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Rice and Beans
This recipe was originally inspired by one shared on the Frugalwoods blog as their ultra-frugal solution to packed lunches. My version contains meat, broth, and a slightly more generous serving size, and hence it is a little bit less frugal, but it’s still a great alternative to eating out. This freezes and re-heats really well, so it can be made once a month and alternated with other lunch options if, like us, you don’t enjoy eating the same meal day after day.
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Single Serving Freezer Pasta
My husband is super picky about texture and used to refuse to take leftovers for lunch because he didn’t like the mouth feel of reheated food. He prefers to eat a hot lunch most days, however, so since he also refuses to become a billionaire hedge fund manager, I had to find ways to pack him hot lunches that he would enjoy to prevent him from spending nearly $300/month eating out every day! This pasta is one of the solutions I came up with and it’s a hit. Since all of the individual elements are cooked to al dente (or the lowest safe temperature for meat), flash frozen, and not combined until he…
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Pork Lo Mein
If you picked and froze a lot of snow peas and bell peppers last summer, here is a great way to take advantage of the bounty in your freezer while counting down the days until summer. This is one of those dishes that tastes great when you make it and even better the next day. The flavor continues to meld and deepen when refrigerated for a few hours or overnight, so this is a great dish to make ahead or plan for leftovers. Posted by: www.farmhouseonthepond.com
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Watermelon Daiquiris
If you have more watermelon on hand than you can easily use before it goes soft, cube it into one-inch pieces, freeze it on a baking sheet, then store in freezer bags up to six months or until you’re ready for some summery adult refreshment. These easy daiquiris use vodka instead of the traditional rum. They are also good made with fresh watermelon if you just can’t wait. Posted by farmhouseonthepond.com
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Lemon Berry Zucchini Bread
Tired of zucchini casserole, grilled zucchini, zoodles, and even chocolate zucchini cake? Here is a refreshing way to use up summer’s abundance.
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Vermont Cheddar-Corn Chowder
The original restaurant recipe from which I adapted this one calls for a heart-stopping one pound of bacon, two cups of heavy cream, and sixteen ounces of cheddar cheese. While there’s no disputing that it tastes delicious, if I cooked like that at home our next trip up to town would be on a stretcher. I wanted to see if I could create a thick, flavorful chowder with a slightly lower fat and sodium content without compromising on taste. To accomplish this, I leveraged a technique that I first learned to love while developing my French Carrot-Ginger Soup recipe, which contains no cream and is thickened with Arborio rice, a grain that becomes…
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Steamed Cabbage with Lemon Butter
When I was in high school, my best friend came over to my house one day during summer break and we attempted to cook all of our favorite Chinese takeout dishes which, of course, included egg rolls. I’d never worked with cabbage before, and as we sat at the kitchen counter tediously grating a ridiculous amount of cabbage on box graters, a foul odor descended over the kitchen like the dirtiest pair of gym socks in the universe. “Oh my gosh,” I thought to myself, “what in the world is wrong with her?” Of course I didn’t want to embarrass her by saying anything, so I attempted to breathe solely through my gritted…
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Blueberry Peach Crisp
In the Northeastern United States, where we live, blueberries and peaches both arrive around mid-July and they are a natural paired together, the tartness of the blueberries cutting the ultra sweetness of a perfectly ripened peach. We tend to eat this straight out of the oven, when the fruit is still hot enough to burn our tongues, topped with a scoop of melting vanilla ice cream. The leftovers also make a pretty decent (occasional) breakfast.
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Raspberry Muffins
A few weeks ago I was taking a twilit summer stroll through our back field with my husband and our two dogs when all of a sudden I spotted something in the hedges along the south fence. “Stop,” I said, with an urgency that made everyone obey and the dogs perk up their ears. “What is it?” my husband replied. “Are those…raspberries?” I exclaimed skeptically, wading into the hedgerow. And they were. There were tons of them, in fact. You see, I’d known there were wild raspberries on the property since I bought it eight years ago, but they’d never seemed to produce enough to make them worth bothering with before. Then a…
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All-Butter Pie Crust
This food processor recipe for pâte Brisée, the traditional French shortcrust used for pies and tarts, is astonishingly simple to make and yields a sturdy, flaky crust with rich, buttery flavor. If you’re familiar with making pastry dough, you might be scandalized at the thought of using a food processor to cut in cold butter. I know I was the first time I heard about it. The reason it works is that a food processor is so much more powerful than a fork or pastry cutter wielded by hand that it breaks the butter up and incorporates it very quickly, before it has a chance to get warm and melty. Warm and melty…
