Going for Not Broke

I buy frozen cooked veggies because they’re handy to toss into my homemade frozen dinners as a side dish for an entree. If I make chicken, I can just shake some frozen peas, carrots, green beans, corn, etc., into the food container with each individual serving. I’ve decided to quit buying prepackaged frozen veggies, though, because I can get more food for less money if I buy fresh vegetables instead. I’d like to be able to cut up and cook the veggies, then freeze them in a bag, so that just like with the store-bought packages, I can shake out what I need as I need it. The problem, though, is I don’t know how to keep them from freezing together, which they’ll do if I cook them in liquid. So, I decided to try a steamer. I thought that unlike with boiling them, they don’t get dunked in the water, so maybe they’ll remain loose when frozen. So, on my last trip to the grocery store, I bought some carrots, green beans and yellow squash, and I spent a chunk of Saturday cutting up veggies...

Yesterday at lunch at work, I had taken one of my Rubbermaid containers with enchilada casserole , a dish I've taken several times and has always turned out fine. Yesterday, though, it burned. It smelled of burned food, and the plastic on the underside of the container melted. I tossed both dish and food into the garbage. Because I've taken it several times with no problems, I doubt the container was to blame, so for now, I think the microwave is at fault. I'm very annoyed that my container was ruined.

The last couple of recipes I've featured here were both dishes I had not yet tried. Since then, though, I have, and I think they're both very good. Pizza Bake Post with recipe here . I didn't make this one exactly according to recipe because I thought I had the ingredients on hand but I did not. I was missing the egg noodles and the pizza sauce. I made do with 10 ounces of elbow macaroni instead, but I had no substitute for the pizza sauce so I ran to Dollar General to get some. DG didn't have any, though, so I bought the stuff to make my own. (One 15-ounce can of tomato sauce, one 6-ounce can of tomato paste, a dash of paprika and and a teaspoon of garlic. I had the garlic and paprika at home, so I needed to buy only the tomato stuff.) The pizza sauce recipe makes more than a jar of sauce holds, but what was leftover didn't seem to be worth saving, so I dumped it all in the recipe. Bottom line, I really liked it. It reheated well as a frozen dinner, and i...

In an effort to save money, I've been making my own frozen dinners by making foods in bulk. Here are the links to my past posts. This list will update often. Recipes Eggs and taters Hamburger stew Macaroni and cheese (version 1) Related posts Rubbermaid entrée trays Up & Up entrée trays Precooked chicken and veggies