The July 2008 Issue of Chewin' the News from 30 Day Gourmet Freezer Cooking . . .

Hello fellow freezer cooks! I hope you are having a wonderful summer. The produce in the garden is coming along and I have already picked four cucumbers. I must have chosen a different variety this year. They are very long and slender like an English cucumber instead of short and fat. I wish I would have saved the plant information when I planted them! The are still good. The tomatoes are coming but they are still green. I have several green peppers that are almost ready to be picked.

I received an email from Karin asking about the method I use to freeze sweet peppers. I freeze both green and red sweet peppers. According to the freezing and canning book that I have, you do not have to blanch the sweet peppers before freezing. Just wash and halve them. Remove the seed and pulp. Slice or dice the peppers and freeze. I flash freeze them to make them easier to remove from the package. If you have older or tough/large peppers, you can blanch them for 2 minutes in steam or boiling water. Then cool, pack, and freeze.

I wish I would have planted zucchini and yellow squash plants this year. They are one of my favorite summer vegetables. I remember growing them when I was a child. One summer to earn money for our summer vacation we set up a stand in the front yard and sold the squash to passing motorists. I also remember loading up our little wagon with stacks of zucchini and selling them door to door throughout the neighborhood with my brother.

Another summer cooking question I received was from Rachael regarding cooking for camping trips.

According to the USDA, ground beef and poultry are good for one or two days after they have defrosted. Other meats are good for three to five days. For more information click here to read the USDA fact sheet on how to safely defrost foods. There are several newsletters on the web site that talk about camping and share some favorite recipes. Take a look at the August 2002, July 2005, and July 2007 newsletters. There is also a great page on the web site with lots of camping tips. Click here to read it.

So what food bargains did you run into this month? I found more ground chuck for .99 a pound. I made a batch of hamburger patties. We measure ours so they are exactly a quarter pound. We do this so we can use them in other recipes if we do not use them all during the summer. It is nice to know that I can just grab four patties and know that I have a pound of ground beef for a recipe. I also made Master Meat Mix (from the Freezer Cooking Manual) for meatloaf, Wet Tacos. and Sloppy Joes. I froze the Sloppy Joes in individual servings. I received some emails last month asking how I do this. To freeze sandwich filling, I just put it in the muffin tins and place the tins in the freezer. Once the filling is solid, I fill my sink with an inch or two of hot water. I place the muffin tin in the water for about 10 seconds (without getting any water on the filling). I can then take a fork and pop out the individual servings. I place the servings in a gallon freezer bag and seal, label and freeze. So far I have frozen shredded chicken sandwiches, pulled pork, and the Crock Pot Roast Beef Sandwiches from the Freezer Cooking Manual using this method.

I also found boneless, skinless chicken breast on sale for 1.66 a pound. I never

pass up this sale when I find it. This time I concentrated on using it for lunches. The price per pound is great compared to what lunch meat costs. Chicken is also much better for you than lunch meat. I ended up making chunk chicken seasoned with poultry seasoning for chicken salad sandwiches and sliced chicken using the Montreal Chicken Sandwiches recipe from the Freezer Lunches to Go ebook. How do you bulk cook your chicken? When I first started cooking using 30 Day Gourmet I would cook them on the stove using several pans. This was very time consuming. Then I started baking the chicken in the oven. This is a great way to cook a lot of chicken but not in the heat of the summer. In the summer, I enlist the help of one of my sons or my husband to fire up the grill and cook the chicken for me. It works out well. The chicken cooks quickly and it is something they enjoy doing. Try it sometime!

My other great find this month was apples. Our local grocery store had a one day only produce sale. They offered an pound bag of Fuji apples 5.00. Normally, this is a great price but when I went back to the store the next week after the sale was over they were selling the apples for .99 for a 10 pound bag. What a great deal! I peeled, sliced and cored the apples and froze them in 8 cup packages. I will use these in recipes such as Apple Crisp in the fall when it is cooler.

So what are you doing this summer to stretch your food budget? E-mail your ideas to me at carol@30daygourmet.com and I will share them with everyone in the next newsletter. Have some great recipes to share with everyone? You can post them on the message boards.

30 Day Gourmet

P.O. Box 272
Brownsburg, IN 46112
www.30DayGourmet.com

This site developed and maintained by Nexis Technical Services, Inc.

This page was last updated on Monday, August 04, 2008.