In reading frugal blogs, I see alot of people taking a day to do a whole bunch of baking and then freezing everything. And then you have lots of good things to eat for weeks. I was always envious when I saw this because trying to find the time to do this was the hard part.

You see I used to have my own baking blog a few years ago and I absolutely loved it. But the reason I stopped doing it is because it just took too much time and too much money. I work 5 days a week and spending an entire weekend baking something was getting less and less practical.

Since I already know how to bake, if I just take a few hours one Saturday out of whole month, I could knock out a few things to keep on hand. I used only ingredients I had on hand.

The Menu

Chocolate chip muffins
Lemon yogurt muffins
Almond bran muffins
Corn bread
Homemade biscuits

There was a plan to also make lots and lots of pancakes. But I didn't take out enough milk to defrost in time and ran out of it before getting to the pancake mix. So we skipped them today. I am hoping to get to all the pancakes tomorrow sometime when the milk is defrosted. I kept the menu simple the first time, as I didn't have a ton of ingredients on hand. I can't wait until blueberries and strawberries really come into season at the produce market. I want to make tons and tons of things with them.

Sorry, I'm a little late with this. Lets just say the rest of my life is keeping me way busier than I would like right now.


Sunday - dinner at mother in law's for husband birthday

Monday - took husband out to dinner, saved up for it

Tuesday - Ginger and garlic chicken, rice and mixed veggies

Wednesday - baked pork chops, noodles and vegetables

Thursday - Baked pasta casserole with turkey meatballs

Friday - Marinated steaks with potatoes and vegetables

We have a couple of nights where one of us isn't home, so the menu is a little more lenient this week.

Monday - General Tso's chicken with white rice

Tuesday - seasoned chicken thighs with noodles and vegetables

Wednesday - Hubby works, so I am having leftover turkey and dumpling soup

Thursday - Getting our taxes done at 6pm, will stop after for pizza slices (in budget)

Friday - Hubby works again, so I will have tuna fish sandwiches on toast

Monday - Chicken Parmesan

Tuesday - Quesadillas with salsa, sour cream and re fried beans

Wednesday - French Onion Soup with cheese and bread

Thursday - Meatball sandwiches with cheese

Friday - Roasted turkey, rice and vegetables

(ahhhh, those were the days before Mr. Freeze came into our lives)


Monday - italian wedding soup and grilled cheese sandwiches

Tuesday - pasta casserole w/turkey sausage and crescent rolls

Wednesday - maple dijon chicken with veggies

Thursday - tamale pie

Friday - crockpot round steak w/gravy, rice and veggies

I know alot of people list on their menu their breakfasts and lunches. I am out of the house for work from 7am to 6pm at night. So every weekday for breakfast, I have a shake of bananas and orange juice and my lunches usually consist of brown rice, yogurt and dried cereal and maybe veggies. My husband works mostly nights, so he is home in the day and I don't know what he eats but it the stuff I have in the house.

But dinners we make whether we are home together or not. If he leaves before I get home, he makes the dinner and leaves me a nice plate.

Weekends I try to make us both a breakfast, usually french toast, Amish Baked Oatmeal, egg casserole or pancakes. Weekend lunches and dinners are always from what we have on hand too. Sometimes leftovers from the week.


Monday - Pasta with meat sauce

Tuesday - Turkey sausage with onions, creamy noodles and veggies

Wednesday - Pasta E Fagioli

Thursday - Autumn Pork Chops with sweet potatoes and carrots

Friday - Taco Soup

The sad thing about our menu for the last week and this week, is that my husband and I are now working opposite schedules. So usually 4 of the 5 nights of the week my husband makes our dinner around 3pm, eats his portion, goes to work until late at night. I come home at 6pm and eat my portion. My dinner companion is the dog and the TV. But when we are together we do cherish our time.

Sunday - White spaghetti
homemade garlic breadsticks

Monday - Grilled cheese and soup

Tuesday - Ground chicken chili
Cornbread

Wednesday - Creamed Ground Beef over noodles
Green beans

Thursday - Breaded and baked pork chops
Steamed corn
Noodles

Friday - Maple Dijon Crockpot chicken
Mashed potatoes with sour cream

Well, where shall I start. First the Phillies won the World Series and we were busy with that, then Halloween I have two parties to wear two separate costumes and food to make for those. Then the election happened and I think me and my husband were so happy about that we forgot about everything else.

I had a two day period where I hit a rough patch and was not in the mood to talk about frugal things. Don't worry that has passed. And to top it all off, my digital camera is not working well. It is sucking the life out of any type of battery I put in it within an hour. So I have no pictures I can take.

I did manage to make another pretty decent payment to credit card #3. We managed to stay within our budget the last two weeks. Since this was the first time we tried it, I was pretty impressed by us both. Now we move on to the next two weeks. The cooking from home is going well. I went to our local produce place today and loaded up on onions, potatoes, cilantro and bananas. I sliced them all up and froze them. With the leftover onions I am going to make enough onion rings to make me husband jump up and down with glee. (glee)

Our menu for the week:

Sunday - Mexican Pizza Squares (see picture above)
(a Pillsbury recipe) and my husband's request. This was a hit at the Halloween party we went to.

Monday - Marlboro Man Sandwich
This comes from my favorite of all time food sites The Pioneer Woman Cooks. She makes the greatest down home food and has beautiful pictures of each step.

Tuesday - Sausage and Potatoes Italiano
Betty Crocker recipe

Wednesday - Seasoned chicken thighs, potato fries and veggies

Thursday - Quesadillas

Friday - Pasta and sauce