Hey, Mom

Winter is the best time to try new soups.  I recently had a meatball minestrone at a local deli and enjoyed it. This is my version, which I think is better. While tasty, the deli soup was full of overcooked penne pasta. This version is more delicate and has more discernible vegetables. One bowl definitely satisfies. Dip crusty bread to soak up the broth.

Meatball Minestrone

Ingredients

1 small onion, chopped

2 med/large cloves garlic, smashed and chopped

3 carrots, peeled, sliced

3 stalks celery, cut into ½ pieces

1 4 oz can of mushrooms, with liquid

1 15 oz can kidney beans, rinsed

1 28 oz can whole tomatoes cut up, with juice

1 32 oz box chicken broth

¾ cup uncooked elbow macaroni (Barilla Plus or Whole Wheat)

18-20 Italian meatballs (frozen)

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon dried thyme

½ teaspoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon dried Italian parsley

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

In stock pot, saute the onion, celery, and garlic in olive oil on medium heat for five minutes. Add carrots, mushrooms, tomatoes, kidney beans, meatballs and chicken broth. Add herbs. Turn heat up to bring soup just to boiling stage. Reduce heat and cook covered on medium/low for 30 minutes. Add macaroni and cook for ten more minutes.

Serve with crusty bread and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on soup before serving.

Serves 6

© heymom.info

The old expression, “eating us out of house and home”  implies that one eats a lot–beyond just the food on the table to even the house itself. While the saying is a good example of hyperbole, that is not why I chose it as the title for this post. I chose it because it is a good way to think about a little experiment I did this year, one that helped me control my impulse grocery shopping and stop wasting food.

In a meeting today, the presenter said that Americans throw away 27% of our food. I am not surprised. I know that there are times when I buy something perishable  at the store, fully intending to use it right away, but then plans change or I forget, and when I find it later, it’s no good. I throw it away. Well, I compost my vegetable garbage, but still, I’ve wasted  it.

Last year, I decided to do something I had never done before: use up all the food in the house before I bought more. I found that when I inventoried my pantry, freezer, and refrigerator, I had more food than I thought I had. And some of it was getting old.

Meat left in a frost-free freezer doesn’t last very long. Ice cream goes bad pretty quickly, too. Almost nothing is meant to last a year.

Using up all our stored food was a challenge for my menu planning. I’ll admit I got pretty creative, but we never ate anything we didn’t enjoy.

Also, it took a lot longer than I expected it would to get down to the bare minimum, which means that we had quite a bit of food on hand.

Now when I say that I vowed to use everything before I’d buy more, I didn’t mean that I had to use up all the sugar, flour, spices, etc. I meant pastas, rices, canned goods, and fresh and frozen foods.

If I really needed something to make a meal, I’d buy it, but I tried really hard to use just what I had on hand.

The experiment taught me some valuable lessons:

• I often buy things that I don’t end up using and they sit on the shelf, or worse, they go bad in the freezer or fridge.
• Planning menus in advance does help me to avoid buying things I don’t need.
• Taking inventory before I go to the store and making a list of exactly what I need keeps me from impulse buying.
• If I use what I have instead of just buying more, I can reduce my grocery bill. I’m not paying for what I don’t use.
• My freezer and refrigerator stay cleaner because I can clean them easily when they’re empty.
• Using what I have makes me more aware of what I need.

I know that most of us live hectic lives and a trip to the grocery is often something done on the way home from work. But the trouble is that we tend to just toss things into our carts, thinking we need this or that. And if we’re hungry, we’re just tossing in things that look good. Pretty soon, we’ve got four jars of peanut butter in the pantry.

If this sounds like you, why not try my experiment?

Just twice a year, use all your stored food. The goal is to get your fridge, freezer and shelves as empty as possible before you restock. You might be surprised at what you discover.

Even one zucchini plant can be a prolific producer. If everyone in your neighborhood has planted zucchini, you may find you can’t eat it fast enough. This easy to grow squash is, thankfully, a versatile food in the kitchen. It can be cooked, eaten raw, added to baked goods, soups, salads, and more.

It is best to pick zucchini when it is relatively small, like about 1 and 1/2 to 2 inches diameter. This is the best size for cooking, as it is tender. But sometimes we can’t get out in the garden and before we know it we’ve got a giant squash. The big ones are fine for grating for cakes or bread. It is best to take the seedy middle out before grating, but you can and should leave the skins on.

Finding recipes:

The Internet is great for recipe hunting. I found a nice cake recipe that my family enjoyed. It’s a lot like a spicy carrot cake. I used cream cheese frosting. It was very good, but there are many, many more out there. I will try another recipe next time. This one from All Recipes looks good and it uses more zucchini, which appeals to me.

There’s no harm in experimenting either, or inventing your own recipes. I wanted to cook just zucchini for supper one night, but I wanted it to have a lot of flavor and be somewhat filling. My brother in law made something similar to this one time, but I didn’t have his recipe. I made my own and it turned out great. Feel free to try it or add it to your recipe file.

Zesty Skillet Zucchini (Serves 2-3)

1 green zucchini
1 yellow zucchini (or summer squash)
1 medium tomato, cut into one inch pieces
1/4 cup chopped red onion
4 slices (thick sliced) bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
kosher salt to taste
crushed red pepper
fresh grated parmesean cheese

Wash zucchini and cut ends off. Quarter zucchini lengthwise, then cut into one inch pieces and set aside. In a large skillet, brown the bacon until not quite crisp. Drain off some fat if desired, but leave about two tablespoons in skillet. On medium heat, add the onion and saute two minutes. Add the tomato, the zucchini and salt. Saute, stirring often, until zucchini is tender (not translucent). Stir in red pepper to taste right before serving. Top with parmesean cheese.

Variation: Blend in 1 cup cooked farfalle pasta

Getting a truly fresh strawberry taste after the season is ended is easy. Sure, I know, you can buy strawberries in the grocery store, but I think those come from a laboratory somewhere. They don’t taste like strawberries grown locally in season. Nothing tastes like those. To keep the taste, make freezer jam, something so easy everyone can do it.

To make three jars of jam, I use Sure-Jell and follow the easy recipe included in the box.

What you need:

• Three containers (I use pint jars), but you can use plastic containers
• 1 box of Sure-Jell
• 1 quart of strawberries (make the jam the same day you pick or buy the fruit; do not let it get overripe)
• 4 cups of sugar
• a large bowl
• various measuring cups (so you won’t have to wash them during the process; I use two one cup and a two cup)
• a large mixing spoon for stirring the strawberry mixture
• a potato masher
• a small saucepan
• a wooden spoon (for stirring the Sure-Jell as it cooks)
• a ladle
• a canning funnel (if you’re using pint jars)
• a timer (I use the one on my stove)

The entire process takes very little time, maybe 40 minutes if you include clean up.

Some hints to help:

• Don’t soak the strawberries in water; rinse them gently in a colander and drain well.
• If you can’t make the jam right away, store strawberries in the refrigerator in a covered container. They will continue to ripen if you leave them out.
• Mash the berries a few at at time, like ten and start measuring. You don’t get them mashed well enough if you do them all at once. Plus, you might waste a few if you mash them all. You only need two cups of mashed berries (including the juice they make).
• Follow the directions, especially the measurements, exactly.

Once you’re done, you’ll have jam that really does taste like fresh strawberries. I guarantee you’ll wish you had made more and you will never again want “store-bought” cooked jam. There is no comparison.

It makes great gifts, too!