Wow.  Have you ever made something so good you even impressed yourself?  Like, “Wow I can’t believe how good this is, it’s even better than I thought it would be-and I knew it would be great!”  That’s how I feel about this frosting.  Of course it helps that my super favorite chocolate stout cupcakes are underneath.  Talk about a fantastic flavor combination.  This is just my usual cream cheese frosting ramped up with the addition of the innards of a vanilla bean.  By the way, this is not a recession post but I bought my vanilla beans at Costco-and nobody died.

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Blogging the Recession: Freezer Food

So far in our quest to make our favorite convenience foods at home I have made corn dogs, frozen breakfast tacos, and french toast sticks.  Convenience foods are an important consideration when making your grocery budget.  It is one of the most expensive budget items and also one of the first that financially savvy people will tell you to cut.  On the other hand convenience foods are a product of our busy lives-we need quick bites that we can heat up for kids on the go to keep us out of the drive-thru lane.  Mini pizza bagels are one of the freezer aisle snacks we grew up with.  Crisped in the toaster oven or simply nuked in the microwave they were an easy snack we could fix ourselves after school.  They were even dinner occasionally on busy nights before running off to practices or first jobs.

If you aren’t familiar with bagel bites they consist of a small bagel base topped with a bit of red sauce and a smattering of cheese and pepperoni cubes.  They are often dry and hard and missing their coveted pizza toppings due to slippage.  Homemade pizza bagels are a world away from their tiny freezer aisle counterparts.  They are chewy and soft or chewy and crisp (depending on the cooking method), they are much more filling and substantial, and they are customizable.  Most importantly: they are so easy to make you will have no excuse to buy them ever again.

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Our family loves fish and seafood.  Any meal guaranteed to have everyone happily clearing their plate is a winner in the chaos kitchen so I have learned a lot about buying fish (read: anything that lives in water for the duration of the post-shrimp, salmon, tilapia, scallops, etc..) over the years.  I used to think the “fresh” fish in the case at the grocer was the best choice for freshness but now I know better.  Generally the fresh fish in the case is actually previously frozen fish that was been thawed.  Which is fine if you plan to rush home and cook your fish immediately.  However if your intention is to cook your fish later on or even to freeze your fish for another time then previously frozen and thawed fish is not the best choice.  Buying frozen fish allows you to thaw the fish yourself immediately before cooking by running it under cool water while prepping your other ingredients.  Frozen fish and seafood is not only a better choice for freshness but it is usually much cheaper.  Anytime there is a big frozen seafood sale we stock up and throw it all in the freezer-enabling us to have fresh seafood meals throughout the year without having to scrimp.

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Blogging the Recession: Freezer Foods

More breakfast solutions, coming at you.  I love french toast.  Our family has always made french toast for special breakfasts, more so than pancakes, eggs, or waffles.  I have always enjoyed making it for the kids when they were little but now that we are so busy in the mornings before school we don’t have it very often.  A great weekend recipe is a huge batch of french toast, with all the extras sliced into sticks and stashed in the freezer for the grab and go convenience of school mornings.   

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