Day 7: Meal#8 French Beef Dip

OH. MY. GRAVY.

This is oh-so-good.  It was so good, that we didn't get a picture of this one plated because we all ate it too fast.  My son asked for seconds.  My husband asked for seconds.  It is SO good.

You can't get thin slices of this because of the cut of meat, but you can cut pieces of it easily enough.  The mushrooms in this are RIDICULOUSLY delicious.  I mean, seriously.  The au jus is perfect.  Honestly, everything about this is perfect.  Even if you aren't doing my 30 meals in a day challenge, you need to get the ingredients and make this dish NOW.  Seriously.  Go.  Recipe is on the spreadsheet, right here.

I did manage to get a picture of the leftovers that are going into our fridge.  It's not a good picture, but you're going to have to trust me on this one.  Yum.

Day 6: Meal#7 Chicken and Cherries

So...life with a baby during exam time does not leave a lot of time for blogging!

I made this meal on Tuesday.  We ate it Tuesday night over rice, and Wednesday night in a quesadilla.  Both were delicious.  My husband and I decided we'd like a bit of chili powder in it, but overall this was a nice, tender, juicy chicken that had some nice flavor to it.  It looked like this:

As we get busier and busier this year, I am more and more grateful that I did this.  Obviously, these meals are going to last us more than a month.  We are not eating out anymore - we just have SO many leftovers that we really can only make a meal or two a week.  Crazy!  I think the 30 meals I made may last us TWO months - which really would be something!

Now, if you'll excuse me, there is a small child screaming his lungs out for a bottle. :)

Day 5: Meal #9 Orange-Beef Stew

I can't believe it's been nearly a week since I've posted.  It's been a busy weekend.  At any rate, on Thursday of last week, we made the Orange-Beef Stew.  (Wednesday we did leftovers).  Once it was made, it looked like this:

I served it over mashed potatoes.  The verdict?  We HATED it.  The flavors didn't go together, the boldest flavor was spinach, and it was just generally blech.  We couldn't even save it by adding things to it.

Now, the rest of the time since, we've been feasting on leftovers (for real!).  We've had both the pork and the chicken shredded into nachos/quesadillas.  My favorite, though, was that I made a pizza out of them.  SOOOO good!

Tomorrow, we'll make another meal.  We're finding that because of the amount of leftovers, we are only using about 3 meals a week.  That means that instead of lasting 4 weeks for us, this round of meals MAY last us 10 weeks. 

Day 4: Meal #13: Islander Pork Roast

Oh, you guys WISH your house smelled like mine.

It smells SOOOO good in here.  The pork, combined with the citrus and cloves is such a wonderful smell on such a cold and yucky day.

I made up some Jasmine rice, added a little cornstarch and water to the crockpot, and we ended up with this:

I wish this was a scratch and sniff computer.  Yum.

So, the verdict is that this was a yummy, yummy roast.  My husband wants more pineapple added, and then add a few water chestnuts.  I agree.  The flavor was good, but it needed a crunch of something.  Everyone ate it all without any complaints, so we have another winner here.  Seriously, yum.  Everyone should be so lucky as to have this scent in their house!

Day 3: Meal#1: BBQ

We decided to start this Monday off with some BBQ - which is meal #1 on the Spreadsheet.  I was SO excited - I love BBQ!

In case you haven't figured it out yet, in order to use the meals that are frozen, take them out of the fridge about 20 minutes before you plan on using them.  Then, just put in the crockpot and go (unless there are other directions on the spreadsheet).  So easy!

Anyway, after work, the house smelled lovely - but not really like BBQ.  I opened the crock and shredded the chicken quickly.  I made up some couscous and served it on top.  This would also be yummy on rice, on a bun as a sandwich, or by itself.  It looked like this:

Yum!

The sweet potatoes were a yummy touch to this recipe.  It gave it a little sweetness and some depth.  I cut the zucchini too small, so it was falling apart.  At any rate, the flavor was good, but I don't know that I would call it BBQ.  There wasn't much of a sauce, and what was there didn't taste much like a traditional BBQ sauce.  I think in the future I either need to make or buy a BBQ sauce to add to this - or maybe use in place of what the recipe calls for.  The husband had a migraine, so he has yet to try it.  The six year old loved it, and ate every morsel.  All in all, a tasty (but bland) recipe. 

Leftover Day!

As expected, these meals yield more than what my family can eat in a sitting, so we've decided to make today and tomorrow leftover days!

Today, we had the goulash again.  This time, I added a little water and some cumin and cinnamon, and my husband liked it much better.  I think that I may add a little water and some spices to it when I make it again later in the month.  So yummy!

If you're cooking this weekend, good luck!  Invest the weekend, and you'll have more time with your family later!

Day 2: Meal #20: Cheesy Potato Soup

**Note:  The meal numbers are in no particular order.  The number corresponds to the number on the spreadsheet of recipes, found here.  I thought this would be easiest for reference for you all. :)**

For my household, it was a snowday.  I got to stay home from my "real job", my son was home from school, we kept my youngest son home from daycare, and my husband worked from home.  It was lovely.  And what better way to top off our day at home than to eat a warm, comforting bowl of cheesy potato soup.

Can I just say, this is seriously the easiest recipe ever.  The prep work for it is simple, and then you add a few store bought ingredients and go out the door.  LOVE IT!  I'm all about little work for big reward.  After all, I'm a girl who wants it all;  family, career, yummy food and time to enjoy it all! :)

So - after adding the ingredients from the freezer, plus a couple extras, it cooks all day.  At the end, you do a couple of things, and then it looks like this:

This was TRULY delicious.  I mean, YUM.  It is warm, and creamy, and comforting.  My 6 year old LOVED it.  Both my 6 year old and my husband, though, thought that I should have added more bacon to it. :)

My husband and I are thinking of using this as a base recipe for several other soups.  We're going to play with it a little, so you'll probably see some variations of it in the months to come.

This one was a hit.  I can't wait to have it for lunch tomorrow!

Day 1: Meal #2, Goulash

Our first meal tonight was the goulash.  It had such a pretty color when I came home from work - it was red because of the beets.  Once we ate it though, a couple hours later, it had changed color a bit.  It then looked a bit more like this:

It is supposed to be served with a garnish of sour cream - which is a very nice addition to the flavor.  Overall, it was a little bland for my husband's taste, but I thought that the flavor was a little sweet, a little savory, and very different.  It was so different - and unlike any goulash I've ever had.  I really enjoyed it.  The 6 year old loved it.  My husband wants to try and fix it up a bit - see if he can't enjoy it more.  We'll keep you posted if we find something we like better.

The Recipes and the List

Without further ado, the recipes and grocery list: Click HERE.

Hope you enjoy them!  We made our first one tonight - so excited! :)

The deets

A few rules that I followed:
1.)  I used a butcher for the meat.  He cut all of the meat like I wanted it, and this way I could be assured that it was fresh.  This costs bit more, but (in my mind) adds to the healthfulness of the meal, and ensures that none of the meat was frozen ahead of time.

2.)  I did not use coupons.  You absolutely could, but then how would you know how much it would typically cost?  I will probably use coupons in the future.

3.)  I did use some food that I had on-hand.  So, if you don't have oranges in your house, for example, that might cost you more.

4.)  I went to three stores: the butcher, Costco, and Meijer.  I bought everything I could in bulk.  There were some things (like green pepper) that I had to purchase at Meijer because they didn't have them at Costco (you should have seen the looks I got purchasing 10 green peppers at Meijer!!!).

Here was what I spent:
Butcher: $248.99
Costco: $42.68
Meijer: $136.61

TOTAL:  $428.28

I know this seems like a lot, but remember - this is 30 different meals - more if you count leftovers, etc.  If we assume that we eat a different meal each night, then this is $14.28 per meal.  If we assume there are 4 people eating each meal, then this is $3.57 per person - not bad!  Think about how much cheaper this is than going out to eat all the time!  I'm so excited!  And my freezer is packed!  Here's a picture - this is actually minus 7 meals which had to go into a different freezer!

Because this post is taking too long, I'll post recipes and the grocery list in the next post.

So there you go.  We actually made the first meal tonight, and I can't wait to share more about it with you!

A bit of an extension

We are still not quite done with the meals.  I haven't been able to stand long enough to cook since yesterday afternoon.  We're going to try to finish them up tonight, and then I'll post a picture.  They really are lovely!

We do think that it would be possible to do all of the cooking in one afternoon, if you don't have the issues our family has.

Later this evening, if I'm feeling up to it, I will post the amount of money we spent, as well as the meals and grocery lists.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

Well, this week sucked.

Pardon my French, but it truly did.  This week was my first back to work.  I was to go back on Wednesday and work through Friday.  Difficult enough when you have to leave your baby for the first time.  Made more difficult by the fact that my husband was called to jury duty on Tuesday, selected for a jury, and asked (forced) to serve on Wednesday.  I thought maybe that was the end of our troubles.

And then, Wednesday night.

My husband was violently ill.  I was ill as well - but not as bad as he was.  The next day, we both stayed home - him downstairs, and the baby and I upstairs (with my eldest at school).  That night, I sent my husband to the hospital by ambulance for what turned out to be massive dehydration.  Friday was better for everybody, though I still wasn't the best.

To make a long story short (too late), our Saturday cooking/shopping day didn't go as planned.  We weren't able to go to Costco until about 5pm, didn't get to Meijer at all, and then I was ill again.  On Sunday, I got to Meijer and we started the cook-a-thon, but then I was ill again.  I have now figured out that, unlike my husband, I didn't "take it easy" after I was sick, and until I do, I will keep getting sick.  So I'm taking tomorrow off, and hoping for the best.  Meanwhile, my poor husband has the task of trying to finish all of the meals on his own. 

We had thought that it would take us one day to do all the shopping and cooking.  What we now know is that shopping won't take that much longer than normal, assuming that it's well planned, but it almost has to be done on Saturday, with all of the cooking being done on Sunday (and maybe even some on Saturday night).  This takes awhile.  In part, because we have two kids, so one of us always has to be with them, and in part because this is a LOT of meals.

So, the meals are made (or pretty close at this point).  I'm not sure if we'll start cooking tomorrow or not, but I'll keep you all posted.  I will also do a post with the recipes, shopping list, and approximate cost for all of these meals.  Suffice it to say that so far, we are definitely saving money with this approach!

Getting Started: The Story Behind This Blog

It all started because of my son.

You see, I had to go on bedrest for five weeks, and before long, I had been out of work for three months.  During this time, my pay was cut back by quite a lot, and will continue to be for the duration of this school year.  Because of this (and Christmas, and a basement remodel), we are literally living within our means with barely a penny to spare.  Add to this that I'd like to lose weight and stop eating out so much, and you have our reasoning.

It was on Pinterest that I got the idea.  A SAHM posted about how she made meals ahead for the month.  Her idea of making a month of meals, though, was to make six up and freeze them.  I'm no mathematician, but 6 does not equal 30.

I got to thinking: if I used her recipes, found more, and used some of my own, maybe I could come up with 30 crock pot meals that could easily be prepped in one day and frozen.  Then, the day that you want to use them, you pop them out of the freezer, let them sit for 20 minutes, and then put in the crockpot and leave for the day. 

The response I've gotten to this idea is overwhelming to say the least.  I'm going to try, then, to do this every month for a year.  If I can do this, I will have a different menu every month that is easy, healthy, and yummy.  And also?  I'll only have to massively cook one day a month.  12 days a year!  How great would that be?

If you dare, come along on this journey with me.  I'll post my meal list and my shopping list later.