Little McDebbie Muffins

Little McDebbie Muffins is what my hubby calls these breakfast sandwiches that I made Saturday morning.  I made ten, with the intention of freezing most of them.  So I had to get organized.

While a small amount of oil was heating in the frying pan, I got out the eggs.

 

I split the English muffins and took the cheese slices out of the wrapping.

I fried the eggs in the hot oil.  If you push the whites of the eggs toward the center with a spatula, they are rounder and fit on the muffins better.  I also poked the yokes so that they would cook.  I didn't want runny eggs in the muffins.

I had Pandora radio going on the computer while I worked.  The station I created was instrumental/piano music. 

Here are the muffins with the eggs on them.

Then I added the Canadian Bacon on top of the eggs.

Followed by cheese.  A couple of them have Pepper Jack cheese for a little bite!

The finished sandwiches:

I put them in sandwich bags.

Eight of the individual sandwiches were put in a gallon size bag and two were put in the fridge for eating right away.

These sandwiches have about 300 calories.  Hubby can take one with him to work to heat up after he gets there.

Making Vegetable Soup From Fresh Grape or Cherry Tomatoes

I've been playing with my food again.....

Our grape tomato vine is still going strong, but has slowed down a little.  However, one can only eat so many in salads.  I had to find some other way to use them up.

Tomatoes on the counter ripening.

A little experimenting with cooking them yielded a pot of soup for now and one for later.  They are delicious in this soup and I would think in other tomato dishes like chili.  I cooked them alone first by cutting them in half and adding a little water.  Once they were done I added some browned ground beef, 1/2 small can of tomato paste, one can of mixed vegetables (undrained) and enough water to cover it all.   Then it simmered for a while and made a wonderful meal.

Delicious and Nutritious

One half of this batch was used in the vegetable soup above and I was able to put a starter meal in the freezer for later using the other half.   All I will have to do is add a can of mixed vegetables and a little water.  This one is earmarked for the first cool day in the fall. 

The other half of the meat, tomatoes and  tomato paste for the freezer.
 

There are lots of healthy vitamins in this soup. All of the ingredients were in my pantry or freezer.   I was worried that the little tomato skins would come off when cooked, since I remove the skins on larger tomatoes before cooking them.  They didn't.  There were little chunks of tomatoes, but no loose skins.   This makes using the grape tomatoes in soup very easy!

My Frugal Plans For the Week:

1.  Frugal Meals:

I purchased 2 packs of chicken breasts that were 99 cents per pound at Food Lion, which ended up being six large pieces.  On Sunday afternoon I put them all into the oven.  Three in one pan were barbecued and the other three in another pan were roasted.   I used 1/2 bottle of Kraft BBQ sauce bought on sale for 99 cents, with a 50 cent coupon, so this added about 25 cents to the cost.

The pieces are so large that I cut each one in half and, after its all said and done, there will be twelve servings of chicken.  That's not bad for about $7.00.   Cooking all of it at one time saved electricity and time.  So I think this qualifies as a very frugal thing.

As one more frugal use of this chicken, I poured the broth and drippings from the roasted chicken pan in to a saucepan and added water.  I cooked some rice in this and made a delicious side dish for the chicken.   Last night's supper was roast chicken, rice and I opened a can of "Grillin Beans" bought on sale with coupon.

Very rich chicken broth, too good to pour down the drain!

I put enough of the BBQ chicken in the fridge for one more meal this week and froze the rest.  The date and kind of chicken was written down on my list of possible meals that lays on the counter.  It'll be wonderful to simply take out a couple pieces of chicken, and make a couple of simple side dishes on a busy night after work.

2.  CVS:

The best deals I see will cost me $1.70 out of pocket and earn $12.00 extrabucks for next week:

Dial Soap, 3 pk, $2.00 Buy 2, Use $1.00 coupon off two (earns $2.00 extrabucks)

Planters Peanuts 16 oz,  $3.00, Less $1.00 coupon (earns $1.00 extrabucks)

Renu Contact Lens Solution:  $7.99, Less $2.00 coupon, less $2.00 off Any Contact Lens Solution (printed at CVS machine) (earns $5.00 extrabucks)

Schick Hydro 5 Razor, $9.99, Less $10 off any Schick Hydro 5 Razor  (printed at CVS machine)  (earns $4.00 extrabucks)

2 bottles of Kraft BBQ sauce = $2.00, less $1.00 off two, makes them both $1.00

2 boxes of Nabisco crackers at 99 cents, less $1.00 off two, makes them both 98 cents.

1 2 ltr Diet Pepsi 99 cents, less 25 cents coupon (print out at CVS machine) makes it 74 cents.

Total = $11.70, Less $10.00 extra bucks left from last week= $1.70 out of pocket.

Get back $12.00 extrabucks for next week!!!

3.  Storing the stock pile:

From our CVS/FoodLion stock pile, we were able to give our son a care package over the weekend.  This consisted of a large bottle of laundry detergent, a full size toothpaste, a travel size toothpaste, floss, large bottle of body wash and 2 rolls of toilet paper.  I'm sure that if he bought these things at full price they would have cost at least $20.00.   I think our cost was around $4.00.

CVS stash stored among the pickles!

I have a little story about my CVS stockpile.  When we first moved to the farmhouse in 2010, I stored some of the shampoos and body washes that I bought, free standing on the shelf above the washer and dryer.  Right beside the dryer is the hot water heater.  Some of the bottles were knocked over and they fell behind the water heater.  I COULD NOT GET THEM OUT!  So a large bottle of Men's Nivea Body Wash and a large bottle of Head and Shoulders shampoo have been stuck back there for 3 years.  Friday afternoon I just couldn't stand it any more, and I decided to try to get them out, just one more time.  It was a very hard job, but I finally got them out!   I now make sure that anything that could fall behind the hot water heater is stored in a plastic bin so that they can't be knocked over!

Mortgage Lifters

Look what I found in the bottom of the freezer on Saturday! You can read the story of the Mortgage Lifters Tomato in THIS POST.

The vegetable beef soup made with this last bag of "frozen summer" was delicious.

Every batch of vegetable soup I make has different ingredients. This one had the following:

Mortgage Lifters tomatoes
Browned ground beef and chopped onions
2 cans of No Salt Added Veg All
Leftover garden peas from the night before
A few diced potatoes cooked in a separate pot and added to the crock pot
Black Pepper sprinkled in your mug of soup

Of course some salt would have added much flavor to the soup, but it was still good.  We try to cut out as much salt as we can.

You never know what you'll find in the bottom of your freezer or at the back of your pantry.  What a blessing it is to be able to make a delicious meal from what you have on hand.

Frugal Strawberries

My hubby has access to free strawberries. The reason for this is that they aren't quite good enough for the market or are too ripe, etc.

If these are the culls..... we'll take em!

Strawberries are a great food to put in the freezer, especially when they are free.

Freezer Inventory

The thing about freezer cooking is that you must continue to put more food in the freezer consistently in order to keep the inventory up. You also have to keep a list of what is in there in order to know what you have and make sure you use what you have. I've really been enjoying having a variety of meals and meal starters in the freezer.

Sunday, after the power came back on, I did some batch cooking of chicken breasts that were on sale this week for 99 cents a pound.

Here's a list of what is in the freezer now:

Browned ground beef and onion (1)
Individually wrapped baked chicken breasts (5)
Shredded BBQ chicken for burritos (1 bag)
Baked cubed chicken (1 bag)
Great Northern beans (3 bags)
Chicken Broth (several bags)
Oatmeal muffins
Slices of banana bread
Brownies
Shredded boiled chicken (1 bag)
Vegetable beef soup (3 bags)
Hamburger Patties (4)

These are the freezer foods we've eaten since I began seriously putting them away:

Chicken pot pie and dressing
Italian chicken
Chicken Tetrazinni
Meatballs
Meatloaf
Hamburger stroganoff
Hamburgers
Chicken Pastry using a bag of broth
brownies
oatmeal muffins
banana bread

Most of my freezer inventory is made up of meal starters. During my next batch cooking session I hope to freeze some side dishes and possibly complete meals. I think some bags of rice would be handy.

Weekend Freezer Baking

Lately on Saturday mornings I have been doing some batch freezer cooking. This past Saturday I dedicated my time to doing some baking. The yield: Brownies, oatmeal muffins and banana bread. I packaged them into individual servings and popped them in the freezer for some quick breakfasts and lunch box treats.

The brownies were from a box mix, but the oatmeal muffins and banana bread came from the Hillbilly Housewife Website HERE and HERE. I loved the way both of them turned out. The muffins are healthy and not too sweet. The banana bread came out moist and tasty, thanks to the step by step instructions. The recipe called for grated orange peel, which I didn't have on hand. I will definitely be making more of these with the grated orange peel to freeze and to give as gifts.

Here are a few pictures of my freezer baking session:

Freezer Cooking Report

This is the first week that I really put the freezer cooking I've been doing to the test. The result: YUM!

Three of our nightly meals were from the freezer.

1. Hamburger Stroganoff served over egg noodles: I froze 2 bags of browned ground beef and onion. The morning of the day I was to use it, I put one bag on a plate in the fridge. When I got home I dumped it into a frying pan, added the ingredients and heated it through. I cooked the egg noodles and heated a can of tiny sweet peas. This fed 3 adults for supper and provided 3 lunches.

2. Italian Chicken: On my freezer cooking day I cooked some boneless chicken breasts smothered in pasta sauce. After it finished cooking and cooled, I put the chicken and some of the pasta sauce in a freezer bag. In preparation for the meal this week, I put the frozen chicken on a plate in the fridge to thaw. When I got home from work I dumped it into a baking dish covered with foil to heat. After about 30 minutes I removed the foil and sprinkled some mozzarella cheese on top and baked for a few more minutes to melt the cheese. I cooked a small box of spaghetti to serve the chicken over and also fried some okra. To add a little more flavor to the spaghetti noodles, I added a tablespoon of butter and some Parmesan cheese. This was definitely a hit with us all.

3. Hamburgers: I froze hamburger patties, individually wrapped. After deciding how many hamburgers we needed, I placed them on a plate in the fridge to thaw. When I got home I just cooked the burgers. I also made potato salad. Delicious!

Eventually I hope to have a good supply of side dishes in the freezer as well. This week I was able to use some main dishes from the freezer, but had to come up with side dishes.

Saturday my plan is to do some baking. I want to make some muffins, brownies and cookies for the freezer. Sorry "Little Debbie"!