So my deep freezer downstairs was starting to look bare and we were having questionable storms so I decided to gather all of my meat from my upstairs freezer and put it in the downstairs freezer. If you all remember the summer Lydia came home there was that massive storm that knocked out power for the whole county for a week. We lost our entire contents of our fridge/freezer combo.
Taking a count
Anyways, as I was moving it, I tallied up all of our meat and made a list. then I made a calendar in Excel and started plugging them in. So yes, I have a menu, but I did not plan out every side or component of the meal, just the main course. Then ideally, every Monday, I can go to the store and buy the salad or fresh corn or what have you for the whole week. So far, I haven't had to go to the store yet, we have been living off our our pantry and garden. Dear Jesus, please keep the squash and zucchini coming!
Saving time and saving costs
Tonight's menu reads Poppy's Hamburgers. Tomorrow it reads frozen pizza. LMNOP needed milk so I ran to the store and bought buns and corn for the hamburger meal and a bagged salad to go with the frozen pizza we already have. Minus the cost of the milk and juice I bought, I probably spent around $9 for the buns, salad, onions, corn to throw on the grill and the secret ingredient for his famous hamburgers. How many times have you planned what you were making for the week as you were going up and down the store's isles? This has taken the guess work out for me and is a much welcomed change.
Wow, it will last a while.
By just plugging in the meat, frozen entrees we have and things like frozen pizza into my calendar, our menu takes us through the end of July. Then you all know of my famous turkey ground turkey deal...ahhh, you don't that was on Facebook. Ok, soon I will post my story of the turkey. Anyways, and amazing deal and 14 lbs of ground turkey later, I rearranged the menu and was able to take us through the middle of August.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
So to make my pastor's wife, mom of two, sunday school chick, business owner, crazy lady life easier, I made some days of the week the same meal every week. I think you might remember my tuesday taco nights. Sometimes I can find the food comforting and familiar and it just resets the tone of your week. Our current repeats are every Sunday (you know our Sundays are not predictable) we will be having noodles, pasta sauce with ground beef stirred in. For sides, we will just use whatever is left over from the week before. Aren't Sundays a great clean out the fridge day anyways. Its cheap, its super easy and I am currently debating wether I will ground 5 weeks worth of meat at a time and freeze it individually. I think I might try it.
Our other repeat meal this summer is wednesday night hot dogs. Wednesday night is our bowling night. It takes what a whole 5 minutes to grill a hotdog? At the end of the meal you are left with a plate to wash that you carried the hot dogs in from the grill. This past Wednesday we had grilled hotdogs, re-grilled pineapple, a can of baked beans, leftover coleslaw and finished off our leftover potato salad. By the way Lydia Grace can kill some potato salad.
Code Blue. Code Blue
I did color in the days I am not cooking blue. Of course you know we have our church's Leadership and Logistics meeting at my house on the second and forth Mondays and everyone takes turns cooking. We were just in Cumberland for a 2 day getaway. In the month of June we will be celebrating a very special Poppy. Also in the month of July, somebody special has a birthday and we will take her to whatever restaurant she wants.
Code Red....well more of a pink.
These are days that will require a special menu of its own...not just the entree planned out, but every component and will require a special budget. We have company staying at our house in June, AB's bday party and Lyd's party.
Going out to eat
I have feeling we will not be going out to eat as much. There really is not a need to. It is so tempting to. Man, last night was one of them. I can see my old habits. A long day, a long week, the last thing you want to do is cook. But because fish sticks were already on the menu, I forced myself to turn the oven on. Once the oven was on, I put frozen broccoli in the microwave, boiled water for our mac and cheese and opened a can of peas for lyds. Not the most glorious cooking, not the healthiest but this is how my family eats. Take it or leave it. Dinner was done in 14 minutes. It would have taken me 14 minutes to look up and decide on a pizza place that delivers and then to place the call. Then they say it takes 45 minutes to deliver. To celebrate the fact that we stuck to the plan and probably saved $35 in pizza delivery costs, I gave everyone an ice cream sandwich...that is if they ate all their fish sticks. (I see now how I can afford more treats like ice cream sandwiches if I am saving money by not going out to eat and by using what we already have in our pantry/freezer.)
Hug trees and go paperless.
I have not printed it yet. If you know me, you know the hug tree part was a joke, however if I did print it, it would be a waste. I would have to keep reprinting it. Like the time when I added 14 pounds of ground turkey. You know my family would kill me if we had ground turkey 14 days in a row, I had to reshuffle everything, throw in a pork chop here and there and mix it up. Also, the other night we were slated to have fish sticks, one of Dustin's favorites. That morning he informed me he was fasting. No point in me making them and tempting him. So I made my favorite meal, scrambled eggs and french toast. We moved the fish sticks to last night and moved whatever was on the menu for last night to two weeks from now. (and bonus, the eggs and french toast didn't use up a meat so it just prolonged the number of days we have groceries planned out) and breakfast for dinner isn't one of Dustin's favorites.
Here is what is slated for next week:
Tonight
Poppy's Hamburgers
Saturday
Frozen Pizza
(however we will probably do it for lunch and join America a day early
by taking our amazing Poppy to dinner and celebrating him)
Sunday
of course noodles, pasta sauce and ground turkey
Monday
a frozen entree in a bag
of sweet and sour chicken with rice
I have a small group I go to the 3rd monday of each month.
Just for moms.
Tuesday
NY Strip steak...to make up for the gross dinner
I left my family with the night before
Wednesday
Chicken n Dumplings
What?!? no hotdogs? you contradicted yourself. Well here is the deal. the other day i was craving (no I am not pregnant) my mom's chicken and dumplings. I bought the chicken and the biscuits for the dumplings but I forgot to buy the frozen peas and carrots. (my mom never added veggies that is my twist). Well, Dustin is NEVER a fan of chicken on the bone, even though I am going to remove it, and I know my family will welcome a hotdog break, and if I slip this meal in unexpectedly on him (pretty sure he does not read my blog) he will have no choice but to eat it and move on because we have to leave the house by 6:30 to get to bowling in time. I figured I would bite the bullet and try my hand at it. And I chose sooner than later because the biscuits are gonna expire if I don't.
Thursday
Lobster Ravoili
Its the frozen bertoli kind. My family loves it. It is usually $8 or $9 a box however the store had it on sale for $5 and I had a $1.5 coupon so woo hoo to fancy Lobster ravoili for only $3.5 a box. You will see it on our menu in the future. I have like 4 boxes of it.
Friday
the day our company arrives.
I have not yet planned out that menu.
