August Dinner Menu Plan

Back to school means back to freezer cooking!  The last two weeks I've been slowly making my dinner menu for the rest of August and early September, and have also been making as much ahead of time to have ready in the freezer.  As you can see by the list/calendar below, almost all of our meals are super simple ones and ones we've had before.  We also keep spaghetti and breakfast for dinner in our rotation weekly to keep our grocery bill down just a little.  Sadly, I can't/won't/don't eat most of these meals so I've also got veggie burgers, chicken burgers, and taco meat in the freezer for me to pull out as a protein if needed.  And it will be needed since I can't eat the dinner's I'm preparing for the next 3 nights!  I'm ok with that though...staying on my food plan is more important (i.e. weightloss!).

As you can also see I have a few meals already ready for the 2nd week of September as well.  That week Brian and I both have birthdays, so we will probably eat out on those nights, and I'm sure some of the menu items for August will get bumped to another night if we have a lot of leftovers after a particular dinner.  So hopefully I'm ready through mid-September at least! 

Fortunately I don't have to plan for breakfasts b/c the kids eat at school, Brian eats cereal every morning and I only eat fruit.  That makes it simple.  I also have a separate menu for lunches, but that varies by my mood each week and what I have in the house.  Brian either takes a sandwich or leftovers, M eats at daycare (food provided), and the girls will do hot lunch almost every day.  So really I only have to plan lunches for me and that pretty much consists of protein and veggies so no point in making too detailed of a menu/list. 
  

January 2013 Dinner Menu

Okay, I haven't posted our dinner menu in a long time.  Probably haven't posted in at least a year.  But I've had a few people ask me to do so again, so here it is.  Now, you'll notice a few things:
1.  My family likes pizza, spaghetti, and breakfast for dinner.  So at least one is on our menu each week.  I obviously don't cook new recipes each night!
2.  Our January calendar is currently still pretty empty so as it starts to fill up, dinner ideas will start to get moved around and bumped to February.  But as of now, this is our plan.
3.  I don't have many side dishes listed.  I usually end up making things that are easy and that we have on hand. 

 

15 of the planned dinners below are new recipes for us to try.  It's going to be a busy blog month with the new recipes as well as new veggie side dishes and lunch ideas.
17 of the dinners will be prepped ahead of time and put into the freezer.

March Freezer Cooking Menu

I missed posting February's Dinner Menu because we ended up moving a lot of meals around and ate leftovers (or partial freezer meals) for a big portion of the month.  The new recipes we tried were posted, you just didn't get a monthly outlook...not like anyone else cares what we're eating though! 

You'll notice this month that pizza and spaghetti make it onto the menu multiple times.  1.  That's because Brian requests this as his "dinner picks."  2.  My friend Jenny gave me several premade pizza crusts so we are graciously using those up!  I also am only doing my menu up to spring break, because I know I'll have the time to freezer cook again then (hopefully will finish up March and April at that time).  We have 16 new meals/recipes on our menu so far for March so stay tuned as we eat, share and rate these meals!

December Freezer Cooking Menu

Here is my menu for December.  All of the recipes except for 2, are new recipes for us to try.  I'm excited about some, nervous about others but hopefully we will enjoy them all!  I tried to find healthier meals for December so the number next to the meal is the approximate weight watchers points value.  I was too lazy to actually figure it out exactly.  It took enough time just to make the meals, let alone disect them all points wise.  Also, this is based on the old points system.  I am not familiar yet with the new ww points system that just rolled out last week.  Besides, all points values supposedly went up, which I don't like! (Although most fruits and veggies are 0 pts now, so that's a huge plus!)  Check back soon to see these recipes posted and reviewed!

Freezer Cooking: November

November = Freezer Cooking Month!

I originally planned to do my last freezer cooking day on October 12th, but we had so many random meals in the freezer and I wanted to defrost the freezer, so we used up everything we had left!  I was getting very anxious to cook again, so this past weekend, I snuck in some freezer cooking prep whenever the girls were napping or after they went to bed.  Now I have meals planned out until early December, and I have 26 new recipes to try and add to this blog!  So excited!!  Hopefully MOST of these recipes will be keepers!

September Freezer Cooking Day

Here is a picture of my most recent cooking day (minus the lasagna roll ups since they are currently flash freezing in the freezer).  This month I decided to try just using ziplock bags instead of my more expensive food saver bags.  We'll see if it makes any difference this month!

I intended to do my next cooking day on Monday (labor day) since we have off.  But I decided to squeeze the cooking into extra time I had on the weekend so that we could all do something fun on Monday instead.  So I cooked after the girls went to bed, and when they napped.  It took a little longer this time only because I couldn't really get into a groove, but I don't think I was as tired afterwards because I did it in little spurts.  My kitchen was cleaner too because I could keep running the dishwasher.  All in all, I think I spent about 6 1/2 hours cooking...and look at all of the meals I have ready to go now!

This month I tried multiple new recipes, so keep checking back as I'll post the new recipes after we try them!

So here is what I cooked and/or prepared this time:
1.  Chicken Nuggets and seasoned breading
2.  Bubble Up Casserole
3.  Easy Chicken Marinade
4.  French Dip Sandwiches
5.  Lasagna Roll Ups
6-8. Chimichanga's (3 meals worth)
9.  Chicken Enchilada Casserole
10.  Chicken for Cornflake Chicken Bake
11.  Sloppy Joe Casserole
12.  Crock pot Tangy BBQ Sandwiches
13.  Skillet Tacos
14- 15. Supper on a Bun (2 meals)
16. Deep Dish Pizza Casserole
17. Iowa State Fair Guinea Grinders
18.  Tex-Mex Chicken
19.  Rice Pie
20-22. Lasagna Roll Ups (3 meals worth)

Below is the menu for Sept and the beginning of Oct.  As you can see I don't have to cook again until October 11th...which is conveniently our next day off from school!

SEPTEMBER:

OCTOBER:

Freezer Cooking Day!

So I did my first "official" freezer cooking day today.  I've done mini ones in the past, but today I cooked with a specific menu in mind.  Here you can see our August menu.  The meals in blue are ones that we already had on hand (non-perishable like spaghetti, or already frozen meals like Meat Loaf Muffins).  You can also see that I left a couple of days blank so I can try out some new recipes on days I have extra time.  The rest, I made/prepared today.  It only took me 4 hours from start to finish...and that includes loading and running the dishwasher!  Not bad for my first time if I say so myself.  When I was done Brian asked if I regretted it...ABSOLUTELY NOT!  This is totally my thing!  I love doing this; I wish it could be a full time job!  I'd love to come over and grocery shop and cook for others.  : )  As you can see my meals are in no way "gourmet."  It's just meals that are quick and easy to prepare/reheat and get on the table after a long day at work.

I hope to do this again over Labor Day weekend.  Maybe I can get September's meals prepared that time and maybe add in a few more lunch ideas as well.

Here is my to-do list (for anyone interested).  I broke down all of the things I would need to do so I had a game plan to follow.  I ended up going slightly out of order but it all worked out in the end. 
1. Brown turkey breakfast sausage for phyllo rolls. Add minced onion and freeze.

2. Cook 3 Italian sausage, casings removed
3. Brown 5 lb ground turkey
1+ c for lasagna, 2 c mexi pasta, 2 c moms hamb helper, 1 ¼ c for pizza burgers, 1-2 lb stuffed peppers (x2?), <2 c cooked for bubble up, 2 c for enchilada filling + extra for girls)
4. Cook 2 c rice (stuffed peppers x 2, enchilada filling)
5. Chop onions (1/8 c stuffed peppers, ½ c for hamburger helper, 1/8 c for bubble up)
6. Cut pepperoni into bite size pieces (1.5 oz for pizza burgers, some for pizza pockets)
7. Chop 1/3 c parsley
8. Marinade for Ziploc chicken
9. Mix meat and sauce/seasoning for bubble up
10. Make filling for pizza pockets w/cooked Italian sausage (1/2c pizza sauce, sausage, pepperoni)
11. Put 2 lasagna’s together
12. Put together Mexican pasta skillet (cool before adding macaroni)
13. Put together hamburger helper
14. Put pizza burgers together
15. Brown 1 lb ground chicken (sloppy Joes x 2)
16. Make sloppy joe filling (1 c ketchup, 1 can diet coke, s/p, minced garlic)
17. Make enchilada filling (taco seasoning, refried beans, rice, cheese, purple puree)
18. Put enchiladas together (+ little extra meat for tacos for girls)
19. Put together stuffed peppers (1 or 2)
20. Freeze chicken for chicken and rice meal
21. Bag chicken for slow cook chicken dinner (4 breasts, halved)
22. Freeze sausage for grilled turkey Italian sausage
23. Add macaroni to Mexican pasta skillet