Meal Prep for Baby and Other Considerations

Nesting is in full gear now that I am 38 weeks pregnant. At my last appointment, I was 70% effaced, which means I think little man will be pleasantly punctual, if not a little early bird. With that in mind, the 2 lasagnas and the 20 breakfast burritos I made a few weeks back in prep just don't seem like enough to get us through those first few weeks of caring for a newborn, so I decided to shop a little ($100 later at the grocer) and prep a few more meals.

Since Praha (Czech) Stew is such a staple around here, I decided to go ahead and make a huge batch of that. Also, I saw some individual sized tins for pot pies. So, I decided to make both of those today.

Yes, I know those pots are WAAAY too full.
Normally, I would scold myself for this, but today I'm pulling the pregnancy card.

Now if you don't recall, stew has a very critical right and wrong way to be prepped in this household, lest we have a repeat of the "winter of our discontent." So, I could have sworn I had the recipe posted up here for you guys, but I cannot find it! Just understand that it is a beef stew, with potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, and Tony's.

Also, here is the Chicken Pot Pie Recipe. I just made a bigger batch and doled it out into the little tins. Thankfully, there was enough left over to make a small batch for tonight's dinner. That makes this a double win. Here's the low down. Cook the recipe double or triple until you have as much as you need for your prep. I made 6 indiviudal sizes and one family size. Today, I used about 4 chicken breasts, 2 small bags of frozen mixed veggies, one large can of cream of chicken soup, 3/4 of that can of water, spices, and about 1/2 lb of cheddar.

Once all that was cooked together, I used a ladle to fill the tins and allowed them to cool a bit as to not bake the thawed puff pastry that was going on top. Using a small prep bowl that was about the size of the tin, I cut a rough circle of thawed puff pastry for each tin. No Polly Perfects here.

Two puff pastry sheets got me 6 tins and enough to cover tonight's small
Corningware sized container. There was about four small tops per sheet.

Pre and post puff pastry topper. Not perfect but good enough.
Make sure to cut a vent in the top to prevent overflow.

To prevent freezer burn, I covered these little pies with foil THEN their plastic lid. You can write the cooking directions or meal descriptions on the foil. Basically, the pie needs to defrost for about 40 minutes. This is all because of the puff pastry. If you try to cook it frozen, the insides will be fine, but the pastry will be flat and not as delicious.

Digression: Puff Pastry is made up of about 9 million layers of butter and dough. To truly fluff up, those butter layers have to be at room temperature before baking. Also, this is not a dough that likes a lot of manipulation. Do your best to treat it gently and then don't fuss with it. A lot of compression and crimping will compact the butter layers, preventing the puff. Consider yourself warned.

"Thaw 40 minutes and bake 400* for approximately 20 minutes."

An important thing to remember: Remove that foil before baking. It is simply there for freezer burn protection. I don't know if we will be eating these this weekend or in 2 weeks, so I wanted the extra level of freezer burn protection. God knows what will turn out if you bake it with the foil on. Again, you have been warned.

As far as the "other considerations" mentioned in the title... One should really consider how much freezer space is available before prepping and purchasing too many things. Our new house came with a french style freezer that is narrow as hell. Luckily, I was able to cram all these in there after a good rearranging. However, there have been incidences of frozen pizzas that have to be cooked immediately due their diameter being wider than the shelves. I just had a panic attack wondering how I'm going to containers of stew that is still cooking in there. Oh well, live and learn.

~Fin~

Get More Bang for Your Food Budget Buck Series Part III: Turning Cheap Cuts of Meat Into Stellar Meals.

The Art of Braising

Meat is usually the most important expensive part of an entire meal. However, you don't have to live off ground chuck and bulk boneless, skinless chicken breasts to save a few bucks on meat. We've already talked about turning your single chicken breast piece into 2 portions by making cutlets, but we can do better. Let's talk a little about braising.

Braising is a fancy term that basically means cooking a piece of meat at a low temperature for a long period of time. (Low and Slow). Braising is not the technique you want to use when you are trying to whip out dinner in thirty minutes. However, if you are going to be working around the house all day, say on a weekend, putting a hunk of meat in the oven to braise all day will result in an awesome meal by dinner time. What's also cool as this big effort will likely produce leftovers you can eat on a couple days, or freeze for another time. You also don't have to constantly be checking on these meals. Check on them every hour or two only! Here's the low down.

Braising was developed as a method for cooking cheap, otherwise unpalatable cuts of meat. Some cuts of meat that are commonly braised are roasts, briskets, pork butt (which is really the shoulder by the way), stews, dark meats on birds, or meats that have lots of connective tissue. These meats are tough because they are big muscles that the animal uses a lot. Think of a man with 6 pack abs, if you punched it really hard, it would be really tough. Same concept. 

So how does braising work? Think of braising as similar to a hot sauna. When you first walk in you are totally shocked by the heat and you tense all up, but after awhile your muscles relax and you just turn to putty. That's basically braising.

So what special tools do you need to braise? Truth be told, you don't need any fancy equipment to braise; however, there are a variety of ways to do it if you do have gadgets gathering dust. You can braise in a cast iron dutch oven, corning ware (ceramic dishes), earthen ware pots with lids, and a crock pot. Lost the lid? We can work with that, too.

Okay, I am not going to do any specific recipes for this post. Don't be scared though, I will provide you with the basic steps that will get you through any braising process.

10 Steps for Braising:
1.  Don't even THINK about doing this technique if you only have an hour to cook. Just a friendly reminder.

2.  Season the meat with a dry spice combo that you enjoy. Don't know much about spices? Use salt and pepper. Cover the whole dang thing really well.

3. Heat a few tablespoons of oil or butter in a heavy pan or your Dutch oven.

4. Sear your meat in the pan on medium-high heat until the meat browns on the outside only. Make sure to brown all sides. DO NOT freak out if it sticks a little. That crusty crud is important for later!

5. After your meat is seared, move it in your braising pot or crock pot. If you seared it in your dutch oven, disregard this step.

6. This sounds fancy but don't panic! You are going to deglace the pan. WTH does that mean? You are simply going to get the crusty crud off the bottom of the pan by pouring broth, beef stock, wine, water, or juice and scraping with a spatula. Why? Because brown food is delicious and that crust = flavor, flavor, flavor.

7. If you notice a bunch of oil floating to the top, don't worry, we can skim that off later. Pour the liquid and crusty bits into your braising pot, careful not to rinse off all your meat's seasonings.

8. Add a cooking liquid (water, stock, wine, juice or some combination) to the half-way point of the main ingredient.

9. Add some chunky cut, aromatic veggies to the pot. Perhaps an 1-2 quartered onions and 3-4 rough cut celery stalks. Cover and place the meat on the middle of a rack in an oven that has been pre-heated to 200-300 degrees Fahrenheit. Lost the lid to that pot? Simply wrap the top tightly with foil. Remember, we want a sauna!

10. Cook until completely tender. This can range from 1 hour to 6 hours, depending on the type of meat you are using. Check on the meal every hour or two. If the liquid has boiled out, turn down the heat and add more. It will be tough and dry without the liquid. Feel free to spoon some liquid over the top of the meat when you check it, just for fun. Beef takes the longest to cook, followed by pork, then birds.

Here are 2 braised meals I made one day Chopped style because I was at Jon's parents. (Chopped contestants have to plan and cook an meal with the basket of mystery ingredients). The meal fed 13 people for only $30. The sides were rice and mashed potatoes. In The bulk of the cost was 10 chicken thighs with legs. The remaining was for the celery and a sack of potatoes. Everything else, I thought on my feet and pulled from their pantry. No recipes, just thinking on my feet. Total cost per person: Less than $3.

Seasoned with rosemary, salt, pepper, and butter, seared in butter, and braised at 300 with celery carrots and onion. Covered with foil. Total cook time: 2 hours. Results: A rich buttery flavor and velvety texture.

Seasoned with salt, pepper, and brown sugar. Seared in olive oil. Covered with onion, BBQ Sauce and Bacon bits!!!! Braised at 3oo degrees covered in foil. Total cook time 2 hours. Result: A sweet and salty BBQ flavor, tender and moist.

Cake Mania + "Worst Chef" in Training = Lessons Learned

Last night I got a wild hare up my "aspic" and decided that we needed a cake to brighten up our ghetto hovel of an apartment. Besides, it would give me the opportunity to use about 50 of the gadgets so graciously bestowed upon us for the wedding. Of course it wouldn't be exciting at all if there wasn't some kind of mayhem involved...so let's get started.

Dinner of Jonathan's less-than-the-desirable-amount-of-onion stew was served up and devoured while listening to the inane ramblings of the AT&T associate trying to upsell us on cable when we only called for a password reset. Wow, was that a run-on sentence? Anyway, I was craving something sweet. I have been all week. Seeing how we blew through all the Christmas candy already I had to be more creative. I dove to the back of the pantry to see if I could rustle up some old cake mix or brownies. Nada. *grumble*

I threw open the cabinet of cookbooks and pulled out the Williams Sonoma Yellow Cake recipe that accompanied a lovely set of 8" round cake pans so generously given to me by a coworker. A cursory glance at the ingredient list and away I went, sifting flour here, measuring carefully there.

Following directions. That was the #1 lesson on the last Worst Cooks in America. I double and triple checked the measurements, and I think I did pretty well...except for the butter and sugar. Two lessons were learned last night: Butter takes forever to soften at room temperature even if you chop it into smaller blocks. Melted butter is almost just as bad for your recipes. It makes your pastry not as fluffy. So when a recipe says, "ingredients at room temperature" don't get cocky. My frozen ice-block butter got pseudo-chewed up in the blender. I ran some scalding water on the outside of the bowl to try to help soften. Didn't work too well. Then came the sugar. The recipe called for 2 cups. All my measuring cups were dirty, save a 1/2 cup scoop. So I carefully scooped, leveled each scoop, then slowly added to the mixture approximately 4 times. I say approximately because J distracted me in between what might have been the end of scoop 3 and I might have thought it was scoop 4. So I'm not really sure if 2 full cups made it in. It takes all my mental energy to cook, distraction derails the tiniest of details.

Details...like how my milk was yet again expired. I did, however have powdered milk, which I mixed with water to make a milk-like substance. I think that it may have contributed to the texture of this cake, which is pretty dense. Moving on.

I carefully grease and flour the pans, carefully halving the batter into each pan. Then I notice a glop of something in the bottom that isn't moving. Re-enter the ice-butter. I try to mix in the butter/sugar blob conglomeration into the remaining batter in the bowl and pray for divine intervention. You see, I'm what Chef Robert Irvine calls "a hider". I attempt to hide something that doesn't come out right or pretty. Chef Irvine will find out! He will smash you with his giant, meaty biceps which he got from tenderizing sides of beef by hand. Fear Chef Irvine... *cowering under my mom's butcher block*

"I will kill you with this whisk!" -Imaginary Chef Irvine in my head

So now I slap my pans into a horrible oven WITH NO WINDOW OR LIGHT!!!! God, how I hate this oven with knobs so old the temperature markings are half rubbed off/covered in some toxic goo from previous tenant. Not MY toxic goo! I swear! Scout's Honor! We have been doing dishes religiously with the help of a glamorous pair of dish gloves given by gingerific gal pal Sam. Thanks to her, I can now do dishes with minimal gagging. Sort of. See here's proof:

Scrub-a-dub

The next thirty minutes are spent pacing anxiously...

Finally, it is time to pull out the cakes. Per the instructions, they were cooled in the pan on a rack. A rack, might I add, that has followed me through at least 4 apartments and never been used. I racked and waited some more. Patience is a virtue, and has it's benefits. Behold a kitchen miracle...

Dear Williams and Sonoma, I love you.



So now comes another period of waiting until the cake cools completely. I give up on the waiting game and go shower. I come back afterwards and feel the cake is sufficiently cool. Is it truly cool? Not sure, it was after 9pm and I was ready for bed so I was forging forward regardless.

The next step is to cut "the dome" off the top of the tops of the cake. Good thing I had these awesome Wustof knives from Williams Sonoma. Serrated blade away!  *saw saw saw, slip* SHIT!



"Jon HELP!!!! No not me, SAVE THE CAKE dammit!"

I'm not allowed to use the knives anymore as I sawed a nice gash in my finger that didn't stop bleeding for like 30 minutes. Thankfully, no cakes became a biohazard. J took over the rest of the cutting whilst I donned a big bandage.

After the bleeding was contained, I set about to stacking and icing in my pjs. I laid down wax paper and iced on my beautiful cake pedestal...from Williams Sonoma. Here's the final product, yellow cake like grandma used to make. I was filled with glee, despite looking like a mad woman.

FYI- the caking was f-ing delicious.

Two Chefs + One Kitchen, a Happy Marriage Does Not Make

Last night was the official beginning of the "We cook at home to save money and pay off massive debt" Vacek Newly-wed Challenge. How did we do? Well let's recap.

Last Night's Recipe de jour: The Illustrious Porkie Pine Meatball

Only at about 4pm did I realize that my pressure cooker went ka-put before the most recent move, so that sort of threw a wrench into our plans. So now I have thawed ground beef and no idea what to make.

Also in the news: It is the coldest week in Houston so far this winter. This comes into play later.

So I arrive home freezing my knickers off. (It's is a balmy 46* here but that is very cold for us). Jon is feverishly trying to find the end of season football bowl-of-the-week, while cursing our pauper-like living situation. Alas, we do not have ESPN. (I jump around in glee, fists pumping in the air). I make the suggestion that we move the beef stew that was planned for Saturday (when the Arctic blast moves out) to tomorrow (as the hard freeze arrives). I think we should start the crock pot and get it going today for tomorrow's lunch/dinner just in time for the hard freeze. He agrees with the idea, but not the mode of cooking. Thus far, my crock pot experiments have been sub par to say the very least. Beef Stew was also his one meal of the week to prepare, so he decided that he was going to make it his way.

By this point I am already hungry, which means I have little room for shenanigans. My temper flairs as my blood sugar goes down. I offer Jon two dinner alternatives since the meatballs are scratched. He fiddles around awhile before deciding on spaghetti. For me, this is like a 10 minute meal. Brown beef, dump in pasta sauce, boil noodles, voila! Dinner. Meanwhile, J is lolly-gaggin around the kitchen trying to get this stew started. He starts rummaging through the spices to find something season the stew with. Being that I set up the kitchen, I try to help out.

Me: What are you hunting for little Ninja?
J: Not sure, I'll know when I see it.
(He's looking in the baking spices)
M: Um snookie, the spice rack is over there with a plethora of spices, why don't you try there first, you're kind of crowding me. (Only 1 large burner on this stove that I need to heat the sauce)
J: Mmmhmmm *rummage rummage*
M: *starting to fume* Babe, I promise what you are looking for is probably over there.
J: Mkay *various bottles now on the counter*
M: For the love of God man! What are you looking for!?!!?
J: Found it! (Tony Chachaere's Season salt)
M: You are going to put Cajun spices in a beef stew...? *eyeballing his stew pot contemptuously*
J: What's your problem?

Oh no he didn't!!!!

So now begins the circling of the bowl, so to speak, as we jockey for stove space and spew heated rhetoric back and forth.

M: This onion is for you, I got it so the stew would not be bland. (very small onion. He hates onions but admits they are a necessary evil)
J: K. *chops about half of uber tiny onion into minuscule pieces for the stew meat now browning on the stove*
M: *Eyeballing meager rations of onion usage*
J: What?!
M: That whole onion was for your stew. I picked the smallest one I could find for you. *said in an overly dramatic way. As in "I gave my left kidney...FOR YOU!"*
J: Well, I am saving some for you to use on something else.
M: *Blood sugar dangerously low* What the hell am I going to do with a half of a miniature onion!?
J: *blank stare*
M: *face palm, slaps tiny half-onion in a bag. Tosses into fridge*

 (Dinner 95% complete by this point, blood sugar at critically low levels. Supernova impending.)

Me: *putting on pot for noodles*
J: What are you doing that for?
M: Ummmm....noodles. Wouldn't be spaghetti without noodles now would it?!!!!!
J: How much longer do you think it will be before dinner's ready?
M: *Staring at him in disbelief* However long it takes to boil the noodles. I have been trying to hold out until you get to a pseudo-stopping point with your stew.
J: *big sigh*

Oh no he didn't!!!

M: *Fuming around the kitchen, plating dinner* Are you ready to eat yet?
J: Do carrots need to go in the pot with potatoes, or do they not need to cook as long?
M: They probably need to go together. Are you ready to eat yet?
J: Do you like the carrots this size (baby carrots) or do you want them cut?
M: Usually I like them smaller, but dinner is getting cold, just throw them in.
J: *chop chop chop chop*
*KABOOM, blood sugar meltdown*
M: WHAT ARE YOU DOING! DINNER IS ON THE TABLE?!!!
J: It's important that I make it the way you like it, it will only take a minute, just chill.
M: *Banging head on table*

New rule: Only one cook in the kitchen at a time.