 2.5 pounds.   Costco Business has it for just over 2.00 a pound in five pound bags.   Grated cheese freezes well.

Its not what you buy, its when and where you buy it.

Let’s talk leftovers.   I cant tell you how many people have told me that their husbands don't want to eat leftovers.   By planning your meals and making what our home ec teachers called planned overs , you can cook once and eat twice without dealing with “leftovers”.

Rice and beans have a very short refrigerator life.   They go bad fast.  They, however, should be good for three to four days, stored in small batches.   You have to use your own judgment.  That’s the scoop I got off the Internet.

Making one batch of rice for two meals in the insta pot saves time and energy—yours and the grids.   You can make Spain’s rice out of 1/2 of it and use the other half for a stir fry.

A batch of beans can be chili and it also can be re fried beans or black bean burgers.

Cook a couple of chicken breasts , and you can make chicken  pot pie and stir fry or warm shredded chicken in a mixture of water and taco seasoning for tacos or a burrito bowl.

I always cook bulk hamburger when I get it home.  Use the largest frying pan you have and fry t until it is no longer pink.  A potato masher or a tool made especially for frying hamburger helps.  I found one for six dollars.....twenty six was a bit much for me.   LOL.  Drain the fat into a pot to discard later and pour boiling water over the meat in a colander over the sink.   This de fats the hamburger and looses up to 17 percent of the fat.   Put it in portion controlled bags and freeze it. We use quart bags from the dollar store and put the quart bags into a zip lock bag and mark the bag once, not every bag. I bag the amount we need for tacos.   Its easy to grab multiples for other dishes.

This saves a lot of time at the rushed dinner hour and you are more likely to go to the bother of de fating if you are doing it once, rather than every time you cook ground meat.   It takes minutes to thaw.    How many of us have fussed with tryng to cook a block of frozen hamburger?
Bummer.

Tacos can happen in 15 minutes or less. Spanish rice takes hands on time of about 3 minutes.
I am a firm believer in tomato, chicken, vegetable , and beef bouillon .   You can get low sodium and it is much cheaper than buying stock in a box or an can.   It takes less room in the pantry and is always at the ready.   It adds depth of flavor to soups and stews.


Using pieces of meat instead of a slab of meat cuts your meat consumption.   Too much meat causes cancer and kidney disease according to some doctors.   The portion of meat that is recommended is a four ounce portion.   That is about the size of an average palm of your hand.   Unless you are feeding a linebacker or body builder, you don't need to serve those portions.  You can use less meat in a dish if you are also using cheese in the dish, like tacos, or lasagna.

I have found that the instapot has cut my time in the kitchen tremendously.   Rice and beans from scratch are so easy, that I never buy them instant or ready made.   That has saved a lot of money.
It costs .0125 a serving for and and .02 a serving for rice.   Ready rice is over .50 a serving.   A can o
f beans is upwards of a dollar.   It has 4 servings .

Pasta cooks in two minutes plus time to pressurize and depressurize.  That time is not hands of time.
 You can leave it alone and cook your sauce teach when it is cooking.  No watching the pot.   You do have to catch the pasta close to its depressurize time, it over cooks if left in the hot water.   I set the timer.so I can leave the room and come back when I need to manual release.

The insta pot and our food processor are workhorses in the kitchen.   They hae more than paid for themselves.