Meal Planning {SeRieS}: First Baking/Freezing Day

Today, I (Leigh Ann) had my first baking/freezing day. A few weeks back, I posted about a new way of cooking meals one month at a time. I know, that sounds like a lot to tackle, so I started slow by only cooking a couple meals.

Today I made:

• Lasagna (doubled)
• Taco Soup (doubled)
• Banana Bread
• Gingerbread Muffins
• Granola Bars
• Berry Cool Pie
  

See the recipes on the left sidebar or here.

Ways to be more productive next time:

• A second large pot would be helpful if I am making doubled recipes of soups or sauces.
  
• Make sure the meat has plenty of time to thaw out.
• Read all recipes fully, and if some call for items to set for x number of minutes, then do that first when starting that recipe.
  

End results:

• 40 Gingerbread Mini Muffins
• 2 loaves of Banana Chocolate Chip Bread
• 2 pans of Lasagna (9 x9)
• 1 loaf pan of Lasagna
• 1 serving of Spaghetti Sauce (leftover sauce from Lasagna recipe)
• 2 loaves of Blackberry Granola Bars (Slice when ready to eat. I did not use the 8 x12 pan only because I did not have one, so I use 2 loaf pans.)
• 6 containers of Taco Soup (5 cup Rubbermaid Take-Along containers, 1 container = 1 dinner for our family of 3)
• 1 Berry Cool Pie
  

Overall, I had a great first experience cooking all day. I was organized and had all the ingredients I needed for each recipe, which I think is KEY. It would have been so stressful to not have something in the middle of cooking, especially since I was doing all my cooking during my son's naps today. He naps twice a day still for about 2 hours a piece, so I had a morning cooking session with all the baked goods and an afternoon session with the taco soup and lasagna.

Here is the spreadsheet I created called 'Freezer Cooking Day- Blog Edition' to help me organize my cooking day.

**The spreadsheet includes more meals and ingredients then I cooked today. I wanted to start slow, but also already had a couple Broccoli Rice Casseroles and Chili made up in the freezer. I still am planning to make the waffles but I am going to have to borrow a waffle maker from a friend.**

I am also working on an expanded spreadsheet of the one above to include the estimated cost per meal. I would love to know how much each meal costs to make, because I think it would give me more motivation to cook and eat at home more often. The thought of having food, already made, in our freezer, is so exciting to me and I am ready to see how our grocery budget will reflect the savings of not eating out when I do not feel like cooking one night.

Here is a helpful inventory sheet from Once-a-Month-Mom.

What do you think? Are you going to try it? If you are or have, then let me know what you think, if you saved money, ate out less, and any tips to be more productive. Let's help each other out to be better home managers.

-Leigh Ann

Meal Planning {SeRieS}: A New Way to Cook

I want to apologize for the long pause in this series of posts. Blogging had to take a bit of a backseat this last month due to so many things going on with my family, but I am slowing down a bit and had some time to catch up on my reading, brain storm new ideas, and write. I am so glad.

On a side note, this series will probably be an ongoing one because how we cook, plan meals, grocery shop, etc. seems like it is always changing and we are always coming up with new/better ways to do it then we did before. As of now, I don't see an end in sight.

Getting on with today's topic:

This week, I have been learning about "once-a-month-cooking," baking days, and freezing meals. I am eager to give it a try, but I think will start slowly. I want to try a few recipes first before making them in bulk and see how they turn out after being frozen. To be honest, I am a bit of a food snob. I will eat leftovers, but only the next day. After that, it typically just sits until we clean out the fridge. What can I say, I like fresh food.

But the idea of cooking once or even twice a month and freezing several meals, is so amazing to me. It would allow more time with my son each day. It was save me time in the kitchen cooking and cleaning. And maybe even some money! I already freeze my spaghetti sauce, chili and lasagna and those are super after being frozen. Plus, I know exactly what ingredients are in each recipe and there is nothing I can't pronounce. Good news!

If you are interested in learning more cooking in bulk and freezing go here:

Once a Month Mom Once a Month Cooking

Money Saving Mom Tackling Meal Planning One Month at a Time

Money Saving Mom Tips on How to Freeze Without the Burn

My mom will be visiting in a couple weeks, so I may try this for the first time when she is here and can help me cook and help with Cole. Then after I know how and what I want to, it should be easier to do it on my own next time. Or I might always do it with a friend! Cooking with friends is always fun!

What do you think? Do you cook in bulk, freeze, or have baking days? Let us know how you do it, what recipes are your favorite and any tips you can give for all us that are just starting this process. Who wants to try it?

Leigh Ann

Meal Planning {SeRieS}: 4 Menus

Please remember that this is a learning blog and improvements to our systems are always happening. Like today! Each month, I would sit down, pick meals, go to excel and write down all the ingredients and form a grocery lists. It works well for me but I always was trying to find a way to do it faster. Today, I finally figured it out. I made 4 menus, with all the ingredients, and grocery lists. These will rotate every 3 months, so now all I have to do is open excel, print off the current month, and go to my pantry, freezer, and refrigerator to see what I already have or need to buy. The lists are long but also are all inclusive, so hopefully, ingredients will not be missed. If you would like to download my menus or just get an idea of what they look like to create your own, then go here.

To help you keep track of items you need or run out of during the week, go here and keep it on your refrigerator.

Please let me know if something I have said has not made sense or needs more explanation. Let us know what you think, what you do to plan your grocery shopping trips, etc.

Recipes to come.

Meal Planning {SeRieS}: October's Menu

A typical month has 30 days but in reality, we are going to be out of town, not able to cook every night, have leftovers or go out to eat with friends every once and awhile, so therefore, I only plan about 15 to 20 meals a month. I look at my calendar and see when we will be out of town or have a special event that will not allow for eating at home, etc. and make my plan accordingly. We have a small group that we attend on Tuesdays and host about once a month, so I have to plan for that as well. I do not plan a meal for Tuesdays because we are not home that night and if we are then we are hosting a large group, so I plan Tuesdays last minute. Your family is going to have their activities as well that will affect your menu planning, but hopefully, all of this will be helpful, save you time and money.

Breakfast:

1. Cereal
2. Smoothies
3. Fruit
4. Cinnamon Rolls
5. Eggo's
6. Biscuits and Sausage


Lunches:

1. Leftovers from the day before
2. Sandwiches and chips or fruit

Snacks:

1. My version of chex party mix
2. Cheese and Crackers
3. Chips and Salsa
4. Apple and Peanut Butter

Dinners:

1. Cajun Chicken Pasta
2. King Ranch Chicken
3. Chicken Broccoli Rice
4. Grilled Chicken Rolls
5. Chicken Caesar Salad
6. Meatloaf
7. Beef Tacos
8. Spaghetti
9. Baked Ziti
10. Chili
11. BBQ Chicken
12. Breakfast for Dinner
13. Roast
14. Pizza
15. Chicken Enchiladas
16. White Chicken Chili
17. Chicken Noodle Soup

Meal Planning {the SeRieS} : Grocery Run #1

This morning, I needed to make a quick grocery run so that my son and I could eat lunch today. Yesterday, we ran out of bread for our typical sandwiches so it was a must that I go before his nap. My plan was to get bread, milk, lunch meat, a couple pieces of fresh fruit and a couple snacks for my husband to take to work with him. That's it, a quick, small grocery run, the typical weekly purchases. Well, that is not what happened. Usually, I am not a fan of going into the store without a plan or a list of some kind because if I do not have a list and stick to it, then I spend WAY too much money and buy things I don't NEED. BUT, today, I think I did okay because I did have an idea of what I needed at home as far as meat and a few other items and my HEB store was having great meat sales this week. My stock of meat in my freezer was getting low, so I have been waiting for a sale to happen. For most of the year, I only have to buy chicken, fish, pork, and beef roasts, because my husband is able to provide us with ground meat from his hunting trips. But it is has almost been a year since his last trip and we are down to our last pound, so I have been waiting for a sale on the extra lean ground meat.

Fruit:
-Bananas 1.34lbs $0.66
-Honeycrisp Apples 1.55 lbs $4.63 (Please don't judge me, they are really good and only out a short time. This is the first time to buy them this season and probably the only.)

Meat: Total = $26.82
-Deli Lunch Meat $4.67
-2 Bags HCF Boneless Chicken Breasts 4lbs each $5.96/each (Usually, $9.96 each)
-93% Lean Ground Meat 3lbs $2.99/lb
-Pepperoni slices $2.50

Cheese: Total = $20.59
-5 bags of Shredded Cheese $1.69 each (Usually, $2.19+ and all expires Jan '10 or after. This is not a one month supply.) Total = $8.45
-6 boxes of Sliced Natural Cheese $1.19 each (Usually, $2.50+ and all expires Feb '10 or after. This is not a one month supply.) Total = $7.14
-3 blocks of Mild Cheddar 3/$5.00 (Usually, 2/$4)

Snacks:
-2 bags of Goldfish $1.86 each
-1 bag of cookies $2.00
-1 box of granola bars
-1 box of peanut butter crackers

Dairy:
-1 gallon of whole milk $1.99
-1 large carton of vanilla yogurt $1.79
-8oz of sour cream $0.79
-1 box of stick butter $0.65

Other:
-loaf of bread $0.78
-2 cans of non-stick cooking spray $1.49
-1 box of pizza sauce $2.67

Shopping Total: $78.85
Saved: $17.59 (no coupons were used)

So about $48 was spent on meat and cheese alone. That is a lot of money on only two of the food groups, BUT I also will not be buying meat or cheese for months. A 4lb bag of chicken lasts at least a month at my house, because there are only two adults and a baby. I currently have 2.5 bags of chicken, so I should not have to buy again until mid-December. I will, however, watch for sales, so I am not stuck paying full price when I am out. Like I said in the first post, you have to make this work for your family. My budget allowed me to do a little bit of a stock pile today and I also had the space in my refrigerator and outside freezer to store all of the extra meats and cheeses.

In the first post, I talked about choosing which store you shopped at and how often you shopped. I do a mixture: a big stock up once a month and weekly trips for fresh items and things we run out of, and I also shop at two stores.

Store #1: HEB

It is the store I tend to go to on a weekly basis. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Convenience
2. Good Store Brand
3. Overall Good Prices

As you probably noticed in the pictures, almost all my items that I purchased were HEB brand or Hill Country Fair Brand (which is another store brand only at HEB). Of course, there are items that we do NOT like and stick to the brand name, but for the most part HEB brand works well for my family. The downside to buying store brand is there aren't many coupons unless they come directly from HEB, which they do have several coupons around the store for buy this, get this free, etc. but most of the time I do not have coupons to use. The upside though is the items I do tend to purchase there are because it is the best deal that I have found so far.

Store #2: Kroger

For my big stock up trip once a month, I go to Kroger. Here are a 2 reasons why I shop there too:

1. They double and triple coupons.
2. They have a shoppers card.

How do I choose what items to buy where? Well, at the end of the month, I make a menu for the upcoming month and list out everything I will need for each meal. **I will get more detailed in the next post.** Once I have that list together, I break it down into two lists: one for HEB and one for Kroger. Since I go to HEB weekly anyway, I tend to pick up the items needed for the month on my next trip and then head to Kroger another day. There are times that I go to both stores in one day, but not always, most days that is too much, especially if I have my son with me.

With your family's schedule, buying your groceries at two stores may not be doable and that is okay, just decide which store gets you more for your money and go from there. I could use manufacture coupons at HEB for items I buy at Kroger but I choose not to for the sole reason of Kroger double and tripling them.

More to come.

Meal Planning {the SeRieS} : Getting Started

Every family plans what they eat at each meal differently. Sometimes, it is decided what to eat the minute you are hungry OR your meal is thought out and planned in advance. If you are anything like me (Leigh Ann), then if it is not somewhat planned out, then I am likely to spend money and eat out somewhere. Please do not get me wrong, my family enjoys a good meal out every now and then, but we do try to limit ourselves to once a week. By doing so, it saves us money, but that also means I have to plan. I like to plan and organize, so I do not know why it took me almost 3 years of being married before I stared a thing called Menu Planning. What a novel concept?! A few friends and other blogs I read started talking about it and I thought I should give it a try and see if I liked it and if it worked for my budget and family.

Since I had our baby in the summer of 2008, we are now living on a single income, so planning out our budget and how much we spend on each category, such as food, is important to us. Planning out each meal also helps me not waste as much food, because I buy only what I need and also get creative to use what I have before it goes bad. All that said, I have decided to write a short series of posts on this topic because I think one long post would be a little overwhelming for people who have never attempting planning a menu.

10 Tips to Get Started:

1. Make this work for YOUR family.

2. Start with planning 1 week at a time.

3. Start collecting coupons if you do not already. Here are a couple ways:
-Sign up for your local paper for Sunday only if available.
-Print free coupons here from Coupon Mom.
-Link your Kroger card to P&G Saver.

4. Be flexible with what you buy.

5. Watch grocery ads that come by mail on Wednesdays. Look for meat sales and other good deals. Sales run from Wednesday to Tuesday each week. Go early in the sale period to get the meat, it will be gone quick.

6. Get your Kroger and CVS cards.

7. Make a list of meals you like to make for your family: breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.

8. Set your food budget. What does it include (i.e. paper towels, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc or just food)? Do you have a separate eating out budget?

9. Decide when you will grocery shop. Once a week? Once a month? Bi-monthly? Mixture (i.e. large shopping trip once a month and then weekly for only fresh foods)?

10. Decide where to shop. Multiple stores? One store? Which store will give you the most for your time and money?

I will leave you with that to think about today and start working on. I am in the process of planning my meals for October, so I will share that with you when I am finished.

Until then...Enjoy!

Menu Planning

If you read other blogs like this one who share about homemaking, crafts, coupons, etc, then you've probably seen "Menu Plan Monday." These bloggy moms post their menu for the week every Monday to give other moms ideas for their own menus. I love this...it really helps me to keep variety in my menus and not cook the same meals every week. This is the first week I've been back to menu planning since the baby was born. We had so much help the first couple of weeks and so many meals were provided for us, that I didn't have to do any planning. It was nice..but I'm glad to be back at it again. If you don't plan menus for a week or two at a time, I challenge you to give it a try. Just one week. And see if it helps you save time and money. I didn't do it for the longest time and was so amazed at how much easier it made things once I started. 

Here are the reasons I love it:

• When you have a meal planned for each night of the week, it allows you to have a specific grocery list. Your list will include all the ingredients needed for each meal if you don't already have them. This prevents you from just strolling the aisles and buying random things. In my case, I feel that I cook a bit more healthy bc I'm not just buying boxed meals that I see on the shelf bc I think I "might" cook this sometime, but instead only buy what I need. 
  
• Having the grocery list of ingredients saves time and money at the grocery store for sure!
• Knowing what I'm going to cook each night saves me time each day. I don't have to spend time checking to see what I have in the pantry to figure out a meal. I check my menu on the fridge and if I need to thaw out meat, I can take it out in plenty of time. It really makes things so easy!
• If you have a meal planned for every evening, you WON'T eat out! If I don't have something planned, I look up after a long day with the kids and its 6pm and I have nothing ready to cook. So I call Matt and he picks something up. Every once in a while, that's ok for our budget. But not on a normal basis. Having a menu eliminates those times. 

So here's my menu for the remainder of this week and next week.

Wednesday: Homemade Chicken Nuggets and Hashbrown Potatoes (2 recipes from Kirby)

Thursday: Italian Pie

Friday: Dinner at a friend's birthday party

Saturday: Matt's bday dinner

Aug 16-22

Sunday: Dinner w/ friends

Monday: Enchiladas

Tuesday: Garlic Cheddar Chicken, Corn and Green Beans

Wednesday: Homemade pizza before church

Thursday: Dinner at a friend's bday party

Friday: Out of Town

Saturday: Out of Town

I don't know if this blog is going to do "Menu Plan Monday"..LA and I haven't discussed it. We may not want to make a commitment yet to always posting our menus on Mondays..but maybe we will. We'll see. But in the meantime, give the menu a try! And let us know how it turns out for you! If you already make a menu each week, how well does it work for you? What method do you use?