Sixth Annual Fall Feast

This Saturday I am hosting our sixth annual fall feast. It is a special dinner I like to give for my closest friends and family where they can come and eat a nice meal without having to worry about cooking it or paying for it. It’s a small thing, but it’s something tangible I can do to express love to them.

This year, I am making braised beef short ribs, mashed potatoes, polenta, acorn squash, roasted asparagus, and pumpkin cheesecake.

Interestingly, when I called Cub to see about the short ribs, the butcher told me they haven’t sold beef short ribs since sometime last year, and he also said most Twin Cities grocery stores don’t carry them. That got me nervous. But after calling around to a couple other places, I found that the “nicer” or more specialty stores do carry them. Lunds/Byerly’s does, but they cost quite a bit more (almost double) than where I have ultimately decided to buy them: Widmer’s in St. Paul. The butcher I talked to was very knowledgeable and the price was right at $4.99/lb. He said he’d cut them how I wanted when I go and pick them up. Great service.

Here is the recipe I’m planning to use (scroll down for the recipe): http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/11/braised-short-ribs-heaven-on-a-plate/. I’m making the ribs gluten free by using rice flour for dredging the meat so my dear friend Jamie can eat a gluten free meal.

All of the recipes I’m using seem to be fairly simple, and that’s on purpose. I am 18 weeks pregnant and still not feeling the greatest, so I’m trying to make the meal a little simpler than usual. I am also using paper plates this year. They are nice looking and heavy duty, and I think they’ll hold up just fine. But that is 16 less plates to wash! I’ll probably do the same for dessert plates and save myself another 16 plates worth of dishes.

Here are links to the other recipes I’m using.

Polenta
I’ve never made polenta before, and I may decide not to make it for the feast. I’ll see how the day goes.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/11/creamy-polenta-with-goat-cheese-heaven-on-a-plate-part-2/

Acorn Squash
I am trying to decide whether to make this recipe as is or modify it to make a squash puree instead.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/10/sweet-roasted-rosemary-acorn-squash-wedges/

Roasted Asparagus
Simple but, I’m sure, delicious. I love asparagus.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/11/oven-roasted-asparagus/

Pumpkin Cheesecake
I made this cheesecake one other time and it was very good. I will make a Maple Pecan drizzle to go over the top using the top commenter’s recipe. Yum.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Cheesecake-II/Detail.aspx

I'll be posting details about the party next week, including a cost breakdown and how each recipe turned out!

Eat from the pantry challenge

One of the blogs I read regularly is hosting a challenge for the month of January -- to eat from your pantry and buy very few, if any, groceries. So, I decided to give it a try. I am still going to buy some groceries, like milk and fruit, and if I need one or two ingredients to make a meal made up of mostly pantry items, I will do that. The idea of this is to use up and eat what you already have on hand -- in the cupboards, fridge, and freezer. I have a lot in the freezer right now -- we shared a 1/2 pig with some family so we have a lot of pork, plus several freezer meals I had made, including enchiladas, chicken ala king, turkey pot pie, soups, breads, pancakes, and more. I also have some things in my cupboards to use.

Last night, I heated some frozen Ham and Bean Soup and homemade bread from the freezer.

It's a good month to do this for us, since we are going on a trip to Arizona the beginning of February. The money I save on groceries will help balance out the remaining cost of the trip.

Speaking of our trip, I am so excited to be able to go to Arizona! We are going February 4-10 and are staying with my cousin and her husband for most of the trip, with a one-night hotel stay in Sedona as we head up to the Grand Canyon. We will explore the Sedona area Monday, and then Tuesday morning we will get up early and continue on up to the Grand Canyon for the rest of the day. Our out of pocket cost for the trip (for airfare, one night hotel, and three day car rental) is $269, thanks to our Cash Back Bonus with Discover and being able to stay with my cousin for the majority of the trip. Evan will be staying with my parents, so this vacation will be a special time for Matt and me to relax and enjoy our time together without constantly chasing after our sweet and very active little boy! I know we will miss him terribly, but he will have fun with Grandma and Grandpa!

What I've been up to in the last 20 days...

Wow. Has it really been that long since I posted? I guess having good intentions doesn't equal posts magically appearing on my blog...

Well, since I last wrote, I:

• Roasted my first turkey! The hardest part was thawing it and getting the neck/giblet bag out of the cavity. Gross. After that, I just put it in the roaster, slathered the bird with butter, sprinkled it with salt and pepper and added chicken stock to the roaster (I didn't have turkey stock). It turned out okay. A little flavorless, actually. Not as good as my parents' turkey. But, it was pretty good. We only actually ate a couple slices of it. The rest turned into some other great food.
  
• Froze 3 turkey pot pies! And a Ziploc full of cubed turkey. Plus the filling for 1 more pot pie.
• Made turkey rice soup from the turkey bones/meat! Delicious. I have 5 2-serving bags of soup in the freezer, and we ate another 5 servings throughout that week. That means I made 15 servings of soup.

So, for all of the above food, I think I paid about $8 out of pocket. Most of that was butter and half and half for the soup. Unbelievable to get that much food for so little!

• I went to an apple orchard with my cousins and picked a huge amount of apples. They have an arrangement with the orchard to pick up any apples that have fallen to the ground, good and bad. We pitched the bad apples into their compost heap and were able to keep all the good apples for free! On Saturday, we are all getting together to make applesauce. We'll likely each come home with at least 25 quarts of sauce! Plus some sliced apples to freeze for pies, crisps, etc. Wow!
  

• I pureed a bunch of baby food for Evan. Mixed veggies (corn, peas, beans, carrots and tomato sauce), peaches, sweet potatoes and squash. Making my own baby food has been so much cheaper than buying baby food! The mixed veggies were from a frozen veggie pack, plus the tomato sauce. That cost about $0.75 for a good 12 meals' worth. The peaches were canned peaches in apple juice (not syrup). I bought 3 sweet potatoes from the grocery store for about $2 and got 10 meals' worth from those. I paid $2 for a couple acorn squash, plus a couple butternuts I had in my garden. I pureed the squash for Evan's food and for us. I got about 10 cups of squash.
• Went to Mikes Discount Foods (thanks MP!) and got the squash mentioned above ($1 each), 4 containers of strawberries ($2.50 TOTAL for all 4), raspberries ($1), celery hearts (2 bags for $1) 1 lb of ground beef ($1.99), pureed sweet potatoes ($1 for a frozen gallon size bag), and a couple other things I'm forgetting right now. Great place to get some great food cheap!
  

So, that's what I've been up to. I'll try to be better about posting!

The verdict: Granola bars

I finally had a chance to make the granola bar recipe yesterday afternoon. They were fairly easy to make and turned out great! They are somewhere between chewy and crisp, so when I try to break off a piece of the bar it sometimes crumbles a bit, but I'm sure that is because there is no HFCS in them to make them gooey.  One other thing I'll make sure to try is to use regular instead of kosher salt. The kosher salt was too coarse to every now and then I'll get a bit that tastes a little too salty. I think using regular salt in a smaller quantity will distribute better throughout the granola mixture.

I love that these are so much more healthy than store-bought granola bars, I know exactly what is in them , they are fresh and pretty inexpensive to make! I am going to try making these with chocolate and butterscotch chips, too, for a sweeter treat!

I used a dried fruit mixture of berries and raisins, and a friend of mine did hers with cranberry and mango. That's the great thing about these, too -- lots of great fruit combinations!

What else is cookin? Well, tonight I think we'll go to Chipotle for dinner, and tomorrow I'm throwing a beef roast in the crock pot to be served tomorrow night with mashed potatoes, gravy, and carrots from my garden. Yum!

The Verdict: Crock Pot Oatmeal

Well, I made the crockpot oatmeal I mentioned in yesterday's post. It turned out...okay. I didn't love it but Matt thought it was good. I thought it had kind of a weird flavor that I couldn't put my finger on. It was sweet enough but somehow a little bit bland at the same time. Next time, I think I will try omitting the apples. I think there may have been too many competing flavors going on. I also might try adding a pinch of salt to see if that helps with the flavor.

I have never been a huge fan of old fashioned oatmeal in the first place though either, so maybe it was great but just not to my tastebuds!

I didn't get a chance to make the granola bars yet. Might have to save that for next week after we get back from camping.

What's cookin' at the Larson household

Last Friday, my cousin Mark and his wife Amy came over and spent the night. I had the Hostess bug and decided to make a special meal for them for dinner. I made Chicken Cordon Bleu, Baby Red Potatoes with Garlic, and Sauteed Sugar Snap Peas. And for dessert, Apple Crisp. Everything turned out really well. I've made the Chicken Cordon Bleu before and it is one of my favorite recipes. It is served with a delicious white wine cream sauce that is to die for. You can find the recipe here.

I didn't follow a specific recipe for the potatoes or snap peas. I just boiled the potatoes in salt water, drained them and added butter, minced garlic and parsley. For the sugar snap peas, I sauteed them in butter and olive oil for maybe 4-5 minutes and then salted and peppered them.

The Apple Crisp was a new recipe I tried and it turned out great! It has a bottom crust that is pressed into the pan and then a top crust that is crumbled over the top of the apples. You can find the recipe here.

On Saturday, I made French Toast using thick sliced Panera Cinnamon Raisin Bread. It was so good! I loosely followed this recipe.

And for lunch, we had sandwiches and one of my standby favorite soups, Slow Cooker Taco Soup. It's so easy, so good and makes so much that we had leftovers for a couple days! I just finished the last of it off for lunch today. I substituted black beans for the red kidney beans since that's what I had on hand, and I added the taco seasoning to the browned taco meat. I think it gives the meat more flavor. I cooked it in the crock pot for maybe 4 hours on high and it came out just fine. I topped the soup with sour cream, shredded cheddar and Frito corn chips. Yum!

Tonight I'll be baking a meal some friends of ours brought over for us yesterday -- a chicken broccoli casserole. We should have leftovers for tomorrow night, and then Friday through Sunday we'll be camping at Willow River!

Tonight I am going to try to make these granola bars. They look so good! I hope they turn out. The last time I attempted to make granola, I burnt it. Oops.

And tomorrow, I think I'm going to have this crock pot oatmeal ready for us to eat for breakfast. I like that this recipe has apples, raisins and bananas in it. I think it will give it a nice natural sweetness. Yum! I'll let you know how it turns out.

Freezing tomatoes

Do you grow tomatoes in your garden but don't know what to do with them? There's always the option of making tomato sauce or salsa, or of course eating them fresh from the garden. But if you're like me, time and/or energy are sometimes lacking and you just need to do SOMETHING with them before they start to go bad.

I learned a little trick from my dad that has been a great way to use the tomatoes. I give them a quick wash, pat them dry with a towel and then pile them up in freezer bags. I freeze them whole, skins on. Then, when I'm making soup, pasta sauce, or otherwise cooking with tomatoes, I simply go to the freezer and pull out however many tomatoes I need and let them soak for a few minutes in warm water. After soaking, I score the tomatoes with a knife and the skins slide right off. Then I chop the tomatoes up and add them to whatever I'm making. It's so simple and adds a fresh tomato taste to my cooking!

Do you have a helpful kitchen hint? Please share!