Hello Monday!
After working outside yesterday with temperatures in the mid 60’s, it was a bit of a relief to wake up this morning to grey skies and the sound of rain outside my window. And because of that, I am declaring today a rest day. :} Something we haven’t had in over a week because the weather has been so nice, it seems like we had been working in the yard non stop.
The week started off with oatmeal or cereal for breakfast, quickly made sandwiches for lunch and then pretty much grabbing snacks on the go for the remainder of the day.
Well, that was the meal plan scenario around our place until he fired up his new toy, the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker 18 Inch Smoker. After that, it was BBQ city for the rest of the week.
Did you know that 5 pounds of pork shoulder = 3 days of pulled pork sandwiches? Yes, yes it does. Seriously, a girl can only eat so much BBQ pork!
On the fourth day I used up the remaining leftovers and made a huge pot of pork fried rice. But after opening the fridge and seeing we were all out of BBQ… The HH dragged his smoker out to the back patio again and fired it up for a second time.
In between cleaning up the garden, he smoked a 6 pound turkey breast and some random chicken weenies he found in the freezer. I did notice 2 pork chops thawing in the fridge yesterday so I’m not sure if he meant to cook those too, or he had other plans for the pork chops but HOLY COW MAN… That’s a lot of meat for basically two people {The Girl only eats about 25% of her meals at home these days}.
Once I figured out what he was doing {cooking a ridiculous amount of meat} I sprung into action and whipped up a bunch of side dishes to go along with it. Because seriously, why not? If we are going to be eating turkey and weenies for forever and 27 days, why not have all the sides done with too. It’s kind of like meal planning at it’s best, don’t you think? 😉
Miss Lucy doesn’t seem to mind either.
The only other thing I had to make this week {haaaaaad to make. Yes, dessert is a requirement around here} was a batch of vanilla cheesecake bars .
This BBQ thing…. I think the HH might be on to something. I think with a little tweaking, we could get it down to just cooking once a week. 🙂 Weeeeeeee!
How about YOU? How much time are you spending on cooking these days? Curious minds want to know.
Have a wonderful Monday everyone,
~Mavis
Total Spent on Groceries This Week $0
- Total Spent on Groceries in April $0
- Total Spent on Groceries in March $321.69
- Total Spent on Groceries in February $220.92
- Total Spent in January on Groceries $41.19
- Total Spent So Far on Groceries in 2019 $583.80 {Goal is to average $150 – $175 a month for the year}
You can go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories.
JulieP says
The food looks great nothing wrong with living off BBQ especially when you don’t have to do the cooking! Not cooking much just basics and a lot of BBQ. Still living in RV in Spain. Home to UK and cooler weather and garden prep will be full on. Then the plans for meals and baking will re-commence and some kind of plan for my muffin which has increased exponentially
Susan says
I spend a lot of time cooking. One of my goals this year is no waste….
Bought a Costco chicken and had chicken dinner- chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans, chicken fajitas the next night, chicken stir fry the 3rd night and made a big pot of chicken/ mushroom soup with the bones and bits. Ate for lunch and froze some.
Dehydrated a bunch of yellow/ red / orange peppers I got on Clearance at Fred Meyer. Also got some lemons there and made candied lemon peels and dried the lemon slices for tea/water.
Cooked some rice for the freezer, baked some GF chocolate chip cookies, made muffin tin meatloaves for the freezer (and had for dinner another night), put a batch of kimchi in the pantry to ferment (a favorite of my kids and Grandkids) and have a pot of beans soaking to make your baked beans later today.
Asparagus were .99 lb. at Safeway so had those a couple times and made a gallon of soup for the freezer. I freeze it flat in 4 cup increments. They also had chicken for .99 lb. – thighs, breast bone-in or legs- so got the breasts and re-packaged for the freezer. The 80% ground beef was $1.99 lb. – made the meatloaves and burgers and 1 lb. packages with that.
Sharon says
What a great husband you have! I have been doing a little extra cooking, my elderly mom lives with us and loves convenience foods. We purchased some freezer/microwave dinner trays with lids and have been making meals for her. We know it is healthier and she loves the convenience 🙂 I have also given myself a goal of canning at least 1 batch of something per month to slowly build my cupboards back up. I was able to get some Meyer Lemons for a great price at Aldi so I am going to try the Meyer Lemon-Ginger Marmalade recipe you posted 🙂
My honey built a smoker a few years ago when we lived in Colorado, in addition to meats, he smoked Roma tomatoes cut in half lengthwise (similar to a sun-dried tomato but with a smoky taste), hard cheeses can be cold-smoked too. Whenever he would use the smoker he would also place some sea salt in a pie plate and smoke the salt. This turned out great for adding to recipes 🙂 I imagine smoking peppercorns would be great too! Thank you for inspiring us Mavis 🙂 PS Your honey may want to check out this blog for smoking recipes. The gal built her own smoker, hunts and fishes too: http://cowgirlscountry.blogspot.com/
Mel says
Pulled pork freezes well, and it’s actually pretty versatile. You can make nachos or posole (a pork soup) with it. I use the Budget Bytes recipe for posole and sub chickpeas for hominy.
I spend a fair amount of time cooking, but I’ve actually scaled back a bit lately to compensate for the crazy-busy pace around here. We’ve eaten out a bit more often to save time, and I’ve bought one or two things I normally cook (like tortillas) for the same reason. I’m hoping to get back to cooking more once things settle a bit in a month or so.
Betsy in MN says
Budget Bytes is one of my favorite sites for recipes! I will have to check that out. 🙂
Pam says
Your meals always look so good! We need to get better at meal prep in the summer. We spend all day outside working and then dinner comes around and we’re running for fast food or eating cereal for dinner because we either didn’t plan anything or just don’t feel like cooking.
Mel says
My workaround for that is cold pasta salads (either creamy or sesame noodles). It’s a one dish meal if you add a protein, and you can make a couple in advance and chill, so there’s no work when we come inside. Cold sandwich fillings (tuna, egg, or BLT fillings) or bruschetta also work well. For breakfast for dinner, I recently discovered pancake muffins, and it saves so much time since I don’t have to stand there flipping them or dig out a griddle. I’m not sure if that helps, but it’s what we do!