Tuesday Catch Up

I thought I'd just post up some pictures of the meals we've had so far this week.

Crispy Sweet & Sour Tofu

Sunday:

I wasn't amazed by the flavor of the Crispy Sweet and Sour Tofu, but the cooking technique was great for me to get the feel for. It would be great for making some mock fried "chicken".

Gim-Bahp

Monday:

The Gim-Bahp needs work in my rolling technique. Okay, I just need to not fill them too much. This was really good for lunch the next day after being refrigerated. They held together much better too.

Crockpot Honey Lentil Stew

Tuesday:

Crockpot Honey Lentil Stew is one of our new comfort foods. We're also putting it into the bulk meal list we're creating.

I've also finished my final assignment for college, and I will be graduating with a 4.0 GPA. I've held all A grades the entire time I've been in school. I've been very lucky though to not have had to work full time, and I have no children. I had a lot of great support as well (family, friends, and great teachers). I'm extremely thankful for every opportunity I've had, and for every person in my life.

Maui Community College was a blessing of an educational experience. I would recommend the school to anyone, and I wish I could continue going to school. Maybe there will be some way I can in the future. I love the learning experience.

I put my name in the hat for the honor of being valedictorian, but I never heard anything back on that. Even though that isn't something that was realized for me, I am extremely proud of the grades I earned.

I look forward to my future.

Bulk Foods

Lemongrass, because pictures are pretty on blogs.

I'm struggling over here at the computer. I'm trying to come up with a bunch of great bulk food recipes for the freezer. Now, I know I have some, but I want some that are relatively inexpensive but I want them to taste good. I also need them to be gluten-free.

So far, I have on my pad of paper:

Bulk Cooking

Meal #1 Chili

That's all I have. I wrote down a basic chili base from Crockpot365, and I can always play with the ingredients based on what I can get my hands on. Instead of using canned beans, I'll use dry beans. I've discovered that 3 cups of dried black beans is equal to 5 cans of beans(minus water).

**EDIT**

I now have:

Meal #2 Shepherd's Pie

What's great about shepherd's pie is that it is another one of those base dishes, where the basics are meat and veggies topped with mashed potatoes. There's even a Crockpot version over at Crockpot365.

**EDIT**

We now have all of the meals, and we have all of the bulk ingredients we could buy for them:

Meal #3: Honey Lentil Crockpot Stew from Crockpot365 and Rice

Meal#4: Fried Rice

Meal #5: Rice Casseroles (Sausage, Chicken, Beef, TVP)

Meal #6: Thai Curry and Rice

Meal #7: Indian Curry and Rice

Meal #8: Teriyaki and Rice

Needless to say, we now have a ton of rice in our cellar.

We'd like to have food for 3 months in the freezers, pantries, and cellar. We'll cycle through it all over time, and replace things as we need to, in order to keep the food in good rotation. We don't want any food to spoil of course. This means that I will need to keep quite a good inventory system, but I've found some good things online. I'll let you know if I find something that I settle on as a good food system.

The Nerd and I took a trip to Costco today, and we also picked up a friend and her mother. Our friend's car died, and her mom had just arrived on a plane. They were so pleased to have a ride, even if it took us a little bit of time to get through the store.

At Costco we looked at what bulk foods are available for stocking the house. You all know that I prefer to buy local and/or organic, but there are a lot of things that I can't get here. My motto is to do what you can with what you have, and what you have available.

We only bought what we needed there today (toilet paper, local mushrooms, etc.), but we took down a lot of notes on prices, cost per pound, cost per unit, and so on. I will put this into a spreadsheet and figure out what to purchase, and how much it is going to cost us to create a stockpile of food.

I'll post last night's, and tonight's, dinner reviews and recipes tomorrow. Although, tonight's wasn't quite picture worthy as I was trying my hand at rolling sushi with just a bamboo mat. Not an extremely pretty or lovely sight.

What all do you put into your freezer for bulk foods? What are your favorite cheap eats?

Let's chat!