Ideas to Make Life a Little Easier

Well, I decided to start an on-going list of things I discover that make taking care of my family easier. Please comment to add any of the things YOU have discovered so I can try them for myself, and also to add to my post! Thanks!

Cooking:

- Ground beef: I have been buying 5 pounds of ground beef (from Sam's club) and, since I make so many meals that have browned ground beef with onions, I've just been cooking it all up at once with about 2 large onions chopped up in it. (I'm considering adding garlic, too.) Then I freeze it in zipper bags. (You have to put it into a couple of bags, or it gets too thick and icy to break apart and get out what you want when you want to use it.) This has saved me LOTS of time in the few weeks I've been doing it.

- Sauteed onions: I love onion sauteed in butter with a little salt for my scrambled eggs/omelets, but no one else in my family does, so when I saute some, I do an entire onion and then freeze what I don't use. The butter keeps it soft enough to easily break off the amount I want to use next time, and after cooking, it doesn't smell up the entire freezer!

- Bell Peppers: I don't use bell peppers (or, as Parker keeps calling them, "Pepper Bells") very often, and when I do, it's for cooking, so I buy them when they're on sale (for something less than $3 apiece!) and cut them into strips and freeze them. They last for a long time and they're very convenient to use when I need them.

- Tomato Paste/Sauce/Juice: I'm tired of always having to have all three tomato products stocked in my pantry for cooking, so I just bought a big package of tomato paste and now I mix with water when I need sauce: 1 can paste + 1 can water, or juice: 1 can paste + 3 cans water. (All three freeze well if you make too much or don't use all of the opened can of paste.)

- Chicken Soup Base (From my friend Dorothy - Mom of 9!) Soup base is my favorite trick for saving time. (Other than cooking many pounds of any type of meat at a time and freezing it in one meal portions.) I take the big bag of frozen chicken breasts (15lbs?) and boil them all in my two 8 quart stockpots until they are tender. (Same idea with leftover chicken carcases and boned chicken when I have them.) Then I dice them, throw them back into the pot with about 1/2 of the cooking water, add bouillon, seasonings and sauteed onions (grab those frozen ones!) and cook it down to about 1/2 again. One pot becomes that nights dinner by adding rice or noodles and veggies. The other pot becomes two other nights soup bases. I make it really strong so that I have to add about 1 gallon of water to it when I defrost it for that future meal - then there is enough to feed 12 of us and I can store it in my 1 gallon Ziploc bags. (Hint- I freeze them flat on dinner plates and then stand them up on the shelf like books.) I do a similar thing with beef and pork so there is always a 'homemade' meal just 30 minutes away for completion.

- Baking/broiling When baking or broiling anything that sticks really badly, like teriyaki chicken breast, I just cover the pan with foil first. Makes for super easy clean up!