Blogging in Bulk

A hurricane of crazy schedules, a well-baby checkup, and an impromptu shopping trip are among my list of excuses for not blogging for a few days. 

To be quite honest one of the main reasons for abandoning blog for the past four days has to do with the fact that the only Use-It-Up concoctions we have enjoyed were leftovers, leftovers, leftovers.

I once read a great book that will reveal the depth of my inner food-geek, "Alone In The Kitchen With An Eggplant," a comprising of food writers' and chefs' memiores and confessions about they eat when they are alone.  I felt like our menu on Day 16 could have come straight out of its binding. It was truly one of the strangest leftover menus we have had for awhile.  Jett and I dined on leftover V-Day pizza, lentil soup, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, and for dessert yogurt with blackberries. 

Yesterday's breakfast taught an important lesson.  You should never ever reheat leftover pumpkin waffles. What was once delicious and fluffy was found to be soggy, shrunken and funny tasting two days later.  I tried a bite and opted for Cheerios immediately.

However strange and slightly gross these combinations may seem, they have left my refrigerator successfully empty, with the cupboard coming close behind. The project has also resulted in 13 meals for my family, not including the bizarre aforementioned leftover meal.

This morning Jett and I celebrated success by cleaning out the refrigerator.  Now let me tell you that I generally do not think of myself, my husband or our son as a messy, disgusting human being.  That is until I cleaned out the fridge.  It was a little shocking what some of the cracks and crevices looked like, I won't go into the details.  But I'm proud to say that it now sparkles, and after a quick trip to the grocery store this afternoon, it is once again fairly well stocked for the week.

My bill today at the store...$48.77!  I am loving Use-It-Up February! 

Day 15: Waffle Meet Pumpkin Pie

One of the things I love about this project is that it has helped me think more strategically about what to make for supper.  I've really been feeling inspired to come up with new dishes based on what I have left to use-up.  Tonight's inspiration was "Waffle Week" and since Sunday's breakfast went so well, I decided to break out the waffle iron again with a different dish, pumpkin waffles.  Our house now smells like the best of Thanksgiving!

Here is the actual recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com. I halved the recipe because I thought it looked like a lot, and boy was I glad I did.  Jett and I would have been eating nothing but waffles all week. I did not have allspice or ginger, so I added an extra 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves.


First combine dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, stir together the pumpkin, milk, and egg yolks.

Next whip the egg whites in a clean dry bowl until soft peaks form. (I think I have broken out the mixer more times in the last two weeks than all year.)




Stir in the dry ingredients and 1/8 cup melted butter into the pumpkin mixture.  Gently fold in 1/2 of the egg whites until incorporated. Then fold in the remaining egg whites.

Waffle meet pumpkin pie!  Beautiful light and fluffy consistency thanks to those laborious egg whites, and perhaps just a little bit creamier than a normal waffle due to the pumpkin.  I paired it with scrambled eggs with little smokies, and apples. 

Breakfast is one of my favorite meals to eat so I love reinventing it as a supper dish.  It's also a great on-hand alternative when you don't know what else to make.

What I used-up:
Can of pumpkin
Remainder of a 1/2 gallon of milk
Remainder of a stick of butter

Day 14: A Pizz-a My Heart

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope that you enjoyed time with someone you love. 

This year's Valentine's Day was probably one of my favorites so far.  Not because of romance, an over-the-top display of affection, or a nice gift.  Nope none of that occurred, it was a great day because I had a chance to make it special for me and the little love of my life. 

I think the reason that I have such happy memories of holidays and special occasions from growing up is because my mom did an amazing job of finding little ways to make the day special.  I remember one day around Valentine's when I was in preschool, a big box of red and pink art supplies arrived in the mail from a teacher supply store.  There were stickers, paper, boarder, and foam cut outs, and I just remember how much fun it was to go through that box and pick out what I wanted to use to make cards.  I also have some awesome memories of making card boxes for school. Having a mom who was also a teacher I always had the best access to supplies and great ideas!

Growing up Valentine's Day was also special because we got to go out to supper, which we didn't do very often. Lillie or I would pick the location, usually Wendy's or Valentino's because they both had ice cream.

Last night I was really craving Valentino's but with Kevin at district basketball, Jett and I decided to stay in and make our own heart shaped pizzas.  I had planned to make pizza dough from scratch, but my little buddy was in full play-mode when we got home.  So I went the easy route and used-up a pre-made mix. 

I also had everything for a beautiful Greek salad, which was a nice accompaniment. This salad had everything, grape tomatoes, cucumber, kalamata olives, feta, and a nice olive oil based dressing to finish it off.  I could have been back in Athens all over again. (Well, maybe it wasn't that good!)

Jett enjoyed the meal very much.  We ended our special date night with a rare treat, a few minutes of watching an Elmo's World video that we rented earlier in the afternoon.

What I used-up:

Pre-made pizza dough mix

Jar of pizza sauce

I hope that your day was special, and that you made it a special day for someone else!

Day 13: My Sweet Hearts

WARNING: If the site of crystallized sweetness makes you cringe, or if you flip the channel when an ad for high fructose corn syrup comes on, or if the very thought of diving into a container of frosting with a spoon evokes your gag reflex, this post is not for you. 

It all started when I was trying to find something to do with the powdered sugar...  I had done a couple of quick online searches for recipes that didn't yield anything I felt was very interesting.  Then I remembered a great baking cookbook that I had received for Christmas a couple of years back, "Butter, Sugar, Flour, Eggs" by Gale Gand. I stumbled upon a delicious looking recipe that didn't look way over my head and called for four cups of powdered sugar in the frosting.  BINGO!  Named Black-and-Whites (which I think is just boring) I like to call it the The Best of Both Worlds Cookie.

I had everything for the recipe (except for cake flour - substituted with all purpose), and instead of using an ice cream scoop to make circle shaped cookies, I put the dough in the refrigerator overnight and rolled it out like sugar cookies.  I rolled the dough to approximately 3/8 inch and cut out heart shapes in honor of Valentine's Day.  (This is the point at which I should impress you by not admitting that I actually didn't plan this at first, but just as I finished the dough on Saturday night, Jett decided that he didn't have the energy to stay up and finish baking so I put the dough in the fridge.  I then proceeded to fall asleep while tucking him in and and forgetting all about the cookies until morning.  But they were in the fridge, chilled, and ready to be rolled out.  Isn't there a famous quote about sleepiness as the onset to genius - no?- maybe there should be!)

On your far left you have phase one, an innocent shortbread cookie perfectly cakey, golden and buttery.

On the far right you have phase two, chocolate attack - half of the frosting mixed with cocoa powder and smothered on one side.  (I have to apologize to a couple of cookie recipients who received a treat plate yesterday that only appeared complete. Delicious, yes. Finished, no.  I ran out of time to frost the vanilla side. I owe you one!)

The finished product added vanilla on the other side made complete with just a little bit of festiveness and a whole lot of sugar buzz!

Pure sweetness!

Now if you are sugar adverse, but you kept reading anyways please close your eyes now.  Click that X in the upper right corner.  And if you decide not to heed this warning then you have given up your right to judge me!

The frosting was truly amazing!  It reminded me of the frosting on a vanilla glazed donut.  I may have eaten an ugly cookie or two.  And I may have found some Teddy Grahams in the cupboard and gave them a little dunk, or two or three.  

 

And just in case that wasn't enough sugar to float a bear, I decided to make cupcakes for my hubby's class for Valentine's Day.  I had a box of Funfetti to use up, and made my own sprinkle buttercream frosting to top it off.  That recipe was super simple:

1 stick of unsalted butter at room temperature

3 cups of powdered sugar

1/4 cup whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Sprinkles to taste

With a mixer blend butter until light and fluffy.  Add powdered sugar, milk and vanilla until blended together and fluffy.  Fold in sprinkles.  Tada! 

What I Used-Up:

1 bag of powdered sugar

Finished the jar of vanilla extract

1 box of Funfetti

1 jar of sprinkles

1 stick of butter

Day 12: It's Waffle Week!

Last week I stumbled upon the Rachael Ray Show's proclamation of their second annual Waffle Week.  Can I get an AMEN? 

Each Sunday I try and make breakfast, you know actually fix eggs, pancakes, sausage, casserole, etc. instead of just pouring in the cereal.  Even if it is just Jett and I, this has become our little tradition.  So inspired by Waffle Week, I broke out the waffle iron, which I had to search for behind the blender and six crock pots (yes, I have six crock pots, but that's a story for another post!)  Let's just say it's been almost as long ago since I've made waffles as lasagna.

I LOVE waffles but they never turn out right for me.  Undercooked, overcooked, weird texture, you name it. I won't even get into the time that I tried to make savory waffles with bacon and cheese...

So, I went to reach for the box of pancake mix that I usually would use for waffles only to discover that I had used it up. Waffles, from scratch?  Can I do this?  I felt like I was setting myself up for disaster.  A quick online search resulted in finding Emeril's Classic Belgian Waffles.  I had everything the recipe called for (almost, I substituted cake flour with all purpose flour and it worked just fine) and gave it a shot. 

Hello waffles, goodbye boxed mix!  These golden delights were light, fluffy, eggy and rich, but not heavy tasting.  They didn't even need half a bottle of syrup to choke them down.  I had mine with just a couple of blackberries. 

I think I've just found my new favorite February holiday...welcome Waffle Week!

Day 10/11: Loving Lentils!

Another combo post today.  Friday was full of work events, basketball games, and basic survival logistics. 

Today was an incredibly fun Saturday!  My best friend Brandi and I decided to take our toddlers to the zoo for their free family day.  Everyone told us that we had lost our minds when they heard we were going with the temperature predicted at a whopping 4 degrees, but we went anyways.  Let me tell you that I believe we stumbled upon a new tradition.  The normally chaotic zoo was nearly empty, the animals were active, and the kiddos loved it! 

It was also a terrific way to celebrate the end (almost!) of the winter sports season.

When we got home Jett was exhausted, but in a pretty decent mood.  He helped me take out all the spices out of the cupboard and check expiration dates.  It wasn't actually as frightening as I had thought and I only ended up throwing out about five little jars.

I had two jars of curry and cumin from an Indian food kick I pursue every couple of months.  I always forget which spices I have, and which I don't and end up with multiples. With the spice rack discovery and a quandary about what to do with lentils, I did a little bit of searching and found a really great recipe for Indian Summer Stew by Aarti Sequeira one of my favorite new Food Network stars. 

I was close to following the recipe but made a few of my own adaptations based on what I had available.  It is Use-It-Up February after all!  I omitted the coconut, although I'm sure that would have been fabulous, I just didn't have any. In place of the butternut squash I used acorn squash that I roasted with a little bit of butter at 350 degrees for about one hour.  I didn't have a Roma tomato, but did have a can of diced tomatoes which substituted nicely.  In the recipe where it refers to "tempering" I did not have mustard seeds or red pepper flakes, but I did have about 1/4 of a white onion that I wanted to use up. 

The result was hardy, filling, healthful and delicious!  Who knew lentils could be so good!  It was a great way to end a wonderful day. 

What I Used-Up:

1/2 bag of lentils

1 can of diced tomatoes

1 acorn squash

1/4 onion

1 clove garlic

Days 8 and 9: A Week in Review

No use-it-up style posts for Days 8 and 9.  This family is busy, busy!  (I'm not sure if I could go two hours without using that word...isn't that sad.) Yesterday I had a board meeting over lunch, and then we went out for prom.  No, we didn't go to prom (although who doesn't love a chance to put on a ball gown?) But we did enjoy supper at Runza to benefit Cedar Bluff High School's prom. 

Today over my lunch break I ran to Hy-Vee for stamps and milk.  No Valentine's Day stamps (boo!) but I did walk away with more than milk.  Two cartons of blackberries, two pears, five bananas, and two half gallons of organic, hormone free, pesticide free, (happiest cows on the planet - we swear) whole milk. $13.90.  The milk was pricey but worth it now that Jett is off formula. 

So instead of a use-it-up list, I'm posting pics of my fridge and cupboards as a week in review.  I straightened the cupboard just for you!

Yes, that is a gigantuan jar of pickles.  No, I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with them...I bought them in bulk for Jett's birthday party (they were only $4!) but we didn't even put a dent in them.  A couple of weeks back I made tuna salad for lunch and dropped the vat on my foot and literally thought I had broke it.

Any ideas for lentils?  I bought them when I was pregnant or nursing...I don't remember, but I thought that I should have more protein in my diet.  I have no clue what to make out of these either. 

I've been having more conversations with friends on the topic of stocked cupboard.  It seems as if we all may be battling a similar problem.  So in the interest of camaraderie, I'd like to propose a Cupboard Contest.  From now until February 28th, you can post pics of your ugly, messy, stocked, or empty cupboards on this blog or my Facebook page, and a winner will be announced on the 29th.