Last week I told the story of “Grouchy Bear” and I celebrating our 54th anniversary by having lunch with friends. I further explained that at our age that was about all we could do.
The next day a “funny” reader called to request that we call them next year because their anniversary date was the same as ours. It seems they were celebrating 55 years and they couldn’t think of anything to do either.
This past week I have been organizing my winter stash of food. It is less expensive to buy the veggies and fruits now for canning and freezing.
Think about it. Not only is this a money saver but many times when we have lost electricity for a few days the prepared things come in very handy. There have been many fun times with our kids in cooking a large kettle of soup over the fireplace, making popcorn in old time poppers, cooking hamburgers and hotdogs outside (while freezing) and cooking bacon and eggs on the camp stove.
We have a generator for usage during outages and ours is large enough to run our furnace, freezer, refrigerator and a few lights. We turn off all 220-volt appliances and use the microwave for most of the cooking. The casseroles and snacks you prepare and have ready to thaw for cooking make all the difference in the world.
Recently, I noted several of our larger grocery stores advertising top quality ground beef on sale. There are several things you can do to prepare foods for later dates by make up hamburger patties, meatballs, meatloaves and loose hamburger.
Cook several pounds of hamburger, browning it and separating it as it cooks with a potato masher. This is the best way to make sure there are no large lumps in the meat.
Season the cooked meat with chopped onion, green pepper (if desired), garlic salt and salt and pepper. Cool and divide according to your individual needs for a meal. Put into plastic containers, mark lid with date, contents and cup measurement. This is great for sloppyjoes, casseroles and spaghetti sauce.
Using your favorite meatloaf recipe make up three or four meatloaves and either cook, cool and freeze or freeze raw and cook later. I prefer cooking and freezing as some contents such as eggs will do better after cooking.
Everyday meatloaf
2 beaten eggs
3⁄4 cup milk
1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs
