A month of dinner done in a day!

Yep, that's right! I said a month of dinner D-O-N-E all in one day! If your wondering how to do this then you came to the right place. With the help of some of my new 'friends' I discovered how to cook some delicious meals for the entire month in just under 7 hours. (I apologize in advance for such a lengthy post.)  First of all a little bit of background. I love to cook meals for my family but there are a couple of nights during the week that I am not able to cook dinner because I am at my second or third job.  My first job is being a stay at home mom during the day and I am also a nurse at a local hospital and teach cake decorating a couple nights a week . In addition to this I may have one or two cakes to make during the week for a customer and if I left dinner up to my husband he would only serve pizza or ravioli. So one day I happened to ask on Facebook if anyone knew of any great crock-pot/freezer meals that were healthy. A friend of mine suggested checking out one of her boards on Pinterest and well the rest is history. This sparked a whole chain of events. First I fell in love with Pinterest and actually started to understand it. I then discovered the world of once a month cooking and found a whole bunch of great slow cooker recipes and even blogs about this. (Click here for a good one.) I have always had a love/hate relationship with my crock-pot. Love that all you have to do is throw everything in it and call it a day. Love that your entire house smells like what ever yummy recipe you are making. Hate that it feels like it weighs 20 pounds and having to lug it out from underneath the cabinet. Hate that no matter how much cooking spray I use, it is still the biggest pain in the butt to clean up afterwards. Now after discovering a few tips and tricks I have nothing but love for it.

 In order to be successful with once a month cooking you have to be able to devote one entire day to this. (Believe me it is worth it after all is said and done.) I usually pick a weekend day that I know my husband will be able to tag team in the kitchen with me or with our daughter. The night before I write down what meals I want to make and get my grocery list started. (I seriously think this part could be it's on post because it is a little time consuming as well.) For each recipe that you are making you will need to double the ingredients. So basically if the recipe calls for two cups of chopped onions you will need four. (Sorry to "dumb-it down", but I like when people really explain stuff!) The next morning I get up SUPER early before the rest of the gang gets up and head to the store. (Side note: I LOOOOVE grocery shopping and when I have BIG trips like this I choose to leave the husband and baby at home for time reasons.) When I get home I start prepping everything. With the help of my husband and a food processor we slice and dice all the vegetables needed for each recipe.

This little guy makes life a lot easier too!!

We then get started on the meat.  If you are making a crock-pot meal then you do not need to cook it, but if its for a casserole then you will need to brown everything.  Then after that we divide each doubled recipe up into a labeled freezer bags along with the spices, vegetables and meat.  Like I said before this is SUPER time consuming but it will change your life!! It takes us about 6 to 7 hours from start to finish and I imagine that if you did not have a toddler running around it will take even less time.  Here is what her day looked like while we slaved away in the kitchen.

She did a little coloring.

She played with her doll house.

She had a "birthday party."

She also "helped" us in the kitchen and then she napped, oh the life!!!

Here are is a list of everything we made.  Click on the link for the recipe. 

~Enchilada Lasagna~  

~Spaghetti Casserole~

~Mexican Chicken Chili~

~Slow Cooker Chicken Stew~

~Chicken Cacciatore~

~Chicken Curry~

~Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken~

First of all we eat a lot of chicken because I have never cared for red meat, pork or turkey and chicken is so versatile.  Secondly if the recipe calls for ground beef you can always substitute ground chicken, turkey or soy.  Last if the recipe calls for a can or a jar of something I do not put this in the freezer bag. I wait and add this along with the freezer bag of food on the morning of.    Remember that we doubled each of these recipes and were even able to triple some of them!! We ended up having a total of SIXTEEN meals and most of the time each recipe will yield leftovers for the next day.

TA-DA!!!! (Sadly I couldn't fit it all in the picture.)

Don't forget to add these Slow Cooker Liners to your grocery list.  You will thank me later when you are no longer scrubbing your pot FOR-EVER!

Finally set your freezer bag out thirty minutes prior to putting it all in the crock-pot.

 If your wondering about the cost my grocery bill,  it ran a little over $320 dollars. This averages out to be about $80.00 a week and is a DEAL to me considering the cost of groceries now!  (Keep in mind this does not include fresh fruit and I *try* to buy organic veggies when possible and I use coupons!) 

Whew, I think that is everything!!

 Please leave any questions or comments that you may have.  I would love to hear about your experience with once a month cooking or any recipes you feel like sharing.

As always thanks so much for stopping by!!

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Snow Suits and Bathing Suits

Another busy week in the world of babies and baking has come and gone and it was a nice break to have some down time in between cake orders.  We started the week in snowsuits and ended it in bathing suits. (OK a little exaggerated with the bathing suits but I did end up sporting flip flops and short sleeves for two days so that's close enough.) Monday brought the first snow of the year and I have never seen a 2 year old so pumped about SNOW!!! This was her first REAL snow that she was able to actually play in and I think I may have been more excited then her.  I have to say that this was one of the highlights of my week.  At first glance she seemed to be a little put off by the the cold white stuff, but that lasted only a second and before long both she and I were covered in it! The snow was perfect too. Perfect for building snowmen, playing in, sledding in and gone by the afternoon. PERFECT!

What's a snow day without homemade hot chocolate?!? Of course I did not have condensed milk on hand and I don't usually keep it in stock so I came up with my own quick version of this old fashioned favorite and it was really, really good!!  

Here is my quickie recipe:

1/3 cup of cocoa

1/2 cup of sugar

1/3 cup water

*Whisk together on medium/high heat until almost at a boil then add 3 cups of milk and 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract.  Heat to desired temperature and top with marshmallows!

YUMMY!!

Towards the end of the week the weather God's smiled down and we ended up having temperatures topping 80 degrees, CRAZY for February!  So I decided that since the weather was AMAZING this would be a perfect opportunity to visit our local zoo. I recently made a baby shower safari cake and since then my daughter has been OBSESSED with zebra's, giraffe's and all things zoo related.

   This was our second visit to this zoo and I had much higher hopes this time around.  The first time we went I was unimpressed to put it mild. There had to be 10 different schools on field trips that day and  it was insanely crowded.  It was 120 degrees (or at least felt like it), the cages were gross and well it smelled like a zoo.  Everyone I told my horrible zoo experience to assured me that I needed to go back and that it must have been an "off" day so I gave it another chance and I am so glad I did. 

This time around there were NO field trips because it was winter time!! (HA!) The only people there were other mommies and their children.  The cages were clean and the weather was great.  It still smelled like a zoo but I guess that's not going to change. :)

Now I'm looking forward to another busy and entertaining week ahead with lots of fun St. Patty Day crafts and sweets to come. Stay tuned!