"I hate my kids right now. I don't know when that happened - they were so cute..."

I have a friend who, with his wife, (I think mostly she does the writing) writes a blog called I'm Not Cheap, I'm Poor. You can find them HERE. It's about how they cut corners by growing food, buying in bulk and cooking from scratch. It's very well written, and they have great ideas, I love to read it. But mostly I'm like holy shit why? Spending an entire day on egg rolls is just not worth it to me no matter how poor I am, and we've had pretty lean times in the past. I use their fried rice recipe pretty regularly, and I love it, but the rest of it? Seems like a lot of work. There's no way I'm grinding my own meat or making 700 potstickers, especially since the ling ling ones come with a sauce that is TO DIE FOR. If they had a recipe for that sauce I'd swoop it up no problem.

So I'd read on completely bewildered but suitably impressed. Then I realized we would not be using our crop of squash and tomatoes to make tortilla soup during the summer. As a compound, chicken tacos, arroz con pollo, and tortilla soup are guaranteed crowd pleasers, they are our favorites, we LOVE them. Unfortunately, we also agree, summer is for salad, not for soup. It just heats you up too much, and when it's 110 outside? No help is needed in the sweat department. But being spoiled rotten with the yummy, beautiful squash in the summer, (Seriously, if you saw how pretty it is next to the sad pathetic specimins displayed in the grocery store you'd be amazed too.) it is really hard to buy a bunch in the winter for our beloved tortilla soup. So I googled freezing squash. You have to blanch it and put it in a freezer safe container. Blanching for those not in the know, (me 2 months ago) is putting them in boiling water for set amount of time and immediately transferring to an ice bath to stop the cooking process.

I can do that, I said to myself. I gathered a bunch of our different squashes, and some tomatoes, and spent much of an afternoon chopping. Luckily G was watching We Bought a Zoo so was occupied despite the fact I hate when I let her watch and entire afternoon of tv. The end was worth the means right? I then did the blanching, it took some tweaking, but I finally got it right for what I needed. I ended up with 4 soup starters of veggies. I was very impressed with myself. Once the veggies really started coming in I did it again, for 6 more starters. We have 10 soup starters of organic beautiful veggies from our garden for our delicious tortilla soups to keep us warm and cozy this winter.

It took all that for me to get it, for me to understand what my friend and his wife knew all along. Knowing the ingredients are the best quality, knowing exactly what goes into what you are feeding everyone you love is well worth a day chopping and boiling and ice bathing. Because this winter's soups? Are going to kick ass. AND we didn't waste all the squash we were getting sick of in other forms.

My MiL already knew this too, she put up 6 batches of arroz con pollo starters and has been tomatoing the shit out of her place all summer. We have sauce and salsa up the wazoo, and made out of the best stuff possible. I'm actually looking forward to cooking from scratch this winter. It's so satisfying knowing the hard work is paying off when we need it. BPA-full tomato sauce from the store? No thanks. MiL's pantry is well stocked with jars full of healthiness.

I will keep reading their blog, I will absolutely try some of their recipes, (I'm about to put in a personal request for chow mien as that's G's favorite.) and I will keep a more open mind about the time and effort being worth the end result. Good for them for already knowing that.

I'm still buying egg rolls and potstickers though. Eff that noise.

*My quote is from Jeff, Who Lives at Home. We just watched this and I really liked this movie. I liked the characters, the people who played them, and what their journeys were. It was funny and soulful all in one. Highly recommended.