Freezer Meals for November

Have you noticed how outrageous prices are at the grocery store recently? I was honestly stunned the last time I went to the store and came out with one reusable bag full of groceries that cost well over $50. When the kids were living at home, I used to regularly cook once a month. Some people call it Freezer Cooking, others call it Investment Cooking, some call it Once a Month Cooking. I call it a huge time and money saver. Because I buy groceries in bulk, I can get a slightly better price. And since I know that we have ready made meals waiting for us in the freezer, we are less likely to pick up fast food or "pick up a quick something" at the grocery store. (Quick, yes. Cheap, no.)

I recently invested a day in cooking. I went grocery shopping the night before and spent $70 in ingredients. At the end of the day, I had 9 meals in the freezer, one in the fridge,  plus a pot of soup on the stove. Half of the soup went into freezer containers to round out the meal count to 11. 12 if you count the soup.

My $70 in groceries for 12 meals comes out to $5.83 cents per meal. I haven't averaged that out per serving, but a little less than $6 to feed the two of us a healthy meal is a bargain. When the kids were still living at home, each of these meals would have fed us once - for one meal. Now that it's just the two of us, some of these meals will feed us for a couple of days either becoming dinner another night or taken to work as lunch for the next day. 

Here's how it all went down:

I began my day by mixing up a meatloaf. I absolutely love meatloaf, but the husband hates to mix it up. I used the recipe from Quaker Oatmeal. After I mixed it together, I put it in a loaf pan, double wrapped it and stuck it in the freezer.

Next up was Chicken and Brown Rice Casserole. I made 3 of three of these meals. I chopped the veggies, and while they were getting their first go round in the freezer I continued chopping the veggies for the Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps and the soup for dinner. I love the Chicken Brown Rice mix. The chicken doesn't get cooked yet. It is frozen while marinating in a vinaigrette. It's an easy recipe to pull together.

The Asian Lettuce Wraps involved browning vegetables and ground chicken. I made 4 packages of the lettuce wrap mix. I "cleverly" planned things out well enough that I was able to eat what didn't fill into the bags as my lunch.  

I cut everything for a Harvest Sheet Pan bake. I put this into a container so that I could pull it out on Monday night, toss everything in a pan and bake it for 20 minutes. Since I pre-cut everything,and not all of the ingredients freeze well. I didn't want to wait too terribly long to cook it.

Dinner was a White Bean Kale soup. We ate half for dinner that night and then we froze the rest for another night's dinner. The total time it took to shop and assemble all of this was around 6 hours. 1 hour shopping and 5 prepping.  It was totally worth every minute to have 11 nights of meals ahead of me that I no longer need to think about. (12 nights if you count the day that I cooked everything)

While the soup was cooking I glanced through the kitchen and realized that I had all of the ingredients on hand for a batch of oatmeal cookies! I'm not a fan of raisins but I love mixed dried berries.  I used those in place of the raisins. Let me tell you, they were amazing.  I have to admit - I found a little bit of dairy free ice cream in the fridge and so I took one for the team. I made a few ice cream sandwiches.  It's tough, I tell you. Consider it a public service I perform - testing new and unique ways of combing cookies and ice cream. (This would also explain why I am having trouble losing those last 2 pounds...)

Please note that I eat Gluten and Dairy Free. I used gluten and dairy free versions of every ingredient in the recipes. For the cookies, I used a digital scale to weigh the gluten free flour. I find that I get much better results with a digital scale.

If you're curious to see the recipes I used:

Meatloaf:https://www.quakeroats.com/cooking-and-recipes/classic-meatloaf

Chicken and Wild Rice Bake: https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-chicken-and-wild-rice-bake-216431

Asian Lettuce Wraps: https://thrivinghomeblog.com/asian-lettuce-wraps/ 

30 Minute White Bean Kale Soup: https://midwestfoodieblog.com/white-bean-kale-soup/

Harvest Sheet Pan Bake: https://www.maryswholelife.com/whole30-harvest-sheet-pan-dinner/

Oatmeal Cookies: https://www.quakeroats.com/cooking-and-recipes/vanishing-oatmeal-raisin-cookies 

National Parks Passport

We love visiting our National Parks. A couple of years ago, we decide we were going to get a Passport and start filling it with stamps. We should have done it years ago when the kids were little, but we just never did find the time to pick one up.  Now that the kids are grown and out of the house, we are making a concerted effort to visit all of the parks - even the ones we visited with little kids. The passport is a nice way to keep track of the parks we have visited. The stamps give us the date we were there. I love stickers, so many times I will pick up stickers from the State Parks we visit and add them to the passport just for fun. The passports are text heavy, so I have been known to put the stickers over some of the text. 

This year we were able to get to Harper's Ferry, Acadia, and Gettysburg. I'm looking forward to adding several new stamps this next year! 

In 2019, we gave each of our children parks passports for Christmas. This year they were able to get their first stamps in their passports. Each one of them texted me pictures as they added their first stamps into their passport.

Attendance at our National Parks has been up dramatically over the past year. The park staff has been stretched thin attempting to keep up with visitors I think it's great that so many people are discovering the wonders of our parks!

Did you know that by purchasing a Parks Passport you are supporting our parks? You are helping to support them! If you do frequent any of our National Parks, please support them however you can!

Stickers and stamps from our day trip to Harper's Ferry this summer.

Remembering Jenny

 A friend of our passed away earlier this week. Her funeral is today.  She was in her middle 50's, and she had one son who was 17 years old. 

Jenny was amazing. She was so talented, with a heart for young children. Her degree was in Early Childhood Education. She spent her career working in head start centers and preschools, working as a teacher and a director. She has been in charge of the nursery on Sunday mornings for years. She was an artist and owned her own small business, selling vintage furniture that she had given new life. She basically ran the church bazaar - from planning what crafts would be sold to decorating the rooms and planning for the staffing for each room. 

She was funny and had a great sense of humor that made working on any project with her an absolute joy.

She will be missed so much. 

Hug your loved ones tight. Life is short and uncertain.

Really Bad Jokes

Once a month, I run a Nature Club for elementary age children. As part of my program, I tell the kids jokes of some kind or another.  While researching for this month's program, I ran across some phenomenally bad space jokes that I just need to share with someone.  They aren't going to work for young kids. But you, lucky reader, YOU are the recipient of my phenomenally bad jokes.

Are you ready?

How many ears does Captain Kirk have?

3! The left ear, the right ear, and the frontier.

What's light year?

The same as a regular year, but with less calories.

Why did the star get arrested?

Because it was a shooting star!

Why didn't the dog star laugh at the joke?

It was too Sirius.

How does Jupiter hold up it's trousers?

With an asteroid belt!

I was up all night wondering where the sun had gone.... and then it dawned on me.

Harper's Ferry

 Have you ever been to Harper's Ferry?  Despite having lived in the Metro Washington DC area for all of my adult life, I had never been there until this summer.  I had always wanted to go - it played a pivotal role in the Civil War. Since I love history, getting there and seeing the actual location of John Brown's Raid and what role Harper's Ferry played in the War has been on my History Geek check list for a very long time. (Like, since High School, when I took U.S. History and found out that Harper's Ferry was less than an hour from our new house. Dad was transferred from Ohio to Virginia the summer before I started high school.)

Officially, Harper's Ferry is in West Virginia. You can stand on the edge of the river and look across to Maryland, and Virginia is literally a hop skip and jump down the road. Up until the war, this area was part of Virginia.

If you are curious to find out more about the history of Harper's Ferry, you can find more information here:

From the National Park Service:  https://www.nps.gov/hafe/learn/historyculture/stories.htm

10 Facts about Harper's Ferry: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/10-facts-harpers-ferry

The history geek in me freaked out for a day. We explored nooks and crannies. We hiked across the bridge. We ate lunch under the giant trees. We hiked out to the island and explored. It was a wonderfully magic (but very hot day) 

This is the train station.  It’s been here forever, and it’s still active!

Commuter trains run through here daily into Washington DC. 

This beautiful hilltop was the scene of a very bloody battle. 

If you look down into the valley, you can barely see the Potomac River. 

The view of the train track from the station. 

I’m standing in West Virginia, looking at the Potomac River. Maryland is to the left. Virginia is to the right a little further downstream. The structure in the River is the old railroad bridge. 

Another view of the Potomac River and the highway bridge over top. 

6 Pounds of chicken thighs, 3 meals

 Has anyone else noticed the phenomenally high prices of groceries at the store lately? It takes the breath away. Seriously, when I drop $60 at the store I expect to have more than one bag of groceries. With prices as high as they are, we have fallen into old habits. We are stretching our food as far as we can. I used to stretch our food like this when the kids were little. Once the boys became teenagers, cooking with leftovers became a distant memory.  But now that it's just the two of us again we are cooking with leftovers and stretching our food as far as possible.

So, here's what we did this past week with a 5 pound packakge of chicken thighs that were on sale at the store.

Sunday:

Put the chicken in the crock pot, seasoned it with salt and pepper and cooked it on high for 4 hours. We shredded the chicken, broke it into 3 equal size portions and refrigerated 2. We kept that 3rd portion out, mixed it with BBQ sauce and had pulled chicken BBQ with mashed potatoes and green beans.

Monday:

Taco Bowls

We mixed the chicken with 2 TBSP of taco seasoning and reheated it.

One can of refried beans, reheated/

Shredded romaine lettuce.

Chopped Tomatoes

Corn Chips

Cheese

Salsa

Rice (I had quinoa left over from another meal last week, so we used the quinoa.)

In a bowl, combine a little of everything together.  Top with guacamole or sour cream. (If desired)

Wednesday:

Green Chicken Enchilada Casserole

In an 8 by 8 pan, we layered the leftover chicken, green enchilada sauce, refried beans, and corn tortillas. (Kind of like you layer a lasagna.)

Since every ingredient in the casserole had already been cooked, assembling this was the hardest part. It took 10 minutes to assemble, and then we put it in the oven at 350* for 20 minutes.

Bonus Meal -

Chicken Salad. I pulled enough chicken to make chicken salad for lunch 2 days this week. I mixed mayo, pickle relish, mustard, onion, pecans and poultry seasoning with the chicken. 

I packed it into 2 different containers and had it on lettuce leaves each day. It was very, very good!

2021 Resolutions - November

I like to keep a list of resolutions on the blog.  It helps keep me accountable and  helps me keep track of my goals - what I wanted to do and whether or not I actually got them accomplished during the year.  I had a few goals in 2020.  Those all went out the window in March.  I don't even want to talk about those goals anymore.  But, this is 2021, and we are all set for a new series of goals.  So, here they are.  It's a short list this year.  

1) Get away with my husband twice this year. 

We made it to Acadia National Park in June! (Pictures to follow.)

2) Visit middle child in Kansas.

He's been out here to see us twice now. Once for my Mother in Laws funeral in October, and earlier this month. Will we make it out there? Only time will tell....

3) Visit all of the state parks in Maryland.

Calvert Cliffs  

Patapsco Valley 

Soldier's Delight 

Sandy Point 

Rock

I've got a way to go.... 

4) Get one more stamp in my National Parks Passport

Acadia National Park

Gettysburg

Harper's Ferry

5) Lose 10% of my body weight.

Why are those last 2 pounds the hardest 2 pounds?

6) Get a storage unit and move stuff there to sort it out.

We had stuff we needed to get out.  And then we cleaned out my Mom's house when we moved her to Assisted Living and then we cleaned out my MIL's condo and apartment and THEN the oldest child moved back in.  AND THEN my Step-Mother's niece called me and gave me BOXES of my Dad's stuff.  You know, my Dad.  Who passed away over 12 years ago.  (There's another story...)  This house looks like a real life episode of Hoarders. 

Update: We have the storage unit. It has been filled. Much of what is in there will be going to the White Elephant Sale at the church in November. And then, we will be moving more stuff over there while we figure out where to put it.

7) Do a minor home improvement project.

There's a lot to choose from.  Which one will we pick?  Fixing the fence line in the back?  Getting the wood trim on the house painted?  Replacing the floor in the utility area in the basement? Hiring the tree guys to come out and get rid of the brush piles in the back? Having someone come out and landscape the front of the house?

Update: nothing visible. The outdoor a/c unit was hit by lightning over the summer during the big heatwave. We had to wait the better part of a week to get that fixed.  

Update #2

I’m counting the installation of the Septic Riser as our minor home improvement project. It’s not a big, showy project, but being able to have the solids sucked out of the tank on a regular basis? That’s a pretty big improvement.

Update #3

Oh, and the pipes in the kitchen sink got clogged. Again. It turns out that when this house was built in 1970, the plumbing code at the time was written by drunk people. (kidding)  Maybe it was just the builders. The pipe leaving the kitchen sink and running down to join the rest of the pipes runs the length of the house. But not the way you'd think.  The pipes run underneath the kitchen floor straight across to the support bean in the middle of the basement and then run the length of the house to the main sewer line. It has a total of 3 turns in the pipes. 

We found a new to us plumber who came in and really fixed the line. He snaked it out to the very end of the sewer line, and he had an assistant down in the basement who verified when the snake got to each turn in the line. After he finished snaking out the lines, he turned the hot water on and then went down to verify that the pipe was hot all the way around just where the sink line joins the line leaving the house. So amazing to have the job done right, and we were thrilled with his work!

Those are minor, but necessary improvements!

8) Visit my cousins in Texas (a trip postponed from 2020.)

Not this year. It's just not going to happen in 2021.

9) Get my kids and all of my sister's kids together in the same place at the same time.

We're still working on this one. It's hard when the kids are all grown and living around the country. We are hoping we can get this done later this month when middle child is home for a week. 

Update: It didn't happen when he was home in October. Maybe it will happen around the Holidays?