Tropical Storm Irene

I realize many people were displaced, some lost their lives, homes, and vacation time.  But, for me - in Maine, not too much happened.  I think a lot of the hype comes from past hurricane's where there was little warning and many government officials were in some hot water.  I can appreciate and respect flash flooding, and it can do some real serious damage.  Really serious.  But, we didn't experience any of that and I am so thankful.  What I did get to experience the ocean afterwards.  It was incredible.  After snoozing away the afternoon because we didn't have power, Tom and I drove over to Long Sand in York.  I walked down to the water and let Mother Nature push her air through my hair.  The waves were so big.  Bigger than I had seen in my whole life.  And I imagine they were small in comparison to what some people have seen.  The seagulls were navigating the gust with professionalism.  Soaring sideways, resting in the wind till they were softly delivered to the next clam shell for snack.  My pants were glued to my legs while the ocean foam was pushed across the tops of the waves to the next one.  It was awesome.  I of course forgot my camera, because we really left the house for coffee.
I did capture an image of the only sunflower I got to save before the winds came through and trashed my garden.

That's my awesome terrarium next to it.  All in all, the storm was uneventful.  We did loose power for twenty three hours.  We didn't loose any food or trees.  I had time to think about my wedding.  I had time to snooze.  And realize how I take electricity for granted!                                                                       

Then there was this chair....

On Saturdays I scoop dog poop for money.  It's pretty great.  I get to be in the sun, make money, check out the landscaping, and make money.  I drove by this chair on my way home a few weeks ago that some family had decided was ugly enough to get right of finally.  It had a 'free' sign on and everything.  As if being put to the curb wasn't humiliating enough, they were literally giving it away.  I drove by it, liked the shape, but figured it must be broken because why give such a cute chair away for free?  I saw a car coming in my rear view and figured they would stop for such  cute chair so I attempted to turn around on the worst corner possible because I'd rather try to kill myself with these driving maneuvers than let them get that chair!
I backed up onto someones lawn (just a little bit) andI lived to make the turn around,  raced back to the chair before that car made it.  That car just drove by, it didn't even slow down.  Ha!  I win!
I got out, and looked right past the faded orange and green 60's floral fabric and looked at this chair for what it was.  A cute, curved bottomed, wooden peg footed chair.  I didn't sit in it - I'm scared of bed bugs.  I had to have it.  And it was free.  And when I lifted it to put in the back of my car I got a whiff of barn.  mmmm.  Rustic storage spaces are my favorite.  And then there was a spider on my hand!  Eek!  Not my favorite. 
I brought it home and let it cook in the driveway till Tom could carry it inside for me.
A day or two later Tom had rearranged the entire living room set so my chair could be predominating feature when you first enter the room!  Ew, that fabric.
It's a comfy chair!  Tom and I are both tall, and it fits us great.  But, ew that fabric.  The smell and the spiders are gone but the orange flowers and green floral background were not so faded once it was in our living room.  I just kept staring at the chair thinking about how amazing ugly it is.  I wish I knew how to make a slip cover.  Because of one of my clients - I have enough fabric upstairs to clothe the entire royal wedding guest list.
After two weeks of living with the ugliest, best chair ever I ventured upstairs to see what kind of fabric I might be able to piece together in 100 different ways to attempt a slip cover.  I did some research online on how to make one.  And found two huge pieces of fabric that I loved, and forgot I had, that I thought would make great chair coverage.  I layed, pinned, cut, and pinned some more out of this fabric (inside out) on the chair and went upstairs to sew it.  It took me about an hour and a half to complete.  I put it back on the chair, pinned it where it was bunchy and sewed again.  The arm rails where the hardest to figure out, but I managed to make it work.  Then I stapled the shit out of it to the bottom of the chair, making sure to accentuate the curved back that I love to much.
It's not the best slip cover in the world, not the straightest, not the best fitting, but it's one that I made.  The FIRST one I've ever made.  And, I love it.

Learning to stretch a dollar

This would be a good time to tell you I recently ordered a Food Saver from Cabelas.  And, I think I am in love with it.  I was trying to figure out a way to display it at my upcoming wedding.  Not really, but, kind of.
All this work would go unappreciated if I couldn't put all this food into bags and suck the air out of them.  It would also be a waste if we didn't have room for a 5.1 cubic foot freezer from Sears.  I am using this freezer for my wedding, because I already picked an absurd amount of black raspberries from the yard to incorporate into favors.  As a member of Pinterest I've been able to see some beautiful things and dream about doing my own beautiful things.  I came across this post and was inspired.  I thought, "geez, I'm doing all these meals on a daily basis why not try working smarter."
I sat down at my kitchen table and thought about what kind of meals I like to make, what Tom likes to eat and how to navigate the grocery store for a mass shopping spree.  I came up with the following list:
burger, chicken, steak, red peppers, potatoes, and shrimp.  This list took my like fifteen minutes to come up with, so I was dreading going to the store. But I went. And on the drive over thought I should get a bag of carrots, a bag of onions, chives, garlic, asparagus, and whole chicken.  I left the store with:
four packages of chicken breast - 3 pieces each package
two whole chickens
two family size sirloin steak tips, that were on sale - about 2lbs each
four packages of pork chops - 4 pieces each package
four pounds of ground burger
a sale bag of cooked, peeled shrimp
bag of carrots, potatoes, onions, and red peppers
pint of whole, peeled garlic
a package of turkey bacon
different veggies
After walking out of the grocery store with a cart full of groceries and a bill in my hand for $265.00 (exactly $265.00) I was really hoping this was going to be worth it.  I did buy some other items, like bread, Italian ice, blue tortilla chips, sour cream, milk, and coffee....but, I digress...to the kitchen!
I started my experiment by chopping the bag of onions and putting them into a casserole dish.  I wore eye protection, not only to get a giggle from Tom but because I am huge wuss and knew my eyes would water.

 Please note the white cabinets and cute black knobs behind me.  I just finished a total kitchen re-paint job that took many hours over the course of three weeks.
I also grated all the carrots and chopped the whole bag of red peppers.  I did two sizes for the red peppers to make life more interesting.  I would also like to mention that if Rachel Ray forgot to stop at your house for Christmas like she did mine - use what ever you have in the house to contain the food.  Be creative and laugh over all the uses other things have....if you let them...

carrots got grated into a pie dish

peppers in a bread pan and cereal bowl

Mid chop and grate, I figured I should have had the water going for the chickens, like fifteen minutes ago.  So I stopped, breathed a deep sigh and got that going.  As a Maine resident you're required to have one lobster pot per two people.  Just kidding, but we have one because I was sick of making jam in small batched so I treated myself to a legit pot.  If you don't have one you could just stick your birds in the oven and cook them that way.  I wanted to boil mine so I could use the stock afterwards for soup this winter!  Information for the best way to freeze stock coming up...
Fortunately I had carrots and onions all chopped for the water (I totally meant to do that), I cut up some celery and tossed all of it in with the birds and set the burners to blaze! For about an hour anyways.

Two whole chicken,four chopped carrots, handful of onions, 1/2 bunch celery, salt, pepper

I bought 4pounds of burger and got two of it going in a pan with onions, carrots, red peppers, and garlic.  Afterwards I used the same pan, same ingredients but added a can of black beans.  The first for Italian inspired dishes - spaghetti, lasagna stuffed shells, etc.  And the ladder for Mexican dishes - tacos, enchiladas, nachos, etc.  I got eight quart sized bags from the International burger mixtures!  Depending on how hungry Tom is, this could be twelve to fourteen meals because of left overs.  I started using carrots as a filler recently.  It cooks down nice, retains most of its nutrients, and why the heck not?

home made marinade

While the birds were simmering, and the burger was cooking I made some terriyaki marinade for the pork, chicken, and steak I bought.  2 cups of soy sauce, 1 cup of Mirkin (Asian cooking wine), 1.5 cups of sugar, LOTS of garlic, and pepper.  Yummy.  And versatile. 

                                                                                    All meats love this marinade.

While the marinade, was, um, marinading, I turned the oven on to 350degrees and threw in the washed potatoes right in on the rack.  I cooked them for a little over an hour, till I could stick a fork in 'em

soon to be twice baked potatoes

With everything cooked, the burger vacuum sealed, the chicken breast, pork chops and steaks marinated and vacuum sealed I then had to wait for the whole chickens and potatoes to cool.  I set my sights on pesto and freezing chicken stock and pesto.
I'm not going to bore you with my pesto recipe, because it's the same as everyone else's. 

garlic, pine nuts, parm, olive oil

basil from my garden

What I am going to share with you is how I froze it.  Muffin pans!  With roasted red tomatoes on top and a sprinkle of parm cheee!  Wow.  Then you can have a serving size, or three when you want instead of defrosting a pint container and possible wasting it.  It's also a total space saver in the freezer because the bag these get put into can lay flat.

My trick to popping these babies out after they are frozen is this:  Get the hot water going.  turn the muffin pan upside down over a colander. Get the hot water running over the upside down muffin pan, and hold it on an angle so the water runs off one side down to the sink.  Then these will just fall out into the colander because gravity is so amazing!  Also because the bottoms melt just enough to release from the pan. And presto pesto!  Then you can throw them into one bag or many and stash in the freezer till you're hankering for pesto!  My muffin pans held about two tablespoons worth of pesto per spot, so I figured two to three of these at a time for any dish I want.  I'll just take some out of the bag and put them into a dish in the fridge to thaw, or I could toss one of these babies into some tomato sauce to add some flavor.  Remember how I told you I would share instruction on freezing chicken stock.  Well, just substitute stock!  The easiest way to do this is with your glass measuring pitcher -fill with two cups of stock and portion out into pans, freeze, then bag into 2cup increments.  The chicken stock is little greasy when it pops out of the muffin tin, so be prepared to let one hand be the dirty greasy hand, and keep the other one clean for easier management.

I took a picture of my fridge to show you how crammed it was trying to store all this stuff!  I'm sorry about the chicken ass, I suppose I could have made them a bit more presentable for you...
I then shredded the chicken and vacuumed sealed it into TWELVE bags for sandwiches, salads, nachos, etc.  I used the dark meat to save for soups this winter and divided that meat up into four bags.
I made my twice baked potatoes with cottage cheese, turkey bacon, and chives and vacuumed sealed eighteen of those!  What an easy side dish - 350degrees for 20mins, add a dollop of sour cream and delicious!
Here is the final count for dishes for Tom and I (meals for two):
3 chicken and veggie servings (with red peppers, carrots, and broccoli - mix with rice, or a meal on its own)
8 servings of meat for Italian dishes
8 servings for Mexican dishes
6 servings of pork chops
4 bags of dark meat for chicken soup/chili/etc
12 servings of shredded chicken
4 servings of steak tips
6 servings of shrimp

Total possible meals: 51 !  Not mention the left overs and soup that will carry over into another meal or two for us!

side dishes:
18 twice baked potatoes
3 servings of broccoli, one has cubed cheese in it
3 servings of mashed potatoes
4 servings of green beans with almonds

The finale!  Do yourself a favor and label everything.  I labeled it and wrote intended uses on something so Tom can make dinner too!

This is almost 20 already to go side dishes, that I can just pull out of the freezer that morning and have ready for that night!

I broke out my calculater and subtracted the stuff I got at the grocery store that didn't go towards making these meals and it was :  $134.82 (so maybe i got more than a few things extra)
Which mean I spent:  $130.18 on the food for 51 meals and almost 20 side dishes.

That money divided just by the 51 meals works out to about $2.50 per meal!  Wow!  Of course I'll nneed noodles for spaghetti - shells and guac for tacos - and all the what not...but, I think that's pretty damn good.
The next step will be to create slow cooker freezer meals....stay tuned....