Chicken Stock

I had a wonderful day in the kitchen yesterday, making chicken stock. I'm still working on the three farmer raised chickens I cut up, and yesterday I boiled the chicken backs that I had previously frozen. My reward was as pot of hearty chicken vegetable soup and ten cups of stock for the freezer. Wonderful!

Achievement Unlocked: Cutting Up a Whole Chicken

My farmer brother raised chickens again this year, and last week we bought four of them. Each of the chickens weighed between five and five and a half pounds, so perfect for roasting. Even though roast chicken dinner is fantastic, I decided I wanted more meal options from all these birds. I took to Google and set out to learn how to cut up a whole chicken. It seemed easier than I thought, so I was really excited to try it.

I learned how to divide chicken by watching this short YouTube video. I watched it about five times before I took to work on my chickens.

On chicken day, I successfully parted three chickens. The first one took about twenty minutes (maybe longer), as I figured out how the joints worked and the correct angle for the knife. I had the YouTube video called up on my iPod, so I could learn step by step as I worked (while frequently washing my hands). My first attempt wasn't perfect, but it helped me learn for the next one. The second chicken was far easier to part, taking about half the time as I got the hang of it. By the third chicken I was full speed and the breast pieces looked like they were from the grocery store. I was so happy and so proud of myself! Kitchen skills!

From my three chickens I got the following for the freezer:

2-pack of chicken legs x 3

2-pack of chicken breasts x 3

12 (split) chicken wings

3 chicken backs for soup stock

I also kept one of my chickens whole, so we can have a roast chicken one night too. Very excited.

The Amazing I Cord

I have a pair of shorts that go on super loose and then are tied to fasten them. It works fine most of the time but is total bullshit if the cloth tie breaks (which mine did). Without the tie you are left with a pair of shorts that are about ten sizes too big, which are only good for keeping your ankles warm.

I was thinking of what I could use as a replacement tie, and my knitters brain asked: "Would an I cord work?"

I refreshed my memory of I cords with a youtube tutorial and then proceeded to make one for my shorts.

It took two episodes of The Wire to get it to the right length, then I strung it through my shorts and now have a working garment again. Thanks knitting skills!

Chocolate Pudding Pie #FoodPicFriday

I usually buy the 4L bag of milk as it is cheaper than buying cartons (the bag makes it $1/L, the carton is about $2/L or more depending on the size of the carton). The only problem with the 4L bag (16 cups of milk) is that we sometimes don't get through it before the expiry date. The main problem over the past month is that I've cut back on cereal (I was eating it multiple times a day) and I haven't been in the mood for smoothies. This past week I had to use up over a liter of milk so it didn't go to waste. I even drank it (on its own) which I never really do (unless it's chocolate), but I kinda liked it (especially when served with pie!).

To use up 3 cups of milk, I made a chocolate pudding pie, with a recipe from Hershey's website. This pie is egg free and uses corn starch as the thickener. The pie was served with individual helpings of whipped cream and was really delicious.

Car Cookies

A friend of ours recently got her driver's licence, and I celebrated by making her some car shaped cookies. I didn't have a car cookie cutter, but as with my d20 dice cookies, I made my own. Cookie cutters are really easy and fun to make, and really cost-effective if you want a shape that you might only use once.

I learned how to make cookie cutters from this blog tutorial. I hopefully will do a tutorial of my own here soon, I just couldn't get it together to take photos this time around.

Here is the cookie cutter I made/used:

And here are the adorable car cookies made from my favourite gingerbread cookie recipe:

Homemade Baguettes

Yesterday I told you about some fancy cheese my Mom surprised me with. When I have fancy cheese in the house, my first thought is always "oh, I wish I had a baguette". Cheese and bread is a favourite of mine, it's so simple and delicious. Being baguette-less and not wanting to drive to the store (or to spend the $1.50-$4.00 for a store bought one) I wondered if I could make my own. I found a recipe in my bread maker recipe book, made some dough, and ended up with two 15" baguettes. The cost of all the ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, yeast) was about $0.75, so a significant savings if I make them myself. They were also super easy to make, as most of the prep was just waiting for dough to rise.

Homemade Baguettes:
1. Make dough in the bread maker (1 hour, 15 minutes)
2. Turn dough into a greased bowl, and let rise for 30 minutes
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough with rolling pin until it is a big rectangle (this dough was incredibly easy to roll out)
4. Cut dough in half and roll each half up 'jelly roll style' and round out the ends
5. Let rise for 40 minutes, then cut some diagonal slashes in the top
6. Bake at 425°F for 10 minutes, turn down to 375°F and bake for an additional 8 minutes

The baguettes tasted great and were really easy to make. I'm so happy that I can make them at home and have a fresh baguette any time I need one.

Bread Maker Buns

Over the weekend I made some homemade chicken soup and some homemade buns for soup and sandwich night. I've posted about the soup here, and I thought it was about time I posted my bun recipe. Using my hand-me-down and awesome bread maker, these buns are so easy to make and a weekly staple in our house. I've also used this bun recipe many times for dinner rolls, making 24 rolls instead of 12 buns.

Home Made Buns (adapted from Sanyo's The Home Bakery Book, 1988)

4 cups all purpose flour
4 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup margarine, softened
2 tbs milk
2 eggs, each added with water to measure 3/4 cups (or use yolk only, if desired)
2 tsp active dry yeast

1. Place ingredients in bread machine pot in order listed. Let stand 5 minutes. Use DOUGH setting and press start. Dough will be complete in 1 hour 15 minutes.

2. Remove dough from bread maker and place in a greased bowl, turning to coat.

3. Let rise 20-30 minutes.

4. Punch down dough and shape into 12 buns. I like to use a scale to get them all about the same size.

5. Let rise 20-30 minutes.

6. Bake at 375°F for 10-13 minutes.

Enjoy as part of a soup and sandwich combo for maximum enjoyment.

It Seemed Like A Good Deal at the Time...

We started adding dried chives to our meals earlier this year, enhancing mac n' cheese, dressing up baked potatoes, and seasoning many other dishes. We realized we loved them in anything and everything and added them to our weekly grocery list.

We bought the store brand bag of chives, which were only $0.79 per bag and so easy to just throw into the cart. We'd pick up two or three bags at a time, as it seemed like a good deal.

I was at Bulk Barn a few weeks ago and decided to see how much bulk chives cost. They were $5.29 for 100g, which I initially thought was expensive because I'd been getting a whole bag of them for only $0.79. When I got home, I was surprised to realize that the bags I'd been buying were only 5.5g. Which meant that 100g of those chives actually worked out to $14.36! I'm so happy I looked into it, because it turns out I've been overspending on chives.

So I went back to the Bulk Barn and picked up 100g (...I got exactly 100g too, because my bulk measuring skills are awesome, apparently).

My giant bag of chives is equivalent to 18 bags of the ones I used to get. So we currently have ALL the chives and can now have as many fancy baked potatoes as we want.

Pennies for Pens

I got my first zero out of pocket coupon deal last night, although having said that, zero out of pocket in Canada is plus tax. So I actually spent $0.12, but that is as close to zero out of pocket as we get.

These pens were retail $1.87, but I price matched them to a sale price of $0.99. I had a coupon for $1.00 off, so all I had to pay was the tax. And because it was $1 off and I only paid $0.99, that extra cent came off my bill too. A fun deal for fun pens.

Book and Meat Deals

I went over to the Elmvale Sales Barn (aka the Elmvale Flea and Farmers Market) yesterday to see what it had to offer this year.

The Sales Barn has changed over the years, the heyday being in the '90s when my family and I would go almost every Thursday in the summer to have a look around. The market was full of vendors and there was always different and interesting stuff to look at (and eat). We always got cheese curds from the cheese guy, a sno cone from the red food truck (that might have had hot items too?), and Mennonite sausage. I also got some band t-shirts (Paul McCartney) and TV shirts (X-Files) that I wore constantly in my early teen years. We always had a lot of fun looking around the Sales Barn.

The experience is different now, with new (and less) vendors, and the times I've been over the past few years have left me longing for the past. Yesterday was my first time out this season, and I have to say I had a pretty good time. There were lots of vendors and visitors - it was nice to see so many people out. The thing that caught my eye the most was all the used books. At least six of the vendors had used books, and all mostly just a buck or two. I love looking through a big pile of books with the hope of spotting something great. Yesterday I happened on two gems at two different vendors.

I got J.K. Rowling's Casual Vacancy for $5 (perfect condition) and Jack Kerouac's On The Road for $1 (also in great condition). I love finding a book deal, so getting two was great. I'm already planning on taking John with me next time to see what else we can find.

I also got some smoked meat (salami and pepperettes) before I left.

Salamis were $5 each (840g) and pepperettes were 2/$1 (but they actually threw 3 in the bag, so that was cool).

Are there any neat flea markets near you? They are definitely a sign of summer around here.

Knitting Needle Case

I've been knitting on and off for about 6 years now and in that time I have acquired various knitting needles and supplies. I found an old sewing box in the attic and appropriated it as my knitting box. Up until now there has been no organization of the contents, other than all my knitting tools can be found in the box.

A few months ago I spent about $5 on fabric from the ends bin at Fabricland, for the purpose of creating a knitting needle case. The sewing skills in the family belong to Mom, so I gave her the fabric and she proceeded to make me a fabulous case. She didn't need to measure while making this, she just went in with the basic idea of what it should look like and made it happen. My Mom has awesome skills!

My knitting needles, all bundled up

The majority of my knitting needles

I still have various sizes of double pointed needles and circular needles that need a home, and have tasked mom to make a smaller but equally awesome case for them. The long needle case is my current favourite thing in the world, so I am super excited to have a set of two.

Thanks Mom! You are the best!

Marshmallow Buttercream Chocolates

Recently I made some rainbow cupcakes for a family get together and made marshmallow buttercream for the top (my favourite). I'm always really careful with how much frosting I pipe onto my cupcakes, as I don't want to run out, but I always seem to end up with leftovers (I'm too careful). I didn't have time to eat the leftovers with a spoon (we were off to an event) so I left the buttercream in the fridge with the idea that I would do something fun with it when I got home.

Leftover Marshmallow Buttercream

I shaped it into discs and let them firm up in the fridge

Then I dipped them into melted dark chocolate chips

My leftover buttercream was enough for nine chocolates

Mmmmmmm....chocolates on a fancy plate

They were really, really, good.

They were so good that at some point I might even make up some marshmallow buttercream just for chocolate making. I think they would make a great gift.

Feast on Scraps

I have been on a dishcloth knitting kick over the past few weeks, and in an effort to use every last bit of yarn left in my stash, I tied all the scraps together to form a multicolour yarn ball. Nine scraps were tied together in total and that was enough to complete a neat looking dishcloth.

Knitting through this dishcloth was fun because I didn't know how the finished piece would look. It was a surprise to see all the colours come together, and I enjoyed watching it unfold.

Quick Soup

Back in December I made some turkey soup stock and froze it for future use.

The stock was frozen in 2-cup portions, so I pulled a couple of them out of the freezer and made myself some soup. I brought the stock to a boil and added what I had on hand: carrots, sweet potatoes, chickpeas, corn, peas, leftover rice, and some spices. It turned out to be a very hearty and yummy soup. The best part was it made enough for three lunches.

What do you like to do with vegetable/chicken/turkey stock? We were thinking of making it the base of our next stew. What do you think?

Pie Crust Dough

I made pie crust dough this afternoon and it was actually really easy to make. I haven't got around to rolling it yet, but so far so good.

Today was my first attempt at making my own pie crust. I don't know the merits of the different fats that could be used for crust, but I had vegetable shortening on hand so I went with that. I also used the recipe on the side of the shortening box because I am not fussy.

Mix 2.5 cups of flour with 1 tsp of salt. Add 1 cup of cold vegetable shortening, cut into cubes. Mix with a pastry blender.

Mix until the dough looks like pea sized pebbles. Add 3-6 tbs of ice cold water and mix until the dough forms a ball, but is not sticky. I used 5 tbs to achieve this.

 
Shape balls into discs and store in fridge for 1 hour or more for ease of rolling.

I might make my pie later today or early tomorrow. Can't wait to show you how it turns out! 

Rocking Leftovers - Steak Sandwich

We periodically get an amazing deal on beef and then for the next few months we enjoy roasts, steaks, and stews. The meat goes a long way, and I always feel like I'm winning when there is leftover steak in the fridge.

What normally would have been steak and eggs, John suggested we use our leftovers for awesome steak sandwiches. AGREE. We used home made buns from the freezer, pulled out the toaster oven, and got to work on this tasty leftover lunch.

The bun was buttered and then layered with strips of steak and mozzarella cheese.

I added chicken and rib BBQ sauce to mine (not pictured) and it tasted fantastic. Possibly even better than the steak we originally had.

We served the sandwiches with home made sweet potato fries and life was beautiful!

Switching Up Salad

We are about halfway through November and I am still surprised every time I look at the calendar.  It is cold and we've had snow, but somehow it doesn't feel like mid-November yet. I'm lost somewhere in September, I think, as that sounds much more reasonable. Summer always seems to go fast, but this one really flew by.

One of the drawbacks of the colder months is less access to fresh vegetables at a good price. One major budget blower in the winter is lettuce. In the summer a big, beautiful romaine is $0.79. In the winter they are small, wilty, and $2.49 ($2.99 some days). The price increase and quality drop has already begun, and I came home lettuce-less on my most recent grocery run.

One thing that is cheap and plentiful this time of year is carrots. I really like carrots, but I have a hard time just eating a carrot and not being so completely bored. I find even dipping them boring - and my jaw gets mad at all the crunching. I asked Google if there was a way to make carrots more exciting - and Google didn't let me down (it rarely does).

I found a recipe for carrot salad. So simple, I never thought to do it. Just grate a carrot, season it, and eat. This recipe suggested mayo and lemon juice. I tried it and it tasted pretty good. The next day I mixed a spoonful of Greek salad dressing with the shredded carrot and it also tasted pretty good. For my third try I mixed in some chopped cucumber and topped it with cucumber dressing. It was tasty too.

I currently have 5lbs of carrots in the fridge and I'm looking forward to eating them as fun salads.

Beef Deals and a Beef Meal

We got a super fantastic beef deal on Friday. Giant roasts were on for $1.87/lb, and we got four of them, each weighing in at around 6 lbs. This is our favourite way to buy beef, because we cut them into smaller hunks so we have many options for cooking. The four roasts turned into fourteen 1.5 - 2lb portions that we froze and will use over the next few months as roasts, steaks, beef strips, or stewing meat. I have to say I am pretty excited about it and with winter coming I am loving that we have 24 lbs of meat in the freezer.

A 1 pound hunk of beef cut from a large roast

I'm really looking forward to turning these 14 hunks of beef in my freezer into many fabulous meals. If we cut the beef into strips we can make one of our favourites: fajitas.

A hunk of beef cut up into strips

Browning the beef strips and seasoning them with taco spice

Making my fajita: add beef and cheese

Add avocado and salsa

Add lettuce and roll up into an awesome hand held meal

Waste Not, Want Not

So remember all those milk and creamers we took home from the wedding?

Well the milks were about to expire and needed to be used up. So I took one for the team and decided to have a bowl of cereal with them.

I'm obsessed with Cinnamon Bliss, which is Sally's Cereals version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and had some on hand to go with the milks. I didn't want to have any soggy cereal, so I opened all the little milks before I added them.

I did pretty well and only ended up with eight leftover.

And I used those up by having another half bowl of cereal. Which was easy for me to do because Cinnimon Bliss is so incredibly good. Super yummy and no milk was wasted. Double win.