Busy stocking the freezer

Well, now that I've found some space in my freezer, I've been baking up a storm whenever I have a chance so I have some goodies stashed away for school lunches and snacks.  So far I have apple muffins, zucchini muffins, cranberry muffins, banana muffins, mini chocolate chip cookies, snack balls, personal pizza crusts, pizza pockets and two loaves of sandwich bread.  Yay!  I'll try to post some recipes soon, but if there are any in particular you're interested in, let me know and I'll get it posted ASAP.

School starts TOMORROW!

We have school lunches planned for the first three days:

• Mini meatballs, seasoned rice, waldorf salad
• Pizza pocket, green salad, iced tea
• Egg salad sandwich, cucumber, smoothie

Snack/Treat Bags for School

Somehow, this almost slipped my mind.  For the boys, at school, I make them each a bag of goodies that can stay there through the school year so they have both some treats (for birthdays or other celebrations I wasn't forewarned about) and some snacks (also for things that we miss, but also so they would have some safe snack options should they, say, forget their lunch and I'm not available to bring it in).  This has worked quite well in the past.  The teachers keep the bag somewhere for the kids, so it's not like they're munching from it all the time, but it's easy access when the need arises.  I'm not sure quite how I'll wind up modifying this for my 7th grader this year (first year at the Jr. High, so we're beyond birthday parties in class, at least).

Some items I've included (in a sealed, labeled, gallon Ziploc bag with their name on it); all items are individually wrapped to maintain shelf-life:

• Tings
• dried fruit
• fruit leather - Stretch Island, or homemade
• Bars - Lara, Boomi, Oskiri, Enjoy Life, Envirokids (most), Trio, Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch
• Candy - Skittles, Starburst, Mike & Ikes, Hot Tamales, Smarties, Dots, Jolly Ranchers, Nerds, Dum Dums, Necco conversation hearts (Valentine's)
• If ice cream or popcicles may be served, having the school keep one or two Fla-Vor-Ice or Del Monte Fruit Chillers in a freezer is a good idea (these can be transported by your child, not needing to remain frozen.
• juice box
• Nana's Cookies (make sure they're GF)
• Jennie's Macaroons
• Clif Kid Twisted Fruit
• Ener-G Wylde Pretzels

School starts in 8 days! So I thought I'd have a post dedicated to school lunches. The best advice I can give for packing lunches is to make a menu, or at least a list of ideas for those mornings where you just can't think of anything. Last year, I tried writing up a month-long school lunch menu, just like the other kids got for hot lunch. It was a huge hit with the boys, but I got lazy about it after the first couple of months.

I also try to freeze lunch size portions of leftovers for crazy days. I've been stockpiling baked goods in the freezer, so I've got some reserve. The other day I made tamale and baked half into muffin tins for lunches (they'll just be thawed and reheated then popped in a thermos).

Speaking of which – having a food thermos is a must, as is having many different size/shape lunch containers. You can look at bento sites for great ideas and modify to whatever you have on hand/locally available (for example: small plastic spice jars, with half the holes covered with tape work well for a salt shaker; a clean food coloring squeeze bottle makes an excellent sauce bottle).

I keep a notebook of ideas, though (almost everything is homemade, since we've got three food groups to avoid) -


MAIN DISH

Bread sticks with pizza sauce

boiled egg

tortilla chips & salsa or guacamole or bean dip

cereal & milk

fried rice w/ pork or chicken

ham, cheese & pickle rolls

meatloaf

crackers, ham & cheese

inside out sandwiches (bread, cheese & pickle wrapped with ham, wrapped with lettuce)

soup/stew/chili

waffles

French toast sticks

Pancakes – mini w/ side of syrup

pasta (mac & cheese, spaghetti, tomato/bacon/basil, chopped ham & veggies, mini meatballs &

sauce, chicken & broccoli)

hot dogs/sausages

chili dogs

meatballs with rice

spring rolls

wraps/sandwiches/rice cakes/bagel - PB& J, PB & apple slices, PB & banana, PB & honey, PB & marshmallow crème, PB & chocolate chip, egg salad, tuna, ham, chicken salad, chicken and bacon, buffalo chicken wrap (chicken strips, hot sauce, lettuce, tomato, mayo), bacon/lettuce/avocado/tomato, ham & egg

sandwich kabob (skewer with meat, cheese, bread, pickle, etc)

sausage/spanish rice/corn & black beans

tamale pie

salads (green salad, tuna salad on lettuce, grilled chicken, greens w/ pecans, cranberries, apple or pear slices, layered salad, taco salad)

polenta with spaghetti sauce or chili

stir fry

rice pudding with raisins

pizza – mini or pizza pocket

smoked fish

sloppy joes

burgers

pasta salad

potato – roasted or baked

soft shell taco

tuna stuffed tomatoes

stuffed bell peppers

onigiri rice balls (can add nori, sesame seeds, pork, chicken, veggies)

roast chicken or beef

potstickers

chicken nuggets (homemade or Ian’s brand)

shepherd's pie

pigs in a blanket

sushi (rice, carrots, avocado, cucumber, sometimes smoked salmon, wrapped in nori)

falafel

croquets (breaded, fried mashed potato balls; can add bits of ham)

crab or tuna cakes

quiche/frittata

quinoa salad



SIDES

cucumber salad (sliced cukes and onions soaked in rice wine vinegar and sugar)

baked beans (with hot dogs)

potato chips

Tings

fruit salad

salad kebob (cherry tomatoes, cucumber cubes, mushrooms, croutons, etc)

fruit kebobs

popcorn

gelatin

muffins/quick breads

trail mix

veggies & fruit w/ PB dip – carrots, apples, celery

ants-on-a-log

veggies – sugar peas, cucumbers (with lemon & salt), steamed broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, carrots, roast butternut squash, red pepper, celery, corn on the cob

waldorf salad

bars (Lara, Jam Frankas,)

fruit leather

baked apple

pumpkin seeds

granola

sweet potato chips

fridge fudge (mixture of PB, honey, cocoa powder, dry fruit, nuts, seeds and coconut)

yogurt with fruit

Chex mix

apple rings w/ PB & dry fruit/nut topping

hummus or spinach dip w/ crackers or pita chips

fresh or canned fruit

applesauce

apples w/ cinnamon

nuts

pickle

crackers

pretzels

corn bread

devilled egg


BEVERAGES (*Usually just water)

chocolate milk/hot chocolate

smoothie

iced tea

juice


TREATS

Cake/ mini cupcake

Cookie

Mini pie

Pudding

Envirokids or Enjoy Life bars

Apple crisp

Rice krispy bar (GF homemade version)

Brownie bite

candy

More canning and organizing

More canning the other day, although the weather is not cooperating - it's in the 90's.  Way too hot, even though I do the actual canning outdoors (I really need a shade tent!).  Got 10 half pints of strawberry-honey jam and 13 half pints of blueberry jam put up.  Hopefully I'll get a picture added soon - they're so pretty!

Next up, I hope to try making some pickled carrots/onions/jalapenos since the local grocery stores no longer carry them.  Right now we're left to stock up any time we make it up to Spokane, so it would be great if I could master making them myself.

School starts in two weeks, so I'm starting to get into stock-up mode (baking extra bread, muffins, cookies and getting other snack foods made).  However, I ran into a problem this year.  My freezers are too full to hold extra baked goods.  So, I've spent snippets of time over the past few days to inventory all that is lurking in the depths of the freezers.  Now it's time to start some menu planning to use up some of this bounty!  (And, canning some rhubarb...my mother was generous with it this year and brought me 72 cups of frozen rhubarb!!)

Canning begins...

I've been busy this week with the start of canning/drying/freezing/fermenting.  Last weekend I picked up 2 boxes of apricots and a large cabbage at the farmer's market.  I canned 5 pints of apricot sauce, dried 5 trays of apricot leather and 8 trays of apricot halves (giving me a gallon jar of dried).  I'm attempting my first batch ever of sauerkraut, so I'm crossing my fingers that I have something decent to show for my efforts in 5 weeks.

A couple of days ago, a dear friend let me raid her cherry tree.  I harvested two large sand buckets full, which gave me enough to freeze 5 4-cup bags and bake a cobbler.  Last year I canned the cherries, so I'm interested to see which method produces a better product.

Today I tackled the blueberries (unfortunately, from the grocery store) that have been taking up my refrigerator for the past two days (I played hookie yesterday to take the kids to the beach).  I canned 11 pints of blueberry syrup and started a blueberry-basil vinegar that sounded interesting.  The vinegar needs to steep for 4 weeks, though, so I'll have to report back then.  My basil is growing like mad, so I'm interested in trying some new recipes with it - if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Pancakes!

I've tried many recipes over the past three years, looking for just the right basic pancake.  I think I've finally got it.

Pancakes

2 1/2 c. GF flour mix (I usually use Featherlight)

2 Tblsp. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. xanthan gum

4 eggs

2 c. water or milk substitute (with 2 tsp. lemon juice added per cup)

1/4 c. canola oil

Mix all dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl.  Add wet ingredients and mix for ~5 minutes at medium-high speed with a whisk attachment until smooth.  Cook on a hot griddle.  Enjoy!