Recipes

It has been a long time since I have posted anything about recipes and cooking. This is partly because Aaron was gone for while and so I wasn't trying new dishes. My friend Becca has these wonderful recipe exchanges that I love going to. These recipes are from the exchange we had in February, the theme was Salad. They were all fantastic! I also included my food calendar for the month. With Aaron home again, it is back to cooking fun stuff most nights and trying new recipes. I also attended a recipe exchange for March, but haven't received those recipes yet. As soon as I do I will post them because of course they are all yummy. Hope you enjoy!

Once A Month Cooking

Sometimes when it's to hot in the evening to go to the park, we like to go to Sam's club and wonder around looking at all the fun stuff we usually ignore when grocery shopping. We were looking through the book aisle and I came across this cookbook that's called "Once A Month Cooking." As I mentioned in early posts, I sometimes feel like I spend half my time in the kitchen so I instantly took to the idea. Aaron and I scanned the book and decided a lot of the recipes sounded good and so we bought it. I went through the book and started picking out recipes that sounded good. It's an awesome book that comes with shopping lists, order of preparation, order of cooking lists, recipes, and more information than you could possible want about this program.

The next morning I decided I wanted to try it, but only cook two weeks at a time. I made my food calendar, made my shopping list, and once I picked up Ashton from school, we headed to the store. Now in the book it tells you to clean your kitchen and do your shopping the day before you plan to cook. Well, I'm a wonderful listener and decided to do it all in the same day. We got all the shopping done and when I put the kids down for a nap, I cleaned my kitchen just enough to get started. Of course I wasn't as well organized as I should be and 7 hours later I finished my fourteen meals. Now to give others hope, I made a lot of mistakes and am confident I can cut the time in half. The hard part is that I had to create all my own lists because we don't eat beef and other meats which are in this book. It probably would have gone a lot smoother if I could have just followed the book.

We are on meal 3 of this new plan and so far everything is fantastic. It reduces the mess and stress at dinner time. I will keep you posted on how it all turns out, but I am confident it will be successful. The program was designed to help save money and reduce stress. I have already seen a difference in both. I would recommend the book to anyone, you can always add in your own recipes to replace the ones you don't like. I created my own cooking book that has just this months recipes in it. This way I can go from page to page, instead of flipping through several books. I am posting my calendar below, I am always happy to share recipes that sound good to you. The first fourteen days are highlighted because those are the ones that are already prepared. On the last day, I will prepare the next two weeks worth. Hopefully by then I will figure it all out :) Yes it's a lot of work that day, but there are lots of little tips and tricks to help lessen the work, but I feel it is totally worth it for the energy I save on a daily basis. Get a babysitter and recruit some help for the day and enjoy stress free dinners for the rest of the time! Hope you enjoy!

Food Calendar for July

Well June has come to end and it's time to start planning for July. As before, I created my food calendar for the month and thought I would share my ideas. Since Aaron is working nights still, the first few weeks are pretty simple meals. Ashton and I keep it simple so we can go to the park or for walks after dinner. The second half of the month I added several new recipes and recipes we ended up skipping last month. My next step is writing my shopping list. Since we will be out of town twice this month, it makes cooking and planning a little easier. Let me know if you want any recipes, I am always happy to share.

Food Calendar for June

Following the theme of food for today, I thought I would share my monthly food calendar. I can not take credit for this idea, I actually got it from my sister Trina. I had called her last November for some ideas on how to save money. We were just spending to much money and I wasn't really sure where it was going. She shared her families monthly budgets and food planning calender. The very next month I followed her ideas and instantly cut our costs in half. I have gone from planning a week at a time, to planning for the entire month. I was lucky enough to get a three hour nap out both the kids at the same time so I sat down and planned our dinners for the entire month of June. Not only was I able to plan our dinners, but also write my shopping list for each week as well. You have to remember to still be flexible because you can never anticipate everything that is going to happen in a month. I have changed mine a few times, but it makes planning dinner effortless. If you would like any of the recipes, just let me know, I will happily share.