A bit of singleness and domesticity

Matt had his last day at his old job on Tuesday, so Thursday night, he headed to Moab with some friends for a weekend of bike riding. I had wanted to go, but after taking 2 days off at President's Day weekend, I didn't feel right taking Friday off. As such, I found myself in a déjà vu world - that of the single girl. I was able to have some nice "me" time and also not cook a meal for dinner!

Friday night after my spin class, I had the weirdest dinner, but oh was it grand! Warmed up chicken meatballs, popcorn and a little bit of lemon zest cookie dough (not too much, as I didn't want to undo what the bike had just burned). A part of me misses that aspect of being single - the come home and have a bowl of cereal because you don't feel like cooking, or just graze your way through the meal.

On Saturday, I was a bit more structured in my eating habits, which included Michelle coming over for a girl's night. We shared a pizza at Serioz and watched a rather random film, Wild Target. It was slightly predictable, but random and fun non-the-less. It had Emily from Devil Wears Prada and Ron Weasley from Harry Potter in it. On Sunday, we got up and went for a nice walk to and from the dog park. After Michelle left on Sunday, I began preparing for a week away. Myplans for the day were to make a bunch of crock pot meals and freeze them, some dough/bread and pizza sauce. I accomplished them all, but am a bit sore from all of the walking and standing that the day brought.

Before heading out, I made my dough: http://www.makeandtakes.com/warning-easiest-recipe-for-homemade-bread/

I began with my grocery list in hand - well, actually on the iphone, but the principle of the matter is there! I found this on pinterest: http://melissafallistestkitchen.blogspot.com/2011/09/freezer-cooking-slow-cooker-meals.html and decided to give 10 crock-pot meals a try. I went to Costcofirst, as I buy my organic chicken there. I also picked up my chuck roast - the only non-organic or natural thing in my meal preparation. I feel slightly guilty, but oh well. Next was Target for some general household items, followedby Whole Foods for the rest of my grocery goodies.

When I got home, my dough was ready to go.

Dough all nice and bubbly

30 minutes to rise on the pizza stone

So I cut it into thirds, rolled them into balls, put cornmeal on my pizza stone, turned the oven on to 450F and placed the other two balls into quart sized baggies.

Bagged for the fridge

I put the bagged dough in the fridge.

The dough exploded through the plastic bag :(

This morning, along with all things bad Monday (the dog got sick overnight - poor puppy and poor me), I discovered that this was not the best call, as BOTH bags blew open. I guess I'll need to use the freezer next time, or a bigger bag to store the dough. Any suggestions are welcome. I was able to salvage the two bags, remove the dried out dough from each and combine into one bag. We'll see how that bread turns out. It is now housed in the freezer.

Back to my adventure. Next up, pizza sauce. My in-laws gave "us" a Cuisinart Food Processor for Christmas and it has been a lot of fun to use. This recipe comes from the book that came with the appliance. I had my garlic all ready, onions had been chopped, olive oil heating in the pan and realized that I had no white wine.

Pasta/Pizza Sauce recipe. Am looking forward to using fresh tomatoes this summer

Onions ready to whir

Garlic ready to be chopped up

So, I quickly ran to the liquor store and purchased a couple bottles of wine. I did make the stupid mistake of not turning the oil off before I left! Yikes. All was fine - phew! So, I measured out my wine for the recipe, threw in a little more for good measure and poured myself a glass. I also added my bread to the oven. 

The bread came out of the oven looking perfect

Pizza sauce cooking away.

MMMM....Two slices of this became my dinner while cooking!

And the prepping began. I used my food processor a bunch for this - it did all of the minute chopping of onions, slicing of carrots, celery, bell peppers and the chopping of garlic. Not sure it saved time, per se, but it was helpful on the hands and fun to play!

Ground beef, chicken and chuck roast

Stew meat ready to be added

onions, onions and more onions

I cooked all of the meat at the beginning, as it needed to cool before adding it to the bags. I used the cast iron skillet to brown the roast after spending a lot of time cleaning off the fat. Fat removal was more time consuming than veggie chopping. It was a bit tedious! While the second piece of roast browned, I made the balsamic mixture using some of my tomato sauce that was cooking on the back burner.

bell pepper chopping

all chopped

Browned Roast

Ground beef, Onions and garlic

Beef Broth, balsamic vinegar, tomato sauce.

A very full stove!

During this whole process I had my "Pumped Up Kicks" station playing on Pandora and added veggies and spices to each of the ten bags when I chopped them or counted them out. I only had one bag spring a leak, luckily it was the one with the cooked ground beef, so no raw chicken juice in the freezer! After I assembled each of the dinner bags, I added my pizza sauce to quart sized baggies. When it is time to use them, I just set them in the fridge overnight or soak them in hot water for 10 minutes or so. From there, I snip the end off the corner of the bag and "pipe" the sauce on the pizza dough. I bought Matt some Naan at Whole Foods to make personal sized pizzas while I'm out of town if he wants.

*Oh, I did alter the recipes from above. I did not add potatoes to any of the bags, as they can get a little funky when frozen. Instead, I just indicated the need to add the potatoes on the front of the bag.*

Bagged Pizza Sauce

Bagged Savory Beef Stew

Packed in and ready to freeze

And the aftermath clean-up. This doesn't include the pans still on the stove and the cuisinart on the counter top.

Overall, this entire adventure took about 5 hours (including my run to get some wine). Clean-up was a good 40 minutes, so, I finally crawled into bed at 11. I didn't really sleep until Matt got home around midnight.

I'm anxious to see how everything tastes. We are having the Balsamic & Onion Pot Roast for dinner tonight after I get home from spin class. Should be a good source of protein after the workout!