Saving the chicken!

You might remember a few weeks ago, when I was prepping my meat for the freezer, I decided to be industrious and freeze a few packs with some marinade. I used a Balsamic Vinegar and Honey marinade, which I had made before and was delicious on pork. I had a bit extra and added it to one of the packs of chicken.

When I made the first pack of pork, the taste was awful - balsamic vinegar and nothing else. The vinegary taste was so potent and really awful.  Thank goodness I had paired the meal with some potatoes, which made it a little more palatable.

The second time, same thing. Simply awful. I tried to add some bits of marinade I had in the fridge, but it didn't help.

I was so disheartened - what had I done wrong. The marinade had been so nice last time, and I have made it more than once with no problem.

So I did a Google search and came up with the reason: apparently you shouldn't marinade meats in vinegar based marinades for too long. It basically starts to pickle the meat.

So now I had a problem: I still had a pack of chicken in a balsamic vinegar marinade in the freezer.

So here is how I saved it and made a meal so tasty that impressed the Mr.

Step 1 was getting rid of as much of the Balsamic Vinegar as possible. I took the pack out the freezer and let it start to defrost for a short while - about 30 min. Then I rinsed it with cold water and got most of the marinade off.

Step 2 was keeping the defrosted chicken from sitting in any marinade that was still left. I used a mesh steamer cooker - put the chicken in the top and any marinade still left would drip through to the tray on the bottom.

Step 3 was getting some new flavour in.  By the morning, the chicken looked pretty much defrosted and there wasn't much marinade in the bottom - which meant I got most of it off, thank goodness. I moved the chicken to a bowl and stirred in honey and bbq marinade - the honey would hopefully help counteract the vinegar, and the bbq marinade has a strong flavour.

Step 4 was cooking the meat. I still had no idea what it would taste like, because I couldn't taste the chicken until it cooked. I opened a tin of canned tomato and onion, and added 1/4 of the can to the pan. I also added a few chili flakes.

Step 5 - tasting the meat. It was delicious. Couldn't really taste the vinegar at all.

So, my lesson is learnt - and luckily I didn't ruin too many meals.  I have a much better grasp on what kinds of marinades are suitable for freezing with meat.  I will make the balsamic marinade again - but probably not for a while.  The taste is kind of ruined for me right now.

And at least now I know - meat should only sit in balsamic vinegar for a short time before cooking.

Remind me never to be this productive again

Before I start, let me just say that being this productive has been a work in progress.

I have been fully inspired by this blog post: http://www.aturtleslifeforme.com/2011/06/freezer-meals-on-cheap.html, and although I am still not completely this organised, I am well on my way, and I think it will be worth it.

And so it was that I spent my Sunday afternoon doing the following:
(the carrot and pineapple was made last week, but I've included some of the pics here)

1. Making parrot chop

About 4 weeks worth of parrot food

2. Chopping up the fruit that didn't make it into the mix - either to give to my parrot frozen, to use in infused water or for smoothies

If you freeze the fruit in ice trays individually first and then put them into bags, it prevents them from sticking together.

 

3.Chopping up veggies for the month

Corn and cauliflower - these are "dry veggies" so if you freeze them in ice-trays, they will crumble when you take them out the ice tray. If you want them to hold their ice-cube shape, add a bit of water to the veggies before you freeze them

Green pepper and onion - these are "wet" veggies, so they will retain their ice-cube shape when you take them out. If you don't want to use them in ice-cube sizes, then you can always place them on a baking sheet in the freezer and flash-freeze them this way before moving them over into a ziploc bag.

Grated and chopped carrot. These are also dry veggies, although previous experience has taught me that grated carrot will hold its ice-cube shape without water. I did add a bit of water though, just to make sure. The chopped carrot I left dry.

Once I put the chopped carrot in the bag, I bashed it up a bit with the end of a wooden spoon to break up the cubes.

I also made up some veggie mixes for future meals

4. The onions were the last veggies I chopped up, then I took a tea break to clear my kitchen of the onion fumes which were making me cry.

5. Chopping up all the meat for the month.

Before and after - I always like to write the dates on the packs

6. Because I was feeling industrious, I also marinaded some of the meat before freezing

And after that, I was full-on exhausted. I don't know if I will ever do this again! 

But if I do: I will start with the meat, so that I can make the chicken stock while I do the rest of the food. As it is now, I still have to make chicken stock sometime this or next week. On the other hand, I don't have much space left in my tiny freezer, so maybe it's a good thing to wait until next week.

If I ever decide to do this again, and do it all in one day, I won't do it on a Sunday afternoon because I was pretty much done energy-wise and I didn't have a chance to recover before hitting work on Monday. Definitely would prefer doing this on a Saturday afternoon or even a Sunday morning, so that I have some time to relax and recover.

Although I was pretty exhausted afterwards, I was pretty happy with myself. Joking aside, I think I will do it again, and maybe I can even prepare some of the sauces beforehand as well - either to freeze seperately or to marinade with the meat.

One more thing I like to do when making sauces is to make double, and freeze half, save myself a bit of time and energy next time around.

So this may (or may not) be my last kitchen / food blog for a while. Now that I have learned all my important lessons and organised my kitchen for the month, I intend to focus my energy on some other things for a while.

Thifty stock ideas

A while ago when I was starting my budget and looking for thrifty idea's, I saw someone who suggested freezing leftover wine in an ice-tray to add to cooking. I laughed when I saw this, because, I thought to myself, I never have leftover wine or would waste wine like this!

But then, a few weeks later, I noticed that the bottle of red wine we had been drinking had a tiny bit of red wine in the bottom - not enough for a glass, it was barely 2 sips.  And so, I did the thing that had previously made me laugh - I added it to an ice tray,

When I tried to remove them from the ice-tray to convert it to a ziploc bag, I noticed that the wine hadn't frozen really well and was a bit mushy.  I suspect that this is from the alcohol content which doesn't freeze well.

 Another idea for stock comes from my mom.  In a pinch, she would use a teaspoon of marmite in a cup of boiling water as stock.  I have done this a few times when cooking mince that needed some extra flavour.  My thrifty tip though, when you finish a jar of marmite, add some boiling water to the jar to get all the marmite out.  Remember, thriftiness is about using up every extra bit that you can out of something.  I did this last weekend, and used my icetray to freeze the marmite-stock water until I'm ready to use it.

Homemade chicken stock

I don't usually bother making my own stock - I mean, chicken stock cubes aren't expensive and don't take much effort to mix up.  On the other hand, chicken stock is great thing to add to almost any meal to give it extra flavour and that "made with love" taste. Plus, the real thing is full of health benefits anyway that you can't get from the cubes.*

So, since I have the bones anyway from the chicken breasts, I have started making my own chicken stock. I also have started saving up all the bits of vegetable and vegetable peelings that don't make it into my meals in a tub in my freezer, so this batch is my first chicken-and-vegetable stock.  It came out a big darker than my usual chicken-only broth, but it tastes okay so I am sure that the vegetables are the reason for the darker colour.**

The vegetables I used for the stock - mostly carrot peelings, some tomato and baby marrow.

The finished product, after straining and a day in the fridge

After making the stock, I strained it and left it in the fridge for a day to cool. I prefer to do this, so that I can take off the layer of fat before storing in the freezer. It still looked like it had some vegetable bits in it, so I strained it once before.

I bought these juice bottles earlier in the year to store soup for perfect lunch-size portions (They cost about R2.00 each).  They have come in super handy over the year.  Each bottle can take about 250ml of liquid.  The rest of it I decided to freeze in an ice-cube tray (each cube is 15ml of liquid). I like to use the cube-size portions when I just want to add a little bit of something extra. 

When you are done making the stock, keep the chicken bones.  It's amazing how much chicken is still leftover. Not enough for a meal, but just enough for a little something extra. 

The leftover chicken bones after making the stock

The chicken meat I took off the bones.

You can use the chicken meat for any number of things.

1. Freeze it in an ice-cube tray.  For those days when all you can manage is toast and cup-a-soup or 2-minute noodles, that bit of extra chicken can really make a difference.

2. You can add it to scrambled eggs or omelets when your breakfast needs something a bit extra.\

3. My favourite: add some mayonnaise for chicken mayo sandwich filling.

I'm sure that there are tons of other things you can do with it.

Ready for the freezer until I need to use it

*Read this article for the health benefits of chicken broth: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2013/02/21/10-reasons-i-drink-bone-broth/

** If you want some info on how to make a stock, you can check some recipes here, but it's not exactly brain surgery: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_chicken_stock/

Chicken breasts - the big cost saver

The biggest way that I have saved money this month is buying chicken breasts on the bone. It takes a little bit of extra effort, but you get way more meat for your money.  The last time I bought chicken breast, it was R29.99/kg compared to R49.99 for the pre-cut chicken breast pack.

In the past, I have always bought the pre-cut chicken breasts, preferring the convenience. Plus I really don't like touching raw mat of any kind.  But I have put this dislike aside, and made the decision to put a little extra effort in preparing the chicken breasts myself in place of the convenience of having it already cut.

In addition to saving money this way, it also forces me to prepare the chicken breasts for the meals that I am going to make - cutting it into chicken strips, cubes or whole breasts before freezing.

The chicken breasts before I get started - this is almost 1 kg of chicken, which cost me just under R30.00

 My mom would always buy chicken breasts on the bone, and she would always get me to help prepare them for dinner. Each chicken breast can yield 2 - 3 portions of chicken meat.

The chicken breasts once I am done -  each pack is worth R7.50 towards my meal budget of R20.00

From the 3 chicken breasts, I got enough meat for 8 portions - because I am only cooking for 2, that is 4 meals.  Plus because some of the meals require cubes or strips, I don't have to worry about cutting up nice portions of chicken breasts.  The chicken breasts which I did keep whole, are actually really thick, and I could probably have sliced them a bit thinner, but didn't because of what I will be using them for. 

Ready for the freezer - I have lots of little bags which I clean and reuse until they really need to be thrown away. I use masking tape to mark the bags so that I don't have to write on them.

Another thing I learned from my mom was to save the bones and skin for making chicken stock. Once I am done preparing the chicken, I usually don't have enough energy to make the stock as well, so I put it in the freezer until I am ready - there is only so much kitchen work I can do in one evening.

So yes, it does take a bit of extra effort, but remember that you don't need to do everything in one day. But for me, making this change made such a big difference budget wise and meal wise. I don't have to cut the chicken up for whatever meal I am making in the evening - all I need to do is defrost the meal pack.

Being on The Budget

So this is week 3 on the budget, and it has gone really well.  It has also been really tough though.

For example, day one - I wanted to make something quick and easy for dinner (it was Friday after all).  Usually on a Friday we do takeaways, but I decided against it because it was also month end and I was in no mood for queues and crowds or a 2 hour wait for delivery.

And so I found myself walking the aisles of the store on a Friday afternoon trying to think of a quick and easy dinner for myself and The Mr for R20. And they were making boerewors rolls in the store, so I was getting hungrier and hungrier. And I was ready to say "Screw it, screw the budget". But it was day one. So I decided to stick to it. After a very long time, I left the store with 4 hamburger rolls and 1 tomato. At home, I quickly defrosted a pre-prepared pack of chicken strips (pre-prepared by me - more on this later), which I fried up with some green pepper and barbeque sauce - and then made rolls with them. On the side, I made some oven baked chips and onion rings (which comes from my general grocery budget because I buy this for the month).

That weekend, I decided that I would never again find myself wondering the aisles of the store trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I drew up a meal plan for the whole month. Ofcourse, every few days I would change things around, depending on what ingredients I was able to buy and the prices. But it has definitely made my life much easier.

Other thrifty things I did this month:

1. I started a stock tub in the freezer: any bits of vegetables, or vegetable peels, gets put into the tub in the freezer. When I eventually make my stock later this week, I will use the veggies for added flavour.

2. I saved half a tub of yogurt by freezing it and turning it into frozen yogurt.

3. I saved half a loaf of bread by freezing the slices and using it for toast.

4. I saved bits of sauce from 3 different dinners, ready for a second life in another meal.  For example, this was the sauce leftover from a chicken casserole I made on Monday. Instead of throwing the sauce away, I transferred it to a ziploc bag and froze it. I am sure that I will find a use for it soon.

I only wish that I had a larger freezer!

But I must say that it is going well, and The Mr is completely onboard, which definitely helps.  So far, the only meals that have gone over R20 are over the weekend - and usually those meals are bought with spending money anyway, and not with grocery money.

I may do a few things differently in the upcoming months - I am going to review the process at the end of October and decide the way forward. But I can already see how much money I have saved this month.

My new health craze

Source: http://imgur.com/pzqfmru

We have a rule in our house (kind of) that we only drink fizzy cooldrinks on the weekend. We generally don't stick to it very well, unless I put my foot down.

But during the week at least, and especially at work, I try and drink a lot of water. 

Having said that, I really don't like the taste of plain water, unless it is ice cold (I do keep a glass jug in the fridge with water in it). But what has really helped me is making my own infused water each day.


It was something that I had wanted to try for a while, but didn't because I thought it would be too expensive and time-consuming. But a few months back, we had some leftover frozen fruit in the freezer (which we usually use for smoothies) and as we were over our smoothie phase, I decided to use them up by adding them to my water bottle.

It's been working really well for me, and after trying a few combinations, I have found that lemon and mint water is my thing, sometimes with a couple of slices of cucumber or strawberry thrown in.

Here is how I do it: First of all, I buy the fruits. Then I chop them. Then I freeze the slices. In the morning, I grab a few slices, throw them into my bottle and fill up with water. It takes about 20 minutes, so by the time I get to work the water is ready, and I can fill up the bottle a few times during the day.

I use a smoothie shaker - it is BPA-free and has a handy mesh-thing to prevent the fruit from coming out when you drink it).

This is the type of bottle that I use

If you are keen on trying, here are some websites which give some great combination ideas and nutritional facts:
http://www.nutritionstripped.com/simply-infused-water/
http://www.prevention.com/food/cook/25-flat-belly-sassy-water-recipes
http://www.infusedwaterrecipes.com