How to Survive a Broken Furnace

Willie and I learned some lessons last year on keeping warm when your furnace is out. A switch went out on our furnace, and, while we were waiting for the replacement part, we had to make do.  Oddly enough, my brother's furnace went out last winter as well. You can read up on his tips for retaining heat here: Saving Money By the Numbers - Winter, your house and you. Here are the lessons that we learned at our house:

The first thing to do is to add layers. Layers of clothing, or layers of bedding. Either, or both, it's your choice. The more layers you have, the better insulated you are, the less heat is lost, and, therefore, the warmer you stay. Put thermals on, or put thermals under your pajamas. Add a sweater on top of your t-shirt. Wear socks or a warm hat to bed, if you can stand it. Add a blanket or two to your bed, and if one part of your body gets colder than the rest (your feet, or your behind, for example) put an extra blanket covering just that portion of your body. That way your whole person doesn't overheat, but that particular body part will stay warm.

If you have a space heater, set it up in your bedroom at night and keep the door closed. You can also set it up in a room where you will be spending a lot of time, such as your computer room or living room. Be sure to adhere to all safety precautions when using space heaters, as they can pose a danger if left unattended.

Keep your bathroom door closed while bathing. That way the heat from the shower or bath will remain in the room, and you won't have to exit to a freezer when you are clean and rinsed. When you are finished, leave the bathroom door open so that the heat can escape into the rest of the house. You could also bring your space heater in the bathroom while you bathe, if you are really concerned about the cold.

The next one may be a bit hard to take, but bear with me! DO YOUR CHORES! Wash dishes, wash laundry, cook dinner, do some baking. I know what you must be thinking, "Those heat sources are somewhat insignificant, how will they help raise the temperature in my home?" And, besides using your stove or oven, they may not, especially if your home is large. (You can find some recipes for baked goods here: How to Stay Warm in Winter: Baking!) If you wash dishes or laundry, the hot water heater will kick in and offer a little heat, the drying cycle on the dishwasher will offer some heat, the clothes dryer will offer some heat, but none are too terribly significant. The biggest source of heat here might be from your own body. If you are constantly moving, your body is going to generate a lot of heat. So, if you sit down to Facebook, play video games, or surf the web, bear in mind that doing your chores will keep you warmer.

Food Storage: Buying in Bulk

It used to be that at our house buying in bulk and having a well-stocked pantry were just not things that happened. One day, though, something clicked and we began to realize that keeping the food items that we use most often on hand is much easier and cheaper than going to the store and back a million times. So, how does one keep the things they need on hand at all times, without going broke in the process? Buy as much as you can while items are on sale, while shopping with coupons, or while shopping at stores that provide bulk amounts at discounted prices (such as Costco or Sam's Club.) The questions you should ask yourself when selecting items to purchase are: Is this something my family will use on a regular basis? Do I have a means of storing this item long enough for my family to use it? Will my family go through enough of this item quickly enough that it doesn't spoil or go to waste? You should be able to answer "yes" to all three questions in order to select an item for purchase. Purchasing food that will not be eaten is wasteful, and we all know my opinion on wastefulness.

Let's talk about storage for a bit. Storing canned and prepackaged dry goods is fairly easy. Store in a cool dry place, rotate oldest product forward and newest to the back. In the restaurants I've worked at we remembered FIFO: first in, first out. I also like to face my canned and prepackaged dry goods, so that you can read the label and know what it is, and group like items together, such as all your veggies in one spot and another spot for broth and gravy.


Frozen goods should also be pretty easy. If your food is individually wrapped, fine. If you have things you need to portion, remember to label and date your container. This way to know what you have, and when it went in, so that you can determine when it will go bad. For help here, please see my Load Up Your Freezer post.




Often times staple items such as sugar and flour are sold in large bags. Buying these commonly used ingredients in bulk is a very smart way to go, so long as you have a way to store it. Five gallon buckets will usually fill this role rather nicely. You can typically purchase buckets and specially designed lids at hardware stores, feed stores, or super centers. The lids that we use are called gamma lids, and are snap on lids with a screw on inner lid. This makes it fairly easy to access your food without having to constantly pry off the lids. It also allows you to open the bucket without accidentally dumping in any dirt or debris that may have accumulated on the lid during storage.







If you don't have the money to invest in this bucket and lids system, just do what my mom did when I was growing up. Start purchasing your laundry detergent by the bucket. When the bucket is empty, thoroughly wash and dry it. Line it with a drawstring garbage bag and add your foodstuffs. Draw the top of the bag closed, fold it over and apply your lid. The garbage bag will prevent the aforementioned dirt and debris from being dumped into your food. No matter which method you use, remember to label your containers so you don't have to guess which bucket your bread flour might be in. At my house we have all-purpose flour, bread flour, corn meal, white rice, white sugar, and ramen noodles in buckets. Mom kept egg noodles, lasagna noodles, flour, sugar, powdered milk and pinto beans.

For those food items that you have a lot of, but not enough to justify a 5 gallon bucket, you can use half gallon canning jars. We use half gallon jars to store our salt, powdered milk, popcorn, coffee beans, brown sugar, lentils and chickpeas. (To name a few) You can purchase plastic storage caps for your jars, so that you don't have to mess with the ring and lid combo, and you can use a label maker to label all your products. For items you don't use often, you can buy a lid sealer what is compatible with a Food Saver vacuum storage system. It will vacuum seal a canning lid onto your jar to keep the food inside fresher longer.

Using Gift Cards to Stock Up on Food

Every month at the nursing home where I work we have an All-Staff Meeting. During the meeting they hold a raffle and give away all sorts of little prizes. The most popular prizes are gift cards, and I have won a few in my day. At the last meeting I attended I won a gift card to Olive Garden. I was quite dismayed by the idea, since the nearest Olive Garden restaurant is a 75 mile drive from my house, but then I got to thinking. I had a few gift cards that we had received a few years back as gifts, and if I combined them all I could buy a good amount of food. So, what was the plan? The next time I drove down to the "city" I would order food to go, portion it up when I got home, and use it to fill my freezer with lunches.

Too much Parmesan on my penne? I didn't think so either. 

You could do it with any gift card to a "sit down" restaurant, as long as you are ordering the right stuff. You want to make sure that what you are ordering is something that can be easily reheated, and won't be ruined by the microwave. Probably the best options would be pasta, soups, chicken dishes, or anything saucy served over rice or noodles. If you were planning to eat it within a day or two, you could get a salad and put it in the fridge, just be sure that the dressing is on the side and any toppings that would get soggy, or cause the salad to get soggy, are on the side as well. You can also use your card to purchase side dishes. For example, a card for a Mexican restaurant could buy you shredded meat, rice, beans, or salsa that you could use to make burritos at home. A card for an Asian restaurant could buy you fried rice or lo mein noodles, to which you can add your own meat. Avoid deep fried or breaded food, as it really doesn't reheat well. If you order a steak dinner, order your steak to be cooked a little less than you normally would, put the veggies and potatoes in separate containers to put in your lunch, and slice the steak thin to use in other dishes (put it on pasta, salad, in fried rice or cook it up for steak and eggs in the morning.) There are so many possibilities!

Zuppa Toscana and some crescent rolls from a can.

So, what did I do with my gift cards? I had enough gift cards to order four meals from Olive Garden, and each meal came with a choice of salad or a bowl of soup. I opted for the soup, so I could freeze it for later. My four meals got portioned into 7 lunch-sized portions and put into the freezer. Since the bowls of soup were pretty darn big, I ate one as a meal and portioned the others into six "cup-sized" portions and put them into the freezer. Now, whenever I want to take soup with me for lunch all I need is some bread or a sandwich to go with it! All I did was put the meals into the fridge a few days in advance to thaw, and add a splash of water before I microwaved it. The water will keep it from drying out or getting hard as quickly in the microwave.

Now, I believe that I have some Cafe Rio gift cards somewhere around here...

Food Storage: Load Up Your Freezer!

There are so many things that can be kept in your freezer! More often than not I feel like we associate frozen food with frozen burritos, TV dinners, and store-bought frozen vegetables, but there's all kinds of stuff that you can make, buy and grow to keep in your freezer!

Bread & Baked Goods

My grandma always kept an extra loaf or two of bread in her freezer, and it makes sense to do so. If bread is on sale, buy a few extra loaves to stash in your freezer. That way you have extra on hand in case family drops by. Defrost it in the fridge if you have a few days to allow it to thaw, or on the counter top if you need it right away. Likewise you can freeze hamburger or hot dog buns, hoagie rolls, dinner rolls, tortillas or whatever it is that's on sale. If you like to bake you can also freeze your homemade concoctions, bread, muffins, corn muffins, banana bread, tomato soup cake, biscuits, etc.

Vegetables

There are a great many different vegetables that you can freeze and keep. So far I have frozen onions, jalapenos, snow peas, bell peppers, and pumpkin. You can also freeze corn, peas, carrots, potatoes, asparagus, tomatoes, squash or green beans. We froze our jalapenos whole, diced the onions, and cut the bell peppers into strips. For the snow peas, I froze them individually on a wax paper-lined baking sheet before I put them into a zip-top bag. I would highly recommend spreading out diced onions or cubed vegetables on a baking sheet to freeze before bagging it up as well, otherwise you will end up with one big clump.

Fruit

Most fruit freezes and keeps very well in the freezer. I have frozen berries, bananas, cantaloupe, and kiwi fruit. You can also freeze mangoes, plums, peaches, grapes, or any fleshy fruit, really. For instructions on freezing fruit, and for peeling kiwi fruit, please visit my blog post Make It Yourself: Frozen Fruit.

Stock & Broth

This Thanksgiving Willie decided to use the "spatchcock" method of cooking our turkeys. So, the spines were cut out of the birds so that the carcasses laid flat and cooked more quickly. He also decided to remove the wings, as we never eat the wings from our turkeys. When faced with the dilemma of what to do with these extra turkey parts, he decided to make turkey stock. It was decided that the stock would be frozen so that we could use it later. Some of the stock was put into resealable containers and frozen "in bulk" and some was portioned out into muffin tins for use in smaller recipes. We lined the muffin tins with silicone baking cups for ease of extraction, but you can put the stock directly into the tins as well. If the stock is difficult to remove, just dip the bottom of the muffin tin in hot water to loosen it. Put it in a zip top bag and put it in your freezer! It is very helpful to measure how much liquid your muffin tin/baking cup holds so that you can estimate how many portions to use in a recipe. My silicone baking cups hold about 1/3 cup.

Pre-Made Meals

As I'm sure you know, I really enjoy cooking meals to take with me to work. It is a lot cheaper to eat something you have made yourself than to go out to eat every day on your lunch break. Often times I will make a huge batch of whatever it is, portion it out into containers, and put half of it in the freezer for later. I've made chicken lo mein, chicken and ramen stir fry, kung pao chicken, chicken and rice, Mom's stroganoff, keema mattar, fajitas and Mexican rice, and chicken and stuffing. This year we also portioned out our Thanksgiving meal to freeze for later. So, turkey, potatoes and stuffing went together, and the gravy got its own container. When your meals in the fridge start to dwindle, just pull another stack out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge. Add a little water before microwaving, and you should be very pleased with your results!

Burgers & Meatballs

Yes, you can buy frozen hamburger patties already formed, but if you ever want to spice things up (get it) you can always make your own seasoned patties, or patties with "mix-ins." We have made patties with onion soup mix, or garlic herb soup mix and they have turned out really well. You can also mix in items such as blue cheese crumbles, bacon bits, diced onions, diced peppers, mushrooms, or shredded cheddar cheese before forming and freezing your patties. Just be sure to separate the patties with wax paper before you freeze them, or you will have a heck of a time separating them! The other pre-made beef product that we like to keep in our freezer is meatballs. We make and can our own spaghetti sauce, so it only makes sense to make and freeze our own meatballs to cook with it! You can find instructions on meatball making on my Meatballs blog post.

Rice

This is a concept that I had never thought of before, but Willie, being the genius that he is, suggested that we portion and freeze white rice to take along with our lunches. So, any items that need a rice accompaniment, such as Mom's stroganoff, keema mattar or any sort of stir fry not involving a noodle, will have its own portion of rice. Just put the entree in its own container, and put a portion of rice with it in your lunch. There is no need to thaw the rice, simply add a splash of water, cover loosely and microwave. You will need to stir it around (or shake it with the lid on) midway through the heating process for even heating. Combine the entree and rice and you're all set!

Save Your Pennies : Cheap and Easy Meals

A delicious Southern-style meal.

I read some statistics the other day that said average Americans spend about $15 a day on eating out, and could save up enough money to go on a vacation in just a few months by cooking at home. Although I'm not sure how accurate this statement is, it does make me think about how many of my friends and co-workers go out to eat on a regular basis, and how much money they could be saving by just keeping a well stocked fridge and having some easy recipes. I've already covered a similar topic: Packing a Lunch, but I wanted to elaborate a bit on the importance of saving money where you can.

A tasty mixed drink.

For a real world example, I work for a national chain restaurant. The average cost per plate is around $13, and kids meals are between $4-5. Non-alcoholic drinks are about $2.25, beer costs between $3.00 and $6.75 depending on size and brand, and shots and mixed drinks can cost anywhere between $5.00-$9.00. My hypothetical family for this example consists of five people: dad, mom, and three kids. Dad orders a tall beer ($5.50) and a burger ($10.) Mom gets a strawberry daiquiri ($6) and a pasta dish ($11.) The two older kids get bigger kids meals ($5 each) and the youngest gets a smaller kids meal ($4.) That comes out to be over $46 dollars before tax and tip, and without ordering an appetizer or dessert. It's pretty easy to cook burgers and pasta at home, and the items on kids meals are typically easy to prepare at home as well (mac & cheese, cheeseburgers, chicken fingers, etc.) Even at a fast food establishment you could spend $30 to feed 5 people. Imagine how much food you could make at home if you spent that money at the grocery store instead of at a restaurant.

Willie's Super Secret Cheater Ribs

So, where can you find cheap and easy recipes and meal ideas? Well, here, of course!

From the Kitchen 

My collection of "back of the package" recipes.

You can also check the back of boxes, bottles, cans and containers of food in your pantry! There are a lot of great recipe ideas to be found on the labels of food, and typically they are pretty inexpensive to make. Some of the best recipes come from the labels for baking ingredients (such as baking powder,) condensed soups, canned tomatoes, and pasta. Having free recipes to make baked goods, pasta, soups, casseroles, and side dishes using items you may already have on hand is great!

Chicken Rice-a-Roni with chicken breast, broccoli & cheese.

In addition to recipes there are "make it a meal" instructions on the back of side dishes like Rice-a-Roni or Pasta-Roni, and "stir in ideas" for livening up meal kits such as Hamburger Helper.
I really like these ideas. The "make it a meal" option allows you to add meat to your rice or pasta, and tells you how to adjust the ingredients and cook times to accommodate. It also suggests a stir-in or topping idea to round it all out.

Crunchy Taco Hamburger Helper with corn & hot sauce.

When I was growing up we ate Hamburger Helper quite often. It was one of my dad's go-to suggestion for what to eat for dinner. I hated it. Now, as an adult, it, and likewise Chicken Helper, is something we cook at our house fairly frequently. The difference? We use the suggestions from the "stir-in ideas" list, or we test out our own stir-ins and toppings. How you season the meat you are using also plays a role in keeping it interesting.

Chicken Patty Parmesan with hotdog bun garlic toast.

Last but not least, look in your pantry and your freezer to see what you have. Use your imagination! See what you can build! Use chicken patties to make Chicken Parmesan, English muffins, canned biscuits or pita bread to make pizzas, leftover chicken, turkey or roast beef to make "shit on a shingle" or shred it up to make tacos. There's all kinds of stuff you can make just by using what's in your house already!