Showing posts with label Menu Plan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Menu Plan. Show all posts

Monday, March 12, 2012

Menu Plan Mar 12

Another day of mega cooking! Four recipes x4 = 16 meals. 4 to eat this week; 12 of them in the freezer. That equals a whole week worth of food in the freezer. Yea! I love a stocked freezer!

The four meals were:
Taco Soup

Pam n Peggy's Crisis Casserole



Beef Nacho Casserole
This was really good; I love nachos, why not in a casserole? :)

1 Dish Taco Bake

A little dry; we like to eat it with leftover Taco Soup!

Prep (the evening before): 35 minutes. Hey, not bad! I set out ingredients to thaw, dishes, and other ingredients (tin cans, seasonings, flour, etc.). I even measured rice and water so it would be all ready to cook in the morning.

The big day: 1 hour, 48 minutes. I rinsed dishes as I emptied them.

Clean up: 22 minutes

Total: 16 meals in 2 hours, 45 minutes!! It actually took from 9-2 ... because of childcare and lunch. But, hey! That's the only major thing that I planned to do today, so this is great! I still have time to pick up the house and wash my hair!

This week we also had:

Broccoli Soup

Chicken Taqitos


Mexican Chicken

I overdid the cayenne pepper on the Mexican Chicken. It was edible, but very hot. I said, to no one in particular, "This is hot!" My husband looked up in surprise, "This is good!" I frowned, "you serious?" "Yeah, this is really good!"
Oh! No wonder he isn't crazy about my cooking- I don't usually spice things up this much. :) Live and learn!

I'll be linking up to Menu Plan Monday and Susie QT Pie meal planning .

Paige

Monday, March 5, 2012

Menu plan... and How to have a clean fridge

I found the key for loving my weekly routine ! Now I tell myself, My routine is not a to-do list, it is just my focus for the day. If something doesn't get done on Friday, no stressing out. I'll just make it a priority when next Friday comes around. Honestly, I love having a weekly routine!!

On to menu planning. Here is what we enjoyed this week....

Tex Mex Chicken
This was good! I will probably use my own rice and spagetti noodles next time just so I don't spend money on prepackaged food. Hope I can make it just as good. :)


Crockpot Salsa Chicken
I shredded the chicken, stirred in sour cream and salsa. We ate it as a dip with tortilla chips. Yum! Any hot chicken would work for this delicious dip. Go ahead and use your favorite marinade.

Cheesy Garlic Pizza

This was good! We dipped the slices in spagetti sauce to compensate for the dryness. And we all wanted the leftovers the next day.

Chicken Bundles
Best chicken spread I've ever had! Super easy, too!

Cheesy Chicken Ranch Casserole
Yum! The ranch dressing mix took it up another notch!

This week's focus... I read a cleaning tip this week: "wash out your fridge each time you go shopping, before putting items away." I thought about that. Sounds like a good idea! But my fridge is filthy. And right after I get home from shopping isn't a good time; I'm exhausted... baby's crying... it's time to eat... Something is sure to keep me from following thru on this one.

I could wash it out before I leave for town. It would take less then 5 minutes (after a really good cleaning!). But that doesn't strike me either. Maybe someday I'll adopt that habit and add it to Monday's weekly routine. But for now, I found a method I like better. Especially, considering the deplorable state of my fridge.

So, my new habit for this week is to clean part of the fridge every day. Whichever part I feel like. At least half a shelf. I'll also reorganize, in hopes of finding a better system...

BTW, can anyone tell me how to keep these pictures from getting too big??

I'll be linking up to Menu Plan Monday and Susie QT Pie meal planning .

Paige

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Menu Monday... Feb 28

This had been a crazy week! Monday, I went shopping and froze 80lbs of chicken. Tuesday I had the flu. Wednesday and Thursday I sat in meetings and ran errands. Friday I stayed home for once! And Saturday I went shopping (there was a big sale on clothing). By Sunday the house was a wreck!! And we wanted to throw an imprompto party! Thankfully, an hour of help from my husband went a long, long ways!

This week I'm going to focus on taking 15 minutes to play with the children every day. I love being a mother, but they won't be small forever. I want to enjoy them while I have them!


Here's a few things I've made in the past two weeks:
Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies
Oh, yum!! An egg free cookie that won't crumble!

Hot and Sweet Drumsticks

White Chicken Chili
I used leftover Hot n Sweet for the chicken and it was good! We aren't huge chicken fans, so we liked this better than eating the whole drumsticks.

Baked Cinnamon Swirl Pancakes
These are good! My husband even said they were, so they really must be. :) I've actually used this ideas to make other pancake recipes also, when I didn't have time to flip pancakes.

Menu planning this past week was sort of a joke; we survived from the freezer! This week I actually made a plan. Here are a few meals on the menu...

M... Meatballs and potato rounds

T... Baked macaroni n cheese

W... Salsa chicken

Th... Mexican chicken

F... Tex mex chicken n rice

S... Biscuits n gravy

I'll be linking up to Menu Plan Monday and Susie QT Pie meal planning .

Paige

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Menu Plan Monday Feb 13

I have been focusing on one thing each week, which I would like to become a habit. Most of these are not new, but I'm not doing them regularly. So far I've focused on:

1. Singing while I work. Occasionally, I actually catch myself doing this without thinking!

2. Washing dishes every day. I'm doing better at this!! I still miss a day here and there, but there had been improvement!

3. Talking to God thru out my day. Better, but lots of room for improvement here.

4. And, my most recent: putting out my hotspot for 2 minutes every day. According to the Flylady, a hotspot is a place were you pile clutter. And, since clutter attracts more clutter, before long it gets out of hand!

photo credit

My hotspot is the island in my kitchen: certainly a collection point for anything and everything at our house!

My husband likes to sit down here, so he definately prefers to see a clear counter top. And I feel so much better when I have room to work. No clutter sounds like a good idea for all of us!

My progress so far? Fair: it isn't stacked to the ceiling, but it's not totally cleared off either.



A few meals from last week:
Pancake Sausage Poppers

Homemade Crunchwrap Supreme

Pizza Snack Cups

Day Before Mashed Potatoes

I've been working on a schedule for freezing meals each week and eating out of the freezer at the same time. Thursday I planned an all day long cooking spree.

First, I refried some cooked beans... That was an adventure! I probably will make my own refried beans again, but definately not on my Cooking Day. It took nearly an hour to make 3 cans worth!

Then, I quadrupled 5 recipes and prepped then. One of each recipe went to the fridge, and the other 15 found themselves in the freezer.

3.5 hours to make 20 meals! In reality, it was 7.5 hours from start to finish, since I made refried beans, we ate dinner, and I did lots of other things that mothers have to do. But I used a stopwatch and kept writing down how long I worked on the meals.

Quite frankly, I was exhausted till I finished. I immediately started to think of things I could do to make it easier... Maybe next time I won't plan to overdo it... Yeah, right. Planning to do too much is the one thing I'm really good at!

However, I'm certainly going to enjoy a week without cooking meals, even though I'll still be baking desserts and making cottage cheese.

My menu plan for this week is somewhat unplanned. There are some unknown meals in the freezer that need to be used up. I threw away lost the paper I'd written on, so who knows what kind of icky things we might be eating. :)

The few meals that I plan to make fresh are Cheesy Pizza and Cajun Delight.

I'll be linking up to Menu Plan Monday.

Paige

Monday, February 6, 2012

Menu plan Feb 6

Another week, another chance to see how much God has blessed us.


I saw this picture of a church billboard on Laine's blog this week; it's enough to make you think!

Mini Goal for this past week... I wanted to focus on talking to God thru out each day. I am less frustrated when I remember that He is in ultimate control of my life. Prayer also reminds me to be thankful; I know I am happier when counting my blessings instead of griping.

Truly, I am blessed! I'm living every woman's dream: God loves me, I have a good husband who provides, and two delightful children. I'm healthy, except for this very contiguous cold. And we have enough money that I can take advantage of those wonderful meat sales! What more could I ask for??


Here are a few of our meals from last week:

Tater Tot Tacos
I added salsa. This one quickly became a favorite!


Busy day soup


Mexican Shepherd's Pie
This one is worth bragging about. Just a little dry, but we fixed that by smothering it in sour cream. Yummy!


Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
These are my new favorites! They are good as muffins or bars (9x13). I've left the chocolate chips out at times, and they are still delicious! I'm thrilled to say that this recipe works well with my oil/water egg substitute! Need any more incentive? They even freeze well! You don't have to try them, of course, but it's your loss if you don't. :-)

Here is our menu for this week. There are only two carry overs from last week; I think I'm getting better at remembering to look at the calendar before I plan. :-z



Several of our meals will come from the freezer this week. And on Thursday I plan to mega-cook: I will make 3 meals and times each recipe by four. 3 to eat; 9 to freeze! I love a stocked freezer!

I'll be linking up to Menu Plan Monday.

Paige

Monday, January 30, 2012

Menu Plan Jan 30

My update from last week's goal: I washed the dishes 3 days out of 6... What can I say? I have lots of excuses, but that is all - just excuses.

Mini Goal for this week... None. Actually, I do have one, but you'll have to wait till next week to hear about it. I know I'm simple, but I can't keep two things in my head at one time. So I'll chose my goal today and then I'll have all week to write about it.


We enjoyed some new recipes last week:

Sticky Monkey Brains

Spicy Whiskey BBQ Sliders
These are wonderful! I did omit the whiskey.

Taco Dip
Absolutely worth trying!


We didn't get to several of our meals last week because we had a few leftovers that I hadn't planned on, a friend brought us a meal, we went to an open house one evening (free food!), and then I forgot that we were going to be at my parents one day. Hence, a few repeations from last week...

Oh no! I just went to look in the freezer; I thought we had 2 pack of chicken, but there isn't any left! I guess the I'll have to redo my menu...

Here's the updated version:



I'll be linking up to Menu Plan Monday.

Paige

Monday, January 23, 2012

Menu Plan...Washing dishes.

My focus last week was on singing while I worked around the house. I didn't sing as much as I could or should have, but choosing to focus on that one goal helped.

Last month I stumbled upon Flylady.net, a really neat "program" to organizing your housework. The primary part being a daily routine. I was all ready to join Flylady until I discovered that she sends 10 emails a day. That's too many for me, so I decided to just go thru her Babysteps and also to look at her Flight Plan every weekday, where I try to follow the zones and Kelly's mission for the day.

This month I am still recuperating from Kitten's birth, so I trimmed my daily routine down to the absolute essentials. Therefore, instead of choosing to shine my sink, the first Flylady baby step, I'm going to modify that step to something that must be done. It is also something that my darling husband likes me to keep on to of. But I must confess, this is one thing I procrastinate doing...sometimes until there are no clean dishes left to eat off of. (Horrible, I know!) So, here goes:

My mini focus for the week... I want to wash the dishes EVERY day. Before supper. Evenings at our house are limited on time, so anything that can be done in the afternoon is a benefit. Wish me the best of luck and motivation!

On to my mega goal: Menu Planning...


Here are two meals we enjoyed last week:

Pizzadillas
These are good with or without the dip. Definately a keeper!

Crockpot Chicken Broccoli and Cheese

And here's the plan for this week:

I'm linked up to Menu Plan Monday.
Paige
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