My once a month food prep and daily life 1-5-17

Good morning!  Hope your day is starting off well.  I was up early due to “Black Kitty” jumping up and scaring Stephen.   Four o’ clock is pretty early, oh well at least I have a good start to my day:)  By the way, the cat did have an “official” name but has since been changed my the little ones to “Black Kitty.”  It is great when you take him to the vet and they ask for his name and they give you a look.  It is good fun.

This week is my shopping once a month trip.  After all of the holidays and all of the food, it has been time to get back to normal and make some healthier meals.  I started out on Monday and planned out my menu for the month.

monthly menu new  —you can view that here.

It helps me to plan out what we are going to be eating for the month and then do the shopping one time and get all of the ingredients verses running back and forth each week picking up all of the little ingredients.  I typically do this at the beginning of the month and then when we do our running each week, I may have to pick up milk or something else that I had forgotten or ran out of.   Plus if I am not able to get out and go shopping, I always have food to make for my family.

I write down any meal prep that I have when I get my bulk meat on the right hand side so that when I purchase all of my meat, I know what I have to make without going through the menu again.

This month we made 4 batches of breakfast sausage bites. I just realized I don’t have a recipe for these—-easy.  One package of breakfast sausage, mix with 2 cups shredded cheese and then mix with 2 cups of baking mix.  If it is too wet you can add some flour.  I also added a few eggs to make them stick well.  We rolled them into balls and put them on cookie sheets to freeze.  Then put them in bags.  When we need them to eat we will bake them in the oven 350 for 30 minutes.  Tastes like a breakfast sandwich but in little ball form.

I also made some gwumpkies and froze them. I like to make this when cucumbers are on sale and this week they were not.  So I froze the cabbage roll and will make them when I can get a good deal on cucumbers.

The girls helped me mix up batches of meatballs as well.  This will be used for spaghetti.

We then made some salsibury steak patties.  This will be good over noodles.

The rest I cooked and placed in my deli containers to freeze.  This was 25 lbs of ground chuck.   This all happened on Tuesday.  We also did a trip to Aldis and stocked up on our pantry essentials.  This store is great for that sort of thing.

Wednesday was my baking day.  It went rather quickly.  I got up early and started right away and was done by lunchtime.  I made some flax, chia, hemp seed bars.      I love these and they are great to grab and eat while on the go. I froze two big gallon bags of these.  They will last me for a long time.  That is the two bottom bags.  On top is energy bites for the children.

I then made up a big batch of chocolate granola to have for breakfast in the morning.  I told you I am trying to do good and eat oatmeal for breakfast.  It is not my favorite thing–but I am still doing it.  This will allow me something different and still taste good.  I will cut up some apple chunks or some dried cranberries and eat it with this. 

I also made apple dapple cake to have for the week.  I am working on using up what I have in my freezer and cut up apples is something I have a lot of.  Above it is an egg casserole.  I made that for dinner that night.  I mixed up some ham, potatoes, onions, eggs, milk, can of cream of mushroom soup, and sour cream.  Yes sour cream.  It makes it nice and fluffy.  This was served with some sausage pancake bites we had leftover in the freezer from the holidays.

I made a batch of banana and chocolate zucchini bread.  These were made as gifts.  I kept one for us and gave the others away.  To the right on the pedestal are blueberry scones.

We made these in December and they were good.  I had bought two containers of heavy whipping cream and never made them again. I decided to make some before the cream went bad.  This time I rolled them into balls instead of rolling them out to look like real scones.  The balls worked!  We also had red and white sugar crystals so we added them for a topping.

I also was behind in making my kombucha so I made a batch of that up as well. For flavoring I did blueberries and cranberries. 

At Christmastime I received a batch of Friendship tea from our Pastor’s wife.  I had never had it before and wasn’t sure I would like it.  Well I did!  I liked it so much that I needed to make more of it.  It is a combination of sweet tea, tang, lemonade, cloves, and cinnamon.  I know lots of sugar.  But at night time it is nice to have a cup of hot tea instead of eating snacks!My new favorite for night time.

That was my day yesterday.  We also had to mail some packages and so we decided to make a park run so that we could get our daily running/walking/riding scooters in.  It was a little colder.  Some didn’t have coats on and some had hoodies on.  We did a fast run and got done in 15 minutes!  I think a cold front is coming in!!!

We have been doing good being back at school routine, keeping the house in order, and just living life.  I have been working on doing some videos with my new camera but I am still new at it and am having troubles.  I will keep at it.  The only way to get something accomplished is to try, try, and try again.  Even when you don’t think you have two seconds to spare:)  Have a blessed day today and make sure that you take time to SMILE for those little ones.  Even if that means sitting on the floor when you ONLY have five minutes to throw a load of laundry in or you keep looking up and noticing fingerprints all over the windows.  Ignore it and sit with your babies on the floor.  Spend time with them.  They will love it!!!  Be blessed and see you soon!!