Sunday Dinner, January 10, 2010, & Baby It's COLD Outside!

Garsh, it's cold! I've lost track of the last time it got above freezing here and it's been positively frigid for Northeast Arkansas. We got a dusting of snow on Thursday, then flurries on Friday and another dusting of snow on Saturday.

The low for this morning was 2F and it's a balmy 20F right now, which is warmer than it's been in days. It's supposed to reach 30F on Sunday and then 40F on Monday which will seem like a heat wave. I know those temps don't sound all that cold to my more northern readers, but it's pretty cold for my neck of the woods, especially for this stretch of time.

Mind you, I'm not complaining, I'm just reporting. I'd much rather it be cold than miserably hot and humid. This is my favorite time of year, even if I DO have my feet wrapped in a heating pad right now. The north wind blowing around my window here in my spare room is downright cold, even with the heat on.

In keeping with the cold weather I'm making a hot and hearty Sunday Dinner this week. Once again I'm making a big pot of white (Great Northern) beans seasoned with a ham hock and some bits of smoked hog jowl that I have left over from New Year's.

I've also fixed a big pot of okra and tomatoes, using some garden okra from my freezer stash. I'll fix a cast iron skillet of cornbread to go along with the beans and okra and tomatoes. Nothing fancy, just hearty Southern-style food that'll stick to our ribs and warm us from the inside out.

Now, what's for Sunday Dinner at your place this week? Share your menu/plans in the comments if you'd like.In spite of the frigidly cold weather this past week, my daughter JESSICA spent Wednesday and Thursday moving from her trailer in Jonesboro back to her hometown of Bay, very near my apartment. She's moved into an apartment catty corner and across the street from me and less than 50 yards away.

I'm very thankful that she was able to get an apartment so close to mine. I'm also thankful that her rent includes her utilities and is cheaper than the trailer she was renting which DIDN'T include her utilities.

Hopefully with the gas she saves from not having to drive back and forth to Bay and what she saves on her utilities this move will help her save some money and have more to spend on groceries and other expenses.I ordered and received MARY@OWLHAVEN'S new cookbook this week, FAMILY FEASTS FOR $75 A WEEK. Click on the link or the pic to check out the cookbook on Amazon.com.

First of all, Mary didn't ask me to review her book and doesn't even know that I'm mentioning it in my blog post. We've been blogging together for almost 5 years now and we cross paths in the blogging world occasionally and more often on Facebook, but she's not a regular reader or commentor on my blog, though I read her blog daily.

All that to say that I LOVE this cookbook! And it's so much more than a cookbook, although the recipes are wonderful, using ingredients that most people already have on hand and are filling, hearty and economical to make, not to mention delicious.

I really appreciate the frugal ideas and hints Mary's included in her book. Although I'm a fairly frugal shopper and cook, Mary has many tips to save money and still cook delicious meals that I'll be incorporating into my shopping and cooking routines.

One of my favorite tips she mentions is cooking ground beef and chicken when you bring it home from the grocery store.

Most of the time you're going to brown ground beef for other dishes anyway, so why not cook it and separate into freezer bags all at once rather than pulling the frozen meat from the freezer, thawing it and then browning it?

I now have 5 lbs. of ground beef precooked and frozen in 5 individual freezer bags, ready to pull from the freezer and add to any number of recipes calling for ground beef. That will save me at least 3o minutes per recipe since I don't have to thaw and brown the ground beef.

The same goes for chicken. I bought a 10 lb. package of chicken leg quarters at Walmart for $5.98, which works out to roughly 60 cents a lb. I separated the legs and thighs from the back bone piece and froze 2 packages of legs and thighs to fry or bake whole. I boiled the rest of the leg quarters and the back bone pieces to make broth and then picked the meat off the bones.

I used the broth and half the chicken meat to make a double batch of SOUTHWEST CHICKEN SOUP, which you can find on MY RECIPE BLOG or by clicking on the link or the photo. The other half of the cooked chicken, about 2 cups, went into the freezer for another meal.

I also have soup leftover from the double batch I cooked that will go into the freezer for a later meal.

(I adapted the recipe from Mary's recipe for CHICKEN TORTILLA SOUP, which is one of the recipes in her cookbook. I changed it so much I decided I'd better rename it. ;o)

From that 10 lb. package of leg quarters I'll get at least 5 meals, and more likely 6 according to how I cook the rest of it. That averages about $1 per meal or less for meat. Pretty good in this day and time, though we often eat meatless meals both by preference and as a conscious effort to eat frugally and healthier.

Just this one hint to cook meats in big portions, separate into recipe sized portions and freeze them is already saving me money and time in the kitchen. I heartily recommend Mary's cookbook!I need to go start my beans cooking and also take my shower and study my Sunday School lesson, so I'm going to finish up tonight by posting a few belated Christmas photos of Emmy, Jessica and me.Y'all have a blessed and WARM Lord's Day. May God bless you with all you need and enough to share is my prayer for each of you, dear family and friends.