Today I am thankful for these three things!
- Children: specifically our children
- Parents: specifically our parents
- Freezers: specifically our freezer!
I just cleaned out the little freezer of our refrigerator and found food I didn’t know I had! I threw out some food that had been forgotten and organized the freezer to make more sense! I have been organizing and trying to streamline our food prep. system. This really means that we have been making food ahead of time like I did about 6 weeks ago. Today so far we have made granola, freezer biscuits (see recipe below) Pizza crusts, pre-made the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and then also Ham and Cheese sandwiches and corn bread mix! Did you know that if you spread peanut butter on both slices of sandwich bread it keeps the bread from getting soggy after you add the jelly. So the sandwich would look like this bread, PB, jelly, PB, and then topped off with the top slice of bread. We also did this with the ham and cheese sandwiches but a little different. Put the mayo or mustard in between the ham and the cheese and not right up next to the bread. There are enough for the week double bagged and in the freezer. Since we home school we don’t need to have sandwiches everyday. The one day we do need to pack a lunch we leave early and get home late. I am trying to reduce the stress on that day. I will let you know if it works. :0)
Angel Freezer Biscuits
2 pkgs. dry yeast
1/4 c. warm water
5 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 c. sugar
1 c. shortening
2 c. buttermilk
Dissolve yeast in warm water. Sift flour, cut in shortening. Add yeast and buttermilk to dry ingredients; mix well. Knead quickly 20 to 30 times. Cover and let rise in warm place for 2 hours.
Punch down, roll 1/2 inch thick. Cut with biscuit cutter. Place on a cookie sheet, then freeze. After frozen place in freezer bag until ready to serve. To prepare place unthawed on cookie sheet in cold oven. Bake 400 degrees until brown, 25-30 minutes.
We will be pre-prepping the dinners when the other crew gets in from the grocery store. I am a bit more ambitious this time as I am adding some family favorites to the recipe list and increasing the number of meals to 25 main dishes, 15 lunches and ten breakfast items. So far I think our grocery budget is about $257 spent. They shopped at Aldi’s first and then the Dollar Store. I had subdivided the grocery list into different stores as Aldi’s is cheapest and the Dollar store has the cheaper Mexican food items. The last store on the list has the best produce and meat so the big bucks will come from there. This list is also a bit inflated since we needed to replenish the pantry. These meals should last the month which would be a great blessing to all of us since it promises to be a busy one.
Dinners
- Chicken Parmesan rolls
- South of the Border Lasange
- Pasta sausage and peppers
- Slow cooker Pork Chops
- Orange Rosemary baked chicken
- Beef Potato Casserole
- Stuffed Shells
- Pasta primavera or pasta salad
- Slow cooker Chicken chili
- Chicken Broccoli Stir fry
- Rio Grande Lasagna
- Slow cooker pork chop dinner
- Chicken and rice soup
- Crock pot spaghetti
- Chicken and Macaroni
- Chipped beef on Toast or rice
- Tuna Casserole w/ potato chips
- Tuna Crockets or we also call them Tuna patties
- Honey chicken/asparagus stir fry
- Spinach rice and cheese + burger patties
- Crock pot BBQ pulled pork sandwiches
- Chicken patty sandwiches
- quiche with bacon
- Beans and cornbread
- cheesy potato soup
Most of the dinner recipes are from the saving dinner website. I am adjusting most of them for freezer meals. I am also including in the shopping list the other meals that we will eat that are not freezer meals. We just needed a plan for dinner, lunch and breakfast. I am not satisfied that we are eating as healthy as we should. The names of the recipes are what the kids call them so they are family food. I am also not a nutritionist so these meals are probably not balanced in some way.
Lunches
- burritos
- tomato soup and toasted cheese
- tuna salad with lettuce and tomatos
- tomato and swiss cheese with alfalfa sprouts
- left over soup
- pita bread sandwiches
- chips and cheese
- apples and peanut butter
- banana peanut butter sandwiches
- BLT’s
- Homemade pizza
- macaroni and cheese
- Broccoli salad with raisins
- ham and cheese bagels
- baked potatoes
- left over bean soup
Breakfasts
- oatmeal
- bagels
- cereal
- granola
- yogurt and granola
- Peanut butter and apples
- peanut butter and Bananas
- cream of wheat
- pancakes
- instant oatmeal
- Sausage biscuits
- Freezer biscuits
- muffins
- oven French toast
- Frozen waffles
- eggs
Well, I will write more later and include photographs of our dinners in process. The other thing to understand is that we will round out these dinners with vegetables, salads, side dishes and possibly, sometimes dessert!
What do you do to stay organized with your meals?
Karen
