Monday, June 28, 2010

Menu Plan Monday June 28


I have a plan for this week, but I am prepared for it to be foiled. :) My DH is working crazy hours this week, so I have no idea when he will/ or will not be around for dinner, which could affect meal preparation and dining time. Hopefully this gives us a jumping off place at least.
Obviously I am a proponent of meal planning, I know it helps us stay on budget, and well fed, and FishMama @ www.lifeasmom.com agrees with me. Check out this post for the easiest way to start.

Monday - Mac and Cheese (We got a free one last week from one of our Kraft First Taste letters), Ham or Chicken (depending on sales), peas.
Tuesday - bbq chicken - in the crock pot!
Wednesday - Church
Thursday - Sloppy Joes - Freezer Recipe - already time to make more :)
Friday - Family Night
Saturday - Lasagna - Freezer
Sunday - 4th of July!
For more great plans check out orgjunkie.com

Monday, June 21, 2010

Freezer Follow Up.

We finally got around to having our June Freezer day today, and it was great. We followed our original plan pretty well, and I only managed to mess up one thing significantly :) When I made the clazones this time I guess I didn't crimp the edges well, because when I opened the oven there was cheese everywhere. Oops! I also forgot that I planned on making a ton of them and only made 6 for my friend, we have some more in the freezer and I figured I could make some more in a few days if I decided I wanted more.

We made 4 lasagnas, 4 dinners worth of the Southwest Roll-ups (we doubled the recipe), 6 calzones, and 4 batches of the lemon chicken. We worked over at my friends house, and she doesn't have a bread machine, so I promised to bring some butterhorns over later, and I made the sloppy joes early when I got nervous that she was going to have the baby before our cooking day, so I will bring some of those over to them later.

The lemon chicken and the southwest roll-ups are both new recipes to us, but both were easy to put together, I just hope they are yummy!

All in all, I think the our freezer cooking day was a success, and because of the choices we made, today we got it done in about 3 hrs. :) Yay!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Menu Plan Monday - June 21

We have a freezer day planned for later in the week, and I am regretting not having much in my freezer right now, but here is the plan for now.

Monday - Sloppy Joes (These are in the freezer, I just need to make some rolls to contain them tonight.)

Tuesday - Chicken Parmesan for dinner and a blueberry shortcake for dessert

Wednesday - Church?? (We have a fun conference going on at church Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but it goes a bit late for our toddler, so I'm not sure whether or not we will make it to church Wed. night)

Thursday - Chicken in the crockpot, green beans, rice, bread

Friday - Freezer Cooking day! Family night out!

Saturday - Southwest rollups

Sunday - Lasagna

I'll let you know how it goes :)

Back from Vacation - Ready to Hit the Ground Running

We had a great week vacationing with family at the beach last week, although upon the return home our little toddler managed to pick up some kind of bug. She has had a 100+ fever off and on since around dinner time last night. Amazingly she has still been a trooper and is doing quite well other than the fever. This week we have to get back on our menu plan, but we also have a freezer cooking day planned on Friday with our Buddy (assuming, of course, that her son Daniel does not decide to make his appearance before then). So I'll post our menu plan next, and then on Friday I will let you know how we made out with our freezer day. I'm excited about the menu. Should be fun. :)

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Menu Plan - June 6



This week is going to be great. (That is my positive attitude at work!)

Sunday - Spaghetti - This is the all time easiest meal great for just about anyone. We usually serve it with a salad (or green beans) and garlic bread.

Monday - Father - in - Law's B-day Celebration!

Tuesday - Meatloaf - I froze 2 a few days ago when I was cooking up ground beef for another meal, so I just need to remember to thaw it Monday night!

Wednesday - Church

Thursday - Sloppy Joes - These are a part of my great freezer plan. I am going to attempt to make 4 batches (as long as I have enough ground beef in the freezer, I should probably check that before Thursday).

Friday - Family Night

Saturday - Chicken - I haven't decided what version of chicken we are having that night, but I have a few breasts of chicken in the freezer, and we can either do mushroom onion chicken, baked chicken, or some sort of chicken and rice.

Have a great week! For more great menu plan ideas check out orgjunkie.com

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Freezer Plan! June

This month I have a plan to do some freezer cooking, but my freezer cooking partner is VERY pregnant (think 4 wks to go, but already 3cm dilated and 70% effaced), so I have two versions of the plan. We won't actually be able to have our freezer day until my friend gets off of work which is still 2 wks to go, so I am not actually holding my breath that she will still be pregnant. :) If she is and is up to it we will do an all day cooking marathon with enough for both of us. If she does not make it this long I have an alternative plan. I'd rather do a few meals at a time (and one for that night's dinner) than all at the same time if I am doing it alone, so I'll work out an alternate schedule then and bring a cooler to my buddy after the baby is born. Stretching it out over several days works a lot better when I am working by myself because of my very nearly 2 year old.

Month's Menu - Here is what we are going to try to cook if all goes well. (PS We made a THOUSAND times too much Ziti last month and never need to see it again, at least not for awhile.)
FishMama's Lasagna x4 We did this last month and both families loved them. It easy to add a salad (or green beans) and some bread at the last minute, and it has the added benefit of not needing to be thawed all the way before being cooked.

Lemon Chicken x4 Easy to put together and it can be baked or grilled. A great summer meal.

Grilled Chicken Pesto Wraps x2 (just for Myself and Daughter, no one else seems interested, it will be the last one I prepare in case I just get too exhausted to finish)

Sloppy Joes x4 - We did this last month, and it was a big hit, so we are increasing the size to have more availiable. We just need to remember to buy buns the week we want to eat it. The recipe is from Frozen Assets by Deborah Taylor-Hough. You can check out her website here. I really recommend the book. It is a great way to get started freezer cooking. We love the mix and match muffins. It was worth the price of the book for that one recipe. We can make just about any type muffin with that one recipe.

There is more to add, but Dear Daughter is ready for me to be done, so I will finish later :)

****Ok, it's later!****
We are planning a couple more things (I know, you were waiting with baited breath).
Calzones x4 - We have done these before too and both families enjoyed them. We used a basic recipe from an old cookbook for the crust and we've been adding our own filling (although we did have a request from one of the hubbies to fill them with MORE). We bake them day of the big cook off, and then warm them as needed (I usually microwave for a few minutes and then stick them in the toaster oven so that they aren't soggy).

Butterhorns x1 - We are using the version here minus the chocolate. We did the by hand version last time, but it took SOOOO long. This one is a bread machine version and a lot faster (I tried it, not on a cooking day).

Southwest Rollups x4 - I am not a huge fan of refried beans, but I can try anything once. :) Everyon else seems to be looking forward to it.

I'll let you guys know how it goes later. :)

Thursday, June 3, 2010

The Things They Say :)

I took my daughter (23 months old) over to my in laws a few nights ago and it was starting to get late for her and the later it got the more behavior issues I was having with her. Finally, I decided that we should probably head home before she completely melted down, and I called her to come to me. She decided that instead of coming to me she would run the other direction, when I caught up I told her we would be talking about this in the car, but she needed to come say good-bye to everyone. She walked out to grandparents, aunts, and uncles and said to them all, "bye-bye, Help!" Did my best not to giggle as we walked out to the car to discuss running away from Mommy. :)