Sweet Nothings

Today I'm going to share with you a yummy experiment from this past Christmas. I was first introduced to the idea of cake balls by accident. I was baking Reagan's birthday cake last February, and at some point while the cake was in the oven, I realized I had committed the worst of baking sins: I had neglected to grease my cake pans. I let the cake finish baking, then scraped the delicious cake out of the pans and into a giant bowl. I'm not one to let something go to waste, so after frantically running to the grocery store for more cake mix and getting cake #2 into the oven, I began to ponder just what I could do with the crumbled cake. As usual, I posted my plight on Facebook, hoping for some tips from the baking experts on my friends list. Someone suggested turning the mess into cake balls. I was intrigued, so I searched Google for some recipes. They sounded incredibly easy to make (I'm all about easy when it comes to food), so I gave it a try. Basically, you bake a cake, crumble it all up, and mix it with a container of frosting. Then, you form the cake/frosting mixture into balls, and dip those in chocolate. Easy peasy! My cake was Devil's Food and the frosting was milk chocolate. I then dipped them in white chocolate. They were pretty yummy, but I thought they could be better. I began to ponder other flavor combinations, but being a VERY lazy cook (these are simple, but pretty time consuming to make), I never followed through with another experiment...until Christmas of this year. My mother was in town, and she was in the mood to make some Christmas treats. I told her how I'd thought of doing cake balls using my grandmother's Apricot Nectar Pound Cake mixed with a lemon glaze and dipped in white chocolate. We bought all the ingredients, but because they take at least a couple of days to make, we didn't get around to making them. However, a couple of weeks later, the kids were home from school, and I was bored. We had plans to go to a Christmas caroling party, so I thought I'd give the cake balls a try and hopefully get rid of most of them at the party. I was thrilled with the results! I got rave reviews at the party, and I've had a couple of people ask how I made them. Thus today's blog post!

First, let's start with the cake. Here is the recipe for my grandmother's pound cake. This is, of course, delicious all on it's own. She made this every time family would come for a visit, and I believe if you ask any member of the family, they'd say it was their absolute favorite of Grandma Osburn's dishes. It's SO moist; more so than any pound cake I've ever had.

Apricot Nectar Pound Cake

Lemon Supreme cake mix

1/2 cup sugar

1 can apricot nectar juice (I can usually find it in the juice aisle)

3/4 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

Sift the cake mix with the sugar. Add juice and oil; mix well. Add one egg at a time and beat well. Normally, you'd grease your bundt pan, but since we don't need a beautiful whole cake, you can skip this step. Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour.

For the glaze, you'll need 2 cups of powdered sugar and some lemon juice. Like most good cooks, my grandma didn't have an exact measurement for the juice. You just pour enough in until it "looks right". I have to say, I think I got a little happy with the juice, as the glaze was pretty thin. But for cake balls, it seemed to be just right!

Now comes the work. Dump your cooled cake into a giant bowl; add the glaze. Mix this all together. Time to make some cake balls! I preferred doing this by hand, but I could see a melon baller coming in handy here. Also, you may want to make them a little bigger than I did. I made balls that were approximately 1 inch in diameter. There were pros and cons to working with this smaller size. Pro: It was pretty easy to coat them in chocolate without them falling apart. Con: There were SO MANY OF THEM, I thought I'd never be done!! Now, most recipes will tell you to start dipping them in chocolate, but I've learned a helpful trick. I put trays of the balled up cake mixture in the freezer for several hours. This is why making them was a two day process for me. I actually dipped them the next day.

Melt your chocolate in a double boiler (if you have one, which I don't). I melted mine in a glass bowl sitting on top of a pot of boiling water. Only melt small amounts at a time, as the chocolate gets hard to work with as it cools. The process I used was more like coating instead of dipping. I pulled five balls of cake out of the freezer at a time. I stabbed one with a shish kabob skewer, held it over the bowl of chocolate, and spooned the chocolate over it. Drop it on wax paper. The chocolate will harden pretty quickly, so if you want to do something fancy like top them with sprinkles, you have to work FAST. I like to store the finished cake balls in the fridge.

These are so time consuming, but SO WORTH IT. The chocolate seals in the moisture of the cake, and the finished product just melts in your mouth. It's very similar to candy, like a truffle. I'm trying to think of a name for this specific variety instead of just "cake balls". Lemon Drops, maybe? Apricot Nectar Truffles? Hmmm...

Melissa's Meals Marathon: Part Two

A few of the dishes on this menu will need no prior preparation. As I said, I use Stouffer's lasagna (the 90 oz. party size). This makes enough to have leftovers the next night. I have 3 in the freezer that I bought on sale, so this gives me 6 meals. The popcorn chicken and biscuits are also prepackaged frozen food. I have 3 meals-worth of this in the freezer. A meal that's not on this menu but I also found on sale is Bertolli's Shrimp Scampi and Linguine. I love to add a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice as it cooks and serve it with some crusty bread. I bought two of those. The turkey on my menu I prefer to cook in the crock pot all day and serve that night. So I have a turkey in my freezer ready to go. Again, this is enough food to have leftovers the next night, so that counts as two meals. I also prefer to cook the 40 Cloves and a Chicken on the day-of, so I have a cut-up chicken (divided into two meals) in the freezer. Finally, one dish on my list I had made earlier in the week and had a lot leftover (Comforting Chicken Noodle Soup). So I divided that into two meals. Before I even start, I have the makings of 17 meals in the freezer!

My marathon actually started on Friday night. I put a pork loin roast (for barbecue) in my crock pot and let it cook overnight. At 7:00 Saturday morning, I drained off all of the fat, shredded the meat and added a bottle of barbecue sauce. It would need to cook for a couple more hours, but one dish was pretty much DONE! This batch of barbecue produced 4 meals. Next, I browned 4 pounds of ground beef for spaghetti and chili. I use half a pound for each meal. I don't make my own spaghetti sauce; I use (GASP!) a jarred variety from Aldi. The Tomato Basil is cheap, easy and tastes great; so sue me! I put 4 half-pounds of beef into 4 sandwich bags. I then put those into a large vacuum sealer bag. When we're having spaghetti, all I have to do is open a jar of sauce and zap that and the meat in the microwave, then cook some pasta. I divide the rest of the meat into 4 bags for chili and add beans, tomatoes and chili powder to each. I'll just thaw this and cook on the stove for dinner one night. Three dishes down, eleven more to go! If you're keeping score, that's 29 meals.

I boil the chicken I will need for Nana's Chicken Casserole and Mexican Casserole. I also boil the macaroni for my macaroni and cheese casserole. While those are cooking, I make cornbread (for the dressing we'll have with the turkey) and baked beans and put those into the oven. I then start the Stewed Beef in my electric skillet. It will need to simmer for a couple of hours. Once the macaroni is done, I start boiling my potatoes for Garlic Mashed Potatoes. I vacuum seal the macaroni and put that and a bag of shredded cheese in the freezer. I tried freezing the assembled casserole last time, and wasn't pleased with the results. So, I'll just put the thawed macaroni and cheeses together, add my eggs and milk and bake it on the day it will be served. I vacuum seal the cornbread. Since I use the broth from my turkey to make the dressing, and I add a couple of boiled eggs (something that does NOT freeze well), that's one dish that I can't make ahead. But, at least the cornbread is baked. I divide the baked beans into 2 meals (we'll have this with Barbecue).

I'm half-way through now, and I'm starting to drag a little. My back and knees are beginning to protest. It's very important to wear good shoes on cooking days. Since this is a "marathon", I wear my running shoes. They don't prevent all of the pain, but it's more manageable than it would be if I were wearing bedroom slippers, flip flops or going barefoot. On we go! With my chicken done, I can now assemble the casseroles. I'll have 4 Nana's Chicken Casseroles, and 2 Mexican Casseroles. The potatoes are done, so I can make the Garlic Mashed Potatoes. I divide this into 4 side dishes for our Italian Meatloaf. Once the Stewed Beef is done and cooled, I divide this up into 3 meals. I now have 38 meals!

I have four dishes left to prepare, and I'm very weary. After about 9 hours, I usually hit a wall. This is the point that I feel I just can't continue and I'm ready to hit the showers. But I know I'm almost done, so I press on. Next up is the Italian Meatloaf. This is a crock pot recipe, so I just mix the ingredients together and form the mixture into a loaf. This gets frozen and vacuum sealed, then I'll cook it the day-of. This will provide about 4 nights of food, because I can freeze slices when it's done to make sandwiches later. I've decided to have breakfast for dinner a couple of nights on this rotation, so I'll cook French Toast. I've never frozen this before, but I read a cooking blog that gave instructions on doing this, so I should have good results. I'll just thaw and reheat in the oven. I made enough for 2 meals. FINALLY, I'm down to the last 2 dishes. These take the longest to prepare, so I saved them for last. They both get cooked in my 12-inch skillet, so I have to make them one at a time. The first one is Chicken in Peanut Sauce. I need to cut my chicken into bite-size pieces then saute`. I have to wash a pound of green beans, trim them and then break into smaller pieces. This dish takes me about an hour to cook. When I'm done, I have 2 meals. Last, but not least, is Chicken Piccata. The reason this one takes so long is because I'm simultaneously making dinner for my children. This dish also gives me 2 meals. My grand total is 48 MEALS IN THE FREEZER!! We only get about 4 or 5 nights a week to have dinner at home because of our busy schedules (church, life group, chorus, dance and the occasional date night or girls night out), so these meals will last us about 3 months.

Yes, it is a LOT of hard work. But, when you look at how much time and money you can save by cooking in bulk, you'll see a huge payoff! I plan to post the other menus and more recipes to the blog from time to time.

Melissa's Meals Marathon: Part One

This weekend I did what I usually refer to as my Once-A-Month Cooking. This term was coined by a couple of ladies that wrote a book on the subject some years ago (see 2/24/10 post). I don't actually do it every month, so I sometimes call it Once-A-Quarter Cooking. I'm not in love with that label, so I've given it one of my own: Melissa's Meals Marathon. Catchy, no? Well, just humor me, then.

A few weeks ago, I spent some time organizing recipes, menus and shopping lists. When I listed all of the different meals I've prepared for my family (that they liked enough to have again), I came up with 45. In a previous post, I said there were 30 that I've successfully frozen. I guess I didn't include those things that I prepare the day of (pot roast, 40 cloves and a chicken, etc.) or prepackaged frozen meals (Stouffer's does an excellent job making lasagna, so I'd just prefer to use theirs instead of going to the trouble of making it from scratch). Our family's schedules are so busy, that one batch of meals usually ends up lasting nearly 3 months. So, I made up 4 different menus to last an entire year. There are about 6 meals that I put on every list because they're the kids (or mine and Tim's) favorites: spaghetti, popcorn chicken and biscuits, lasagna, Nana's chicken casserole, chili, and 40 cloves and a chicken. The remaining 40 meals I divided up into 4 menus; I ended up with 16 meals per menu (and a few side dishes). I then made a shopping list for each menu. Confused yet? The menu for this rotation is:

Spaghetti

Popcorn chicken, biscuits and corn

Lasagna

Nana's Chicken Casserole

Chili

40 Cloves and a Chicken

Turkey, Dressing and Mac and Cheese Casserole

Stewed Beef over Egg Noodles

Comforting Chicken Noodle Soup

Mexican Chicken Casserole

Meatloaf and Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Meatloaf sandwiches

Barbecue and Baked Beans

Chicken in Peanut Sauce over Rice Noodles

Chicken Piccata over Angel Hair Pasta

French Toast

I'll share the other menus and some recipes in future posts. My children will not eat most of the things on this menu. We learned early on with Pierce that food was one of those battles we'd be better off not fighting. By the time Reagan came along, I figured I might as well fix the same stuff for her that I was fixing for her brother. That's how I became a short order cook. Go ahead and criticize if you must. Anyway, the kids will eat spaghetti, popcorn chicken, lasagna, chicken casserole, french toast (well, Reagan will), and turkey, dressing and mac and cheese. I make enough of each dish to get at least 2 (sometimes 3 or 4!) meals. I spent around $260 on all of the groceries (I already had a lot of my staples and didn't need to purchase them this time). After 12 hours of cooking, I had 48 meals in varying stages of completion. Some of those just need to be reheated, some are ready for the crock pot, some I'll pop into the oven. According to my math, that's about $5.42 per meal! In Part Two, I'll take you through a timeline of my cooking marathon.

How's About Cookin' Somethin' Up With Me?

Most people are convinced that they can't do cooking in bulk, because they don't own a separate, full-size freezer. Au contraire, mon frere! I've managed to store 30 meals at once in my side-by-side fridge/freezer for a few years now. You may have to sacrifice your ice cream and frozen waffles for a couple of weeks, but who needs that stuff, anyway? Okay, okay; those of you that believe ice cream is a food group can put down the bricks and stop yelling at me now! Recently, we acquired a shiny, new stainless steel fridge with the freezer drawers on the bottom (LOVE it!). Since the old fridge still (mostly) works, we decided to keep it and move it into the closet with our washer and dryer. I now use the freezer in the old unit to hold all of my frozen meals. Anywho, fitting all of your meals into your freezer depends upon how you package them. For the first year or so, I used gallon-sized freezer bags. Soups, stews, and sauces can be laid flat to freeze and then stacked on top of one another or stood on end like books on a shelf. The thing that takes up the most room is casseroles, as those have to be frozen in a dish and then taken out and wrapped in foil. A couple of years ago, I purchased a vacuum sealer. Sure, the bags are more expensive, BUT they can be washed and reused! It's been a great investment. If you still aren't convinced that you can store a month's worth of meals in your freezer, try starting with 2 weeks' worth. You'll figure out what works for you with a little practice. The recipe I have for you today is what us southerners call my "funeral dish". This is the one that you throw together at the last minute to take to a sick friend, new mom, or those that have lost a loved one. It's probably my favorite casserole, because it's one that my picky children will eat!

Nana's Chicken Casserole

1 lb. chicken 1 can cream of chicken soup

1 qt. chicken stock 1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 stick butter 1 16 oz. bag of Pepperidge Farms

cornbread dressing

Boil your chicken in the chicken stock, adding water to cover chicken if necessary. Save enough broth to fill your two soup cans; shred chicken and set aside. In a dutch oven, melt butter, then add cream of chicken soup. Fill the soup can with broth and add. Add the bag of dressing and mix until moistened. In a separate bowl, combine cream of mushroom soup with one soup can of chicken broth. Mix with a whisk to remove lumps. Spray a 9x13 dish with cooking spray. Make a layer with half of the dressing mixture. Top this with all of the shredded chicken. Pour half of the mushroom soup mixture over the top. Top with the remaining dressing and then soup. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-45 minutes. NOTE: This will give you about 10 servings, so when I fix this for my family, I'm able to get 2 meals out of it. Instead of using a 9x13 dish, I use 2 8x8 dishes. I line these with foil and coat with cooking spray. I assemble the casseroles then put them in the freezer. Once they are frozen, I can lift them out of the dishes with the foil. You can either wrap them in a couple of layers of foil or place them in gallon-sized freezer bags. I prefer to vacuum seal them with my Foodsaver. On the day you wish to serve this, thaw the casserole in the 8x8 dish and then cook for 30 minutes. It can be cooked frozen; I cover it with foil and cook for about 1 hour, removing the foil for the last 15 minutes. I usually serve it with a vegetable side.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

The last few days have been really hard and I've lost some of my momentum. I had planned to write this week about the feelings I've had concerning the community I lost, but I'm feeling a little gun-shy. So, I've decided instead to write about cooking today.

A few years ago, I was listening to Focus On The Family. There were two ladies (Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg) on the program talking about the concept of Once-A-Month cooking. I was fascinated! I'm not going to mince words here: I HATE to cook. But the "planner" in me couldn't believe what I was hearing. I could make a month's worth of food in one day and not have to cook again for the next 30 days? I was sold instantly! Whenever the subject of cooking comes up in a crowd and I mention this method of meal preparation, people always have questions about how I do it and what kind of things I cook. I thought maybe I'd use this blog to give a short series. Maybe once a month or so, I'll give my tips and recipes. I will warn you now; Martha Stewart I am NOT. Have you ever tried to cook her stuff? I have twice: Once was a birthday cake for my dad that took about 10 hours to make, and the other was an ice cream dessert that also took many hours and the patience of Job. I'm sorry, but life is too short for me to waste in the kitchen making the perfect dinner! The simpler the recipe, the more appeal it has to me. My recipes may offend the gourmet cooks out there. I have a list of about 30 recipes that have been successfully frozen and then reheated for dinner, and I'm always on the look-out for more to add to my repertoire. So, if you have one to share with me, I'd be most appreciative! My tip for today is that there are several books out there about cooking and freezing that will help, but you should start with what you know. More of your recipes are freezer-friendly than you may think. Most times, you just have to learn by trial and error. Fix double the recipe so that you have plenty for dinner tonight, and then put the left-overs in the freezer. Pull them out after a week or two, then thaw them out for another dinner. If it's a casserole, prepare two but cook one and put the other in the freezer. Then all you have to do is thaw the casserole and cook. A lot of the meals I freeze have been prepared up until the cooking stage, so that all I have to do is thaw and toss it in the oven. It tastes more like it's been freshly prepared and the house smells all yummy.

Since we still have several more days of chilly weather, I thought I'd give you my super simple chili recipe:

1 pound ground beef, browned

2 cans chili beans, don't drain

3 cans of diced tomatoes

4 tablespoons of chili powder

I like to make one of those cans of diced tomatoes into crushed. Mix all of this together in a one-gallon freezer bag. All you have to do is thaw and cook it on the stove for a couple of hours. I let it simmer with a lid on for most of that time, and then let it thicken up with the lid off for the last 30 minutes or so. Or, just try your own personal recipe. I guarantee it will hold up just as well as mine does in the freezer. Good Luck!