Freezer Food Part #2

If you read my Freezer Food Part #1 post then you know I've really been hoping to stock the freezer full of some simple, healthy, quick foods for after Baby Larochelle comes. Since my almost fully pregnant body isn't exactly up to a huge 12 hour long cooking session I decided to break it down into a few different cooking days and finally got to my first one last week! I am super excited to be building up a stockpile of food, it helps take away some of the stress and anticipation of birth and having a newborn baby in the house. In fact, I'm thinking of making it a more regular part of our lives, pregnant or not!



Since I wanted to keep it simple this time around, I chose 4 easy foods with similar ingredients which meant less stuff to buy, less items to cut up and less chance of cross contamination. The items I made this time were:

Lunch Burritos

Meatballs

Chili 

Ravioli and Tortellini Pasta Packs

The first thing I did was cut up all my vegetables which, in this case, was only peppers and onions. Having a big bowl of each cut up and ready to go made throwing everything together so much easier.

Next I browned all the beef, except for about 2lbs which I set aside for meatballs. I did half the beef in one pan to use for the burritos and pasta and the rest in a huge pot for my chili.With the meat I tossed peppers and onions into both pans, just setting aside enough onions for the meatballs later on.

While that cooked, I set out my awesome freezer containers I picked up at the wholesale store and filled them with Ravioli and Tortellini. I then added a big spoonful of Classico pasta sauce, either Alfredo or Italian to each container. I usually don't buy these but they were on sale and saved me a ton of time over making the sauces myself.

Then I opened cans and added my beans, spices and tomato sauces to the chili pot. Since I let the chili simmer for a long time, I was able to just stir occasionally while I worked on other things.

Now that my ground beef, pepper, onion mix was ready I moved to pasta packs and burritos. The only thing left for the pasta was adding the beef mixture to the top and putting the lids on. I also put the containers into large freezer bags as an extra measure against freezer burn. 

Next, I laid tortillas all over the counter for my burritos. I started by just adding a scoop of canned baked beans, re-fried beans are better but I just had these available. Then I added a scoop of beef mixture, some cheese and rolled them up. So quick and easy. I wrapped the burritos in a layer of aluminum foil before placing them in freezer bags.

Since my chili was basically ready at this point, I just let it to cool before putting into freezer bags and moved to my meatballs. I don't really follow anything for meatballs but any basic meatball recipe should work good. Just make sure you cook the meatballs and then freeze them without adding any sauce. Once they were done I portioned out my meatballs and chili, placed everything into labelled freezer bags and put them in the deep freezer!

I am definitely impressed with the end result. It only took about 3 hours and I now have lots of good food in the freezer and the whole process produced surprisingly less dishes than anticipated, yay!

Here is how I plan to use the foods, just in case you are curious.

- Pasta packs and burritos will most likely be used as quick, microwavable lunches for my husband and I, hopefully we will throw a few fresh vegetable or fruit slices on the side. If we are being completely honest, I've already broken into these when I was too lazy... I mean too busy to make lunch and they are amazing.

- We will have big bowls of chili for dinner a few different nights, probably with buns or salad, and then use leftovers for things like chili cheese dogs or chili fries.

- Meatballs will probably be eaten once as topping to a big pot of spaghetti and then the rest will be cooked using my favourite, super simple glaze recipe from I Heart Naptime.

Next I hope to take an afternoon and work on some of the breakfasts and snack foods I had on my original freezer meal planning list. While I may not get around to everything, I really want to do muffins, waffles and homemade granola bars.I better get moving since there are only 26 days, 2 hours and 3 minutes until the due date.... and I have a feeling he may come early!

Winter Centerpiece

While running into Michaels the other day to grab yarn for another DIY project, I was totally in awe at all the gorgeous winter wonderland style decorations and pieces that they had out. It reminded me that I wanted to update the centerpiece on our table and so I decided to leave Michaels, since the expensive decorations were extremely tempting, and hit up Dollarama for some DIY project supplies. 

Roll of gold sparkle fabric, winter "braches" and some platic snowflakes, $5

Once I got home, I consulted my "Christmas" board on Pinterest and was ready to get started. First, I threw on some my super cozy footsie pajamas and made myself a hot chocolate with whipped cream to get me in the mood. This step is 100% manditory!

I gathered my supplies from Dollarama and then went out to the yard and the park nearby to get the rest. This included sticks and pinecones. To make these look more wintery, I lightly painted them with some leftover white wall paint then added some clear sparkling nailpolish.

Once everything was dry I threw it all together in a simple glass vase and set that on top of my "table runner" (fabric I got at Dollarama). 

Then I added the branches from the dollar store. Last, I found some of my shiny thread (also from Dollarama in the past) and started hanging snowflakes from the branches. I also scattered some of them alongside the pinecones beside the vase. 

Overall, I am totally happy with both the $5 price tag and the end result. My house feels more wintery already and I haven't even started my actual Christmas decorating! I hope this motivates you to get to work on some of your own decorating.

In fact, this project was so much fun it convinced me to add a DIY section to the blog. I am not super original, so most of my projects are copies of things I love off of Pinterest or a things I've seen at the store.  I still want to share the projects that I do as motivation, though. Do it yourseld projects are such a huge part of frugal and simple living, plus they're really enjoyable. Hopefully sharing what I'm up to will encourage you to save money by attempting some of your own projects in the near future. 

Free Food

Yesterday I decided to redeem some points and get some free food! I am totally surprised by the number of people who grocery shop but don't bother with a rewards system. In my opinion, it is totally worth it.

I redeemed PcPlus Points at Superstore and Optimum points at Shoppers Drug Mart. In case you aren't familiar, PC Points is a system used at most Loblaws Inc. stores across Canada, including Real Canadian Superstores, Loblaws, Independent, No Frills, Valu Mart, CityMarket and a ton of others depending on where you live. It offers points, both in-store and digitally, for buying certain items. Read more about it here. 

Yes, points can take a while to add up (it's much faster if you load extra offers digitally though) but either way it ends up being free food with very minimal effort on our part. 

Here is what I got yesterday by redeeming 30,000 PC Points ($30) and 8,000 ($10) Optimum Points. I also received 2,500 PC Points from my shopping trip which will amount to another $2 . 50 free groceries in the future. 

Baby's Coming Freezer Food Part #1

One month, fifteen days, seven hours and fifty five minutes until Baby Larochelles' due date. 1 month, 15 days, 7 hrs and 55 minutes....

How can one period of time seem so long and so short at the same time?! I am so ready to not be pregnant anymore, to not get leg cramps, not have heartburn, not feel like a whale, not waddle while I walk. I am so ready to be able to climb all the way up the stairs without having an asthama attack, but I am also so not prepared to have a baby in this house! One of the main things I am going to do to make life a little less hectic when our little man is born is to start preparing freezer food.

This is one of the biggest suggestions I have seen and heard from women who have already had babies. New moms (and dads) need to eat in order to have enough energy to care for a baby. Also, did you know you actually need to consume more extra calories while breastfeeding than while pregnant! So, in order to keep from overspending on premade or frozen food at the grocery store, or filling up on fast food after baby comes, I want to have some good, healthy, non-processed and quick to make food ready to go in the freezer.

Anyone who is on Pinterest has definitely seen quite a few crazy looking freezer meal articles up there, like "50 Freezer Meals in 20 Minutes for $30"... Okay, I may be over exagerating a bit but while the articles sound awesome, many seem just a little unrealistic or like too much to take on at once (especially while pregnant). Also, I really like using fresh fruits and vegetables in my dinners so frozen meals you can just dump in the crockpot don't really appeal to me. So, instead of doing a huge freezer meal session and having full meals made up for after baby comes, I plan to focus more on freezing small batches of my favourite breakfast, lunch and snack food over the next month and then just including a few dinner items which I can incorporate into a quick meal.

After tons of research and consideration, I picked out a few simple foods that freeze really well and I think will fit my family's needs best.

Fruit Muffins

Waffles or Pancakes

Breakfast Sandwhiches or Breakfast Burritos

Banana Loafs

Cookies

Homemade Granola Bars

Lunch Burritos

Freezer Pizzas

Meatballs

Chili

I love the idea of having breakfast all ready to go because it makes mornings so much easier. With these things prepared, my husband can grab a quick bite before work and I can eat something right after I wake up.

Muffins, granola bars, loafs and cookies are also great snacks that can be thrown straight from the freezer and into my husbands lunch box, helping him resist the temptation to buy lunch at McDonalds or somewhere else! I also really love homemade granola bars because I don't really like eating protein other than at dinner and this is a good way to sneak it in.

I chose meatballs and chili because there are sooo many different things that you can do with them. I can thaw out some freezer meatballs or a freezer bag of chili and easily use them to make different dinners depending on my mood.

I will update more once I actually get cooking. I plan to share which foods I actually end up making, how I plan to use them and recipes that I used along with other feedback. 

Seasonal Eating

There is no denying that we are in the middle of Autumn! Besides the fact that its October, there's the beautiful, colourful leaves, the big bins of apples at the grocery stores and, of course, advertising for pumpkin flavoured EVERYTHING! I am so not complaining though, I love fall and everything that comes along with it.

Last weekend we made a trip out to the pumpkin farm and it really got me thinking about "fall" foods. With the convenience of current grocery stores, we can have basically any produce we want, in one form or another, at any time of the year. Honestly, I couldn't tell you when half of the fruit and vegetables out there are actually "in season". But, I wish I could and I am working on it because eating seasonally is a huge part of frugal living! Actually, there are many different benefits of eating seasonally.

1.) Produce is always cheaper when it is "in season". Planning your meals around what produce is in season and on sale will definitely save you money on your grocery trips. Grapes are a great example. We love grapes and I try to buy them fairly often but we definitely eat more grapes in August when they are $1.50-$1.99/lb compared to the middle of winter when they are $4.99/lb. And that's perfectly okay because there will be something else to enjoy in the winter months... such as winter squashes. I bought a butternut squash before the fall and it was over $1.50/lb but now that they're in season I was able to pick up a bunch for only $0.49/lb.

2.) Everything tastes better. We also love apples, I buy them practically year round but nothing compares to buying fresh apples in the fall. Better yet, apple picking. Have you ever picked and eaten an apple fresh off the tree? Yum...

3.) Better for you and better for the environment. When a fruit or vegetable is in season, it is much more likely that the grocery store got it locally. Or you picked it yourself from a small farm or local farmers market. This produce is much less likely to have been chemically 'enhanced' or sprayed or whatever it is they do to our food on commercial mega-farms. Local produce also means that the food wasn't transported nearly as far. The Ontario grown strawberries that I buy in the summer didn't require nearly as much transportation as the California grown ones they sell in the winter meaning less greenhouse gas emission. Furthermore, the baskets of strawberries that I picked from a local farm required even less travel and they tasted fresher than any I have ever bought from a grocery store.

Eating seasonally may seem really restricting or boring but it doesn't have to be. Once you get the hang of buying and cooking 'in season' you will see that there are a ton of different ways to cook one food alone. Here's a list of a few things that are in season right now, along with some of my favourite recipes.

Apples

Apple Spinach Salad with Honey Apple Vinaigrette 

Caramel Apple Dip

Apple Crisp

Apple Muffins

Baked Apples. Just peel and slice the apples, toss in desired amount of cinnamon and sugar than toss in the oven at 400 until soft. Or... just cut the apples up and eat them! I've been having tons of apples this past month. My favourite lately is apples dipped in peanut butter or apples with a few nice slices of cheddar cheese.  

Squash

Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

Baked Acorn Squash

Roast Squash

Carrots

Cream of Carrot Soup

Glazed Carrots

Carrot slices with homemade hummus

Pumpkin

Pumpkin Puree (Make your own instead of buying canned)

Pumpkin White Hot Chocolate 

Made this yesterday and it was delicious!

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

I already can't wait to make these again...

Pumpkin Donut Muffins

Roast Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin Scones

Roast Pumpkin

Don't forget, you can always freeze things as well so that you can enjoy the flavour even when it is out of season. Try freezing the pumpkin or apple muffins for a nice breakfast or treat in the winter months. Also, you can cube and freeze the squash while it is on sale and roast it for a great, inexpensive side dish, even when it is out of season. Check back later for a some freezer cooking posts and I will let you know what else I love to freeze. 

Banana Muffins

I absolutely love this fall weather! So many gorgeous colours and the air even smells good. Yesterday I went for a long walk on a beautiful trail about 5 minutes from my house... I can not believe we have lived here for over a year and I haven't been on it before! The scenery was so nice I couldn't help but bring some of it back with me and throw together a quick and easy centerpiece.

Now that the leaves are making the house look nice, I figured I would make it smells nice too and did some baking today. I decided to use up some 'rotten' bananas from the freezer and make banana muffins.

Muffins are one of the easiest foods to grab and eat at anytime, which is why I love having them around the house. Today I thought I would do a cost break down of homemade banana muffins verses those you can buy pre-made at the grocery store or at a coffee shop. The banana muffin recipe that I use is actually a 'banana bread' recipe from My Patchwork Quilt. The only thing I do differently is replace the margarine with an equal amount of apple sauce. I made a loaf and some smaller muffins but this recipe will make 12 or more very large muffins, like the huge ones they sell at Tim Hortons or Starbucks, but cheaper! Once I broke it down, the whole recipe only cost me $2.15.


Price Breakdown (One Muffin)
Coffee Shop: Average $1-$2 each
Grocery Store: $0.50
Homemade: $0.18

By taking an afternoon to make some homemade muffins and eating one twice a week, rather than grabbing it at the grocery store or on your way to work in the morning, you could save between $33.28 to $189.28 a year! These muffins are equally as delicious as any store bought ones (if not better!) and make your whole house smell good. If banana isn't your favourite, don't worry, I hope to share a few of my other favourite muffin recipes over the next few weeks as well.

Summer Savings

The weather is slowly starting to cool off and some of the leaves in the backyard have started to turn red. Fall is on the way! There are sooo many things I love about fall. So many awesome apple and pumpkin recipes that I'm dying to try in the next few weeks. But first, I am just trying to deal with and find recipes for all the produce from our garden! Picking fresh beans and tomatoes from the garden got me thinking about all the ways that the summer months help us save money and I thought I would share a few of my favourites.

1.) Gardening, obviously. I started getting produce, lettuce to be exact, in June and continue to harvest an abundance of vegetables to this day. I figure there are still a few weeks left for the garden. Despite what some people may think, you really don't need to put a lot of time or money into gardening in order for it to be worthwhile. You also don't need a ton of space. My husband spent an evening preparing my garden, I spent an afternoon planting and then we probably only spent a few hours weeding it over the entire summer. It would look a lot better if we had done more, but it still grew a 'ton' of food. Even if you don't have a large yard for planting, or even if you live in an apartment, you can grow lots of vegetables in a small space or in pots. We only had two cucumber plants grow this year and still got about 20 cucumbers so far, and I have seen people plant cucumbers in a pot on their porch before. Check out the links below to learn more about small space gardening. Garden food is so fresh and delicious, plus it is free!

Container Gardening

Five Best Container Vegetables

Vegetables That Anyone Can Grow

How To Plant A Compact Garden

2.) Use the Sunlight. Choosing to open the shades and light your house with sunshine rather than electricity is common knowledge, yet lots of the time people don't do it. Sometimes I walk into a sunny room in my own house and turn the light on, even though its basically as bright without it. Maybe it's just out of habit? Either way, I am working on opening all of the blinds and curtains when I wake up, especially in the warmer months.

Next, let your laundry dry outside in the wind and sunshine. I read an article the other day that said the average cost of using a dryer was $0.31 to $0.49 per load. Definitely more if you do it at the laundromat. So, a family doing about 5 loads a week, or 260 loads a year is spending $80 to $127 on energy for their dryer.  Drying outdoor as often as you can will help bring down the cost, make your laundry smell fresh like sunshine and flowers and force you to get outside and enjoy the fresh air. Also, this doesn't just apply to people with the convenience of a pre-strung clothesline hanging in their back yard. Metal drying racks work really well, or you can be like me and use whatever you have available to you. I use a shoe rack we happen to have, our patio chairs and sometimes the fence.


These don't just apply to summer either. Let the sunshine light your house all year and hang your clothes out to dry on any sunny, windy days throughout spring and into late fall. Apparently freeze drying items in winter is a thing too, though I have yet to try it out!

3.) Entertainment. We've only gone for dinner once since spring and the movies maybe twice but we still had plenty of fun! Why pay for activities that keep you cooped up inside when you could be out enjoying all the free ones. My favorite frugal things to do in summer are:

- Go to the beach
- Outdoor pool
-Hiking! Even if you aren't athletic (or you are pregnant!) trails range from super easy to more difficult. Plus nature is basically a free stress reliever.
- Water park or splash pad
- Picnic! Find a nice spot by a lake or river or even just at a park
- Picking fruit! Even if there are no great berry patches hidden around your home, you could always go to a local farm. This is obviously more expensive but in the end you get both fresh fruit and a great experience.
- Have a baking session with all the awesome fruit you just picked.
- Invite some friends over and have a potluck BBQ.
- Bonfire... unless there's a fire ban.

I hope these suggestions will help you to save money over next few weeks, the very last few of summer. Also, start planning your garden! Do the research now and you will be a gardening expert when it comes time to plant next spring.