Work came to a screaching halt the last 2 weeks.  I think all the unemployed (my potential resume customer) are taking the summer off to take care of their kids or sit on the beach with a margarita.  Why worry about finding work when the days are so beautiful?  So, I’ve been working hard at keeping myself entertained – that is, when I’m not nursing myself or one of my kids back to health (did I say that the flu SUCKED?).

As my neighbors can atest, I’ve been playing with my breadmaker more and more these days.  I’ve tried and discarded (or gave away) many a bread recipe, trying to find one that tastes good AND has a decent day-after-consistancy that can still be used for sandwiches.  I’m finding myself leaning more and more towards sweet breads (e.i. – Hawaiian or Portugese sweet bread) – they come out with some sort of “taste” to them (I HATE bread that has no taste…if I wanted to eat white paste, I’d BUY white paste, thanks!) and seem to keep their consistancy.   I continue this quest, giving away the more bland loaves to my neighbors.  Let me tell you: I’ve made LOTS of friends this month.  LOL

Made some excellent rolls (dough made in the breadmaker and baked in the oven) to go along with some chicken bean soup I cooked up for dinner a couple days ago.  They were excellent – the kids ate their weight in rolls and ignored the stew.  Oh well….atleast they ate something!

Talking about food, we’ve been slowly eating our way through the freezer.  I always have a well stocked freezer, thanks to the meat clearances and sales at the Safeway up the street.  Problem was, I was constantly pulling from the front/top and not cleaning out the older stuffi in the back.  I came to realize my mistake a few weeks ago….esp when it dawned on me : much of the freezer’s content was bought in the first few months we lived in this apartment. 

Yeah….So, we’re eating through the freezer.  It’s like doing my own “Top Chef” challenge – what can I make out of this?  LOL  I don’t plan to buy anything new until most, if not all, of the old stuff is gone.  I pulled out the more questionable pieces of protein (frostbitten chicken or beef), defrosted, salvaged what I could and made it all into stews.  This disguises any sort of “strange” tastes it may have picked up from the freezer and tenderizes the meat with ease. 

For example, this last week, I found a whole chicken in the freezer dated 6 months ago.  I let it defrosted enough to get the chicken out of the wrapper, tossed it into my big pressure cooker, added liquid and let it cook for 30 mintues or so.  After letting pressure drop naturally, I deboned the chicken, tossing the skin and bones back into the pressure cooker with onions, celery and carrots.  I let it all pressure cook for an hour, strained out the chunkies, tossed white beans into the broth and let it pressure cook for 10 minutes.  This became the base for my chicken bean stew, which I ate for 2 days before tossing the leftovers in the freezer this morning.

Once I”m sick of eating the stew, the leftovers are frozen in ziploc bags for quick meals when I don’t feel like cooking.  I did the same thing a few months ago, when I made the best Potato Leek Soup in my life.  I made waaaaay too much for one person (the kids weren’t big fans) so I let it cool and ladeled it into small ziploc freezer bags.  I ran across one of the soup bags while sick  with the flu and almost cried in relief.  That soup saved my life…and tasted even better the 2nd time!  (It probably had to do with me being so sick but really, it was excellent!).

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