My Perfect Planner

I’ve talked about my Household Notebook before.  It was a lofty goal and one fraught with perfectionism.  What I have discovered is that ONE book can’t do all I need it to do.
WHAT?
So here’s what I need my household notebook to do:

Homeschool Planner

• I need to be able to look at a glance and see what our schooling plans are.  Additionally, this needs to be a running record of what we have done for documentation purposes.
• Paper is a better choice for this.  Edited on the computer and printed out is what I’m thinking.
• I’m using the Well Planned Day paper planner right now and it’s almost what I need.

Blog Planner

• I want to plan out some specific goals for my blogs.  I say that I want to do things with this blog for example but then I get sidetracked and things I intended to explore don’t get done because I don’t have written down what my plan is.
• Edited on the computer and printed out is what I will try first.

Household planner

• I have a need to get things out of my head!  I know things that would be useful to someone if I weren’t around at the time.
• I also want to be able to detail some cleaning routines.
• This needs to be a combination of paper and iPhone.

Girl Scout planner

• I have a Daisy/Brownie troop that I need to plan for.
• I have a troop notebook already that has all my forms and things that I HAVE to have at each meeting and I think is mostly working for me but I need to have some sort of planner for thinking through meetings, planning volunteer meetings, etc.
• Again, I’m thinking paper for brainstorming purposes.

Financial documents holder

• I need a place that financial documents can be easily found.  I have a pretty extensive filing system, but I still seem to to be the only person who can find anything in it.
• This also needs to be something that has account information that can be easily accessed.

Family telephone directory

Address and phone listing and would be nice to have birthdays and anniversaries documented.

Emergency planning

What are our emergency plans? Could I grab this information quickly and get out of the house if I needed to?
This video makes me think:

A place for journaling, notes, ideas, brainstorming

• Really this needs to be my brain on paper.  What are my priorities for the week?  I have a tendency to be trying to deal with whatever the “emergency” seems to be.  It would be nice to get ahead and not have any emergencies.

Bible Study

• Somewhere to document my studies and journal.

Family Calendar

• Right now, Google Calendar is working for us pretty well.  I share the calendar with hubby and I can access it when I need it.

Task list 

• Using Awesome Note on my phone right now.  It’s a good but not perfect solution.  I’d really like to be able to quickly set-up tasks on the computer instead of having to input everything in the phone.

Goals

• long term and short.
• Action lists.

I also want and need some of this on my iPhone.  Some of it needs to be shared with my husband.  Some of it purely for my use and enjoyment so it needs to be pretty and or creative.

So what about you?  Do you need a planner?  Do you need a hybrid planner?  One planner? Several planners?  What needs to be in yours?  Let me know in the comments below.

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Yummy apple flowers

Yummy apple flower snack inspired by Sarah Fragoso’s book: Everyday Paleo

This is an apple, sliced thinly, a tablespoon of hazelnut butter, and a strawberry.  My kids love this as you can see from Phoebe’s face!

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What is the Paleo diet?

So since my husband and I decided to start this journey, we’ve gotten a lot of questions.  Everything from “How can you give up bread?” to “Is there anything you CAN eat?”

After losing 14 pounds in the first month, I can say definitively that you can eat a lot of things and still lose weight.

In my opinion, the Paleo diet is basically this:  if God didn’t make it, don’t eat it.  So no twinkies, no packaged noodles, no candy bars.  But you can eat plenty of veggies, lean meat and fish, nuts, healthy fats, and fresh fruit.

You also, at least at first, need to stay away from dairy products, all grains including wheat, rice, barley AND corn, and legumes.  More about this in a moment.

The diet was really popularized by Loren Cordain, a professor of Health Sciences at Colorado State University and published in his book, The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Foods You Were Designed to Eat.

I have found his book to be a little on the dry side – cough, cough – very dry – and got a lot more from Robb Wolf’s book: The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet

I find the Robb Wolf book to be very informative, entertaining even – and a good source of the science behind the diet.  They both do a much better job than I can do to explain why grain is the worst possible thing in the world for you to eat, but it comes down to this: humans haven’t been eating grain long enough for us to be able to properly digest/breakdown gluten.  Gluten won’t make most of us instantly sick, instead it’s like a slow, painful dance.  It disrupts our intestines and may contribute to Leaky Gut syndrome.  Grains raise our blood sugar levels and force our pancreas to work harder to lower it.  It’s just not a good thing.

Dairy is taxing to the gut and may increase inflammation.  Legumes, while rich in iron and other nutrients, are also inflammatory to the gut and should be avoided, at least at first.

Yes, it takes some planning and it can be expensive.  More about that soon…

This page is also posted on my new Paleo Weight Loss website.

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Living on the wild side…

A couple of weeks ago, I started writing a book for Camp NANOWRIMO.  Man!  I had no idea how difficult it was to maintain a storyline for more than a few thousand words without A) losing your way in the story or B) not knowing what the Heck to write next or C) giving up completely because your kids won’t stop pestering you every 3-1/2 seconds to use the computer.  In short, I do not have enough time in the day to write at least 2,000 words unless I give up sleep.  But I can find time for 100-500 words a day.

So, I haven’t given up writing the story but I’m working on it in smaller chunks.   You can read the story from the beginning here and I’ll do an update here as I post new parts.

Also, we started a new diet. 

I have a skin disease called Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS).  It’s a nasty condition that causes extremely painful lesions anywhere you have sweat glands.  I will have to go into more detail in another post but suffice it to say, it does not make for a Happy Girl.  I have had flare-ups off and on since I was a teenager but about 4-1/2 years ago, I got a flare-up that has NEVER gone away. My dermatologist injects them with steroids and puts me on antibiotics and they get a little better but have never gone COMPLETELY away since right before Phoebe was born.  During my pregnancy with Griffin, they went on overdrive and I had the worst flare-up of my life and was taking meds during pregnancy to help combat infection.

No, I’ve never talked about it in this blog because it’s embarrassing.  The lesions are gross and sometimes ooze stinky stuff.  When I have a bad flare-up, I don’t leave the house unless I have to because they are extremely painful AND smelly. Furthermore, the medicine I put on them is a sulfur based ointment so I smell like rotten eggs.

So I was reading a thread from an HS forum and someone mentioned Primal Girl and her battle and subsequent remission from HS and my mind was BLOWN.  She went on a Paleo/Primal type diet – which basically means she abstained from dairy, wheat, legumes, and refined sugars - and not only did she lose a crap ton of weight but had major improvements in PCOS (which I also have) and HS.

I read about it and then mentioned it to John.  He said he’d recently read about the Paleo diet but thought I would think he was crazy for even considering it. 

I mean the Standard American Diet and the recommendations from the FDA, ADA, and the American Heart Association all say you need grains and dairy for optimum health.  My gastroenterologist told me I needed fiber in the form of whole grains, fresh fruit and veggies and particularly, legumes, like pinto beans and peas to prevent flare-ups in my diverticulosis.  It would be crazy to go against all this expert advice and do something different wouldn’t it?

But as I read story after story of people healing themselves of diabetes, obesity, and numerous gastrointestinal and autoimmune issues by simply avoiding these substances, I began to have a different opinion.

I read two books, which I will detail in later posts, and then jumped on the Paleo bandwagon.  We decided to stick to the 28 day menu in one of the books but found that there were so many things that we just did NOT like and this past week, we've struck out on our own but are using the menu as a guideline.

For the last few days, we have been completely dairy, wheat, legume, and refined sugar free.  The first couple of days I felt like absolute crap.  John and I both had a bad headache that wouldn’t go away with sleep or ibuprofen.

We were jones’n for Cokes and ice cream.  I wanted cheese more than I have ever wanted it in my life. But on day 4 something happened:  the headache went away for the most part and by day 10 (yesterday) were gone.  My head cleared.  My stomach didn’t hurt anymore. I had more energy. I felt good. And I wasn’t hungry.

I have been taking 4-8 ibuprofen a day for the last few years just to get through the day and it just dulled the pain enough that I could keep going.  My arms and shoulders, legs and back, have ached every single day for the last 10 years.  On day 5, I took 2 ibuprofen to deal with some menstrual cramps and that was it until this morning.

Yesterday, while the kids were having a snack (they aren’t Paleo – yet), I was handing Griffin some Honey Nut Cheerios and while I wasn’t paying attention, popped a handful in my own mouth.  A few days ago, this would have been completely normal: hand the kid a handful of cereal to snack on and then pop some into my mouth.  Now?  Ugh.  Within 2 hours, I felt spacy.  This morning, I woke up feeling like someone beat me.  The aches and pains that have been largely absent the last few days are back with a vengeance.

Could one handful (about 12 Cheerios) cause so much anguish?  I’m praying that tomorrow I feel like I did on day 10.

Every time that I have gone on a diet (usually the Watchers of Weight), I have been instantly hungry and hated counting every single grape that went into my mouth.  It never felt sustainable.  I imagined that if I was on it for several months that I’d get used to it and it would feel more natural to count everything.  But it never did and that’s usually when I’d give up.  AGAIN.

I always hate that person leading the group who says things like “When you get thin, you can just smell food and get full.”  That is crap.  Complete and utter bullshit.  We need food to live.  Our brains do not function without food.  Our brains NEED carbohydrates for fuel.

But on these plans, you’re steered away from fresh fruit because it’s “so high in points to get enough!” but “here, eat this prepackaged brand name grain based snack mix! It’s only a point for this WHOLE bag!”  Well you know what?  That snack mix has little nutritional value whereas that fruit is perfectly packaged to provide nutrients.  Yes, it has sugar but God wrapped it in a fiber package so that the sugar is absorbed better by my body.

Right now, I am 4 hours since breakfast and it’s time for a snack but I’m not really hungry.  Additionally, my blood sugar is in good shape.

And also? On Monday, I weighed in and I’d lost 9 pounds.

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Water Water Everywhere

Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798), Stephen Taylor Coleridge

I talk a lot about the historic Georgia floods of 2009. For me, it was a pivotal moment and one I do not soon want to repeat.

As you may remember, I had a 15 month old daughter, no phone, no internet, no television, no electricity, and worst of all, no running water. Oh there was plenty of water around, just not any potable or drinkable water.

We had had some plumbing problems a few weeks before and had bought several gallons of bottled water to plan for a day of repairs. Luckily, we didn’t need the water during repair day, so I had a pretty good supply of drinking water on hand when the water system was overwhelmed by the torrential rains.

Within hours, every grocery store shelf was empty of water too and travel to other stores was difficult and dangerous due to flooding. I was more than happy that I could get through the emergency with the water we had on hand. Looking back, in fact, I distinctly remember being thankful that I had just weaned Phoebe because that would have been a big drain on our small water supply.

What about you? If the water was turned off for an indeterminate time, would you have any on hand?

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What to do with 40 pounds of chicken (or it’s a Zaycon chicken event!)

Saturday, I picked up a package of 40 pounds of chicken breasts.  Yes, FORTY POUNDS of chicken.

The chicken came by way of Zaycon*, a company that sells wholesale meats at wholesale prices to consumers. 

What to do with all that chicken?

Ideas for you:

• Chicken taco kits
• Grilled chicken kits
• Chicken Enchiladas
• Cranberry chicken
• Chicken burritos
• Chicken Pot Pies
• Chicken tortilla soup
• Cooked, shredded chicken for salads

I made 11 taco kits, 8 bags of chicken with teriyaki sauce for the grill, and 3 bags of chicken prepped and ready to cook.  I put all the fat and trimmings into my crock pot and made 92 ounces of chicken stock.  Now all I have to do is thaw out what I need when I need it.

It only took a couple of hours to prep all that chicken and we’ve go tons of meals in the freezer as a result.

*The link to Zaycon is a referral link and I do receive a small credit if you sign up.

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How to make caramel apples

1. Purchase caramel apple kit.
2. Line cookie sheet with wax paper.  Ready plastic wrap to wrap your delicious creations.
3. Follow directions on package to melt caramel.
4. Push sticks into apples.  Nearly lose eye when one stick breaks and splinters fly through air.
5. Pick up apple on a stick.  Apple slips off stick.  Put apple back on stick.  Repeat.  Swear with great creativity. Figure out how to angle apple so it won’t fall off stick.
6. Dip into sauce that is now hotter than molten lava.
   Swear obscenely when stick comes out of apple leaving apple bobbing in viscous goo.  Go find the mother effin’ tongs.
7. Realize you’ve destroyed tongs because you found preschooler using them to mess with "things" in toilet.  Find the salad spoons instead.
8. Use salad spoons to dig apples out of caramel sauce that is now hotter than the sun.  Sauce drips off of salad spoons and onto your pants leaving a blister the size of your hand.  Swear loudly enough that the neighbors think there’s some sort of domestic situation at your house and call police.
9. Repeat process with remaining apples and/or say to “hell with it” and go buy caramel apples at grocery store.
10. Enjoy!

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October’s Meal planning

I was inspired to share this with all of you this month.  I was reading one of my favorite once a month cooking websites and she shared her own meal plan.  Now granted I’m not cooking tons of this at once but I am doing a little bulk cooking. 

My October Meal Plan

1. Chicken Tacos
2. Breakfast for dinner
3. BBQ Sandwiches
4. Leftover BBQ
5. Homemade Pizza
6. Grilled Chicken Burritos
7. Baked Potatoes with the fixin’s
8. OUT
9. OUT with Family
10. Delivery Pizza
11. Beef Stew Bowls
12. Cornish Pasties
13. Big Salad
14. Chicken Tortilla Soup
15. Chicken Quesadillas
16. Homemade Pizza
17. Hamburgers
18. Hot dogs
19. Turkey and veggies
20. Turkey Turkey Club Sandwiches
21. OUT
22. Burgers
23. Turkey Enchiladas
24. Kielbasa
25. Cranberry Chicken 
26. BBQ Sandwiches
27. Leftover BBQ
28. Veggie Beef Soup
29. Leftover Soup
30. Coca Cola Chicken
31. Turkey Enchiladas

This is a plan.  It doesn’t mean it’s written in stone.  The only things that are absolutely sure things are the items for the first 7 days as I just went grocery shopping and the turkey related items.

I bought the turkey about 6 months ago and he’s been hanging out in my deep freeze.  I think its about time to get him out and cook him up.

What this plan does for me though is help me when I’m trying to figure out what we should have.  This way, I can create my grocery list in advance and then check the sales and act accordingly.

Do you plan this far ahead with your meal planning?

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Tales of a Wannabe Domestic Goddess

Long before I had children and even before I was married, I said that the only thing domestic about me was that I lived in a house.  I hate housework and don't understand those souls who seem to derive so much pleasure from scrubbing toilets and washing baseboards.  So it surprised everyone including me and my husband when I became a stay at home mom.  Visions of June Cleaver, Carol Brady and Ma Ingalls filled my head - could I vacuum wearing pearls?

No, I'm closer to Morticia Adams than to any of them.  And this realization made me understand that I am seriously uneducated in the methods of home economics.

I'm not saying that I didn't know how to clean.  Everyone can take a rag and a bottle of cleaner and clean like crazy, but I was completely unprepared for the daily routines and just general busy-ness needed to maintain a home.

My mother worked at least part-time for a lot of my childhood so I don't remember her as housewife. And as I’ve mentioned before, she also hated cleaning and housework with her involved the whole family pitching in to get the house in order before holidays or before company came over.  I am a champion of crisis cleaning and can stuff more junk into closets and under beds than you can possibly imagine.

After I married, both John and I worked full time outside the home.  We'd tackle the housework in the same way that my mom did: long marathons just before company or when the kitchen was threatened with closure by the local sanitation department.  I tell the absolute truth when I admit to drinking milk out of a vase because we didn't have any clean glasses.

Once I became a full time mommy, I had to learn to do all those things.  I'm still learning.  My house is mostly clean and on it's way to being completely decluttered.  I have cleaning routines and I rarely crisis clean.  I still have a long way to go but feel like it's not overwhelming.

But for the record, we still call it "excavating" the kitchen.

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How I’m learning to FLY

About 5 years ago, I found this chick online who calls herself Flylady. She can be found here and you can sign up for her daily emails and podcasts and watch videos and sign up for her branded version of a calendar program, etc. She’s also got products that she sells like special timers and scrubbers and books.

Oh I hear you.. “But Amanda, it all looks like a big scam to sell me cleaning supplies” and I’ll admit that she’s definitely figured out a way to monetize the advice she gives. But at the heart of all of the gadgets and gizmos and buzzwords that you’ll find, you will find something very interesting.

She’s offering real advice on how to make your house your sanctuary and she’s offering a real way to do it. And there’s no judgment, but there’s also no excuses.

FlyLady has broken down the first 31 days of her system down into a list of easy to complete list of tasks that she recommends for folks new to her system. I fully embraced it about five years ago and went through most of the steps, but found myself reverting back to my old habits. It’s taken me 5 years of misery in my house to really appreciate what Flylady has to say. It’s taken me 5 years to stop being a perfectionist in my housekeeping.

A perfectionist, you say? Yep, Flylady helped me realize that it was perfectionism that made me not want to clean. That it was my mother’s and grandmother’s perfectionism that drove me crazy and that I am walking down the same path. And like other crazy stuff passed down in my family – which will be another post – the CRAZY PERFECTIONIST STUFF STOPS WITH ME.

Here’s some of the logic for you: I see that the kitchen is a mess. I guestimate how long it will take me to clean the kitchen to my perfectionist mindset and I ALWAYS overestimate – usually by several hours. Then, because it seems so big, I PROCRASTINATE because, come on, who’s got 4 hours to clean one room?

The truth is that the kitchen only needs maybe 20 minutes of real work. However, my mind is saying that there is a lot more work. It’s saying that I also need to clean out the junk drawer and change the baking soda in the refrigerator and bleach the countertops and wash the tray thing in the silverware drawer and sanitize the trash can and reorganize the pantry and suck the lint out of the lint trap in the dryer and a million other things that NEED to be done before I will declare the kitchen clean.

So old me would have said, I’ll just do what absolutely needs to be done right now for me to be able to cook a meal and leave everything else for another day. New me says that’s good, work on the 4 or 5 quick tasks that absolutely needs to be done but also set a 15 minute timer and do one of those other things. The next day, new me will do the things that absolutely be done (i.e. empty and fill the dishwasher and run it, wipe off the counters and stovetop, and empty the trash can if needed) which won’t take more than 15 minutes and then set a timer and do another 7-15 minutes on something else.

This very act has taken my house from a total wreck to a livable place that I LIKE in a matter of just a few weeks. And best of all, no one is stressed out. No one is being yelled at. No one is being driven bat shit crazy with crazy perfectionist attitudes.

I was beginning to think that we really needed a new house and now I am convinced that we just have too much damn stuff.

My house isn’t perfect and that’s ok. It’s clean enough that I don’t feel embarrassed to have a friend’s almost 1 year old crawling on my floors. My husband doesn’t complain about not having enough clean underwear because I’m keeping up with laundry. My daughter stays out of things better because there just isn’t as much clutter to get into. And I’m a lot happier because I don’t feel guilty when I play on the computer or take a nap because I am not looking at a cluttered house and thinking about how I should be working on that instead of taking care of me.

And isn’t loving yourself just as important as loving your family?

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Why I hate housework

Most of us learn about house cleaning and maintenance from our mothers and I am no exception.  My mother was a crisis cleaner.  This means that generally the housework was left until either A) we had company coming over or B) it was time to put up the Christmas tree. 

There was also frantic panicked cleaning or stuffing things into cabinets and closets when my grandmother was coming – she wasn’t really considered company since she lived 2 doors away and was at the house 1-3 times a week. 

At these times, my mother would turn into a complete tyrant and would scream, yell, cajole, bribe, etc to get me and my father to help her in cleaning the house.

We would work furiously to get the house into shape.  We would often work late into the night getting the house into order because no one would rest until the house was to my mother’s idea of cleaning perfection.

I grew up with this and my only real idea of housekeeping was about this crisis cleaning.  There was no such thing as a weekly cleaning day, or areas of the home that needed daily attention.  And I grew to HATE the week of Thanksgiving because we’d put the Christmas tree up that weekend and my mother couldn’t consider putting it up unless the house was completely clean and tidy.  This is when my mother would do a version of Spring cleaning that would make everyone bat shit crazy. 

After all, we had hardwood floors and they needed to be stripped and waxed.  The rug in the living room needed to be shampooed.  The kitchen cabinets needed to have everything taken out and washed.  The bathroom needed to have every inch of floor space scrubbed with a small brush reserved just for this purpose.  The linen closet had to be completely emptied and all items categorized, rewashed if necessary, refolded and placed back into the closet.

What’s worse is my maternal grandmother – the one that lived two doors down? – was doing the same thing and would enlist my help.  I was volunteered to help grandmother and then I had to come home and do all the same things at my house.

I later found out that my grandmother had volunteered my mother’s help to HER grandmother when my mother was a girl – so this was just what you were supposed to do.  Besides, in my grandmother’s and mother’s eyes, I was young, I couldn’t get tired!

By the end of the week, I was exhausted, could care less if we ever put up the Christmas tree and just wanted to go back to school. 

After Moo and I got married, I refused to do the bat shit crazy cleaning but the house would have to be cleaned or it would be a complete pig sty.  In fact, while I was working, Moo and I would tackle the kitchen about once a week and we’d get the trash taken out in time for pickup.  But the other stuff like cleaning the toilets and bathtubs and vacuuming and mopping were left until CRISIS CLEANING TIME!

And of course, if it’s been – GASP! – a month since you cleaned your toilet, you know that’s not a fun job. It takes three times longer to get that sucker clean as it would if you just gave it a swipe every couple of days and then really scrub it out once a week.  But who can remember to swish it daily?

I believe that I have found a secret to keeping house without crazy long cleaning sessions.  What I have discovered keeps me and my family sane.  I’m not having to browbeat my husband into helping me because THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO AND I CANNOT POSSIBLY DO IT BY MYSELF!!!

Come back tomorrow to learn what I’m learning.

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I also make damn fine soup…

This recipe is derived from my grandmother’s and my mother-in-law’s recipes for vegetable beef soup.

I never actually saw my grandmother’s recipe, but I know what she put in it.  My mother–in-law actually helped put together a cookbook for her Woman’s Club and included her vegetable beef soup as well as other family favorites.

My own version is a combination of the two with a little extra zing thrown in..

• 1 package of stew beef from your supermarket meat counter (about 1-2 pounds of meat)
• 2 large cans of diced tomatoes
• 1 large can of tomato sauce
• 1 large bag of frozen veggies (about a pound).  Stay away from California blends with cauliflower and broccoli - they just don't hold up and get mushy
• 2 tablespoons of garlic salt
• 1 tablespoon of oregano or Italian seasoning

Procedure:

1. Cut the stew beef up a little if you like it in bite size pieces, cover with about an inch of water and boil for about 30 minutes.
2. Add the tomatoes, the tomato sauce, the spices and the veggies.
3. Cook for about 2 hours or until you can't stand smelling it anymore.
4. Serve with fresh hot cornbread.

This recipe FREEZES BEAUTIFULLY and makes a LOT of soup so it’s good to put some in your freezer!  It is so good and perfect for a cold day. 

To freeze, dish up into the container of your choice.  If you want, you can also dish into zipper top bags and lay on a cookie sheet in your freezer to freeze flat.  Then, they stack up.

To reheat, you can thaw if you like or just pull the container from the freezer, run a little hot water over to loosen the soup and dump into the pot of your choice.  Heat on low until thawed and hot.

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The most delicious thing you’re going to read all day

Seriously.

Moo would eat this recipe EVERY SINGLE DAY if I would cook this… and the thing is, this recipe is ridiculously easy AND very economical if you buy chicken when it’s on sale.

I originally got this recipe from Once a Month Mom but I’ve altered it slightly. You can try my version or go with hers… mine is UNBELIEVABLY delicious and for those of us watching our carbs, it’s pretty healthy.

Chicken Tacos in a Bag

• 1-1/2 pounds of chicken breast – diced, sliced like fajita strips or just cut into bite size pieces.
• Package of taco seasoning – this is on sale at my Kroger almost all the time 10 for $10… your mileage may vary
• 3 tablespoons of Lime Juice
• 2 Tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
• Tortillas
• Taco toppings of your choice like tomatoes, sauce, salsa, cheese, rice, etc.
• Zip top bag

Procedure

1. Cut up the chicken and put into bag
2. Pour lime juice and taco seasoning into bag and mush around to coat chicken
3. Now you can either let this marinate for at least two hours (overnight is better) before cooking or you can freeze it. If you freeze it, thaw it out before the next step.
4. Warm a large skillet with the oil and sauté the chicken. Cook about 15 minutes or until cooked thoroughly. I cook it until it is almost dry and actually starts charring a little bit. Those little burnt bits add a lot of flavor!
5. Serve hot with your taco toppings. This is also delicious in a taco salad.

Seriously. That’s it. You’ll thank me when you eat this. And we almost NEVER have leftovers of this because it is THAT good.

I buy chicken cheap and package up 4-6 of these things at a time and freeze them. Since I also freeze tortillas and cheese, I pretty much always have everything I need for a quick and easy and DELICIOUS meal.

To maximize your freezing space, mush the chicken and marinade down into the bottom of the bag and roll the bag up. Then use tape or a label to keep the chicken rolled. It saves a ton of space in your freezer and you have all these delightful little rolls of chickeny goodness in your freezer.

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Fill your freezer with goodies

As I discussed a few weeks ago, I intend to have a full freezer and pantry by the time Nugget makes his arrival. 

As I have the Gestational Diabetes and will also have another c-section, the date of Nugget’s arrival will be sometime around the 18th of February which is the beginning of the 38th week.

So that means that there’s only about 11 weeks to get everything ready.  The loss of my part time gig will greatly impact my plans but as I’ll tell you, not too badly.

Yesterday (Saturday), Moo and I and little girl went to the grocery store.  Not an unusual experience in and of itself, but it was the contents of the trip that may surprize you.

We had a big trip.  Not because we’re planning for guests or anything like that but because meat was on sale.  Specifically chicken breasts and stew beef were on sale at stock up prices.

I use a variety of websites for my information but the most useful site for tracking pricing is Couponmom.com.  This site lists the major grocery stores in the area and will give you the low down on their sale papers and how the prices listed compares with regular pricing.  It also gives you the date and location of any coupons that can lower pricing even more. 

Now I hear what you’re saying - “I HATE COUPONS” well so did I until I started hearing about people getting stuff for almost nothing or free. 

Food is one of the few things that we have nearly complete control over on our budget.  We can go eat prime rib every week or we can cut back and eat ground beef and chicken thighs.  We can go out 5 times a week or we can cook a few economical things and still have the cash to go out once a week.

At one point, we were spending more on restaurants than we were on groceries and it was really hurting us financially.  We couldn’t see it, but it was.  And do not get me started on the cost of diapers and the fact that as the kid gets bigger, the package sizes shrink (size 4 Pampers, you get 27 diapers, whereas with size 5, you only get 23) for the SAME PRICE!!!

So finding a way to eat healthy and cheap has become an obsession for me.  Call it my own way of nesting if you want.  But if I’m able to cut my grocery budget in half in time for a kid who’s gonna need diapers and new clothes every 6-1/2 minutes, then I will clip whatever coupons I need to.

So back to our grocery trip and the cheap chicken and stew beef.

We came home and started to work.

First, the stew beef.  I did a little prep work and then put on a double batch of vegetable beef soup.  A double batch makes about 6 meals for us.  These are generous servings so plenty for those cold winter nights coming.  I serve with hot cornbread. 

Then, I started on the chicken.  One meal, I’m planning to make cranberry chicken – I posted the recipe previously here.  We’ll have this later in the week.

The rest of the chicken got cut into bite size pieces and will be turned into chicken tacos.  That recipe is coming later this week (it’s already written and ready and will post Dec 8th).

In about 4 hours of cook time (the soup takes a while) and about 1 hour of prep, I made 14 meals all for about 3 dollars per meal.  Not too shabby.

And beyond that, this is all simple stuff that tastes good and is easy to prepare come dinner time.

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I am clearly insane…

I have decided to do something great.  Or it could be crazy.

I have decided to have a full and ready freezer by the time this kid makes its’ appearance in March.

So what does that mean?

It means that I will have a complete plan of every meal we will eat from the middle of February through March.  It also means that I will have a goodly number of those meals in the freezer ready to pop in the oven.

No, I do not plan to keep Stouffer’s or Banquet or even Schwann’s in business for the next 6 months.

I plan to cook almost everything myself.  Yep, mostly homemade stuff.

I realized that after Phoebe was born, there was about 6 weeks where we ate a lot of junk because I was just not up to cooking healthy meals and Moo wasn’t up to gourmet cooking either.

Don’t misunderstand that.  My husband is a great cook.  He’s the only man I’ve ever met who doesn’t know how to grill, but he’s a great cook.

It was just that by the time he got home from dinner, listened to whatever post-partum rant I had going on, and decompressed from work, the only thing to cook were burgers or hot dogs.

I have decided this time will be different.  I have decided that this time, the only grocery trips right after the Nugget arrives will be for fresh milk, bread and whatever I’m craving.

So how to plan something like this?

First, I needed to know how many meals we were talking about.  I decided that this calendar needs to start the week before my due date because I’ll have the c-section about a week before that.  My meal planning cycle starts on Saturdays so I started my calendar on the Saturday of the week before.  I also decided that since I will at that time be 9 months pregnant, there’s no way that I’ll want to do anything much besides lie on the couch like a beached whale anyway.

I want the meals to be planned through March and again, since my plans always run Saturday through Friday, that takes us through April 1st.  That is a total of 6 weeks.  That’s 6 weeks of breakfasts, lunches and dinners.  I also wanted to include snacks but decided to give up that – at least for now.

So 42 breakfasts, 42 lunches, 42 dinners!  WOW!!!

The next thing is to come up with things to fill in.  I came up with a list of everything I can and like to cook.  I decided the like to cook would be important since I don’t want this to be a huge mountain of dread.

I came up with a list of 50 items that I can cook/prepare.  I say prepare cuz I’ve got cold cereal on that list.  YES, I COUNTED CEREAL.  MY KID LOVES IT!!!

Not every one of these meals will freeze beautifully to quote “Steel Magnolias”.  So I had to notate which ones will have to be made from scratch – like a big salad – we love big salads in this house - and also the ones that were slow cooker meals.  I also noted where something was a good lunch option or would also work for breakfast (this is important cuz who doesn’t like breakfast for dinner?)

My goal is for every meal to be something that requires less than 20 minutes of prep time.  Note, I did not say 20 minutes of cooking time.  Most of the meals that I plan to cook ahead need to thaw in the fridge overnight and then be cooked in the oven for at least 30 minutes.

I already do a lot of this now.  It’s why I love my slow cooker.  Take 10 minutes in the morning to put together an amazing meal, throw it into the cooker on low and it’s magically done in time for dinner.

One example of something that totally fits my requirements is my homemade veggie beef soup.  It’s simple simple simple.  It takes 2-1/2 to 3 hours to cook, but most of that is simmering time.  There’s very little prep work – only about 10 minutes of chopping.  Then, all I have to do is keep an eye on it.  If I want to add homemade cornbread, I just set a timer for an hour before dinner is done to remind me, then at that time, I throw together the ingredients and stick it in the oven.  It adds maybe another 10 minutes of prep time.

Part of what I’m trying to avoid come March is that feeling that there’s nothing to eat – even though I’ve got a cabinet full of stuff – but it’s all going to TAKE SO MUCH WORK… <insert whining> when I’m already tired… <more whining> and then we’ll have to go to the groooooooccccceerrrrryyyyyy stoooooooooorrrrrrrreeee.

In my head, I’m thinking is that if I’ve got something already planned and the majority of it is in my freezer or thawing in my refrigerator and all I’ve got to do is wander into the kitchen at 5:30 and throw it into the oven, then I’ve got no real excuse.

And Mickey D’s will not make any money off of us this Spring cuz I’m too <whining> TIIIIIRRRRRREEEDDDD

I’ll post my list when I get it done…

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The Plan

I'm trying to make our meals a little more interesting. I've added a fair number of new recipes to our repertoire in the last few months so we do have some different stuff... cooking at home saves money, is more nutritious - all that good stuff.

I'm also making sure we eat more balanced meals, like you know, with vegetables and stuff.

So in an effort to hold myself more accountable, I'm sharing this week's menu:

Saturday: I bought a roasted turkey breast from the Honeybaked store and we had mixed veggies and yams.

Sunday: Homemade Vegetable Beef Soup and homemade cornbread

Monday: rerun the soup and make fresh cornbread (would have re-run the cornbread too but it's been a while since I made it and my cast iron pan wasn't seasoned well enough and the cornbread tore up really bad)

Tuesday: Frozen pizza and salad.

Wednesday: Taco Mac and salad

Thursday: chicken enchiladas I made last week and froze.

Friday: 2nd half of the taco mac and salad

So this week is a mix of fresh, homemade frozen and store bought.

I'll share recipes with you as we go although I can't always promise pictures. I have great intentions but tend to forget to take the photos as I go so you get a pic of all the ingredients, but nothing else.

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