A Saturday of Bulk Cooking

It's a little scary how excited I can get by the thought of saving money, time AND energy.  Hence my recent foray into bulk cooking (& freezing) easy meals.  I usually enjoy the prep involved in cooking dinners at home, but breakfast and lunch are a different story.  Mornings are rushed and lunches need to be microwavable.  So I decided to spend a couple hours last saturday cooking and assembling about 20 breakfast burritos and 18 veggie burgers.  I had been wanting to try a couple vegetarian burger recipes anyway, so I took as the perfect opportunity.

First for the burritos.  These were easy.  I scrambled 8 eggs, sauteed 2 peppers and 2 onions, cooked 8 links of maple sausage and roasted some sweet potatoes.  Add some cheese and flour tortillas and you've got yourself an breakfast burrito assembly line.

Collecting the ingredients. 

Assembly commence!

I flash freezed them for about an hour and then individually wrapped in saran wrap, labeled with a "V" for veggie or an "S" for sausage.  From frozen, they take about 1.5 minutes in the microwave, but for a more even heating, defrost overnight and heat for about 45 seconds.  In a pinch, we eat them wrapped in a napkin on our commute to work, but with a few more minutes and some sour cream and salsa, we have ourselves a nice breakfast together.

In an effort to move more toward a whole-foods plant-based diet (which I hear is good for you for all sorts of reasons but while cheese and I may take short breaks, I could never divorce it; even if it gives me cancer) I decided to go for a lentil and barley burger with carrots, onions and parsley.  Since I already had the produce, a quick trip to Whole Foods for the dried lentils and barley (only $1.99 per pound, by the way; maybe the cheapest thing at Whole Foods) was all I needed to get moving.

In addition to the lentils, barley, shredded carrots and onions, these burgers call for tomato paste, Panko bread crumbs, eggs and a smattering of garlic and spices.  I added some lime juice for some extra acid.  The patties were pretty crumbly and hard to form, but I flash froze them for a couple hours and then they were easy to wrap up individually.

Fresh patties on wax paper, waiting to be flash-frozen. 

The verdict on these guys is positive, although with some reservation.  As burgers, they were difficult.  Once thawed, the patties did not stay formed while I browned them on the stovetop.  So I went with it and decided to make it a "hash" instead of a burger.  This was much more successful.  Fry up the hash in a little bit of oil and you have a hearty, healthy meal.  The flavors are great (although I'd add a dash of salt and pepper before serving) and the texture, once fried up, is nice and slightly crispy. I've even been eating them for breakfast lately.

Here's the original recipe, from All Recipes, which I followed pretty closely.

Also good to note: 20 breakfast burritos doesn't actually last you that long, as I had hoped.  When your husband eats two in the morning most days of the week, your stock will quickly be depleted.  Maybe next Saturday will be another bulk cooking day.  But this time I'll double my recipe.   

Painting the Buffet

I've been hesitant to try my hand at painting furniture.  My fear was that my laziness and inexperience would get the best of me and I'd end up with a splotchy, messy, half-painted piece of junk.  Well, emboldened by the many encouraging Pinterest posts that promised me painting furniture was "easy as pie" and "fool-proof", I decided to take a gamble on transforming an old clunky dark wood/laminate server into a bright, white buffet for the dining room.  Here's how it went.

Before: although this photo doesn't really show the full (ugliness of the) buffet. 

I used the blog "Young House Love's" posts on painting furniture to guide my adventure. And now I can confidently say that the most important thing you will do in  painting your furniture is buying the right products. You might be tempted, as I was, to go for the cheaper stuff.  Don't do it.  It'll take way more coats to get the same coverage and durability.  At Young House Love's recommendation, I bought Zinsser's oil-based cover stain primer and a quality semi-gloss interior latex paint and they worked great.

After removing the doors and drawers and taking off the hardware, I wiped everything down and then started with a couple coats of the primer.  And no: I didn't sand.  That's why the Zinsser's is so great: no sanding required to get great coverage.  Although I will say oil-based is a b*tch to get off skin and paint brushes. You'll definitely need paint thinner.

I used a brush for the nooks and crannies but a small 6-inch foam roller for the rest.  As you'll see below, after the first coat I was worried.  It was splotchy and transparent and I worried that the whole project was ruined.   But the second coat worked wonders.  Stay the course, friends.

After one coat of primer: Not looking too great. 

After two coats of primer: much better. 

The primer was a quick drying, requiring only a two hour dry time between coats, so I also got two coats of paint in that same afternoon.  I just used a bright semi-gloss white by Olympic.  Worked just fine.  Then, boosted by the success of my efforts so far, I decided to add a faint gray accent (Gentle Rain by Behr) around the insets of the doors and drawers.  I taped the edges and brushed in two coats of the tinted paint. In the bright sunlight, it was hard to tell the difference between the gray and the white, but where it sits now, the gray worked nicely as a subtle contrast to add a little bit of interest.

In anticipation of all the bumps scrapes this guy will get as a server and buffet, I decided to finish the whole piece with two coats of a clear protective finish. I used Minwax Water-Based Polycrylic Protective Finish, rolling it on with the small foam roller.  I added four glass knobs from Home Depot and called it a day. 

All in all, the project took about $55 and 8 hours over two days to complete, and I'm pretty pleased with the result.  It really brightens up an otherwise dark corner of the dining room.  

 In addition to the new paint job, this little guy also got a some new accessories by way of three antique mason jars and an old cheese box, snagged for $10 total at an estate sale. Also, I pruned the rose bushes out front for winter giving the jars the perfect finishing touch.

Speaking of fun cheap antiquey finds, look at what my husband and I snagged at a thrift store this weekend.  They're waiting to be transformed for a fun Christmas project, but for now they're keeping our hearth company. Anyone up for learning some histology?