Poppy Seed Chicken

A favorite recipe from a friend - and another good meal to freeze ahead.

1 cup cooked rice
3 cup cooked chopped chicken
1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 T. poppy seed
1 tsp dill weed
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup chicken broth

Mix all together. Top with buttered cracker crumbs or bread crumbs.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

Breakfast Burritos

These breakfast burritos are one of my favorite breakfast meals. The recipe makes a big batch and freeze well. The children like to help with the cheese-sprinkling and tortilla-folding.

1 lb sausage
1 onion, chopped
1/4 green pepper, chopped (I left this out this time.)
1 lb (3 cup) hashed brown potatoes
1 dozen eggs, beaten
1 can cream of mushroom soup
20 10-inch tortillas
1/2 lb cheddar cheese, shredded

Fry sausage with onion and pepper. Add potatoes and lightly fry.
Add eggs and fry until cooked.
Mix in soup.
Spoon in tortilla.
Sprinkle in cheese.
Fold tortilla. Wrap and freeze.
Heat covered in microwave or oven. Serve with sour cream and salsa.

Vacation Meal Planning - Thanks

Thanks so much for all your suggestions and recipe ideas for our vacation! If you haven't already, read all the helpful comments when I asked for ideas for vacation meals.

Using your ideas as a spring board, I wrote down a list of our favorite easy-prep or make-ahead meals. I soon had more meal ideas then I had meals to prepare!

Last week, I started making meals or parts of meals and freezing them. For example, on Saturday, as I was making pizza, I made a triple batch of dough and made stromboli and calzones to freeze. It has been extra work but hopefully it will all pay off!

This week, I hope to share some of my favorite make-ahead recipes. Hopefully it will inspire you, as your ideas did for me.

And, when this little corner of the web goes silent, know that I'm out enjoying the sun and the water with my favorite people in the world.

I will have no computer access for a week - and I'm looking forward to it! Technology has such a way of yelling for our attention and I anticipate reading books and enjoying a little silence. (Can't believe I just described traveling with four youngsters as "silence".)

Thanks again for helping me get excited about vacation meal planning!

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie

In the search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie, I've tried many recipes. I've been looking for one with whole wheat flour. Since we eat so many cookies, I'd at least like them to be sort of healthy.

This recipe is adapted from a friend's recipe and is our current favorite. I think the secret is blending the oatmeal in the blender until almost as fine as flour. It doesn't have that dry sandy texture that whole wheat cookies sometimes have. It also makes a huge batch which is good because these don't last real long at our house unless I hide them.

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar

Cream butter and sugar together.

4 eggs

Add eggs and beat well.

3 cups whole wheat flour
5 cups oatmeal (blended until fine)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda

Blend in dry ingredients.

2 cups chocolate chips
2 cups chopped nuts (optional)

Stir in chips and nuts. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Removing Blossoms from Strawberries

If you planted a new strawberry patch this year, your plants should be beginning to bloom.

I have found strawberry plants quite easy to grow, but now comes the hard part. This first year, all strawberry blossoms must be removed.

Pinching off a few blooms isn't difficult, at least it isn't strenuous work. The problem is knowing that each one of those blossoms is the promise of a luscious fruit that I am now destroying.

Removing the blossoms allows the plant's strength to build a strong root system and send out runners. We practice the wisdom of delayed gratification and anticipate next year's fruit.

This may work for other plants as well. On my deck is a pot of pansies, which daily has it's blooms removed by my toddler. She seems to find the flowers irresistible. But I've noticed that those pansy plants are the most beautiful healthy looking plants I've ever had. I just placed the pot on the picnic table so that we can maybe enjoy some pansies this spring. At least until the toddler learns to climb!

Often when I plant annuals, I remove their flowers. I also usually remove the first blossoms from my tomatoes. It goes against the grain to remove flowers and buds, but I think it results in stronger healthier plants.

Give it a try this year. Remove the flowers from half of your salvia, marigolds, or other flower when you plant them and see if you notice a difference.

Frugal Gardening Tip # 4 - Plant Perennials

When shopping at the garden center for your flowers, there seems to be a huge difference in pricing. Pansies or petunias sell for maybe $2.00 for a pack of four plants. A daylily or hosta has a price of maybe $6.00 each.

The best flower buy appears obvious, the difference of 50 cents each or $6.00. But sometimes the cheapest choice is not the most frugal.

First, let's define "annual" and "perennial".

An annual plant is one that grows from seed, flowers, produces seed, and dies - all in one growing season.

A perennial plant grows from seed, possibly does not bloom the first year, but (as long as it is grown in it's preferred climate) will live through the winter to bloom in subsequent years.

The purchase of a perennial plant, as long as it does not die for various reasons, is a one time purchase. Some perennials are short lived and have a normal life span of 3-5 years but many perennials, with proper care, may outlive the one who planted them.
Frugal options for acquiring perennials

• Beg from friends. If you have a friend with a perennial flower bed, they probably have plants to share. I love when a friend compliments a flower and asks to have a piece. The other week, I got together with two friends and shared the extras from our gardens. Many of the plants in my bed hold memories of the friend who shared them with me.

• Price check. Even when purchasing plants from a garden center, prices vary widely. I noticed that one greenhouse in our area asks double the price for similar sized perennials. It pays to check out a few greenhouses before buying. (For those in the local area, I don't think I'm prejudiced to mention that the greenhouse where I worked before marriage has the best prices and selection of any place I've found.)

• Divide. The garden designers always say to plant in groupings of three or more. But I never buy more then one of a particular plant. It may take some patience but in a year or so, you'll be able to divide your first perennial into several plants. The only exception would be woody shrubby type perennials like lavender or caryopteris that is impossible to divide.

• Buy small. Garden centers often have various sizes of perennials. Purchasing smaller pots will not only be cheaper but smaller plants sometimes adjust better to transplanting. An exception would be if you can buy a larger pot and divide it right away into several plants.

• Start from seed. I would rarely suggest starting perennials from seed. Most of the best perennials, especially some of the newer long blooming perennials, are propagated by cuttings and not seed. For example, years ago, I wanted some shasta daisies. I bought a pack of seeds and successfully started about a dozen shasta daisies. They grew tall and beautiful, until they bloomed. The flowers lasted all of about a week and the stalks fell over into the dirt. I dug out all those plants and threw them into the compost pile. Then I tried a new shasta daisy called "Becky". This one cost about $5.00 for a large pot. "Becky" has a strong stem, it never needs staking, and it blooms most of the summer. That one $5.00 plant was divided and transplanted to several spots in my mom's yard. When I married, it came with me to this house where it formed several huge clumps. I have divided it many times and given plants to many friends and it is still growing lush. After stating the reasons NOT to grow perennials from seed, I would recommend it in some cases. Columbine, delphinium, and lupine all start well from seed. Since these three are also shorter lived perennials, it makes sense to start these from seed.
  

There are a few perennial vegetables such as strawberries, asparagus, rhubarb. But I'm focusing on perennial flowers. This article is getting too long. I'll write later on how to divide perennials and share some of my favorite easy care, long blooming perennials.

Homemade Pop Tarts

Pop tarts are not on my list of favorite foods. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was an adult before I ate my first pop tart. To me they are not much higher then frosted cardboard.

My husband, on the other hand, loves pop tarts, at least Kellogg's pop tarts. Usually Ed has great taste, so maybe I'm the one who is failing to appreciate the value in toaster pastries!

Ed emailed this recipe to me last week. He said that he hesitated sending it - knowing that I have enough to do. But he also knows that I'm a sucker for (1) new recipes, (2) from-scratch-make-it-yourself recipes, (3) any chance to beat Kelloggs, and (4) the opportunity to give my husband more wife bragging rights! I had not baked all week and was itching to try something new, so homemade pop tarts appeared the next day.

And they were good. Very good! And really quite simple to make! Basically it was like making a pie crust and adding filling. The hardest part was measuring and cutting the dough so that the tops and bottoms would fit. I'm not a numbers girl.

I made a chocolate peanut butter filling. In the recipe below I also included some other variations from Smitten Kitchen that I did not try. Maybe next time!

Homemade Pop Tarts
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Pastry
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, cut into pats
1 large egg
2 tablespoons milk

Chocolate Peanut Butter Filling
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
Melt together and stir until smooth.

Cinnamon Filling
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, to taste
4 teaspoons all-purpose flour
Whisk together the sugar, cinnamon, and flour.

Jam Filling
3/4 cup (8 ounces) jam
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water
Mix the jam with the cornstarch/water in a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, and simmer, stirring, for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, and set aside to cool.

Make the dough: Whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. Work in the butter with your fingers, pastry blender or food processor until just small lumps of butter still visible. I used a food processor. Whisk the egg and milk together and stir them into the dough, mixing just until everything is combined.

Divide the dough in half. You can roll this out immediately or wrap each half in plastic and refrigerate for up to 2 days.

Assemble: If the dough has been chilled, remove it from the refrigerator and allow it to soften and become workable, about 15 to 30 minutes.
Place one piece on a lightly floured work surface, and roll it into a rectangle about 1/8″ thick, large enough that you can trim it to an even 9″ x 12″.
Repeat with the second piece of dough. Set trimmings aside. (Place trimmings on a pan, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, bake and share with your children, or eat them up yourself.)
Cut each piece of dough into thirds – you’ll form nine 3″ x 4″ rectangles. (To be more child friendly, I made mini tarts by cutting each piece in half to form 18 rectangles.)
Place a tablespoon of filling into the center of each rectangle, keeping a bare 1/2-inch perimeter around it.
Place a second rectangle of dough atop the first, using your fingertips to press firmly around the pocket of filling, sealing the dough well on all sides.
Press the tines of a fork all around the edge of the rectangle. Repeat with remaining tarts.
Gently place the tarts on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Prick the top of each tart multiple times with a fork.
Bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes, until they’re a light golden brown.