Only for My Bloggy Friends who Want to be Speakers or Writers

by kathilipp | Sep 16, 2009 | Uncategorized | 3 comments

Hi friends. It has been a busy week here at the condo as I am speaking six times in the next couple of weeks all over N. CA. So I have been a bit quite on the blog, but in other places, you just can’t shut me up.

Yesterday I was a guest on Dr. Carolyn Miller’s Getting Good at Life. If you would like to hear the interview (where, besides all that getting good at life stuff, I talk about Freezer Cooking!) you can listen here.

And, for all my friends who have ever come up to me and said, “I wanna be a speaker when I grow up.” I want to let you know that I have a monthly blog column on the CAN (Christian Authors Network) about speaking as a writer. If you go check it out and make a comment there or here, I will put you in a drawing for the booklet 5 Steps to Kick Start Your Speaking Career. (I will draw names on Monday and announce on Tuesday!)

This is only for my blog readers, so make sure you let me know you read the blog (cause I can’t help it, I love y’all best.)

It’s Safety Time with Auntie Kathi – First Up – The Car Kit

by kathilipp | Sep 13, 2009 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

For the next few blog postings, I am going to be concentrating on getting prepared for all kinds of emergencies around the house and on the road. First up, the car kit.

The reason I love the idea of doing this as a group so much is that we all have the best of intentions.

Everyone wants to be prepared for a situation that requires you to have emergency supplies on hand. I love being the person who is able to say, “Why yes! I do have a pair of tweezers in my car.” (No one needs to know that they are not in my emergency kit, but in my ashtray/change holder so that when I see that stray facial hair reflected so perfectly in the review mirror in the morning sun, I can get it.)

But actually sitting down and pulling that kit together. Ugh.

So here is yet another instance where peer pressure rocks. It could be your MOPS group, your Bunco group, or just a few friends, but doing it together will help you actually get it done.

PLUS, I bet one of you went wild for Y2K and have lots of supplies you could donate to the rest of the block. (Just make sure that all of those supplies are still usable…)

Car Kit:

Have each person bring their own:

• Scissors
• Tweezers
• Flashlight/batteries
• Some sort of container or case.

  If you are doing this as a group, you could get pencil boxes from the dollar store, or use Ziploc bags. If you are putting it together yourself, your container could be anything from a large Tupperware container, to an old backpack or purse.
  

   

Group Items:

• Instant cold pack
• Emergency blanket /space blanket
• Assorted bandages (Band Aid, Curaid, etc.)
• Bottled water
• Sterile or non-sterile rolled gauze
• Assorted sterile dressings
• Bandage tape
• Instant cold pack
• Bite/sting relief
• Disposable latex gloves
• Disposable CPR mask
• Sanitary Napkins

Make Sure to Have in the Car:

Flares

If you are going to be ordering a lot of supplies for a group, check out the supplies at FirstAidMonster.com. The prices are SO reasonable, it would be great for a group.

Are you ready? September is Emergency Preparedness Month

by kathilipp | Sep 9, 2009 | Uncategorized | 8 comments

When it comes to emergency preparedness, I am a slacker.

Yes, I may have 42 meals in my freezer, but a fat lot of good that is going to do me if there is an earthquake (did I mention that I live in California,) and we lose power.

And I have to say that I haven’t always been the most prepared person on the block. Once, I had gone to a MOPS group where they made emergency car kits. (I will give you the list on Monday if you want to do this with a group of your own. Kind of like a Freezer Meal Swap but with bandaides and tongue depressers.) One of the items in the kit was a sanitary napkin  – great for pressing against a head injury.

When I explained the purpose of the pad to my son Justen, his response was, “Promise me you will just let me bleed to death…”

Apparently, my kids are not always safety first, either.

So I am going to spend the next couple of weeks working on my disaster prep. Wanna do it with me?

I will give you lists of what you need to have on hand, great links and ideas from the best in the business to be prepared for everything from earthquakes to the latest on what you should have for the swine flu.

Don’t worry. I’m not panicing, but we all need to Amodia AD on hand anyway, right?

Starting on Monday, I will be getting my plan together and share it with you.

Let’s be safety girls!

Announcement for October! And Our Frozen Gourmet Winners

by kathilipp | Sep 8, 2009 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

Announcement for October!

I am so excited to announce that for the month of October, it is going to be a month dedicated to making him feel like a rock star.

We will be doing an online group of The Husband Project – a few days to ramp up, and then 21 Days of Loving Your Man – On Purpose and with a Plan. So even if you have done it as a group, or if this is your first time, you can pop in at any point.

Also, for the 21 days of the Project, we will be giving away a prize a day, and you will be able to purchase the book at a great price starting next week.

So make it on your calendars, FB your friends and dust off your Victoria’s Secret purchases. We’re doing the Project~

Here are the winners from last week!

Mary

August 31, 2009 at 8:17 pm

Ann K.

September 1, 2009 at 4:54 am

Camille

September 3, 2009 at 3:09 pm

Please send me an e-mail with your mailing address and I will get your Frozen Gourmet Cookbook in the mail to you right away!

Just Call Me the Miss Manners of Freezer Swapping

by kathilipp | Sep 2, 2009 | Uncategorized | 7 comments

In response to the questions from the blog this week, I am answering questions on the etiquette of meal swapping.

Jessica says: I’m anxious to hear about what to do if you can’t stomach someone else’s food Maybe you could give those to someone in need…a new mom or new neighbor or something? They’re still being put to good use, and it’s something you would have (or should have!) done anyways.

And Jillian in Canada says: My question is: What do you do with a casserole that turns out great, but your family doesn’t love. I would be happy to give it to another family, but it seems rude! What are your thoughts?

Wendy G says: Looking forward to the next post…I’m wondering what to do with the meal swapping idea if you don’t like the meals that are being made from one or more of your friends! Could get touchy…

There seems to be great concern re: what to do if someone else’s food, well… isn’t something that your family would enjoy.

This happened when we did our exchange. Here were a couple of solutions that worked to keep things running smoothly:

1. Pick your people carefully. If your best friend at church is, let’s gently say, high maintenance, you may want to save the friendship and skip the meal swap.
   You need to swap with people who can roll with it. You can make the occasional adjustment to a recipe (leave out the mushrooms for one family, etc.) But if one family wants to only eat organic, another is vegan, and another is trying to keep their grocery bill at below $3 a meal, it is not going to work. BUT, if you can find other families who are willing to have open discussions, it can work wonderfully. We had a waiting list of people who wanted to join.
   
2. Share the recipes ahead of time. If you choose the recipes that you want to do, then send them out by e-mail, you will have a chance to ask for accommodations (see the mushrooms above), or, if it gets a thumbs down from more than half of the group, it would be best to choose another recipe. It is a bit easier to say no to a recipe before someone has gone to all the trouble to make it. Remember, this is not the time to bring out your exotic recipes of citrus-infused venison. Make some family basics that everyone would enjoy and you will be successful in the swap.
   
3. You swap – and you hate what your friend made. One of the things we did was before we did the next swap, we would send out the list and give a thumbs up to the recipes that we wanted to repeat. (So, if you don’t get at least three thumbs up from a group of five other people, then it would be wise not to repeat it.)
   
4. Do a trial, and then reevaluate. When you organize a meal swap, agree to try it out for two swap trial, and then decide if you a) want to keep doing the swap b)make some changes to how you are doing things c) bow out without any hurt feelings. Remember –it is just food.
   

Marinade Freezing, Meal Swapping , and Our Winners

by kathilipp | Aug 31, 2009 | Uncategorized | 18 comments

Procrastination has its own rewards.

I needed to write out a bunch of instructions for y’all about freezing marinades, and then one of my fab, fab, readers did it for me. Here is a perfect (and succinct) description of how to freeze marinades from Mary at Canay’s Corner (BTW, adorable blog!) Here is what Mary had to say:

Thanks for all you have done so far. You have really inspired me. I marinated two flank steaks the other night. I had bought three like you suggested but I ended up having one that night. I didn’t use the recipe I put in the previous post because I found a recipe that I used to make when I was first married and decided to use that. I haven’t read how to do the marinated meats yet. But what I did was just put the meat and the marinade in a Ziploc bag and then put that Ziploc bag in another Ziploc bag with the zipper part going the opposite way. Looking forward to seeing how you recommend. Rest up and we will see you later…

Thanks for the break Mary!

Now – on to Meal Swapping or Six Chicks Freeze and Fix

When my kids were in elementary school, there were a few years where I was working flexible, but full-time hours and I needed to do the whole Freezer Cooking thing on speed.

I believe it was my friend Vikki who came up with the idea of six of us doing a Freezer Swap. (But I do say with a stupid amount of pride that I came up with the name Six Chicks Freeze and Fix.)

At first we tried to all cook together. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun, but then we realized we were giving up one of the greatest benefits of Freezer Cooking – the ability to cook when it is convenient to you.

After our first time, we each cooked at our own homes and then met to swap.

Here is how our group worked:

Each of us chooses three recipes to cook for our group and then we each send out the suggested recipes to the rest of the group for discussion. (Example: if someone suggested doing a bell pepper dish, I, being a hater of all things bell pepper, would ask for either a different dish or swap a substitute dish.)

Here are the three types of recipes that we would exchange:

1 Marinade (half the group does chicken breasts, the other half would do another meat such as flank steak, pork roast or pork chops. Then we would swap meats the next month.)

1 Casserole

1 Wildcard (this is something like a soup, another marinade, another casserole, a chili, etc.)

Each of these recipes would be x6.

So here is a sample of what I would make:

Six family sized-meals of Teriyaki Chicken

Six family sized-meals of Baked Ziti

Six family sized-meals of Chicken Cacciatore

Once I had all my meals prepared, packaged and frozen, I would pack them all into my cooler and go to the pre-determined time and place of “the swap”. (Usually at church or in the parking lot of our local Costco before it’s open.)

That way, each of us would go home with 18 different meals. Cool, huh.

OK, now you have the basic concept. Tomorrow I will give you some of the etiquette of meal swaps and how to remain friends while swapping Dreamy Spaghetti.

Here are the winners:

*J. Wong

August 26, 2009 at 8:07 pm

*Christine

August 25, 2009 at 10:50 am

*Jessica Fall

August 24, 2009 at 10:35 am

Ladies, please send me your mailing addresses and the books will be in the mail.

OK – I am going to give away three more books this week – leave a comment and I will put you in the drawing (yes, I love y’all that much.)

The rest of this week I will be answering your questions.

Green Chile Enchiladas

by kathilipp | Aug 30, 2009 | Uncategorized | 5 comments

OK – I was gone for three days and today had an ALL DAY meeting at church and I am just so exhausted I cannot blog about Freezer Swap Groups – but I will later today – promise! Plus, I will announce the winners of the cookbooks later today. To tide you over, here is one of our favorites: Green Chile Enchiladas

Mexican food in minutes – YUM!

5    Tortillas

3 cups    Chicken breasts, chopped

3    Green onions, finely diced

1 small can    Diced green chilies

1/2 lb    Monterey jack cheese, shredded, divided

1 large can    Green chile enchilada sauce

1. Prepare: Pour a small amount of enchilada sauce to cover bottom of square baking dish. Combine chicken, chilies, onions and cheese, leaving a small amount of cheese for the top of the enchiladas. Place an equal amount of chicken mixture into each tortilla and roll. Pour remaining sauce on top of enchiladas and top with remaining cheese.

2. Freeze: Cover pan with foil and freeze.

3. Serve: Defrost in the refrigerator overnight. Bake at 350° for 40 minutes or until bubbly.

Servings: 4

Wrapping it Up – Everything You Need to Know About Freezing Your Food

by kathilipp | Aug 27, 2009 | Uncategorized | 22 comments

***Give Away Alert! I will be giving away three copies of my freezer cooking cookbooks The Frozen Gourmet Just leave a comment on the blog sometime this week and I will pick three winners – the more comments, the more chances to win!***

Wrapping it Up – Everything You Need to Know About Freezing Your Food

First – here is a quick list of things that could have problems freezing:

? Cake icing made with egg whites

? Cream filling and soft frostings

? Pies made with custard or cream fillings

? Cooked egg whites

? Fried foods

? Fruit jelly

? Soft cheese (unless mixed into a recipe)

? Mayonnaise (unless mixed into a recipe)

? Sour cream (unless mixed into a recipe)

? Potatoes (you can do potatoes, but it is a bit complicated for the blog and they can sometimes turn a weird color…)

Freezing your food falls into two different catagories:

1. Casseroles

2. Soups, Stews, Chilli’s and Marinades

Casseroles

For casserole freezing, I have used the foil pans pictured below for years.

I think my addiction to foil cake pans strated when I was doing our freezer cooking swap with a bunch of other girls (to find out more about our group, Six Chicks Freeze and Fix, check back on the blog on Monday.) We would each make our dinners at home, and then bring them to a predetermined location, and swap. We didn’t want the hassle of returning dishes, so the cake pans worked for our needs.

But it was a little silly that I was still doing it once I was only cooking for my family. Besides the cost, all I could picture was trees dying in the rain forest because of my wastefulness.

So I finally broke down and bought a dozen of these inexpensive (OK, cheap,) steel pans from Target.

Here are my instructions for packaging the casseroles:

1. Spray the bottom of the serving pan with Pam or some other non-fat cooking spray
   
2. Put your casserole in the pan
   
3. Cover the casserole with foil
   
4. Label the foil with the name and date of the casserole (I’ll tell you why this is bold in a second.)
   

   
   

5. Slip into a Ziploc bag with the printing on the bag facing down
   

   
   

OK – so here is the money/enviroment tip of the day: If you label the foil instead of the Ziploc (which is just keeping your food from freezer burn and is not actually touching any food) you can reuse your Ziploc bag for protecting other meals. If you bag your food with a label on the foil, and you put the Ziploc imprint on the bottom of the casserole, you will clearly be able to see what is in your meal.

You see, those baggies are expensive, and it is my goal to make them last as long as possible!

If you don’t have all the pans that you need, here is a great suggestion from one of my commenters Deanna:

To save more $ may I suggest lining a casserole dish in aluminum foil and then preparing the meal in it. Freeze it, lift the meal out, wrap it again in foil, label and stick it in the freezer! When you go to cook it just unwrap the outer layer of foil, pop back in the original dish and cook. Makes clean up a breeze too! HTH!!!

Monday – I will be sharing about bagging your marinades and how to start a freezer cooking group!

The Freezer Cooking Mini-Project Day 4 Getting your Cook On

by kathilipp | Aug 26, 2009 | Uncategorized | 16 comments

OK – Now we get down to the nitty gritty. I know you all know how to cook, so I am going to just put down some of my Best Practices when it come to Freezer Cooking and preparing all those meals.

• Think Assembly Line When you have four recipes that called for chopped onions, get your food processor (or the food processor that you borrowed from your friend at church) and chop all those bad boys at once. (Another little trick that works well with onions: Light a wooden match and then blow it out. Hold the wooden part in your teeth while chopping onions to keep from crying. I don’t know why it works, but it does.)

  Here is another tip on onions from Kelly (http://www.bittybowsboutique.com)
  

Day 3 Prepping for Your Day and Zen and the Art of Freezer Cooking

by kathilipp | Aug 25, 2009 | Uncategorized | 21 comments

***Give Away Alert! I will be giving away three copies of my freezer cooking cookbooks The Frozen Gourmet Just leave a comment on the blog sometime this week and I will pick three winners – the more comments, the more chances to win!***

I have had so many questions about the whole Zen of Freezer Cooking – recipes, storage, shopping, cleaning out the fridge, etc. that I thought it would be a good idea to address some of the questions that you all have – and share some of my Freezer Cooking philosophy. (Yes, that is exactly how deep I am.)

I am summing up some of the questions that y’all have been asking and trying to give the best answers I can.

Does shopping at Costco really save you money? How about for a smaller family?

Here is my very uneducated opinion about Costco: If you are super organized, use coupons wisely, follow loss-leader sales, and can shop on a frequent basis to take advantage of those sales, you can probably save as much money shopping more traditional stores and outlets as you can at Costco.

I admit that we make some trade-offs re: money/convince. If I can get it at Costco, I usually do – especially when it comes to Freezer Cooking. (Although, we tend to buy our fruits and veggies at Safeway or Farmer’s Markets, and do grow a few things – tomatoes, peppers, and some herbs – on our tiny back patio. We have not been as happy with the quality of the Costco fruit and vegetables. )

I think if you get your stuff home and have a plan for dividing up your big Costco-sized items, you can save money. Money is lost when you forget that you bought that bag of frozen chicken and discover it 18 months later.

What about Low-Fat versions of the recipes – where can I find those?

Most recipes – low fat or not – can be frozen in some state. You can always use low fat substitution for the ingredients that are stated in a recipe as well.

Obviously you are not going to freeze a salad, but, low-fat soups, chili’s, marinades, stews, (that are not cream based) work great.

I have some recipes in my book that are great for low-fat cooking. And then there are others. There will never be a low-fat version of “Poppy Seed Chicken” or “Dreamy Spaghetti”. Maybe lower-fat, but they are just not healthy. In those cases, we serve a lot of veggies, and treat those casseroles as more of a side dish (and I have a bowl of chili instead of the casserole.) These are the recipes that my kids LOVE so it is OK to slip them in every once in a while. (Trust me, the meal I am serving them is better than what they would order at McDonalds.)

Here is a family favorite for low fat cooking. If I could only freeze one recipe – this would hands down be it. You can spice it up and add chicken sausage to make a great Jambalaya – serve it over pasta, or if you are looking for lower-fat versions, over steamed white or brown rice.

Chicken Cacciatore

1 lb    Boneless, skinless, chicken breasts

1 Tbs    Vegetable oil

1 1/4
cup    Onion

2 cups    Mushrooms

1 tsp    Minced garlic

1-28 oz     Can of crushed tomatoes in puree

2 Tbs    Parsley

1/4 tsp    Pepper

2 tsp    Italian Seasoning

1 tsp    Basil

    Parmesan cheese

1. Prepare: Cut chicken into cubes. Slice onions and mushrooms. Chop garlic.

2. Cooking: In a large skillet, sauté chicken in vegetable oil until no longer pink in the center. Remove chicken from skillet and sauté onions, mushrooms, and garlic until the onions are transparent. Add chicken and remaining ingredients except for Parmesan cheese. Simmer for 15 minutes. Allow sauce to cool.

3.  Freeze: Freeze in a 13×9 pan.

4. Serve: Thaw sauce in the refrigerator overnight. Place the foil-covered pan in a 350° oven for 30 minutes to warm. Serve over pasta or mashed potatoes.

Servings: 4

Can I store my freezer meals in glass – I am worried about the health reports re: plastic bags.

If you are likewise concerned about plastic bags, I would encourage you to take a look at This Article. Basically my philosophy (this is just for me and my family, you need to make your own decision,) is that I store and freeze in plastic, but I don’t reheat in plastic anymore.

Day 3: Prepping for Your Day

You have already decided what you are cooking and made your shopping list. Now before you rally the troops for Expedition: Costco, make sure you have a place to put all that stuff when you get home.

• Clean out the fridge and the freezer. In our house, that means if I won’t be using it for meals, and I can’t remember when I bought it, it gets tossed. I try very hard not to buy things that we are not going to use immediately because I don’t want to waste resources (economically, or environmentally.) Either that or we have a meal that consists solely of freezer stuff we need to use up. (Guess what kids? Organic Fish Sticks, mixed vegetables and puree of pumpkin for dinner! Oh boy!)

• After cleaning out your freezer and fridge, make sure you have a clear working space in your kitchen. This is when I will pack away the crock pot, the toaster over, and any other knick-knacks on my counter.
• Empty the garbage and recycling.
• On the cooking day, wear super-comfy clothes that you don’t mind getting tomato sauce on and your comfiest shoes (if you do it barefoot, you will be exhausted early on.)
• Figure out what you are going to eat for dinner on cooking day. I can’t tell you how many times we have gotten to the end of a cooking day and had nothing to eat. Some of the ways we have planned for that dinner in the past:
  
  • Buy an extra chicken at Costco and eat that with a salad.
  • Leave one meal unfrozen and put it in the over.
  • Order a pizza (totally legit option after all your hard work.)

Tomorrow – I answer more of your question AND we go to Day 4 – making the meals!