Merry December

Ok, first and foremost, my WONDERFUL husband gave me my Christmas present early!! A new camera! I'm SOOOOO excited! I had decided that I would rather get it early so I could use it to document the holiday festivities and HOPEFULLY learn how to use it somewhat by Christmas day. You'll have to bare with me as I learn to use it. I'm sure my photos won't be of the highest quality ever :).

Ok, spent Saturday (the 1st) planning and shopping for the month. I have had people ask me how we do it - this whole craze of once a month shopping is starting to catch on. I have experimented for the past several months - shopping on Sundays, shopping every two weeks and now shopping once/month. So far, that has been easiest. Granted the day of it's quite stressful and busy, but knowing the rest of my month is all planned makes me very happy :).

I started with the basics. M-F, I assigned a "theme". Monday - Mexican, Tuesday - Chicken, Wednesday - Burgers, Thursday - Soup/Pasta, Friday - Pizza. The weekends I reserve for those meals that don't really fit into the themes OR that require a little more time. Next I make a list of about four meals per theme day and then add approximately eight more for the weekends. My family doesn't do leftovers well, so when I do double a recipe, I'll stick the other portion in the freezer and it becomes another meal (what they don't know won't hurt them!!). That, or I have taken to purchasing the small disposable tin containers from the dollar store for making individual dinners or lunches (for example, if  Hubs and I have a date and the boys are on their own).

Here's a snapshot of December:

Excuse the horrible picture, I had to use my phone!!

So to make this work, I buy ground beef, ground chicken and chicken breasts in bulk. Sam's club does the beef and the chicken breasts fairly cheap and SOMEDAY, I'll buy a case of each and get them even cheaper. Until then, I buy the large packages (like 5 lbs or so) and divide them up when I get home. First I count how many times we are having burgers and I grab the approximate amount for each person  and label it with the name of the dinner (I try to come up with different names so it's easier to differentiate them in the freezer). Also - typically I eat a ground chicken burger, so one pound of ground chicken will last a month for just MY Wednesday night burgers - this also helps the ground beef go further.

Next I portioned off the other meals that would need ground beef (meatloaf, shepherd's pie, salisbury steak, chili) and bagged and labeled those as well. What I was left with was approximately 3 lbs of ground beef which I cooked and seasoned with salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, cayenne, onion, garlic and crushed red pepper (our staple seasoning for both tacos and chili). Once cooked, I pulled out enough for Mashed Potato Tacos (I know, I know, it sounds weird, but trust me, they are SO good - I learned about them from my boss's wife. Apparently a staple in her household growing up - she's Mexican and swears they're authentic - I don't really care since they're THAT good). 

Finally, time to start putting together some meals!! I got another disposable tin (family entree size) and rolled up some ground beef/cheese enchiladas for dinner on the 10th. 

The ones with olives on top are strictly cheese for me - I don't really like the ground beef.

My Hubs is not a sandwich guy and really likes having meals for lunch, so a while back, those small tins I was telling you about became a staple in our house for heating up leftovers (we don't own a microwave and like to use a toaster oven for reheating purposes). With more of the seasoned meat, I made him four lunches of ground beef enchiladas and two for myself of just the cheese ones :)

Perfect for lunch or dinner 

Once I had used as much of the beef as was needed, I took the remainder (about 1 1/2 cups) and added two cans of ranch beans and a bit more seasoning to make a quick chili for Hubs' lunch. He's been on a chili dog kick lately so once again those containers were utilized. I had purchased buns and hotdogs, so I opened them up and cut the hot dogs in half and topped them (two per tin) with chili and a bit of cheese. Voila! Four more lunches!

One of the easiest things to keep on hand (for us) are bean/cheese/beef burritos. This time, I used ground chicken, refried beans, cheese and olives and wrapped them individually in foil. They are wonderful for a quick lunch or dinner and much better than the frozen ones you buy at the grocery store. 

Stack of  burritos awaiting the freezer. 

Last of all, I made breakfast burritos. Half were made with the spicy breakfast sausage, potatoes, egg and cheese and the other half were made with the maple breakfast sausage and the same items. To the spicy ones I also added a dash of Hubs' favorite hot sauce - Habenero, as he can't seem to function without it. 16 of those went into the freezer as well for a quick breakfast.

Because of our power being out for more than half of the day, that was all I was able to finish, but tonight I attack the chicken preparations as seen on the menu!

Peace Out :)