This sourdough pizza discard recipe is an un-recipe; more like a method and you just take it and run with it! Honestly, if this is on the menu, I purposely feed my sourdough to accommodate growing children ’round here. This pizza was born out of a no-food-in-the-fridge what can I make, kinda lunch. It was a huge hit, so it’s become an easy, quick staple lunch; just like my snack tray lunches.
I like to use my cast iron pan and homemade tallow or lard when making sourdough pizza because I personally like to pop it into the oven after I add the toppings. This sourdough pizza has a soft texture and the tallow (or lard) will give the outside a little crunch. The oven is optional, but you will want a pan with a lid to make sure the cheese melts before serving.
One of our favorite things about Fall isapple picking! The orchard we have went to for years closed this year, but I was able to find some Cortland apples. It’s not nearly enough to stock up for the winter, but we are enjoying one of my children’s favorite snacks: Apple Nachos!
I feel like the last two years we have been playing dodgeball, ducking and hiding, just trying to stay in the game — that’s how I’ve felt running my home the last 2 years when it comes to meals. In this post I am sharing how I changed my grocery shopping habits in 2022.
We are supposed to be back to “normal” now, but with inflation and craziness continuing to happen I just want the “dodgeball game” to end.
We are currently a family of 8! We welcomed our 6th child early this spring, and I don’t know if it was the fear compilation of the last two years while grocery shopping or simply my ever-changing hormones, but I started to feel super defeated. One of our largest expenses, food, has gotten way out of hand this year.
I really had to sit and review my menu plans and grocery receipts to look at inflation, what I’m buying and realized it wasn’t necessarily me letting grocery shopping slide, inflation is happening — but I decided something had to change. So here is how I started changing my grocery habits in going into the second half of 2022:
Strawberries are favorite around here and once we start to enjoy all the fresh garden grown produce -it’s all we want! I am always itching to find different ways to enjoy the fresh produce as long as we can without getting tired of it. Being able to create freezer friendly recipes to keep fresh produce for later is a way to enjoy the summer fresh taste of strawberries and other fruit.
My family enjoys making strawberry jam, and way before I had the knowledge to can or the space to preserve in a large quantities, I would make everything freezer friendly. I may have started making strawberry jam freezer friendly as my only means to store, but it’s still a favorite for all types of summer fruit.
My goal with this website is to encourage you to learn a variety of homemaking skills!
I think half the battle of growing a garden is actually preserving the abundance in ways that we’ll actually eat it come wintertime. Today I wanted to share three ways I preserve my garden chives and how I cook with them come fall and winter.
We started a pizza and movie night tradition and the whole family looks forward to it!
They love chiming in on what kind of flavor combination of pizza we should make, at least one child is in with me while I make the pizza dough, and I know we are making fond memories all around.
My kids like peanut butter and jelly. I’ve long been out of our freezer jam because of it. Apparently I need to stock up more this summer. I also don’t like how much sugar most brands use, especially since it is a staple in my children’s diet.
For the last few years I’ve used February as a month where I purposely cook a little more, but only on items that I already know our family enjoys eating! I fill our freezer with full meals, components of a meal, or snacks that we can enjoy over the coming weeks and months. Today: Chicken Broth!
Focusing on filling the freezer during February not only get me a stockpile in the freezer but also allows me to refill and add more over the next few months without takes large chunks of time specifically focus on it. I can fill in one or two items as things get low. I’m also constantly going through certain things, like chicken broth!
Today I wanted to share a little of what I have been cooking up lately. I have only recently gotten back into weekly meal prep and really trying to get my freezer stocked. This pregnancy has been a little rough and I didn’t get the 2nd trimester “relief” or energy back with this time, at least not to the extent I normally do. But now that I’m down to the final weeks before baby #5 arrives I’m trying to kick freezer cooking days into overdrive now versus spending hours on my feet and in the kitchen after baby comes when I should be resting and snuggling!
I do have other freezer cooking posts over the last couple of years, like my Fill Your Freezer February posts if you want to see more recipes and ideas, but today I wanted to give some Freezer Cooking Tips to have success on your freezer cooking adventure! With a mixture of freezer cooking and some weekly meal prepping (even if it’s simply washing and prepping fruits and veggies) has helped a lot with getting meals on the table quicker (and with less mess!) because it cuts down on the daily prep work too, making weeknights or busy weekends just that much smoother.
I wanted to share a few tips/tricks with you, hopefully a few money saving, time saving, and new ideas. Or at least, a refresher course even for those of us getting back into meal prepping and freezer cooking.
1. Have some easy snacks ready.
Have some easy snacks around today, especially if you are like me and have kids home and running around the day that you are cooking and prepping! Ideas include: granola bars, fresh fruit, trail mix, or do like we did and set up a big plate of apple nachos!
thinly sliced apple slices, heated/runny peanut butter, coconut flakes, and chocolate chips
2. Double Up.
The trick is to plan on making a double meal for one of the meals for the day. If I hadn’t actually planned on making a batch of these corndog muffins to eat for lunch I would have had to cut into my freezer batch to feed the kids if lost track of time or didn’t want to stop the work flow to make something else entirely. I will plan and buy enough knowing I will make a batch specifically for lunch at the same time I am getting them ready to freeze! {Make one/ Freeze One Method of freezer cooking!} Even if you aren’t in the kitchen for hours, using this method for dinner or perhaps the next days meal by simply prepping leaving in the fridge overnight will save you time and energy.
Corndog Muffins: cornbread mixture with chopped kielbasa
3. Have an easy dinner!
By all means take the advice from #2, put an easy dinner in the slower cooker before you get into freezer cooking, or just have sandwiches! You put in a lot of work for your future self today, so pat yourself on the back, and if your kids are like mine they will be happy to eat some peanut butter and jelly for dinner without anyone complaining!
slow cooker hawaiian meatballs, instant pot rice, freshly prepped veggies
4. Don’t buy convenience, DIY.
I am completely okay with buying frozen pizzas, ready made dinners, frozen lunch items but it’s not a long term solution for our family- both nutritionally and financially. But I admit it means keeping up on your pantry inventory and freezer/meal prepping. Here are some examples of items I make instead of buying.
For instance I am getting ready to make a big batch of cookie dough. I will add extra post-partum nutrition (like flaxseed) but can be used as a treat for the kids to eat also. The great thing is I just freeze by the spoonful instead of taking the time to bake all the cookies before freezing, which cuts down prep time but making the same amount of mess. Nothing like the smell of baked cookies to make them just a little more enjoyable when the time comes to actually eating them. Pop them on a cookie sheet frozen while your oven preheats and then bake approximately 15 minutes at 375 degrees!
Trail mix. I know it’s convenient to buy but we like to DIY Trail mix because normally they are made with peanuts (which are not as nutritious as other nuts) and I can also buy ingredients on sale and make a bigger batch. The kids like helping to make this and coming up with different flavors. A lot of time I have most of the items already in my pantry or already on my grocery list. The “recipe” I always think as I mix a batch up is- something crunchy (nuts/pretzels), something sweet (chocolate chips, mini marshmallows), and something chewy (rasins or other dried fruit).
Muffins are also a great item to have a big stack of in your freezer. Making muffins vs bread makes it easy to take out only what you need for a quick breakfast or a snack. I have used my grandma’s recipe for over 10 years and simply switch out the main ingredient to make a variety of flavors. Click here for that recipe!
I also have the pizza dough recipe I have been using for years also (recipe here). I plan on getting a few of thes in the freezer also since we normally have a pizza/movie night at home once a week. I just freeze the dough in a light oiled gallon bag before I let it rise and take it out the morning of (or night before and put it in the fridge) and set it in a bowl to let it defrost and rise most of the day. Dough doesn’t actually take that long to mix up but again, skipping the step of prep/clean up helps when you are in a busy season of life!
I hope this helps you to start/pick back up your freezer cooking and I hope I gave you some inspiration to start thinking what meals/snacks you can make ahead for your family. Feel free to add any more tips or freezer recipes you love in the comments!
For as long as I can remember my Grandma has made loaves and loaves of this A to Z Quick Bread. I don’t think she could even make an accurate guess on how many loaves she has made over so many years! I have memories of crawling up on Grandpa’s lap and him sharing a warm buttered piece with me. Epitome of a good family recipe! What makes this an “A to Z” Quick Bread is simple switching out 1 ingredient for another (eg. mashed banana for pumpkin).
