I've been wracking my brain for menu ideas for the coming week. I'm just so undecided and admittedly a wee bit frustrated. You see, I cleared a bit of space in all three freezers this past week...and promptly refilled those spaces on Thursday and Friday...Uhm, this is not working quite the way that I planned it! My food multiplication is much appreciated, truly it is, but it does seem that I am forever trying to figure out where I'll store the leftovers. I shall not complain. It's a wonderful thing, truly it is to take stuff from the freezer and make more stuff to refill the freezer and all the while I'm cutting back on portions and this ingredient or that and the food just increases.
This past week we did very well following the menu up to a point. I made the Beef Ravioli Bake and ended putting a pan in the freezer with enough for another meal. I also ate leftovers today of the casserole dish...and I cut the beef by two thirds! It calls for 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef. I used just 1/2 pound and I still had more than enough to serve 5. I made chicken and dumplings and that turned out to be a hearty meal. I ate leftovers of that, too, earlier in the week for my supper. But I still put two quarts of chicken/veg soup in the freezer. Two quarts! The pot roast was made Friday and is currently in the fridge. We never even got round to eating that. I will put that on the menu this week. We stopped Thursday to buy Fried Chicken at the diner and we ate twice off that. I cooked a small turkey breast roast (boneless) for sandwiches, but haven't sliced it up yet. Sure has been great eating turkey sandwiches. Yum!
Okay, I'm planning meals from breakfast thru supper once more as it helps me stay focused and not use too much of my resources and at the same time to use ALL the foods available that might otherwise spoil.
Breakfasts: Sausage Cheese Toast
Butterscotch Oatmeal, Peanut Butter Toast
Bagels with Cream Cheese, Cereal if wanted
Eggs with Cream Cheese and Chives, Buttered Toast
Pancakes, Bacon
Sausage and Hash brown Casserole, Muffins, Fruit Cups
Boiled Eggs, Buttered Toast, Juice
Suppers: Yogurt Smoothie
Club Sandwich
Turkey Sandwich with Chips
Cereal and Toast
Beanie Weenies
Mini Pizzas with Vegetables
Quesadillas with Tomato Soup
Dinners:
Leftovers for me
Beefy Ravioli bake...should have had a salad, but I did have crackers and cheese and grapes for an afternoon snack. I'll have yogurt for supper tonight I think.
Roast Beef with Mashed potatoes, Green Peas, Broccoli Apple Salad, Muffins
My first planned meal with the roast beef. I think I can stretch this to two meals and possibly sandwich meat. We'll see. If I do we'll likely have that instead of the Mini Pizzas.
Roast Beef Hash, Green Beans, Lettuce and Tomato Salad, Toasted Muffins
Round 2. I have the diced cooked potatoes ready to mix with the gravy and meat, so a fuss free meal.
Burritos, Pico de Gallo Salad, Baked Apples
The burritos from the freezer. They are huge things stuffed with rice and ground meat and cheese and beans and corn, all leftovers that I wanted to use up. I think this will be a satisfactory meal. I'll bring out the whipped cream for the baked apples...I may adjust this to Apple Brown Betty to use up more of the end pieces of bread in the freezer. It's mighty good and could bake alongside the burritos.
Out with Mama
Whole Roasted Chicken with Apples and Root Vegetables, Green Salad, Biscuits
If the roast doesn't stretch to sandwiches, I'll keep some biscuit dough out to make mini pizzas for our supper.
Kids Favorite Casserole, Fruit Salad, Biscuits, Snickerdoodles
It's really just an easy shepherd's pie. I'll use just 1/2 pound ground beef for the base instead of a pound.
Work Plans
I made no plans last week and said anything I got done was bonus work. I managed to prune the roses way back, did some trimming around the Persimmon at the front porch, got my shed more or less sorted, and made another step of progress on the guest room. Not bad for a 'vacation' week, huh? Oh yeah, I sat down and worked out my Fourth Quarter budget sheet as well.
This Week:
Get the pictures, sconces hung in guest room.
Take a load of stuff to the shed.
Tag and Sort items for booth.
Get Christmas stuff for booth gathered and tag it so it's ready to place in November.
Plant Daffodil bulbs and iris.
Finish clearing empty pots off back porch.
3 comments:
Terri, your menus sound delicious.. I know how you feel with the freezer and left overs.. Since our children are married and gone. Its just the 2 of us, and we don't eat as much as we use too. I too, have a meal, and it ends up making for another meal..
Proud you accomplished so much last week.. I didn't get much done last week, but hope this week is better.. Have a great week.
Being frugal sometimes makes things hard. I mean you cook and work to not let anything go bad so you use any leftovers in another recipe and such. So it sometimes takes a long time to actually get that meal out of the refrigerator!! You take what you think is one meals worth out of the freer and you get 2 1/2 meals out of it! I am thankful but am trying to clean out the freezer!! Then like you said, things get recreated or you cook too much and some goes back INTO the freezer!! It is all rather comical. :-)
I can't say I did anything spectacular around our home this week but feel satisfied with what did get done. Many things I had wanted to do and never got to so having them finally done really put smile on my face. Now we all know they start to get dirty again the instant they are done being cleaned but that doesn't count!!! :-) Sarah
Terri, It sounds like you have devised a great way to stretch the food budget.
Do you participate in a craft show? I wondered about the booth. Vickie
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