Market Basket $108.40
As I mentioned in my big list of goals for this year, one of the things I won’t be doing is cooking meals so I can concentrate more on my rug hooking. Which sounds kind of weird, I know, but since my Etsy shop has gone from a hobby to more of a serious side gig in the past year, I’m handing the kitchen duties {and a few other household tasks} over to the HH.
I’ll still do canning and if the mood strikes me maybe bake a pie, but as far as meals go, the HH will be in charge of them this year. And he doesn’t mind one bit.
Granted, it may take a few weeks for him to understand the concept of what constitutes a meal…. but I know he will get the hang of it sooner or later.
If you have a big family, or your’e looking to make a boatload of meals all at once {or in batches} One Hundred Dollars a Month reader Mel wrote an AWESOME post a few months ago on how she made 4 months worth of freezer meals so she wouldn’t have to worry about what to cook once the school year hit. You can find her post HERE.
Basically, my approach to meal planning at this stage in my life {my husband and I work from home and our daughter is really only here about 1/4th of the time} is pretty mello.
Make a list of all the meals I want to eat in a month, print out the recipes, have my husband buy all the food in two trips to the grocery store over a 1 month period, and not think about meal planning or what’s for dinner for the next 30 days.
I have no idea if this is going to work out. Buy hey, we’ll all find out together. 🙂
Here are the meals I came up with {keep in mind that almost all of these recipes, will serve as multiple meals thanks to lots of leftovers}.
Breakfast
- Make ahead cinnamon rolls
- Toast
- Oatmeal
- Cream of Wheat
- Cookies
- Bakery treats
- Pancakes
- Bacon and Eggs
- Whatever.
We aren’t big breakfast people and it’s pretty lax around here in the mornings. I mean seriously, some days I’m still in my pajamas at 11 am and I’m like…. the day is already half over, do I have to go anywhere, do I really need to get dressed, what are the odds someone is going to come over?
Main Dish
- Tomato Soup {Crazy good, and I will post the recipe tomorrow}
- Copy Cat Panera Chicken and Rice Soup
- White Bean Soup {in the freezer right now}
- Crock Pot Pork Roast with Sauerkraut
- Pizza, Pizza!
- Thai Chicken Peanut Noodles {we LOVED this the last time we made it}
- Pickety Bits
- Ritz Cracker Chicken
- Saturday Night Beans – New England Style and Maple Syrup Corn Bread
- The Best Meatloaf Recipe on the Planet
- Manicotti {the HH will be trying a new recipe}
- Mississippi Pot Roast
- Leftover Mississippi Pot Roast Stew or Beef Pie
- Pastrami sandwiches we will be making a trip to Morse’s Sauerkraut. They have the best deli meats, sauerkraut, pickles and beets on the planet earth and are worth the drive.
- Big Salads
Desserts
- The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies on the Planet Earth
- King Arthur Flour’s Lava Cakes
- A Chocolate Fudge Cake or a Rum Cake… we’ll see {new recipes}
- Ice Cream {Steve’s Banana Pudding for me and Häagen Daz Buttered Pecan for the HH}
What’s for dinner tonight? I have no idea. But life, it should be full of surprises, don’t you think? 😉
Have a wonderful Monday everyone, bundle up! It’s chilly out there.
~Mavis
Total Spent This Past Week on Groceries $108.40
- Total Spent in January on Groceries $108.40
- Total Spent on Groceries in 2020 $108.40
You can go HERE to read more Shopping Trip Stories
Cathy says
Good morning, does a trip to the bakery count as cooking ?
jj says
According to my HH his idea of cooking is takeout or going for dinner. He does this really well.
Tracey says
I love your Chocolate chip cookie recipe. It’s the only one I use. So good… every time! I’ve got a tween and a teen and a husband who doesn’t really cook and we both work full time. The teen is pretty good at getting things started, but there’s still so much planning that has to happen. I do a bunch of cooking/prep on Sunday’s (as much as I can)… and I wish I had mastered the freezer meal, but I have not. 🙁
Shelia King says
Its amazing to read all the comments about the HH doing all the cooking and other chores. People generally don’t bat an eye when a woman does it but when a man does its a big deal. If it works for them why do we feel the need to say anything? It’s their house, their life and their rules!
Kris says
I know, right? I have done all the cooking and household chores for decades, regardless how many kids I had underfoot or if I was working part time or full time and no one “worries” about me. LOL! That’s the way my mom and dad split it and I just followed suit. My mom lived until she was 94 and she was still in good shape.
Mavis’s HH will get the hang of it, and he will be fine people. 🙂
Marcia says
I wonder if I should try monthly meal planning again. I did that once for awhile, while working full time, back when I only had one kid. I’m not sure if it would work again. Maybe. You see, I don’t do much cooking these days. My husband and I were just talking about how we hate cooking – or to be honest, we both are getting tired of it and we are very uninspired. After a long work day, it’s mostly chicken fingers, frozen pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, and pasta. About the only “inspiration” comes from our 1 or 2 CSA produce boxes. I mean, it’s tiring.
Husband mentioned that I started working late so I wouldn’t have to cook. I reminded him that no, in fact, my job changed and I have meetings until 6 pm for 2 or 3 nights a week (with Asia) for 9 months of the year. Add to that he has 1 day per week where he needs to be at work before 8 am. In the ended, we (I) decided that it would be a complete disaster for us to try and remember who is getting what kids on what day. (Wait, what day is it, is it my turn to pick up?) Thus, he goes in to work early, picks up kids, and cooks.
He also does all the laundry.
Cass says
Mavis, when I went back to college I had 3 children; 2 in HS and 1 in middle school. Talk about pressure to perform. LOL
I sat down with said children and had them list all their favorite meals. Then I made a month menu. Since each meal was eaten only once a month it DID NOT feel like we were eating the same food all the time. (except Pizza, that was on there twice to be moved to the most hectic day of the month and that day’s meal moved to where I listed Pizza) My type A husband made a grocery list for each week and printed out a bunch of them. We just crossed OFF the things we didn’t need to get . The entire month’s list were on one sheet of paper (fold it quarters to use it easier) so if something was on sale I could look ahead and see if I needed it for the following weeks. We used that menu for years. As the children aged they were tasked with taking out the food for dinner when they got home from school, cutting up ingredients and starting water boiling for pasta before parents got home….the entire thing worked wonderfully. (Sometimes we would go out to eat and that day’s food was just used the following day or, if frozen, kept for the following month. Sometimes a Pizza night would be omitted from the month to account for not eating at home)
I think you will enjoy having a month’s worth of meals planned out. Less to think about. Easier to save money by buying when on sale because you know you need it for a meal in the near future.
.
Rubie Morin says
Have to ask, what is the picture just above the “Main Dishes” above? Chicken? Tomatoes? Pasta? What is it> Looks yum. Thanks!
Mavis Butterfield says
Thai Noodle. Soo good. I put the link in there for you.
Patti says
Back in the day I used to plan meals for 6 weeks at a time and grocery shopped only once (because we had to drive two counties away to go to a reasonably priced grocery store). I picked up milk, bread, and fresh items closer to home. We didn’t necessarily go by the meal plan exactly but we knew the food was in the house. It worked beautifully and saved us a lot. My husband has just started cooking more of our meals because he has retired. We have always enjoyed everyone helping out in the kitchen, but his work schedule kept him from being able to cook on days when he worked. It is an adjustment (he doesn’t cook like me) but it is also so helpful so I am liking it and learning to go with the flow. One of our goals this year is to try at least one new recipe a week. This is good because then it is a dish neither one of us has cooked.
Wynne says
Morse’s is the best! Their little attached restaurant is wonderful and a great way to try extra varieties of sausage, pierogies, mustard, etc. But really, we buy their candy. If you’re a Good N Plenty fan, they have unusual kinds of licorice, too.
Looking forward to trying the tomato soup.
Michelle says
I really enjoyed the guest post from Mel and her freezer meals. I would really love to hear from a guest (or even from you Mavis) on make ahead meals for large families. I really struggle to find adequate resources for prepping ahead, freezer meals, and managing a big family. I am expecting baby # 6 in May. My kids are 13 to 3 years old. We have a lot of mouths to feed and they are all eaters. My husband and I have big appetites as well. I can not relate at all to your portion sizes. To give an idea, a dinner requires 2lbs of ground meat plus sides to fill up this crowd. Lately we rely a lot on rice or noodles since they are inexpensive and stretch a meal, but generally we prefer a lower carb menu with higher protein and veg. Thanks for all the help!
Mel says
Congratulations on #6! For freezer cooking, I think many of the same principles from my guest post would still apply to a bigger family (I sometimes use them for large holiday meals or work gatherings), but freezer space might start to be an issue. If you don’t have a lot of freezer space (or if the space just doesn’t go as far with a crowd that size), you might want to try freezing meal starters instead of whole meals. That can still save time (and dishes, energy, money, sanity, etc.) but take up less room. For instance, cooking meat before freezing and packing it in the quantities you’ll use could help.
For fresh ingredients, I’ve been looking for faster ways to prep veggies as of late. If your kids like baby carrots for snacking, you could buy them in bulk and then roast them since they’re already washed and cut. I use a recipe from the blog “Damn Delicious” for roasted baby carrots with ranch seasoning.
I’ve also found diced tomatoes (canned, drained) roast well, so that’s a cheap and easy way to stretch the vegetable content without more chopping. I also add sauteed onion to many things (sauteed greens, breakfast potatoes, fried squash, etc.) as a cheap vegetable filler that doesn’t add much time or prep. If your 13 year old likes to help, you could have him or her prep zoodles to mix with pasta to cut the carbs–the spiralizing is fun, they cook fast, and they’re very cheap in season.
I hope this helps a bit!