Save money on cheese

Today I stopped by Costco because I needed some mozzarella cheese for our Friday night pizzas.  As usual, I bought the 5 lb bag of shredded.  I'm always vaguely uneasy about buying 5 pounds at a time because I'm pretty sure it's going to go bad before I can eat it all, but if I freeze the bag I have to remember to get it out of the freezer the night before I want to use it, or I have to make good use of an ice pick.

So I did something smarter:

 

As soon as I got home (no procrastinating!) I got out 9 new plastic bags and using the package as the 10th (for tonight's pizza), I divided the cheese into the bags, pushed the air out, and flattened them.  By flattening them, they will thaw faster when each pizza night comes, even if I forget to take the cheese out ahead of time.

I laid them out on a cookie sheet for quick and flat freezing and popped them into the chest freezer on the back porch.  No waste and fresh mozzarella every Friday night for a couple of months.

Rare sight at my house

Yes, commercial pizza. It happens about three times a year around here and tonight was one of those three.

Why do I bother?

My mom and three children had homemade pizza for dinner.  I made two medium pizzas so everyone would have plenty.  Bill came home late.  This is what was left:

Taco Pizza

A week or two ago I came across a recipe for taco pizza. The theory is a pizza crust with taco toppings and that's just the way it turned out.

It was easy to make because taco shells are always the ingredient that trips me up, while pizza crust is simple for me. It was really pretty and everyone liked it.

Expect to see it in the weekly menu again.

How to get two pizzas and two "orders" of cinnamon sticks into your freezer when it is already completely full

Take them out of their boxes, cut the directions off the carton, and go for the bin at the bottom.

Just barely!

How I made flour today

It's Friday--pizza night of course. I'm serving more healthful foods these days, partly because of the diet I'm on. (Yeah, the whole family gets in on it.) In order to make sure our flour is fresh, I buy only one 5 lb bag at a time, which means I run out now and then. No problem, because I have hard winter wheat in a 25 lb bag in my food storage, so I can just mill whatever I want whenever I need it. Since the mill sounds like a really loud vaccuum cleaner, I always mill my wheat outside in the carport. The temperature was 75F (24C) today, so no problem to do that!

It was a take-out day

One of the ways I keep our food budget down is to cook at home, mostly from scratch. Today wasn't one of those days.

I took Mom for an appointment and on the way home she offered to treat us to a quick lunch, so I suggested Boston Market. I pass it once or twice a week, but in two years of living here, I've never gone in.

We got the rotisserie chicken, three sides which were creamed spinach (all right--wouldn't have been my choice), mashed potatoes and gravy (waaaaaaaaaaay better than KFC's), and hot cinnamon apple slices, with three little (very sweet) corn bread cakes. It was all really good!

Before we got home I stopped at Papa Murphy's take 'n' bake pizza because I had invited the LDS missionaries over for dinner and didn't feel like making our usual homemade pizza.
I got a pepperoni, a double cheese, and a Canadian bacon, then added cheesy bread and a cinnamon wheel. Everything cost $20. At home I added pineapple to the Canadian bacon one to make a Hawaiian pizza. Although now that I think of it, a Hawaiian pizza really should have Spam and pineapple on it.

Our guests arrived right on time. After we made our introductions to each other, I told my mom that when I saw the guys at church on Sunday, one of them reminded me of someone . . . who? She took a look and said, "well, he reminds me of Kevin." Bingo. That is who I thought of too. I'm not saying he looks exactly like Kevin, because he doesn't, but he did remind both of us of him.

Can you see it?

Anyway, here are C and me with the missionaries too:
I sent the two pictures to the missionaries' mothers. I know I really appreciated when I'd receive the occasional email from mothers in San Diego with pictures of David in them, and I'm hoping for some karma when Kevin goes on his mission in a couple of months.

Friday from one end to the other

Dh dropped me off at the corner by the dentist's office this morning. I walked a short block so I could cross there, but it wasn't at the main crossing place, so no signal to help me on my way. Traffic was backed up for more than that block and I had to stand in between the waiting cars as I worked my way across the lanes of traffic. There are 8 lanes at that point. When I got into the dental office the secretary and hygienist told me they had been watching me and crossing their fingers for me. LOL

It turned out there might be something to account for my tooth tenderness and I was referred to an endodontist for further evaluation. I went ahead and had the two fillings replaced that needed it and I'll see what happens next week with the other doctor.

I walked the mile home and passed my optometrist. How convenient. When I got my very expensive glasses home a few weeks ago, I found two tiny places where the purple paint had chipped off the frame in the front. Honestly, no one would ever notice it unless s/he was really looking for it, but for what I paid, I want a perfect finish. So I stopped in and the new frame should be in late next week.

The rest of the warm, pleasant day (79F or 26C) I spend doing laundry, watching TV, cleaning out the chicken coop, and doing geneology.



Dinner is pizza tonight of course, because it's Friday. I wasn't happy with the way my last crust turned out so I looked up a new recipe. I followed the directions and the dough was still pretty soft despite adding a little extra flour, but I have to say it looked and tasted divine before going into the oven. This recipe might be my new favorite.

Some help for Canadians

Here is some helpful information:

It's what we had tonight, as we do every Friday night. Over the years we have had lots of interesting toppings and lots of fun making pizza. Mine had sauce, mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, red pepper strips, and olives. Everyone else had pepperoni+.

A little baking day

We're running out of bread plus I don't like the way my last batch turned out anyway. It came out like the bread your mother made back in the 70s (right after she made a batch of homemade granola). You know--only half raised and pretty crumbly. The problem last time was I used more whole wheat than usual (I usually use 70% ww and 30% white) and I didn't knead it the extra time I should have. Then when I went to get out my two long baking pans I couldn't find one and I ended up substituting two smaller pans for that one and it was just too much pan for the amount of dough I had. It all tasted fine, but the texture and size wasn't what I'm capable of. I make very good homemade bread.

Today I ground about 6-7 lbs of wheat into flour and used the proper amounts of my ingredients. Well, I looked at the leftover rice on the stove and thought, "What the heck?" and threw that in as well. You never know what might be in my bread, but I promise it is always delicious!

If my batteries hadn't died as I was getting ready to take pictures, I'd have some pics of the operation. Maybe later if I can get them to recharge.

In a little while I'm going to make some chocolate chip walnut banana bread. I'm probably the only one who will eat it so I might as well make it the way I like it.

Last baking project for the day will be some pizza crust dough. We're having the LDS missionaries over to join us for our usual Friday night pizza dinner, so I'll multiply the batch a bit to accomodate them.

What a week!

In addition to the major time-waster below, I spent hours and hours working on an online tutorial for an online project I hope to do. I have a bit more to do before I have any news.

Tomorrow the Pick Up Fairy will deliver two and a half bags of things she picked up from the girls' bedroom over the past week and a half. If everything is put away before noon, the Pick Up Fairy will take her children bowling. There is an introductory bowling event tomorrow with free bowling, pizza, drinks, school supplies for prizes, and so forth. I'm sure the girls would enjoy it. Er . . . the Pick Up Fairy is sure the girls would enjoy it. But after noon, there won't be time to go, so it is to be hoped the girls will get things put away lickety split.

Speaking of pizza, we nearly always have pizza for dinner on Friday. None of that over-priced commercial pie here, no siree! 96% of the time I mix up some crust and let the kids mix it up with the toppings. I came across a recipe in Sunset magazine this week that I decided to try. The twist is that it was baked on the grill. It was awesomely good! The only thing I changed was I used well-oiled waxed paper instead of the oiled parchment paper because I had waxed paper and no parchment paper. It worked fine.