Cookerati

Cooking Projects

I think that some days cooking should be the project of the day.  I know we think of gardening as a project, or changing the oil, or cleaning the gutters, but some days need to be set aside to accomplish a cooking project.  While me may also think of Thanksgiving, or Christmas as a project, and it is, but I’m not referring to that in particular. Making Salsa was one of our projects this year.  This weekend my kids are gone, which makes it a little easier.  It’s snowing outside and that helps to reinforce that today is a good indoor project day. 

Turkey Soup

I have a turkey carcass (my sister in law didn’t want it – can you believe my luck).  It had some meat on it so I cooked everything in a pot of water.  Then strained the broth into another pot, put everything out on pans to cool and removed all the meat.  Then I stuck the bones, and skin and everything except the meat, along with onion – quartered, peels and all, plus some carrots, celery and chard ( we have it growing in the garden tunnel outside), salt and pepper back into the pot with all of the broth (and drippings I stole too, that she didn’t want -lucky, lucky me). I’m simmering the carcass for a good long while – around 12 hours.  I will strain it, cool it, stick it in the fridge so that I can remove the fat.  Then I will put the stock and some of the turkey I picked off into containers and freeze it.  We will have turkey and noodles for dinner or turkey soup or whatever, but I will have the broth and meat separated and stored in the freezer in family dinner size portions. 

Canning Cinnamon Apples

My husband and I are also cooking up roasting pans full of apples and cinnamon.  For this I have the ultimate tool – an apple peeler.  Not one of those hand held scrapers, but an apple peeler with a crank.  You put the apples on and zzzzzzzippp, they are done. Then you core them.  We have an apple corer and slicer that we inherited from my husband’s great aunt.  My husband put together a bowl with water, and packets of true lemon and true orange.

After the apples are cored and slice, we drop them into the liquid, then transfer it to the roaster.  My husband took all the peelings and cores, and juiced them, adding that to the roasters with the apples.  I mixed in some cinnamon as we went along otherwise, the apples would make a mess when stirred.  I covered the pans with foil and stuck it into the oven on low and will cook them until they start to get soft.  We’ll cool them a little and then put them into hot pack jars with the liquid from the bottom of the pans.  Then into the boiling water bath.  These apples will be good with dinner instead of applesauce, or for desert with some oatmeal crumb on top. 

Other Projects

Some families do cooking for the month all on one day.  My father used to do that.  He would make up big pots of soup and put it into single serving portions because his soup was much better than store bought.  You can make big batches of lasagna and freeze family size portions or casseroles.  One year my family had a cookie exchange, so we all baked up huge batches of cookies to swap. 

Cooking projects are great for doing something now, that will save you time when you need it.  Of course, cooking project night means leftovers because I don’t have time to cook a real dinner, but that’s okay too. 

Links:

Freezer Cooking at Organize Home

Once a Month cooking at Dinners in the Freezer

Host a Christmas Cookie Swap at Myrecipes

Christmas Cookie recipes at Razzle Dazzle

Preserving Apples at Canning Pantry

Homemade Turkey Stock at Modern Beet

Canning supplies Soup Stock Supplies

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