Menu Plan Monday 1 -23

It is a new week, and time for a new menu. I am going to try a lot new this week if everything goes according to plan, and I am really looking forward to it. I also was able to squeeze in a mini freezer cook day and I am hoping to squeeze in another one before week end.

Freezer cooking session (completed) -
Chili
Sloppy Joes
Chocolate Peanut butter Oatmeal

Freezer cooking session(planned) -
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffins
Some kind of dinner roll

And now for the menu...
Monday- chicken pasta bake (ok, I really just want to clean some veggies out, so I'll cook up some chicken and throw it in a bunch of pasta with all the veggie leftovers, add a little bit of olive oil and cheese)
Tuesday - Slow cooker Fajitas
Wednesday - church
Thursday - Monterey Chicken
Friday - family night
Saturday - Sloppy Joes (from freezer - I will make rolls that day to put the sloppy joe filling in).
Sunday night - salisbury steak

Should be a fun week. We will see how it all goes. For more great ideas check out http://orgjunkie.com

Kitchen Extras - Mini Freezer cook

Yesterday I tried (tried being the operative word) to get a little bit ahead of the game.  The plan was to get a lot of things done, but very little actually got done.  By the time I got going I only had time to get 1 lasagna, a batch of butterhorns, and attempt some cocoa cookies.

The lasagna went great - but I only had the stuff to make one and we promptly ate that for dinner :)

I made a batch of butterhorns - we ate 8 of the 32 for dinner.

Then I made cookies, I made a double batch, but I forgot to add the double batch of flour - made for some tortilla style cookies :)  My daughter thought that she was waking up from her nap to brownies.  They tasted ok, but next time I'll make sure I have the flour.  :)

Freezer Cooking for March

I have been missing my freezer cooking, money has been super tight, so I didn't feel like I could buy any meat ahead of time, so I have been delaying my cooking, but this week I'm back.  I'm going to get a lot of baking done and a few easy meals in the freezer for later. 

Sloppy Joes x 6 - 6 lbs ground beef, Tomato soup, mustard, brown sugar.

Cranberry Roast x 2 I'm checking this one out if we love it we can stock up on cranberries or cranberry sauce later. 

Chicken Pot Pie - I'll make two up the night I have it for dinner.

Carrot Bread x 4  - This is from Frozen Assets it's a simple mix and match recipe. 

Baked Oatmeal with Peanutbutter and Chocolate Chips - My Cooking buddy does not like this, so this one is just for me and my sweet toddler:)

Cinnamon Rolls x 2 - YUM!

Butterhorns x 2 - These are great with dinner.

Kitchen extras!

This week I want to get in some extra stuff in the kitchen to make life a little bit nicer.

I'll be making two "cookies in a jar" recipes - I'll get them posted soon. It's great for when you want cookies fast, all the measuring is done, just add the wet ingredients when you're ready to bake them.

I need to do another round of Peanut Butter Chocolate Oatmeal - That is my Toddler's favorite breakfast food (although for some reason she calls them muffins).

Cinnamon Rolls! - We are out of Cinnamon rolls in our freezer, and they are a great "special treat" for us.

I'd also love to find a great "main dish" recipe to add to my freezer this week, but I haven't found one yet that meets with what I have on hand, and that I think every one at this house will eat. So I'm still looking. If you have a favorite let me know maybe I'll try it out. :)

Freezer update. :)

I have been making some great progress on my freezer cooking this week and I am already feeling better. I have 2 penne rusticas in the freezer ready to go (of course I love it, but after I made three my husband let me know that he wasn't sure it was his favorite meal. I guess I'll have to wait awhile before I serve it :) ). I have an entire pan of baked oatmeal and right now I have loaves 3 and 4 of carrot bread in the freezer. I bought a few pounds of beef so I want get the sloppy joes done and a couple of lasagnas and I'll feel better. :)

Freezing - Again :)

I have absolutely got to have a freezer plan this month. I am out of pretty near everything, cooked, uncooked, prepared, or parts, so I have a lot to do. I won't be doing this all in one day, but hopefully I will get it done. I have talked with my buddy about doing another cooking day together, but I don't know whether or not we'll make it work next week. Thanks to Jessica at LifeasMOM for helping get me motivated by getting the post up today :)

Breakfast Plan:
Baked Oatmeal - Peanut Butter and Chocolate for breakfast, need I say more?
Carrot Bread - Simple mix and match recipe
Banana Bread - Simple mix and match recipe
Oatmeal packets

Dinners:
Sloppy Joes x4 - Beef, a little bit of brown sugar, a little bit of mustard, and a can of tomato soup. Super Easy!
Lasagna x2 (or possibly 4 smaller ones)
Chicken Pot Pies x2
Penne Rustica x2 (probaby 4 smaller ones)

I'm ready for some new recipes, but I haven't found any that I've been interested in (and that my husband will eat) recently. Any ideas that will get me out of my rut?? Post a comment here :)

Modified Freezer Week

I see out there in blog world right now that it is freezer cooking time again, and I want to participate, but I don't think I will get in a full afternoon with my buddy this month. So here is my alternative plan. I will probably wait until I get with bud to do the main meals, but we need some snack and breakfast stuff.

Baked Oatmeal - I love this and my daughter asks for them all the time. I think it is great. Granted it has chocolate in it, but it also has protein and whole grain. :)

Quick Bread - Mix and Match Recipe from Frozen Assets. We will probably try to make an applesauce version, carrot version, and possibly a banana version.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

mmm....love chocolate. :)

I also did a couple of sloppy joe batches last night. (It is really just ground beef, tomato soup, brown sugar, and mustard.)

Chicken Pot Pie - I just put leftover chicken, mixed veggies, cream of chicken soup and a little bit of milk in a pan ready to go for whenever we want to have it.

Finally, I will probably do either a lasagna or a penne rustica next week. I will decide when I set up my menu plan and will just make two at once.

I guess that's enough to keep me busy. Have fun everyone.

For more ideas check out Money Saving Mom's Freezer Round Up

Freezer Follow Up!

We had our freezer cooking day today and it went pretty great. Both of the kiddos (my 2 yr old and my bud's 7 wk old) did great, both napped for part of the time, watched a bit of Curious George, and "helped". The only thing that didn't get done was the Sticky Chicken, and that was completely my fault! I forgot to cook my bird the night before, so nothing to debone come cooking day. Here are the pics of a few projects, and a very full freezer. (I'm going to say I don't know where the banana muffins went...hmm...)

Cinnamon rolls, ready to go in the freezer!

Half of the Banana Crumb Muffins.

Stuffed Shells, mmm!

We had a ton of other things going, but I am not a food photographer by any means, so here is our stuffed freezer. It should keep us in food for a few weeks anyways :)

Let us know if you have any ideas for our next Freezer Cooking day!

A New Freezer Day!

********UPDATED - See the pics from our freezer day here!**********************
My cooking buddy is back. Her beautiful son is now 6 weeks old, and we are ready to attempt another cooking day, this time with 2 kids around :)

Here is our plan so far.

Sticky Chicken - We will try to do this ahead of time and just divide up the meat when we get together.

Stuffed Shells - I am a sucker for Italian, no Fishmama Lasagna this time, so this will have to do!

Banana Crumb Muffins - My baby girl (and her mom) goes crazy over all things bread, so we might have these around for a few mornings :)

French Dip - We'll do the meat on cooking day, and purchase the rolls when we are going to eat them, or when they go on sale and then we'll freeze them.

Johnny Marzetti - chicken and cheesy noodles, need I say more?

Country Captain Chicken - More for my crockpot!

Cinnamon Rolls - These are my favorite, because they are yummy, but still have the whole grain and the oats in them.

I may also make a batch of Baked Oatmeal, but my buddy says they'll pass on that one.



*** I went ahead and made my baked oatmeal, check it out!***

What do you think? Anyother exciting ideas for us. We'll let you know how it goes (and I will try my best to do pictures too.

More Freezer Additions.

In addition to the rest of our freezer meals I am going to do some new "mixes."

Mix and Match Muffins
Brownies
Biscuits
Pancakes - I don't know where I got the original recipe but we have a great one that we do half unbleached flour and half wheat.
All of the dry ingredients are going to be in the mix and then I will add the wet later. It makes about 8 pancakes.
3/4 c unbleached flour
3/4 c wheat flour
3 &1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar

Wet team - add later
1&1/4 c. milk
1 egg
3 T melted butter.

A New Freezer Plan

I have a friend traveling to visit us in a few weeks, and she has volunteered to pitch in with freezer cooking, so I think I'll start working on a plan. This plan will probably more complicated than anything I normally do, because she is pretty great in the kitchen, and has a lot more knowledge and guts than I do when it comes to cooking.

I am going to start working on the plan now, and I'll add to it as I talk to my friend. :)

Penne Rustica - I love this dish at Macaroni Grill, so I think I'll try it at home. I saw this recipe at one of the menu swaps online.

Pesto - We are using my friends recipe, but here we saw that you could freeze it in muffin tins and then use it when you need it. Great Idea!

We'll probably make some more of Fishmama's Lasagna, because I don't know that I have ever done a freezer day without it...It is amazing if you haven't tried it yet.

I'll add to it later, but this is good start :)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Check out the comments and you will see my buddy for this adventure is super excited, (As am I) and I thought I should add her thoughts here so that I have it all in one place.

She requested Calzones, no problem, unless I allow them to leak out the filling again. (Did I confess that on the blog last time?)

Pizza Dough - I have a dough recipe I love, so I am pretty sure I can handle the one from our Pesto link

Baked Tomatos - I'll add the recipe later (or make my bud do it).

Lemon Blueberry Cake- again, a buddy recipe

Stawberry Upside Down Cake - more bud recipes

Dressing - Some Fancy, Schmancy Dressing- got have Sandy clue you in on that one as well :)

We have a few other things going on freezer day here.

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!

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. :)

Freezer Cooking Day!

I had my first freezer cooking day with a friend today. We worked from about 9:30 till 3, but we took a break midday for lunch and for me to put my toddler down for a nap. It went really well. My daughter did pretty well (until lunch/naptime) and we got a lot done.

Here is the total list of what we got done (we just split the meals).

Ziti - We made 6 batches (Huge batches - it will probably go for 6 just at my house) I guess we didn't really realize how much we were making, but it will all be eaten I am sure!

2 Lasagnas - We used the recipe here.

Sloppy Joes 1 batch (I didn't realize we weren't really making that much, so I sent it home with my buddy)

12 single serving size Calzones

and 1 batch (32 rolls) of the make ahead butterhorn rolls from here. (Already baked up a couple of those, yum!)

and finally I made my hamburgers for dinner tonight.

There are a few pictures here , but only about half of the food is pictured. :)