Calzone Follow-up

I love it when a plan comes together.  Last Friday night as I was thinking through dinner plans I decided to give my frozen mini-calzones a try.  Success!   They turned out just perfect.

As you may remember, I had made up a bunch of them and froze them for later use.  These were a great go-to meal and incredibly flavorful as well.  I recommend making up several batches and allow for a variety of filler options.  

This recipe is super easy:
1 loaf frozen bread dough (or you can make your own pizza dough if you want to)
Ricotta Cheese
Mozzarella Cheese
Parmesan Cheese
Whatever pizza toppings you like (we used some sauteed spinach, onion, mushroom, garlic, italian sausage that we had on hand)

See previous post for additional photos:
http://boothbunch.blogspot.com/2011/08/secrets-in-kitchen.html

Easy and yummy.  I love win-win situations!

Secrets in the Kitchen

I have recently discovered something about myself, a little secret about me: I have a hoarding problem.  Phew, got that off my chest.  Okay, perhaps I'm not an actual compulsive hoarder, I don't have junk stacked around my home threatening to topple over trapping me forever - I think I've been watching too much of TLC's Hoarding: Buried Alive.  Last week after becoming inspired to stock my freezer with pre-made meals, I went poking around to see what I had to work with that was immediately available.  That's when the sinking feeling set in, I pretty much skipped denial and went straight to acceptance - I've hoarded and I've procrastinated.  As I was looking through the freezer I realized that I had quite the stock pile of chicken and beef.  Let me explain, I shop for deals, mark-downs, and coupon steals.  When I find something that blows the lid off on the regular price, I grab a few - okay, I grab lots.  So naturally, tucked within the confines of the freezer's frosty interior was pack after pack of chicken, cooked italian sausage, loads of ground beef... alright, I'll stop there - after all, this isn't confession time.  I had bought most of these items with every intention of using them right away or using them to make freezer meals for later.  However, that is not exactly what happened - clearly.

I did not let the overwhelming amount of food get to me, I went right away to collecting recipes and developing a plan.  In my search for recipes that can be easily frozen and then (and this is the key) pleasantly thawed and GOOD to eat, I realized how few healthy recipes there are floating around out there.  Nearly everything called for Cream of this or loads of cheese.  So I selected a few of those and then came up with my own substitutions and ideas.  

In my search, one of the most favorable ideas I found was the concept of taking a crock pot meal, assembling everything in a ziplock back, and then freezing it.  So I took a couple of recipes that I knew my family would love and fixed two of each of them.

  

Something that my family really enjoys is calzones.  Now, normally we enjoy making them on a Friday night, everyone selecting their own combination of stuffing mix and creating their own tasty calzone.  But I found this idea on the internet and thought it sounded good.  I took pizza dough and laid out several small rounds inside of a muffin pan, stuffed, sealed, and froze them.  I'm still not sure how it will work on the baking end of things, but I suppose if I let them thaw properly they might turn out alright. 

 Another easy and yummy idea for a quick meal and one that you can tailor in size is stuffed Italian pasta shells.  I made two versions, some with meat and some without.  I made up several bags of these, mostly because I boiled an entire box of jumbo pasta shells and wanted to fill them all.  And also as a personal decision, I have determined to simply use all of an ingredient instead of leaving a bag of shredded cheese 1/4 of the way full or a container with 1/3 of a cup of ricotta cheese - all of which is likely to just get lost in my fridge and eventually tossed out... aka, money wasted, not food saved for a later use.  

 Tomato, Garlic, Cheese, Basil Stuffed Shells

 Hannah Helping Me Prepare - Such A Great Helper

 5 Cheese Stuffed Shells with Fresh Basil

 Beware: when allowing your children to help, they will eat, and eat, and eat... 

Best to have a little extra on hand for this reason.

After a couple of days of worth of cooking, assembling, and freezing everything I possibly could out of my stock pile of frozen foods, I'm pretty tired.  I will warn you, this much preparation will make your brain feel a little like it's been sitting in a crock pot all day - mush.  So I did something pretty stupid, I decided to use a great, big, heavy jar of mayonnaise to crush two garlic bulbs.  Normally this wouldn't be an issue, however when one does decide to beat the day lights out of the garlic with an OPEN jar of Mayo, the end result is not pretty. 

Wishing I had thought this through just a little bit more.

The end result:
5 bags cooked ground beef (for spaghetti, tacos, nachos, soups, etc)
2 Quiches
2 Pineapple BBQ Chicken Crock Pot Meals
2 French Onion and Swiss Cheese Chicken Crock Pot Meals
1 Mexi-chicken Crock Pot Meal
1 South of the Boarder Mac 'n Cheese Crock Pot Meal (meatless)
1 Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole
2 Chicken and Wild Rice Casseroles
1 Chicken and Broccoli Casserole
3 Bags Stuffed Shells
11 Mini Calzones


I sincerely hope you're not reading this and thinking that I'm having a little 'bragging session.'  This is definitely a small victory for me.  I strive to be organized, but life isn't always that simple and order isn't nearly as attainable as I would like it to be.  But when I saw what other women had done from the web sites I visited, I was inspired.  I hope this perhaps will inspire someone else.  I should mention that I did not do all these meals in one day - just shoot me!  I was able to do this over a few days and I had help from my mom who watched my kids.  I know next time I will do some things differently.  But it is my hope that all the prepared food I have put away will be in essence like a deposit in the bank of time.  The less time I'm in my kitchen, the more time I can pour into my family. 

Here are some links to some of the places that I found inspiration for this attempt to make a bunch of meals a head of time:

http://aturtleslifeforme.blogspot.com/2011/06/freezer-meals-on-cheap.html

http://annies-eats.net/2011/03/28/stocking-the-freezer-make-ahead-meals/

http://erinkristine.blogspot.com/2010/01/freezer-meals.html

As well as a website to get labels from (if you're really organized):

http://www.onceamonthmom.com/wp-content/uploads/BlanksNEW.pdf

Happy Cooking!

Little Escapades

Cooling Down

This summer has been H-O-T!!  I am finally beginning to realize what people in the southern most states do in order to survive the long summers - water, lots and lots of it.  Pools, fountains, water hoses, baby pools, you name it. It is not just a fun time-filler, it is an essential tool to make getting outside happen. On most mornings, my poor children are shooed out the door to catch the milder morning temperatures while they last.  Then upon realizing that Eli's face is the color of a ripe tomato, I  come to grips with reality, it simply isn't fun playing in 97+ degrees.  Not to mention that the ozone is sadly a hazard as well.  So we've made trips to the library, Centennial Olympic Park, and the indoor bouncing gym to occupy our times.  Here is little of what we've been up to these days:

Hannah Enjoying time in the water hose

Baking Cookies

Sweet Rewards

Waiting for the Train

Of course, we had to take the kids on MARTA in order to give them an experience riding the train.  They are both really into trains right now, especially Eli who for a while carried around his Thomas nearly everywhere he went.   They loved riding downtown watching cars, buildings, and landscape go whizzing by us.  Such a thrill for them.  Eli actually watched in awe.

Hannah was SOOO excited!

A stop into see 'Pops' at the 'Chick-bite store'

Picnic at Centennial Park

Playing in the Olympic Rings Fountain Downtown

We've been making short trips to Tennessee throughout the later half of this summer in order to mow the grass, check on our house, and try to get things ready for the house to sell.  Hannah and Eli call it 'Our Tennessee Home.'

Sitting on the Entry Porch

No trip to TN would be complete for our little family if we didn't include an escapade into the woods.

And finally, we celebrated Pop's birthday with the making of homemade vanilla bean and peach ice cream!

Grill Master in Training

Happy Birthday Pops!

All in all, we've had a great summer.  And we are looking forward to more adventures to come...

Another Fork in the Trail

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

It is 'late' and I should be on my way to some semblance of sleep because before long I will hear the inevitable cry that wakes me out of my slumber and calls me to motherly responsibility.  The call comes every night.  And on the off chance that I should wake up at 6 am and realize that I went the entire night without waking I am most pleasantly surprised.  It's amazing what 8 solid hours of sleep can do to a person, or so I have realized.  

So why the restlessness, why the lack of sleep?  I think the answer lies in the inconsistency of life and the great looming question mark casting its shadow over the future.  Let me back up a bit.  13 months ago we were living in North Carolina, happy and ready to experience an exciting and laid back summer full of fun and rest (this following a busy semester in school).  That, however was not what our summer looked like at all.  July 3rd, we awoke to a kitchen floor sitting in a small bed of water with more pour onto it every second from the broken pipe under our kitchen sink (I can hear my children crying, but I can't hear a pipe breaking and water flowing... go figure).  This three week fix turned into 2 months and the story goes down hill from there.   In a chain of crazy events, we spent 2 months moving around to eventually 'settle' back into the repaired rental home.  Two and a half months later, God changed our plans dramatically and we packed up and headed to Atlanta in pursuit of a nursing degree.  Three months after moving into our new little home in Atlanta, we got the call from our tenants letting us know that they were moving out of our house in Tennessee.  Are you still with me?  Sorry, for the excessive detail. So, as most poor college students must do, we were forced into moving in with the parents in order to float our mortgage while continuing on with school here in Atlanta.  One semester, two CNA courses, and one CNA II course later we are almost finished.  We are exhausted.  13 months of ceaseless school, constant moving, too many night classes, and never really feeling settled and I can only hope that we will see the light at the end of the tunnel soon.  

It would be unfair and dishonest if I said that the last 13 months have been nothing but hardship.  Hardship has been woven throughout, that's just real life.  But we have experienced so much more.  We have been to places, met people, and had experiences that we never dreamed of having.  We've walked along paths that we had no idea that our feet would ever trod.  We've tasted the bitter feeling of want, and yet felt the sweetness that comes from knowing what our real blessings are.  We are indeed blessed.  We have mingled with people whom we both feel so privileged to know.  We have been lifted and filled by the love of our families, and have watch the caring hands of our parents reach out in service and support to us.  

So why the Robert Frost poem?  Well, because yet another life change is upon us.  We have come to another split in the trail.  Being that going into the woods often times feels like going home for me, this poem speaks volumes.  I can picture the trail and quandary the traveller must have felt.  Decisions have NEVER been easy for me.  I ponder over and labor in my thinking about what to do.  I am analytical and indecisive, not a terribly good combination.  I'm afraid this makes for a lot of long drawn out conversations with Jon, poor guy.  Up until recently we had planned to return to our home in Tennessee to finish out school and then move on from there back to North Carolina.  Upon consideration, we have realized that NC feels too much like home for us to stay away any longer.  And being that we have a desperate longing for home, we feel it is time we finally sold our precious home in Tennessee.  

Life is fluid, it changes, it is change.  I would be remiss if I failed to mention that this decision was from the first moment of conception bathed in petition after petition to God for his guidance.  Faith as we have been so aptly reminded often looks like moving forward and trusting God to direct us as we move.  

When you are unsure which course to take, totally submit 

your own judgement to that of the Spirit of God, asking Him 

to shut every door except the right one.  But meanwhile keep moving

ahead and consider the absence of a direct indication from God to the 

evidence of his will that you are on His path.

F. B. Meyer - Streams in the Desert

I believe the road less travelled by is the road of faith.  How many times, I have simply wanted life to be easy and predictable, and yet it has been anything but that.  I have felt the gnawing desire just to know the end of the story, to know how each season of life is going to turn out.  But I am forced into living in a place of faith, in a place of trust, placing myself at the mercy of One who does know the ending.  So we move forward, trusting Him to block our path or make corrections as He sees fit.   I believe this is the road less travelled.