Cooking for a Crowd - Episode 12: Chili

I'm here to report on our December crowd meal! For once I have zero stories of crazy busyness keeping me from forgetting our meal day. I actually had time to prepare, spend time in the kitchen, run to the grocery store for some last minute fresh items. It was a good weekend.

Like I always do, I asked for my husband's suggestion on what to make. His immediate response was chili! I had just made it earlier that week, so I was like "Again? I just made it!". So I listed a few other ideas and he still wanted chili, and requested leftovers, so guess what I made?

Chili! 

For some reason I felt like it hadn't been long since I made it for the crowd meal, but looking back in my blog posts I discovered it was last December, so a year ago. (You can find that post here.) I was curious to see if I could make it cheaper than last time with only a day to plan. We'll see how I did! 

One of the perks of chili is that it's a very simple, but tasty dish. I can my own tomatoes, so it's not only quick, but also free. Beans are cheap, it doesn't require a huge amount of meat, and how hard is it to whip up a batch of cornbread?! I think this was the first time I've duplicated a meal that I've already blogged, so I was able to look back on last year's post for reference. That was super handy, and very convenient to figure how much of what ingredients I needed. I had originally thought I would need 4 lbs. of ground beef, but after looking back at my notes, realized I had used 6 lbs. last time, so we could've ended up with more of a tomato-bean soup otherwise. Ask [almost] anyone - they like a meaty chili. Still trying to keep within a budget, I strive for the happy medium. 

Here's the rundown on the pot of soup:

I used 10 quarts of chunky tomatoes (free), 2 pounds of dry kidney beans ($2.58), 6 lbs. beef ($12.38), and spices (probably about $1 worth). I put it in my 16-quart stockpot, and it almost filled it, so I'd say we were at around 14 quarts (3 1/2 gallons) of soup. I served sour cream with it (something I'd have forgotten had I not blogged about it previously), and while I spent $5.96 on 4 16oz. containers of sour cream, we only actually used two of them. So counting only the sour cream used, this part of the meal totals in at $18.94, which is a whole $3.02 less than last year! We had 5 quarts left over, which made both Aaron and me very satisfied. He got his leftovers to take to work, I had a few easy lunches for the kids and me, all giving me a few less meals to cook for! I ended up putting half of it in the freezer, so we'll have an easy pre-made supper in the next few weeks, too. 

I made three batches of cornbread, and it filled a 10x15" and a 7x11" oblong baking dish. Combined, the two pans total 6.5 quarts, so I figure it would be about the same as if I had used two 9x13 baking dishes. We were able to get free milk this past week in exchange for taking care of a family member's place while they were on vacation, so that cut cornbread expenses greatly since I needed over 5 cups for the recipe. Part of my goal for this month was to make something that used a substantial amount of milk simply because we had zero cost in a refrigerator full. (Not that I didn't have a dozen other ways to use up milk! We went through 6 gallons easily in a week.) All the rest of the ingredients into the cornbread (cornmeal, flour, eggs, butter, etc.) cost me $3.29. That figure includes the butter and maple syrup used for serving. The maple syrup was free that someone gifted us. I used that rather than stuff we had bought because the gifted syrup was in a glass container and I was curious to know how much would get consumed (it ended up being 1/2 cup). Next time, I would make one more batch of cornbread, because we only ended up with one piece left after the meal was over. We wouldn't have minded bringing more home to go with our leftover chili.

To add some veggies to the meal, I made a salad as well. It seems like I always make salad and I am stuck in a rut of doing it the same way. Well, I switched it up a little bit this time by adding boiled eggs instead of tomatoes, but for next time I might switch up my salad game even further and try something new. We'll see. Anyhow, this month's salad consisted of 2 heads of iceberg lettuce (1.87), 1 cucumber (.88), 1 orange pepper (.41), 6 hard-boiled eggs (.72), and half a bag of croutons (.89). Salad dressing I estimate around $1.00. This makes the salad total in at $5.79. There were enough leftovers to feed 3 servings.

Now let's add up all three parts and see how we compare with last time! $18.94+$3.29+$5.79= $28.02. Wow! I made it under $30! That's only $1.06 more than last December, but I added a salad to the meal this time, and we ended up with more leftovers, so we definitely got a bigger bang for our buck. Dividing our total by the 40 mouths fed, and we come out at 70 cents per serving. (For reference, while we served 40, only half of them were adults.) This month has made the top 3 list for least expense per serving!

Cooking for a Crowd - Episode 11: Tomato Soup

Tomato Soup. Of course.

Actually I didn't originally plan to serve it this soon after making it, but I knew we were going to have a very crazy weekend which in turn would leave me not wanting to spend much time cooking.

I was right. Friday we were up super early and spent the day at my brother-in-law's place making applesauce. (Read about last year's applesauce day here.) It is always a huge production, and this year was certainly no exception. We broke the record and made over 1100 quarts in 8 hours. Some of that applesauce was saved aside for Sunday, when we were planning to turn it into apple butter. So Sunday was another early morning and long day. We were able to get 120 quarts of apple butter! If you've been reading the previous Crowd Cooking posts, you'll remember that Sunday is the day I serve these meals. So on apple butter Sunday, I was in charge of feeding everyone, on top of my husband and I being in charge of the whole apple butter event. But you know, we tend to attract crazy, and the whole lack of sleep and desire to cook didn't matter. I had tomato soup.

Two good things about the fact that we have a basement full of soup is this: it's cheap, and all you have to do is heat and serve. To go along with the meal, we made the classic grilled cheese sandwich, and a salad for the side. Here's the rundown on what we used, along with the expenses.

Tomato Soup -  I opened 12 quart jars, and we ended up with 2 quarts left over. Cost per quart was 50 cents x 12 = $6.00.

Grilled Cheese - The bread came from Aunt Millie's Bakery Thrift Store, where I got two giant (1.75 lb!) loaves of Italian bread for $0.89 each. I also got two regular sized loaves of wheat bread at $0.50/each. Total cost on bread was $2.78. The cheese was a large block of mozzarella that I got at our food service store for $2.19/lb. They can slice it on the spot, so I had them do that for me. The block of cheese was just over 6 pounds, and cost 13.40. I estimate I got around 80 slices out of it. We used about 3.5 pounds and had 2.5 pounds leftover. The butter was some I had in the freezer that I purchased this summer at $2.50/lb. We used 1.5 pounds of it, so the total butter cost was $3.75.
With bread, butter, and cheese, our total cost into the sandwiches equals $19.93, but if I subtract the leftover cheese ($5.40 worth), our sandwich expense is at $14.53. I had brought a loaf of homemade bread in case we needed more, but we ended up with enough of the bought bread leftover that we could've made a few more sandwiches.

Salad - 2 heads of lettuce @.97 each = $1.94, 1 cucumber @.50, 1 orange pepper @ 1.67, 1 bag croutons @$1.79, and several tomatoes that I had a free coupon for. For the salad dressing I had two jars of my homemade french and ranch, and also had 2 partially used store bought bottles of Italian and Thousand Island. We went through less than $1 worth of dressing total, but I'll call it a dollar for our figures. We ended up using only 1.5 heads of lettuce, and had a couple servings of salad leftover. Cost into the whole salad was $6.90.

Cost between all three parts total up to $27.43. This is an incredible number for the amount of people we were feeding (40). Our cost per person is at a low 68 cents! This is the lowest cost crowd meal since last December (which was .67 per serving)! I am rather pleased that the cost was this far under a dollar a serving. It helps make up for some of my higher months this summer.



Note: You can read more about the home-canned tomato soup here.

Canning Tomato Soup

Ah yes, I have more to tell about my last produce auction buy. Remember the acorn squash? Those were a great deal! The other buy I haven't mentioned, is the tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes!

Where I live, our first frost is generally the second-to-last week in September. This has been SO different, in that we just got our first frost the last week in October! This extended our growing season a substantial amount. I just brought in the last of my spinach a few days ago, and that completed our garden. So at the October 13 produce auction, there were plenty of tomatoes. Since most people don't expect to find them this late in the year, their canning had been done months before, in the peak of tomato season. So with there not being a market for them anymore, they were going really cheap.

Our tomatoes did terrible this year. The deer ate off most of the plants, too much rain killed another one, and there just weren't many blossoms left after all that. We were able to get enough to keep us eating fresh, but our canning tomatoes came from elsewhere. A friend of mine let me come clean out her tomato patch after she was finished with her canning, and I ended up getting several bushels! From that, I was able to cross a few items off my "we need to can this year" list. I was even able to can a pot of tomato soup - something we had been wanting to do since we were married, but weren't able to get ahold of the recipe until now. Yeah, we could've found someone else's recipe, but this tomato soup is different, and so much better than any either Aaron or I have ever tried. We figured we could go through at least a quart a week easy, so the batch I made from the friend's tomatoes wasn't quite as much as we figured we could go through in a year.

Produce auction to the rescue!

I mean, since they have been going for a mere $1 a box at the end of the season, I could easily get a few boxes and finish off what we needed. Get double that, and we wouldn't have to can any next year! Since we're all over not having to can everything every year, this sounded like a great plan. So I bid and I bought. The problem is, I didn't know how many quarts I could get per bushel. It never even occurred to me until after I brought them home. That might've been a good thing to know ahead of time. I mean, the two of us have canned several bushels of tomatoes in one day before, so I didn't think much of it. But then we started counting.... and figured I had just brought home about 11 bushels of tomatoes.

It still didn't faze me. I was excited, I hadn't spent a whole lot of money, and we were going to get our tomato soup that we wanted! After I brought Aaron out to see my purchase sitting there in the bed of the truck, we came inside and he asked when I was going to can it. Of course I said "Today!" I've always known tomatoes to be a more fragile fruit, so it's best not to let them sit and rot. They are so much easier to work with fresh. So I was going to start canning that afternoon. My amazing, supportive, go-with-the-flow husband jumped right in and assumed he was going to help me with it. I wasn't going to ask for his help, but all of a sudden he was working along side of me. His next question was asking where I planned to do it all. And of course, I said my kitchen. I mean, where else do I go to cook? But him being smarter than me said "Look, my brother has a huge commercial kitchen with a 10-burner stove. We could go over there and whip this stuff out in no time!" We have a tiny kitchen. I only have two stock pots, can only use one of them on my stove at a time, but have a two burner outdoor propane stove that we could use. Still, with our limited countertop space, this would be a huge task, so my visionary husband hardly needed to twist my arm before we were loading up jars, ingredients, canning equipment, and the kids to head on over to the canning kitchen.

Besides all the stove burners, stock pots, and stainless-steel countertops, another perk was that we could hose everything down when we were done! It hardly made a mess, but still, its nice that we didn't have to worry about tomato getting onto everything. 

The soup was pretty easy to make. We took the whole tomatoes (skin and all), and chopped them into a stock pot, and added a couple finely chopped onions to it. Let it cook down until soft and run the mixture through the Squeezo (or Victorio) strainer. The strainer is what separates the good stuff from the pulp. To make things go faster (and to save our arms), Aaron hooked his drill up to the strainer. He managed the tomato washing, soup straining, and canning. We both chopped the tomatoes and stirred the simmering pots, and I prepared the onions, mixed up the rest of the ingredients, and washed the dishes. A couple of nieces and nephews came out to watch, which led to them begging to try running the Victorio! The few minutes of extra help freed up some time for Aaron to get the canners going.

This is by far the biggest cooking pot I've ever seen! It holds about 15 gallons. It's so big, my 6-foot husband could hide behind it! 

Because we didn't get started until mid-afternoon, we could only get about half of the tomatoes finished. The rest of them looked to be in good enough condition that they would hold a few more days pretty well, so we went back two days later (Aaron's next off day), to finish them. All in all, we ended up with 191 quarts! This was um, more than anticipated. I was hoping for like 100. Looking on the bright side, we won't have to can tomato soup again until after the year 2022. Another good thing was the fact that I already had that many jars washed and ready in the basement, so that cut down on some time in the canning prep. The first summer we were married we went out and bought dozens upon dozens of jars in all sizes for an amazing price, and we still have a couple hundred of those jars sitting in the basement unused. 

Also, while the tomatoes were cheap, there was other cost into the rest of the ingredients, like onions, spices, salt, etc. Calculating all our expenses and dividing it 191 ways, we figure we made it all at 50 cents per quart. That's not bad at all for a can of soup. If you went out and bought a small can of Campbell's soup (which isn't even comparable in flavor) at retail, you'd be spending more than that! With that being said, if you're in the market for some tomato soup, I might be able to work out a deal for you. Otherwise, don't be surprised if you happen to find some under your Christmas tree.

Pumpkin Sales

Now that pumpkin growing season is officially over, it's time for a report on our crop!

You may remember that we started our pumpkin plants from seed this year in hopes of getting an earlier harvest. We used our mini greenhouse during some of the cooler spring days and nights, and ended up losing a few plants from accidentally leaving the heater on during the day once. I have since bought a light timer, so that should prevent this from happening again in the future. 

I planted three different varieties of pumpkins: Howden, Jack O'Lantern, and pie pumpkins from seeds I had saved a couple years ago. This was my first year branching out and trying anything other than a pie pumpkin. I was aiming to try a couple new varieties, while also getting a nice range in size. I'd say I had the best success with my pie pumpkins. The yield was much better on these than each of the other kinds. I harvested almost as many pie pumpkins as I did the other two varieties combined. The Howden did the second best. It gave nice, uniform fruit with really pretty grooves. They are more round and robust in shape, making for a nice decorative autumn squash, rather than a taller and narrow(ish) pumpkin like you would normally see carved. The Jack O' Lantern variety didn't leave me too pleased. These pumpkins did really well at the beginning of the season, growing big and fast, but they seemed to stop growing halfway through the summer, and never filled out. If you look at the picture I had posted earlier this summer (I'll post it again below), it's the one on the left. See how long it is? It was a good 12" long when I took the picture, but didn't grow beyond that! The skin was pretty tough, and they had a hard time turning orange. I probably got 7-8 of these long pumpkins (from several plants!), and only picked one orange one, and one other that had turned color only halfway. The rest sat out in the garden doing absolutely nothing. I'm not sure if there were a few defective seeds in the bunch or what, but they honestly don't even resemble pumpkins to me. They remind me more of an elongated green spaghetti squash.

In this image, you can see the one longer pumpkin there on the right. Isn't it weird looking?

My goal in planting pumpkins was to set them out at a farm stand in front of our property and sell them to help cover my garden expenses for the year. Unfortunately not only did the yellow cucumber beetles appear early in the season, but we had a terrible infestation of gray squash bugs, as well. I felt like I was battling a war against them, and there being hundreds of them to one of me, they got out of hand fast. These bugs killed about half of the buds, so ... we lost almost half of our pumpkins. 

In order to hit the busy buying season, I needed to start selling them by the middle to end of September. I had a few orange ones picked and ready by then, but didn't get my stand up until October 2nd. We live on a fairly main road heading into town, so I knew there would be plenty of people driving by, but when a day had past and nobody stopped I started getting discouraged and thought maybe my price was a little high. I had priced them competitively, but wondered if I needed to have them a bit lower just to get people to make a special stop just for pumpkins. While I procrastinated and thought about it, I got my first and second customers, and then felt like if I lowered the price at that point, those buyers might feel like they got a bad deal, so I just left the prices alone. Over the next two weeks I sold quite a few more pumpkins. The most common amount spent at the stand was $3-4 per customer, but there were a few that spent between $5-12 and bought more of the larger ones. 

When I was out picking the pumpkins, I had a few that lost their stems in the process. That really bugged me, because in general, people go for the ones with stems. I felt like I was losing a dollar every time one of the stems popped off. Because I didn't have a huge crop of pumpkins compared to what I was hoping for, I put the stemless ones out there anyway, to add bulk to the table. As the old farmer's market saying goes, "Pile 'em high, and watch 'em fly!" I ended up selling all of the ones I had out there without stems! They didn't go right away, but eventually someone chose them for their own. I sold that funny long pumpkin, too!

As I mentioned earlier, I tried to price them competitively. The pie pumpkins all went for $1, and the largest pumkins for $4. I had some in between ones that I had marked at $2 and $3, depending on size. The $1 pie pumpkins and the $3 medium-large ones were gone the fastest. I had a container out there so it was a self-serve, help yourself stand. A few people must not have felt comfortable leaving their money out there, so they knocked on my door to hand the money right to me. That works for me too, but it's nice not having to feel like I needed to be watching the driveway all day long. I ended up selling all the pumpkins out there, with the exception of one greener funny-looking long pumpkin that I put out later in the season. My total earnings off pumpkins came to $57! I was not expecting to do that well, especially with such a piddly little crop. I am super excited to have a reward at the end of the somewhat stressful gardening season. It makes it all feel worth it. This has more than covered the cost of seeds for 2017, and will cover next year's as well. Seeing how much I was able to make off a mini pumpkin patch has gotten me a touch ambitious for next year, and I may have been planning my next garden already.... If I can do that well on a few pumpkins, what if I expand the stand a bit and sell some more produce next year? Or, if you read my recent post titled "Deal of the Week", you heard about my other business idea; selling at the produce auction. 

Find of the Week

Over the weekend I happened upon a yard sale out in the country, so as one might expect, curiosity made my car turn into the driveway. I was sure it was way past sale season, being that it's the end of October, but on a warm 70-some degree morning it just felt right.

The sale was a very small one, and I learned it was made up of leftovers from a yard sale they had earlier that summer. I was met with a good morning and a "Just ignore the price tags. Everything is name-your-price today." Just walk by her table, barely say "Would you take..." and she would say yes. I left with a few old Taste of Home and Quick Cooking magazines, since I love browsing recipes and am eager to try a few new ones this winter. I had been meaning to get to the library to borrow some but this deal was even better, because I don't have to worry about returning them, I can cut out recipes if I feel like it, and I don't have to stress out about my kids getting ahold of them. The other thing I found was something I have had on my yard sale "to-find" list for two years. I've been wanting a jar tall enough to store dried spaghetti noodles. My pantry is all on open shelving in my kitchen, due to a tiny house and very limited storage and cupboard space. I didn't realize how hard it was to find a tall jar until I decided I wanted one! In the picture above I have a gallon jar standing next to it for comparison. These gallon jars have always been the tallest jars on my shelves; they are even taller than Ball half-gallon jars. The new spaghetti jar towers over them all, and is absolutely perfect for what I need!

Have you found any exciting-to-you deals lately?

Deal of the Week

All summer there has been a produce auction going on just down the road from us. The auction is held twice a week, and I have been a frequent goer, to browse, bid, and enjoy a little bit of fresh air away from home to help keep me sane.

Being a former farmer's market salesperson, business manager, and hired hand, I heard plenty about food/produce auctions from other vendors, but didn't really know how they worked. It got my curiosity though, and with my love for food, this became something that I wanted to experience for myself. So when the auction opened up here in my town last summer, I was pretty excited! Being that I live in Amish country, it is owned and operated by a couple of amish families. There are lots of vendors from the community that bring all sorts of things to sell- from flowers to green beans to fresh homemade pies and butter. 

Now that I'm a housewife and am in charge of purchasing groceries, I have found it very helpful to keep on top of the going rate for fresh produce, and have enjoyed expanding my education in this department especially being a gardener myself. Dreaming of running a little roadside stand one day, I now have an inside peek at what people pay for wholesale produce, and can measure how much profit they might be making when they resell at their own stand. While I have no desire to resell other people's produce, I DO have an idea how much I could get for my own vegetables, should I have an abundance and decide to take it to auction to be sold. 

Our current gardening/canning plan is to pick a couple staple products to grow each year, but plant enough to last us for a few years. For example, next year we will need green beans. Instead of planting enough for us for a year, we plan to grow a large patch of beans, can enough to last three years, and then not have to worry about them for awhile. We planted three rows of beans the summer of 2015, and they will last us until spring 2018. If we plant four rows of beans, we'll be able to take at least a bushel to auction every week, earning us a minimum of $20 per week, for not much extra effort. (According to this year's going rate of $22-36 per bushel of green beans. Auction keeps 10% of earnings.)

Okay, I've gotten a little sidetracked here. While some prices raised my eyebrows at the auction, there have been other times I've found great deals on things I could use. Last week, well... if I was trying to watch my spending, I should've not taken the checkbook, and only limited myself to the amount of cash I had on hand like I normally do. But I did have it along with me, and I ended up needing to use it. Even though my grand total spending for the day was high, I stocked up on some great deals. 

Eggs. I bought 24 dozen eggs for $0.50-.75 less than I normally pay per dozen. Yes, 24 dozen is a lot of eggs for a family of two adults and two small children, but we can go through an easy 3 dozen a week. Because these are fresh eggs, they will last much longer than any you'll find on the grocery store shelf. I now have enough to last us into December, but I saved between $12.00 and $16.00 doing so. To me, this is a HUGE savings. 

Acorn Squash. This is my favorite. It has great sentimental qualities to me, as this is the squash variety I grew up on. My mom would cut them in half and bake with a pat of butter, chopped walnuts, a dash of cinnamon, and a splash of maple syrup, and it was the most delicious thing ever. Aaron however, grew up on Butternut squash, and that is the only variety he really cares for. Since I'm a general squash lover, I gladly grow his variety to feed us all through the winter. But at the auction I got a box of 40 acorn squash for $0.10 a piece! At that price, I decided it would be an excellent way to feed Adam and me lunch on the days Aaron works away from home. I can put the squash halves in the crock pot and have an easy meal for two for less than 50 cents, including the cost of the toppings! (I will omit the walnuts, to keep cost lower.) That's better than sandwiches, because the bread alone would cost the two of us about 40 cents per meal.

I spent a bit more on produce that day, but that will be another post for another day. It's a big story.

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 10 - Sloppy Joes

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I stepped outside to enjoy a breath of fresh air and a leisurely walk to check on the garden. Feeling the soft green grass beneath my feet, everything in me is set to ease in the calm, quiet outdoors. Walking past the rope swing hanging down from a tall but weathered tree, I remember. Crowd meal tomorrow.

Oh yeah.

Oops. Somehow even though it was written on my calendar in black letters, which I had seen previously in the week, it had slipped my mind, and I had the rest of my Saturday to throw something together. 

I'm such a wing-it person. It seems like these last-minute things are attracted to me. I try to plan ahead, but somehow ... it just doesn't work for me. I'd love tips and tricks, if you all wouldn't mind filling the comment box below to help me out. I need help.

My original plan (from months ago), has been to make a certain yummy summery casserole for my next crowd meal, but that plan kept getting shoved off month after month due to either lack of time, or lack of desire to use the oven for cooking. Well, this particular weekend we had record-breaking, sweltering hot temperatures. In fact we - north-central Michigan - went on record as the second warmest place in the United States that weekend, at 91*. This being said, it was no time to be slaving away in a hot kitchen. Thus our decision to put off that casserole yet another month, and find something more friendly to warmer weather. 

I wasn't prepared, so my meal had to be fast enough to throw together in an evening (or the next morning), and I had to be able to find everything locally for a half-decent price, regardless of sales. We decided on sloppy joes, since that was something I could heat in the crock-pot, and also went well with cold sides. Aaron really wanted potato salad, so the sloppy joe meal idea was kind of formed around that. :) 

Main Dish

I was hoping to find meat for around $2.00/lb, so I went to the "cheap store" in town. It just opened this summer, and I have been there twice to get meat on sale, both times around $1.79/lb. So while I was hoping for a sale, I figured their non-sale price couldn't be too much more than that. Unfortunately it was not ground beef sale week, so I paid full price, which I believe was $2.39/lb. My goal was to get 10 lbs and spend $20 on meat, but I ended up getting closer to 9lbs and spending $20.82. I had a few pounds of cheap ground beef in the freezer at home, but I wasn't sure exactly how much and didn't want to have to wait for it to thaw before I could get started cooking. I need to gather all those random containers and compile them for my next beefy crowd meal. If I can remember to plan ahead. Anyhow. The worst thing about buying cheap meat at a non-sale price, is that this stuff was 73/27 beef-fat ratio, which means over 1/4 of it disappeared when I cooked the meat. I really, really dislike buying meat at this ratio, even if it is a half okay price, because I feel like whatever money I'm trying to save all drains out in grease. By the time I added my filler ingredients to actually turn the meat into the meal, my cost into the sloppy joe was around $23.50. I was able to find hamburger buns at retail for a nice low price of $1.09/package, which isn't much higher than the Aunt Millie's Bakery Thrift Store, but I get an extra week shelf life! I bought 6 packages of 8, totalling $6.54.

Sides

For sides, we went simple. Aaron got his potato salad, and we decided on baked beans as the second option. Looking back, I wish I would've gone with something of lighter fare, like watermelon or a veggie tray, just to give the meal more variety. This actually really bugged me. A well-rounded meal should not consist of only heavy foods. At least not on a super hot day. My cost into sides was around $12.05 between the salad and beans. I used 4 28-ounce cans of beans, in case ya'll are trying to calculate numbers for your own event. 

Leftovers

There was quite a bit of food leftover, due to less people eating than originally anticipated. I'd say there were 25 mouths to feed. We brought home half of the sloppy joe meat, two packs of buns, and several servings of potato salad. It was at least $14 worth of leftovers, and was enough to feed us for two suppers with both salad and sloppy joe and a couple more lunches of sloppy joe. 

In conclusion, my total bill for the meal was $42.09, which is a couple dollars over what I try to spend when cooking for 40. I'm not really sure how to calculate the per serving cost here. Do I divide the total expense by 40 [$1.05/person], or by the 25 [$1.68/person] I actually served? Do I subtract the cost of leftovers, and divide the remainder [$28.09] by 25 mouths [$1.12/person]?

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 9 - Applesauce Cake

I always ask Aaron's opinion when I'm planning a crowd meal. He is so good at giving me ideas and suggestions, and helps me not to stress over it all, even though the popular answer I seem to get from him is "Baby, I don't know! You're so much better at figuring out food than I am." Other times, he pops out with whatever is the first thing that comes to mind, and often it's a delicious, fairly easy meal to make. I don't think he realizes what a help he is when it comes to meal planning.

Maybe dessert is a little easier for him to come up with ideas though, because this was one of the times that he had an immediate suggestion: 

Applesauce cake.

Now I've never made applesauce cake before, so this was a completely random idea. Maybe by now you've gathered that I'm the kind of person who likes making new foods, so this suggestion seemed like good advice to me. I asked how he likes his applesauce cake, and he proceeded to tell me that it's simple to make and - just like how he eats every spice cake/bread- it has to be served with applesauce. I didn't have a recipe for the cake from his [growing up] farm days, so I began doing some research. It didn't take me a minute and I had a recipe to try! 

The day I was scheduled to serve dessert, we were expecting to serve around half the usual number. Normally I would need to make several pans (or at least a half-sheet pan) in order to provide enough to go around, but since we estimated 20 guests, a 9x13" pan would be sufficient. Of course, I can't make a new recipe without testing it first, so I doubled it and ended up putting 1+1/2x in the 9x13 pan, and put the other 1/2 recipe in a bread pan so we could sample it. 

***Pause typing*** Husband just called and asked if I could make some more this afternoon.

Okay, I'm back. Maybe that will get the point across on how seriously addicting this stuff is!

The day the meal was being served we had other obligations, so we didn't stick around long for dessert. When we left, around half of the pan had been consumed. I had cut it in 18 pieces, and from what I observed, it seemed to be just right for the smaller crowd that day. I did serve it with applesauce as well, but am unsure of how many quarts were eaten. We took over either 2 or 3 quarts.

This recipe is another one I hope to share with you one day, but I have some tweaking to do before that happens. Somehow one recipe isn't enough to fill the pan size it says, and also the baking time seems to be off. I need to make another batch (which clearly shouldn't be a problem) and try to work it out for you all.

My cost into ingredients I figured out at $2.08. The recipe called for walnuts, but I omitted them partially because I didn't have any, but also because it would be a huge added expense. Tack on two quarts of applesauce at .50/jar, and the dessert cost comes to $3.08. Divide by 18 pieces, and that leaves us with a cost of $0.17 per serving. I use fresh farms eggs that I get here locally, which are a considerable amount more than grocery store prices. Had I bought cheap store eggs, I could've reduced my total cost by 51 cents, bringing our cost per serving down to $0.14/piece. 

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 8 - Taco Salad

For this weeks crowd meal, I needed it to be two things:

1. Something that could transport well with minimal refrigeration.

2. Something I could easily prepare Sunday morning in someone else's kitchen.

So I chose one of the quickest, easiest crowd meals ever: taco salad. I have served this many times before the days of blogging my meals, because it's so simple! 

Growing up, taco salad was one of my favorite meals. So much yummy in the combination of lettuce, seasoned beef, tomatoes, cheese, tortilla chips, and the most delicious homemade taco salad dressing ever (or catalina if you prefer that name). To this day, that's our staple salad dressing, and my husband loves it just as much as I do. We always mixed the ingredients together and served it as a single dish.

When I got married, I was once served a build-your-own salad bar, which the host called taco salad. Sure, I had seen an in-home salad bar before, but calling it taco salad? What? But they did, and it was much different than the taco salad I knew. Comparing it to said salad, I'd say this version is more more like tacos without the shell. I'm still kind of partial to my precious childhood version, but this build-your-own style works well when you're trying to make an entire meal out of it to serve a bunch of people! 

When serving 40, there are a few pros and cons to doing it this way. 

Pros. 

- Picky people will love you. Not that I support or cater to picky eaters. I do not.

- Anyone with sensitivities to common foods like dairy or corn can still get the same meal as everyone else without any extra effort on your part. 

- You don't have to attempt mixing together giant bowls of pre-dressed salad (which often compresses a fair amount and doesn't go as far, so you'd have to make extra. This adds extra cost and work).

Cons.

- Some people will tend to load up on the meat and go easy on the veggies.

- There are a lot of individual bowls you have to set out with toppings. 

- You need a decent amount of counter/table space to serve the meal.

Every year my husband and I (and now our two kids), head over to the beaches of Lake Michigan for a day trip. This year we decided it would be fun to throw our little green army tent in the trunk and make it a weekend deal and spend Saturday night at a campground. Our plan was to leave from the campground Sunday morning in time to stop by a grocery store to get the ingredients I needed for the crowd meal, and then go straight to church from there. Well, we've been trying to liquidate some of the extra stuff we'd collected over the years from my husband's part-time resale business, and a guy was planning to come by Saturday evening to pick up a lawnmower we had listed for sale. So we scratched the camping idea last minute (I mean, the idea to camp was last minute, too...), and planned to come home in time to meet the guy that evening. We stopped by a grocery store on our way home Saturday, instead, so we would have everything ready to go Sunday morning. 

I had bought the ground beef, tortilla chips, and sour cream earlier in the week so I could control my prices a little better. Beef cost can vary by such a big margin, I wasn't going to chance being able to find it at some remote grocery store for any less than $4/lb. I tried getting the tomatoes locally too, but the selection was very slim and the tomatoes were hardly even ripe, so I saved that for last minute, too. 

Here are the toppings that went into the meal, along with what it cost me:

5 lbs. Ground Beef @1.79/lb - $12.21

5x 16 oz. Sour Cream @ 1.49 - $7.45

4 bags Tortilla Chips @1.69 - 6.76

Garden Lettuce - $0.00

2 heads Iceberg Lettuce - $3.48

Tomatoes @ 1.89/lb - ??

3 lbs. Shredded Cheese - $12.00 

2 pints homemade Salsa - $0.00

3 pints Pinto Beans - $0.60

Somehow I lost my receipt to the store we stopped at on our way home, so I don't have any idea how much I spent on the tomatoes. I got 3-4 large tomatoes, and maybe 6-8 romas? Also I'm guessing on the price of the lettuce and cheese, but am pretty positive I remember correctly.

Besides the prices being unpredictable due to not even knowing what town we were going to stop in for groceries, the meal choice was very convenient and even quicker to prepare than I anticipated. I was able to cook my meat the night before so it was one less thing to do Sunday morning. I also had been meaning to can dry beans all week both in preparation for this meal, and also because I've been wanting to can some for my pantry for a couple years now. It took me just as long to do up a canner full (18 pints) as it would've to cook just enough for this one meal. Because I had bought a 5-lb. bag of pinto beans last month, I already had the beans, and it was so much cheaper than trying to buy them pre-canned at the store. I calculated my cost at 20 cents per pint of home-canned beans! This is an incredible savings. Not that I ever buy canned beans, but in case you're someone that does and is looking for a new way to slash your grocery spending, you may want to consider switching to dry beans.

Leftovers:
In planning for the meal, I was preparing to feed quite a few extra mouths, but when the day came, I only ended up having to serve around 25 people (compared to the usual 40). I had plenty of lettuce in my garden, but didn't have time to pick a lot of extra and wash it that busy weekend, so I bought two heads at the store for backup in case I didn't have enough of our homegrown lettuce. Turned out we didn't need it, due to fewer people than expected. I mixed the ground beef and beans together this time so the beef would stretch some, and I thought I had plenty. Turns out my amounts were just right there. I had a few extra cans of pinto beans with me that I could've added to the meat to stretch it even further, had more people shown up. We also had 2-1/2 containers of sour cream, two bags of tortilla chips, maybe 1/3 or more (can't remember) of the tomatoes I had bought, and just over one pound of cheese left, as well. I feel confident that had we served the anticipated amount, we would've still have enough food for everyone. All in all, I spent much more than I "needed", since I was preparing for a crowd. The leftovers came in handy though, because the next day I needed a last minute, quick meal to take somewhere, and I already had all the ingredients ready to whip together a taco salad, so I am very grateful I had bought extra of everything!

I like to add up my total cost and also figure a per serving rate so I can have notes for reference in the future as I plan and prepare more crowd meals. It helps me knowing what I paid for certain ingredients so I can watch sales easier. It also helps create a challenge where next time I make a certain recipe for my crowd meal, I can try to cut cost even further. I know these numbers probably don't mean as much to you, especially since prices vary greatly depending on where you live. Be aware of that if you're using my reference numbers to compare with your own local stores, in case you live in an area where food prices might be a bit higher. My cost for all the ingredients this month (including the stuff "left over"), I estimate around $48.50. I sure wish I had that missing receipt to know for sure!!! This would put our per serving cost at $0.97. If I calculate the numbers using only the ingredients used divided by actual number of people served, we still would come out just over a dollar per person.

Ways I could've should've cut cost further:
Had I been blessed with more time, my plan was to go to the big town to do most of my shopping. I could've used a coupon I had for a free head of lettuce, plus bought a second one for only $1. That would've saved me $2.48 there. I also planned to stop at the restaurant supply store, since that is the best way for me to save money on cheese. There I can get a 5-lb. bag of cheddar for $12.99, which would've been a savings of $1.41 per pound (a total of $2.82 on the cheese). And tomatoes are usually only $.99/lb there, so that would've brought the price down a few dollars, since I ended up paying twice that at the out-of-town rural store. I figure I could've saved a good $8.00. I guess that was just an added cost to our deciding to take a quick vacation. :)

Salsa - Check!

The first canning of the season has happened. Finally. I mean, it is the end of August. 

But none of this stuff came from my garden! We still have our first tomato trying to turn orange, with all the others plain old, unripe green. My generous brother-in-law offered me these tomatoes from his garden, so I went over and picked a sack full this afternoon, which was just enough to make me a batch of salsa! At last, I have one of the tomato products crossed off my must-can-this-year list, and it is such a good feeling! My handy All American double-stack canner has helped me once again, and I now have 11 pints of salsa sitting on the counter top, the sound of sealing lids filling the air. 

Pumpkins

Apparently last Thursday when I went out to check the garden and capture pictures for you all, I neglected to peek down inside the middle of the pumpkin plants! I went out a couple days later and discovered there were some nice, BIG pumpkins out there! The one shown on the left was the longest I found, at around 12 inches long. The one pictured in the middle was the biggest overall (approximately 10 inches from stem to blossom end), and the other one shows a few of my pie pumpkins. Unfortunately I also noticed that the terrible gray squash beetles have showed their ugly faces and have been devouring my plants. I spent an evening out there dusting the plants with Diatomaceous Earth until I ran out of that, crushed a few beetle egg clusters, and weeded half of the pumpkin patch (something I hadn't done since they were very tiny plants). Now I need to go out with some soapy water and try to get those squash beetles. I hear when they arrive, it's a hard battle to fight against them. The bad news is that it has been raining here, which makes it hard for me to get out to find them, but the rain has been much needed and will help the fruit that has started growing, continue further into maturity.

Our Pitiful Garden Bears Fruit

This has been a rough year in our garden. It started out pretty well, but got rocky about the time we planted it all outdoors. As usual (but it seems quite a bit worse than usual), our plants are so slow growing. The pepper plants, which we started indoors five months ago are roughly 8 inches tall. EIGHT INCHES! In five months. 

But today. Today I went out and saw progress on these petite little things. We have a few buds! Which means we might actually get some peppers this year! Think the plants can hold up any fruit? I highly doubt that we'll get anything of significant size, since the plants obviously don't seem to be getting very many nutrients to promote much growth at all. But still, these flowers brought some excitement.

Our lettuce has finally been producing well, and we have enjoyed many a delicious salad in these last 2-3 weeks. We have a fair amount without going overboard like we did last year. It produces just a tad faster than we can eat it. 

My experimental pumpkin patch has had its share of ups and downs, as well. They took off with a great start, and transplanted incredibly well. They grew and grew, but then slowed down for awhile, but with the nice rain we've been getting lately, they have exploded once again. I can water with the hose, but nothing makes plants grow like a good summer downpour. Recently I saw our first few little round pumpkins, so it's time to be flooding that patch with water to help them grow big and fast. 

We've had a time with these pests though. This is the third year I've grown squash, but it's the first we've seen cucumber beetles. They are such pests! I heard they can do a lot of damage in a little time, so at first sighting I started crushing all the eggs I could see. This was back before the plants were very big, which made the job a bit easier. Next, I needed to target the full-grown beetles, so I mixed a sugar-water solution and sprayed it on all the plants. It seemed to have helped, since the leaves haven't been getting eaten like they were. Checking on the plants a couple days later there did appear to be fewer beetles, but they were still attacking the stalks, flowers, and base of each plant. I only applied the sugar once, so maybe another shot at it would've rid them entirely. 

My next plan of attack was diatomaceous earth. I had a giant bag left from last year, so I generously dusted every bit of the plant I could. I'm not sure how effective that was, but I think I need to do it again. I've had so many buds die and fall off already, I can't afford to lose any more. Thankfully there seem to be a growing number of them opening, so I may still get a decent harvest.

The sad part is that my larger variety pumpkins seem to be dying in the center of the plant hills. I'm guessing this must be from the cucumber beetles attacking the stem. I haven't noticed it happening to my pie pumpkins yet. I planted those using seeds I had saved from my best one two years ago, and those plants seem to be so hearty and healthy this year! 

 Look! A little pumpkin!

I planted some beets, hoping to get a few to eat fresh and also some to make borscht. Aaron doesn't prefer plain canned beets but loves them pickled, so last year I only made pickled beets. I found myself wishing I had some plain ones just to eat, and also thoroughly enjoyed the borscht I made with the few stragglers that were left in the garden, so I wanted to plan on having some this year so I could make it again! I wrote a blog post with the recipe, which you can find here. 

The deer came through and ate the tops off most of the plants, but don't seem to have been back in the beets since. I was afraid they were all done for, but they have nice, lush leaves once again.

 The cucumbers seem to be doing pretty good, too. By this time last year I was in the middle of pickle season, so they are definitely late this year. I spotted cucumber beetles on these plants as well, but not in the quantity that were over in the pumpkin patch. I dusted the cukes heavily with diatomaceous earth right away, so it was more of a preventative measure than a war on cucumber beetles. This was a couple weeks ago, but I did see a few while out weeding this morning, so I need to go reapply the DE powder again. I think I can stay on top of them here as long as it doesn't rain so much that I can't spread diatomaceous earth.

And then there are the tomatoes. These things have been all over the place. They didn't take too well to transplanting, suffered some weird deficiency that turned the plants all black and purply, and got flooded during the national emergency that was declared in our area, but the buds are plentiful and growing tomatoes! I am super excited to see fruit after wondering if I'd lose all my plants over and over throughout the summer. I have never had such a roller coaster ride watching plants before, but every time the tomatoes showed progress, something else would happen. Actually the latest was something coming through lopping the tops off the plants right through the tomato cages. I thought deer were the most likely culprit, but didn't know they ate tomato plants? My pantry is bare of most all my tomato products, so I need these things to survive. Things are looking hopeful now, but until I see a few red ones, I'm still holding my breath. Here's to anticipating homemade salsa and chili!

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 7 - Ice Cream Sundaes

This last weekend has brought more than just extra cooking for our monthly crowd meal. Each year we host a big party at our house and that just so happened to be this past Saturday. There's always a lot of work going into hosting an event of that size (we were planning for 100), but we enjoy hosting everybody, being able to catch up with friends, and watching them all have a good time. Plus, we get the added bonus of a cleaned-up homeplace and some leftover food!

Speaking of food (since Cooking for a Crowd is all about finding budget-worthy meals for high guest count), I made sloppy joe using 25 lbs. of ground beef, which I found locally for 1.59/lb, and the hamburger buns were bought from a bakery "thrift store" at $0.75/package. We had a good 5 lbs. of sloppy joe leftover, and lots of buns, which I have been cutting up and freezing as crumbs for meatloaf or hamburgers, and cubes for egg casseroles. I normally have homemade bread around that I  canuse for those recipes, but since these burger buns were left over and otherwise would've gone in the trash (which essentially is throwing money away), I figure I might as well try and use 'em, since I make things requiring bread crumbs/cubes fairly regularly. I'll see how convenient it actually is having them in the freezer, since I know it can take a little while for bread to thaw. I did put them in pre-measured portions, which I recommend! Last winter I froze extra cornbread in crumbs for the same purpose, but dumped them all in one bag. When it came time that I needed to use them, it was one giant, frozen bread chunk, and it was no easy chore breaking apart as much as I needed while still frozen. I'm hoping the smaller portions will help solve that problem. 

Knowing I had a party to host Saturday and Crowd Dessert on Sunday, I didn't have time to make anything over the weekend for the dessert. So, since we also had ice cream at the party, I got an extra pail for the Sunday meal. The ice cream toppings that were leftover went with it on Sunday, as well. It was not the most inexpensive dessert I could've come up with, but it was easy, and I was willing to pay a little extra for the convenience.  

When Sunday rolled around, I ended up staying home due to not feeling well, so Aaron took the ice cream over. He didn't come back with any, so I assume it all got eaten. It was a one gallon container, which I found on sale for $5.99. The toppings were sprinkles (around 1 1/2 cups worth), and homemade chocolate magic shell. I'm not sure if the magic shell must've hardened, if he stuck it in the fridge while over there, or if people didn't consume as much as I expected, because a decent portion of what I sent with him came back. I'm not sure the exact cost of the toppings, but all in all, it was an $8+ dessert. Divide that by 40, and you get around 21c/serving. That's twice the Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, and three times the cost of last month's Snickerdoodle Cookies. 

Cooking for a Crowd: Episode 6 - Burrito Bowls

We're back with another edition of Crowd Cooking! This time we decided to go a little different route with our meal. With as warm as this summer has been, nobody wants to be slaving away in a hot kitchen, so I went for a meal that didn't require baking or extensive stove-top cooking during the heat of the day. The meal? Burrito Bowls!

One of the great features of this dish is ... lots of meat. Everybody loves meat! Another nice twist to this meal, is that it features some great popping flavors by using lime and cilantro. I find myself all too often sticking with plain old american tasting dishes, as much as I love the flare of other cuisine. I received some extra-positive compliments on the meal, and even my husband was wowed at how it all came together. He was also more than happy that we had leftovers to bring home.

While there are a lot of little parts to the meal (since it's a build-your-own style), it really was quite simple to make, especially considering the number of people I expected to serve.

Most of the prep was done the day of, since the veggies needed to stay as fresh as possible, but I was able to prepare a couple other things the day before:

The recipe I used as a guideline said to grill the chicken before chopping, but I don't have a grill, so I improvised. I marinated the chicken breasts for an hour in a delicious homemade concoction before cooking. Instead of using the recommended grill, I laid the chicken breasts out on a sheet pan and baked them. I fully intended to sear it in a cast-iron skillet beforehand, but I forgot about that detail until after I pulled the finished product out of the oven. I believe that would've been an unnecessary step, since the meat I pulled out from baking was nice and juicy, and nicely seasoned from the marinade. I let it cool enough to work with, and then chopped it into small cubes, which got dumped into an 8-quart crock-pot and placed in the fridge overnight.

The other thing I was able to prepare ahead was the beans. I always use dry beans rather than canned. It is very cost effective, and as long as you plan ahead a little, isn't much extra work. (I do not soak dry beans before cooking. I have read a number of conflicting articles on soaking or not soaking and have not found a difference in either method, either in cooking time or quality of product, so I opt for the simpler, quicker method.) Because it takes awhile to cook before beans are done, I used our outdoor propane stove. This helped keep the heat outside. When done, I put them in our 4-quart crock-pot and placed in the refrigerator. My original plan was to use the beans as filler to stretch the meat, but the chicken filled the crockpot all the way, so I decided to keep the beans separate. Besides, Aaron isn't fond of dry beans, so I knew he'd be happier with this choice.

In the morning, I turned the crockpot of chicken on high for 3-3.5 hours, and the beans on low. The beans were just right, and the chicken was just warm enough (I ended up having to stir it after 2 hours to help it heat through. I know you're not supposed to open a crockpot while cooking....). I also should've put some water on the bottom of the crockpot before adding the chicken, as it dried out quite a bit while heating up in the morning. Because it wasn't being served plain it wasn't a huge deal, but just a note for next time.

Day-of prep included chopping cilantro, lettuce, and tomatoes, and cooking the rice. For the rice, I juiced two limes and toasted the dry rice in the lime juice and some cooking oil. I then poured in the water and salt and cooked as normal. After cooking, I added the chopped cilantro and fluffed the rice with a fork. The flavor was pretty good on the rice, but I could've easily used one more lime. I'm not a huge lime person, but still thought it was a little weak in that area.  

As far as amounts and totals,
here are the final figures:

Rice- 12c. dry @$0.57/lb ...  3.07
Limes- x2 .........................      .98
Cilantro- 1 bunch .............    1.29

Chicken- 10lbs + breasts .. 17.24
Marinating ingredients ....       .30

Pinto Beans- 1lb. ............     1.75

Lettuce- 1 head ...............      .99

Tomatoes- 2.21 lbs. ........     2.17

Cheese- 1.5 lbs ...............     3.89

Sour Cream- 3, 24 oz. ....     8.07  

Spices and other misc ....       .30

Total: $40.05


I also had a jar of salsa and served 3 quarts of corn as a vegetable. Both of these were free from our garden.

Ways I could've cut cost further:
I went to the "big town" to do all my shopping, since they were having a sale on chicken and that alone cut my cost by dollars. I decided to buy the sour cream and lettuce there so I wouldn't have to go to yet another store (my local grocer) where they were on sale cheaper. It is an 18 mile drive from the "big town" store, and I didn't want to chance baby needing fed about the time I would've arrived back home at our local store. So, I paid $0.74 more for that convenience. I should've used lettuce from my garden, but I barely had enough (it has been a rough garden year!), and figured I'd save it for personal use.

I was on my way home from "big town" store when I realized I completely forgot the limes and cilantro even though it was on my list which I scanned numerous times before checking out. So I went back to our local store anyway. So much for paying for the convenience of getting the lettuce and sour cream at one store, because I could have just waited and gotten them cheaper had I known I needed to stop anyway. Thankfully baby was still content as ever as I shopped our local store for the two forgotten ingredients. We made it home and in the house before she let out even the smallest whimper. :)

I had one pound of beans already on my pantry shelf (@1.75/lb), but found a 5-lb bag much cheaper (@$1.00/lb) at a restaurant supply store, so I bought that not knowing how many beans I was actually going to use. I calculated my cost at the more expensive price, since I ended up only using that pound of beans I already had. Next time though, I will be able to use the smaller figure. :)

Leftovers: 
We had a lot of rice and chicken leftover! My goal is to get better at having food leftover so I'm confident everyone is getting enough, plus having extra in the event more guests arrive. Anything leftover makes a great Monday night supper, or lunch for Aaron at work, which he took today and thoroughly enjoyed. We had a good 12-15 cups of [fluffed] cooked rice left, and about 6 cups of chicken. All of the veggies got eaten, as well as the salsa, corn, and beans. I had bought the cheese in a 5lb. bag, so I had lots to take home still. Also there was between 8-12 oz. of sour cream left.

Looking back: 
I should've made twice as many beans. Because I was planning to mix it in with the chicken to stretch it, I didn't do a whole lot in order to keep it from being too beany. That one pound of beans were finished off right away and half the guests didn't have them as an option for their burritos. I guess they were more well liked as a topping than I anticipated! (I know I love beans, but didn't think everybody did!) I should've had another lime for the rice, and I also should've provided a little more lettuce and tomatoes. I think we had just enough.

This was one of my more expensive crowd meals, but I was aiming to try to serve more than usual, since I was aware of a few extra guests coming, and also because I wanted to try and plan for leftovers. Still, in planning on cooking for 40, I was able to get in at exactly $1 per serving. And the leftovers (enough for a couple meals), I will call free dinners for my family. This is a bit more than I hope to spend for a Crowd Meal, but considering the leftovers, we're alright. As long as I don't go over a dollar per person, I'll still call it a fairly inexpensive meal overall.

Deal of the Week

If you live near me, don't list an ad titled "Free Sale". Actually do, if you want to get rid of stuff. You'll at least get me curious enough to stop! Yesterday I found one such ad, and since I was planning on going out in the morning anyway, I made this my first stop. The picture on the listing showed bolts and remnants of fabric, which I found out was because it was the custom drapery business holding the "sale". I was kind of hoping to snag one of those bolts and redo our bedroom window with a nice lightly colored sheer curtain like I saw in the ad. I arrived shortly after 9 (start time), and there was only one puny little bolt left. Not only that, but I was pretty disappointed upon walking in to discover the smell of smoke. When I come across that kind of sale, I usually turn right back around and leave. I don't want to deal with trying to get rid of the lingering odor on a potential purchase, so I don't even temp myself. I didn't turn around this time though, since I was already inside and I knew it was all free (you know, curiosity), but I decided against getting any fabric, knowing it wasn't worth my time anymore. Glancing at the shelves of remnants, I saw there were only pieces that were so small you could barely make a pillow out of them, so that made me feel better. In one corner near the doorway, there was a big tote of wrapping paper, and that's where I found my treasures. I smelled the rolls before sorting through them and didn't notice that it had soaked up much smoke smell, so I rummaged through the box. There were several rolls of unopened paper, a bunch of mostly-full rolls, and some that were only half used. Wrapping paper is something we have never had in all our three years being married! I have never been able to justify spending a couple dollars for a roll so small you can only wrap a few gifts. I've always opted for creative, free gift wrapping methods, like the one I mentioned in a post last winter. Now we have several different options to chose from, and there are a variety of prints for every occasion. I actually like some of the older gift papers better than the array of loud gaudy ones you find today, so this was a cool find. I think my favorite print from my new stash is the floral one in the back. I'm kind of excited for an opportunity to wrap a gift again now that I have more fun options. Anyone want to invite me to their party? 

Cooking For a Crowd: Episode 5 - Snickerdoodle Cookies

For this month's Crowd Dessert, I decided to make Snickerdoodle Cookies. There were a couple reasons why I chose these; one, because they didn't require any extra high-cost ingredients (like chocolate or peanut butter), and secondly because I wanted to test the part-oil theory on an actual cookie versus bars, which we tried successfully last month.

We made snickerdoodles quite a bit growing up. It's the cookie I would call my brother John's signature. I have six brothers, and almost all of them are as good or better in the kitchen than most of us sisters. Or at least, me. I love to cook but I'm being serious, my brothers know how. Somehow every time I managed to be in charge of baking I had at least one of them over my shoulder. Now I'm not sure if it's because they doubted my expertise, if it was because I was the little sister, or because ... cookie dough. I know my dad came by because of the cookie dough.

My recipe said it made 48 servings, so I doubled it. For some reason the projected yield is never accurate for me, so of course I doubted I would get 96 cookies in the end. The double recipe ended up making 62 cookies, and I know we didn't eat 34 cookies-worth of dough. I was rather proud of myself actually. I limited myself greatly by only taking a sampling of the raw dough! I wanted to get an accurate figure on how much it would yield, wanted to make sure I had enough to serve the next day (making another batch meant that much more cost into ingredients), and I also wasn't really in the mood for sweets. I'm sure this goes down as a record as I didn't eat one. single. cookie. Not even freshly baked. Not even knowing we had milk in the refrigerator. I'm amazed. Someone needs to mark this date in history. As I was plating them though I let Aaron sample a cookie, so we ended up taking 61 to serve. Ideally I would've liked to have saved out about 10 cookies for hubby, but my numbers were cut a little too close.

I did try using oil in place of half the butter. If it worked so well in sheet pan bar cookies, then it should be fine in a regular cookie recipe, right? That's what I wanted to know. Using part oil does make a more greasy dough, but you really can't tell the difference when baked. After mixing up my dough it was a bit too soft to roll into balls, so I stuck it in the fridge to cool for an hour. This is one thing I never took into account when using a oil as a substitute. Butter hardens when cool, but oil remains in a liquid state. I really wasn't sure how well it would take to chilling, since I used half butter, half oil. It ended up just fine! The dough wasn't so hard you couldn't work with it, but was still soft and moldable. I formed about half the dough into balls and rolled it in the cinnamon/sugar mixture and put the rest of it back in the refrigerator so it wouldn't soften too much before I was ready to shape the rest of it.

Since the last cooking episode, I have been able to get a few ingredients at a lower cost than before. I paid 50c less per pound of butter, saved 12c/lb on sugar, and also stocked up on oil while it was on sale, which lowered my cost to $0.41/cup rather than the $0.64/cup I had paid previously. I had bought the other oil over the winter and couldn't remember what price I paid, so I had been calculating using the full price. Now that I know what I bought it for this time, I marked it on the bottle so I can look back for quick reference. I saved 64 cents just by finding cheaper prices on a few of my ingredients.

After baking, the cookies were about 3" in diameter, so they were a nice size. We took 61 cookies, and there were about a half dozen on the plate when I wrapped them up to head home, so the numbers ended up being just right. My final cost into the entire batch was $4.32, which gives us a figure of $0.07 per cookie. Comparing prices, it cost me almost a dollar less to make these versus the chocolate chip bars I made last month. And I saved 4 cents a serving compared to last time as well! I'm excited to have made it under my $5 goal budget. So far, $5 to feed dessert to 40 people seems like a fair number, but we've only tested two recipes, so stay tuned for our next dessert episode so we can compare again!