Getting lots done

We had a great Thanksgiving.  We went to my mom's house and ate Turkey.  I did go Black Friday shopping and got most of my shopping done.  I only have a few gift cards left to get and then I am done.

I also did my big monthly grocery shopping on Wednesday.  I went to Aldi my favorite store and then to Sam's my next favorite store.  I rounded out the trip with Wal-Mart for a few odds and ends.  I spend $285 on this trip.  I will go back mid-month for some milk and fresh stuff, but most other things are bought up.

I thought that I would share about how I have time to cook a full meal every night after working all day and do it mostly from scratch.  I used to be a big coupon shopper and got lots of stuff for cheap or free.  Don't get me wrong, I am not opposed to using coupons, especially for toiletries.  I started to realize that we were eating junk and that my grocery bill was not really all that low, so I started buying more whole foods and ingredients and making most of our foods. After I went shopping I went ahead and seasoned and cooked two chickens.  After they were cool I pulled all of the meat off and put the bones in a pot and make chicken broth.

 

 

I ended up with four packages of chicken and three packages of chicken broth.  From this I will make chicken broccoli casserole, chicken tortilla soup, chicken garbage bread (an inside out pizza crust with fillings and cheese), and some chicken noodle soup.

 

I also got some ground beef and mixed it with deer meat.  All of the men in our family deer hunt and we always have lots of ground deer meat but it is not the best for hamburgers and meatballs because it is so lean and won't stick together.  I mixed the two together with breadcrumbs and a few eggs.  I rolled out one pan of meat balls and 7 hamburgers.

 

 

I then stuck them into the freezer until they were hard.   I then put them in zip lock bags.  I then had enough meatball for two batches of spaghetti and enough hamburgers for two dinners.  Some kids prefer hot dogs so I will cook them a hot dog when we have hamburgers.

 

I also made a batch of granola and a half gallon of yogurt.  I will tell next time how I make the yogurt and granola.   Both are super easy and saves me tons.  We also make trail mix and what we call garbage bag snack mix.  The snack mix is just a bunch of crunchy snacks mixed together and then we store it in gallon Ziplocs.  The kids love it.

 

Most of this I will put in the crock pot frozen with the other ingredients and it will be ready in the afternoon.  I like having all of the prep work done.  It saves so much time.

 

Next time I will talk about the yogurt and granola and show how we eat it.  Yummy!



 

 

 

 

 







Slowing down

I am sitting here tonight with my feet up enjoying some down time.  We are almost done with soccer and there will only be a few more football games.  That is if they don't make it far into the playoffs.  I guess we will see.  I like being at a slower pace.  I like having time with the family in the evenings and curling up with a book or a knitting project. 

We made some cake pops that looked like eyeballs.  I got them at Aldi and it was fairly easy to make and they were good.

 

The little guy was so happy that he got all A's this time.  In our house if you get all A's you get to go out to dinner with a parent of your choice.  This is a big deal because we rarely take them out to dinner. 

 

 



Doesn't he look excited!

And last I did a monthly grocery shop this weekend.  I went to Sams and Kroger.  I spent $230 but that won't do us for the month.  I will probably spend another $50 a week for milk and fresh stuff.  I don't think that will be bad considering we feed seven plus all of the friends.

 

OH and this is Ashley and her sweetie during the game the other night.  I was working the concession stand and they put their heads in during their break.  Aren't they cute!