Baking Day, Part II

My foot is good and swollen tonight after two days of standing in the kitchen baking. Today, I made 3 more pizza crusts, some cheese breadsticks (see picture), a zucchini nut bread and zucchini pecan muffins. I did not get around to making the saltines. The cream cheese pound cake I made is excellent, but the vanilla one is overcooked. I sliced off the crusts and have saved the guts of the cake. I'll freeze it for a special occasion, then make some type of tort dessert, layers of pound cake, berries, and whipped cream.

At any rate, I like batch cooking, especially batch baking. I find that if I know I have 2 dozen muffins, then I don't crave them. By baking my pizza crusts in advance, I can make pizza in less than 30 minutes for a quick dinner. I made my own pizza sauce, too. The bread machine does all the hard work, and in less than 3 hours, I have 5 crusts ready to load up with good food, a head start on 5 dinners. Other big advantages to batch cooking, in addition to simply saving time and for the convenience on a night when you are too tired to cook, is that you can have a ready meal when you are too sick to cook for yourself. I make and can homemade soups just for this purpose. Also, by baking cakes and making casseroles in advance, you just pull something out of the freezer to take to a neighbor's house in the event there is a death or they need help cooking, etc. It's a good thing.

Skyguy and I miscommunicated on dinner this evening. He was being sweet and brought home KFC, but I had already cooked spaghetti sauce with some grated squash added, not to mention the breadsticks. I suppose we will eat that tomorrow for dinner. I haven't had KFC in a while, mainly because we don't eat out much, and secondly because the local KFC has been closed for remodeling after a fire. It just reopened a few weeks ago. It has probably been a year since I ate KFC fried chicken, and maybe it is just me, but it wasn't good. The extra crispy crust wasn't crispy at all, nor did it have the flavor I expected. I don't know what kind of change they've made, but Harlan Sanders would roll over in his grave if he tasted that. My favorite is Church's Chicken, but there isn't a store near here. Bojangles will have to do, because I certainly don't want KFC again. I probably should just start frying it at home. I did pretty good on the last batch, but I just don't fry that much. I do love fried chicken though, and I know that I can do better than the crap we got from KFC tonight.

Skyguy also picked up a couple seed packets of bush beans since we had low germination on the Blue Lake and Contender beans from 2006. I think we have just enough time to get another batch of beans in before frost. We are getting beans, and this morning I finally picked enough to can, but I think I will freeze them instead. Hopefully, in a few months, we will still be eating beans from the Royal Burgundy and the Asparagus beans so I will be able to can the Blue Lakes I will plant tomorrow. Pressure canning is such a pain for me because my stove doesn't get hot enough and because pressure canners scare me. I usually do this on the propane burner outside, just in case of an explosion. I can do 7 quarts at a time, and canning like that, in the heat, just drags on and on. Blanching and freezing is much faster, and I actually have room in the freezer for a few quarts of beans. But, I've been trying to can more and freeze less, so that I can eliminate one of my freezers and save on the power bill and reduce my demand for energy in general. The other day I came across a list of things you can do to save money and energy, and I'd like to pass them on to you.

1. When you buy gasoline, make your purchase at night. At night, temperatures are cooler and that makes gasoline more dense. Since the pumps measure gas by volume, you will actually get more gas—it will be cheaper overall.

2. On long trips, keep your windows closed at high speeds—drag from open windows reduces a car’s fuel efficiency by 10 percent. If your truck gets 15 miles to the gallon, you could get 16.5 miles to the gallon. Over a year's time, the savings add up.

3. Cleaning 100 pounds of junk from your car will get you up to 2 percent more miles per gallon. That is like getting a free tank of gas over the span of a year.

4. If you are going to be baking at 350 degrees, and the oven is not packed full, wrap and bake some potatoes for quick meals, lunches, and snacks. Or, use stale bread to make and freeze garlic toast for those nights when you just want bread with your pork chops or salad. Just as you should run full loads of laundry and dishes, try to fill the oven as well.