Freezer/Slow cooker Meals on a Budget!

These are the spices I used, i didn't count them in the price break down. Most everyone has these spices in the pantry.

The End Result:

At this time of year, everyone is on a Budget, with so many special things needed/wanted for the holidays this is the perfect freezer meal plan! These ingredients are all pretty cheap and I will break it all done for you. This is a great way to eat cheap this time of year, and it is all moderately healthy too.

All these recipes are from Pinterest, I chose the ones I like and I make two of each recipe, 2 bags, 2 meals, per recipe, everything doubled.

First:

Lasagna Soup

·      1 lb. ground turkey

·      1 onion

·      1 bell pepper

·      3 cloves garlic

·      32 oz. chicken broth

·      2 tbs. seasoning combination (basil, oregano, crushed red peppers)

·      1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes

Cook on low for 6 hours or high for 3 hours. Thirty minutes before done add dry pasta (2 cups) and garnish with Parmesan cheese.

Recipe adapted from Guide 4 Moms

To start we cooked up around 5 or 6 pounds of beef and about 4 pounds of ground deer, each meal has beef in it, so this makes it easiest. So for the Lasagna soup, i used beef instead of turkey. I also buy pre-chopped onions and peppers from the store, it saves on time for sure! So this recipe has a few dollars worth of beef, maybe 1$ in onion, garlic and peppers. Canned tomatoes I always buy when they come on for a 1$, pasta 1$ so for around 6$ you have a nice easy meal, we are a family of 4 and always have left overs for lunch the next day.

Second:

Goulash/Beef Stew (2 Bags)

(1) Green Pepper Chopped split between bags

(1) Chopped Onion per bag

(2) Carrots Chopped per bag

(2) Chopped Garlic Cloves per bag

(3) Ibs Beef Stew Meat Split Between Bags

(1) 6oz can Tomato Paste per bag

(2) tsp Paprika per bag

(1/4) tsp Black Pepper per bag

*Cook for 4 hours on HIGH or 8 hours on LOW in a slow cooker. Add (1/2) Cup of Sour Cream about 10 minutes prior to serving. Serve over Egg Noodles

So here we have a few dollars worth of beef, 2$ in veggies, and tomato paste I buy 2 for 1$, so that is only 50 cents, Sour cream 50 cents, pasta 1$ the whole meal cost 7$

Third:

Slow Cooker Pizza Pasta Bake

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
• 1 medium onion (optional), diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 8 oz sliced pepperoni
• 4 oz (1 cup) shredded mozzarella cheese
• 8 oz (2 cups) shredded cheddar cheese
• 12 oz Rigatoni noodles, cooked
• 15 oz pizza sauce
• 26 oz Spaghetti sauce

Instructions

1. 1. Brown the meat, onion and pepper in a frying pan.
2. 2. Drain the grease and add in pizza sauce and spaghetti sauce.
3. 3. Combine all ingredients in a large slow cooker lightly sprayed with cooking spray.
4. 4. Cook on HIGH for 30 minutes and then LOW for 2 or 3 hours until the cheese melts.
5. Note: This makes a lot of food. You can freeze half before cooking it. Later it can be thawed and cooked in the slow cooker as directed above.

Again a few dollars in beef, 1$ in veggies, the pepperoni was 3$ and I used half a package per recipe so 1.50$ for the pepperoni. Pizza sauce 75 cents. Spaghetti sauce 1$, 3$ for cheese, Pasta 1$ this meal is 11.25$ and makes a large amount to feed a large family or for plenty of left overs!

Fourth:

Parmesan Garlic Pizza Pasta
serves 8

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1 cup sliced pepperoni (about 4oz)
• 1Tbsp dried minced onion flakes
• 1T Garlic
• 4 cups marinara/pasta sauce
• 3 cups water
• 8oz shredded mozzarella, divided
• 16oz uncooked rotini or other short cut pasta
• 1 gallon size ziplock freezer bag
• 1 sandwich size freezer bag

Place ground beef, pepperoni, onions, garlic bread seasoning, pasts sauce, water and half of the mozzarella cheese in a gallon size ziplock freezer bag. Place remaining mozzarella cheese in sandwich size freezer bag. Freeze.
When ready to cook: Remove sandwich bag of mozzarella from freezer and place in refrigerator to thaw.
Place contents of gallon sized freezer bag into slow cooker. Cook on LOW for 6 hours. Break up meat with spatula.
Add uncooked pasta. Cook for 15-20 minutes longer, until pasta is cooked. Top with remaining mozzarella cheese. Cover and let cheese melt, 5 minutes.
This meal again has a few dollars worth of beef, 1/2 a pack of pepperoni 1.50$, veggies 50 cents, pasta sauce 1$, cheese 2$, Pasta 1$ totals 9$

Fifth:

Mushroom Goulash:
1 1/2 lbs beef
2 cans of mushrooms soup
Fresh mushrooms
1/2 cup corn
place in slow cooker for 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low, serve with pasta or rice
3$ in beef, 2 cans of mushroom soup 2$, fresh mushrooms 1$, veggies 50 cents totals 6.50$

Since I doubled all the recipes this totaled 80$ all together, that works out to 8$ per bag and our bags always last us a supper and a lunch, so 4$ per meal, that's 1$ per person, per meal. That is awesome! Great savings! I hope this helps you get through December with a little extra cash in your pocket for other fun things!

Back to School Freezer Cooking!

That time of year will be upon us before we know it, back to school, life is always busy and heading back to school doesn't make things any easier. Last year I made a few freezer recipes to help with the back to school lunches and they were so handy! This year I really want to stock that freezer and make sure I have lots of nice homemade goodies for all those mornings when I have nothing to send to school. So here is my list of goodies I plan to make before school starts. Hopefully, I can accomplish all of them, but whatever I accomplish I am still ahead of the game, as long as I get some done I will be happy. So this time I thought I would share my list ahead of time, in case any of you would like to do this along with me. 

Here is my list of recipes:

Chocolate chip zucchini mini muffins:

I like to make mini muffins cause they go a really long way, I always send two of them in each lunch and I individually wrap them to make them an easy on the go treat!

Zucchini Chocolate Chip muffins!

1 c oil

4 tbsp cocoa

½ buttermilk (You can use regular milk and add 1/4 tsp vinegar)

1 1/3 c white sugar

½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

2 ½ c flour

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla

1 bag of hersheys milk chocolate chips

2 cup shredded zucchini or squash

Mix ingredients in order they appear.

350 degrees 20 mins makes 24 muffins can also be made into a 9 x 13 cake and bake 35 to 40 mins! Good luck, enjoy!

Banana Chocolate Chip Mini or Regular Muffins:

I am not sure yet if these will be mini's or regular, we will wait and see what I feel like doing at the time, mini's take a long time, you can make 300 mini muffins out of one double batch, without a convection oven it can take a long time to cook them all.

Best Ever Banana Chocolate Chip muffins

2 cups flour

1 c rolled oats

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 ½ c sugar

2/3 cup oil

6 mashed bananas

2 eggs

1 bag Hershey chocolate chips

Fill muffin paper ¾ full

Bake at 350 for 25 mins makes 24 muffins

I have turned banana chocolate chip muffin haters into lovers with this recipe! Try em!

Small ham and cheese quesadillas:

There really isn't a recipe for this, but I plan to get the small tortilla's and make ham (of course you can use anything you like, the sky is the limit) and cheese quesadilla's and sneak in some veggies in there too if I can! Warm them in my panini press, or you could bake them in the oven, wrap them individually and then put them all in a big ziploc bag.

Easy Pancakes bites:

I got this recipe off of Pinterest, here is a link to it here.

http://afewshortcuts.com/2014/07/easy-pancake-bites/#_a5y_p=2015556

I plan to make them in a regular muffin pan and I plan to use raspberries and make raspberry pancakes, I think these will be so handy for those days when you don't know what to serve! 

Crepes:

I did this last year and what a hit! My daughter loved getting crepes in her lunch with fruit and whipped cream! I plan to make a big batch and toss them individually wrapped in the freezer, super easy for those mornings with nothing to send.

Grandma's Crepes (not my Grandmas but someone's Grandma)

1 cup flour

dash of salt

4 eggs

1 1/2 cup milk

splash of vanilla optional

whisk by hand till smooth (I use my kitchen aid, my momma didn't raise no fool!)

Batter should be thin, fry in a hot griddle or frying pan, until golden brown, use oil to cook, margarine will burn to fast! Enjoy!

So best of luck filling your freezer, I chose these recipes cause they are simple, they freeze well and are totally do-able! I have all of August to get these done, so wish me luck! I hope some of you follow along and fill your freezers too, it sure makes life easier! I plan to post updates as I go along. And if you don't have back to schoolers these would all be nice for adult lunches too!

***UPDATE***
So I decided to tackle the "easy pancake bites" recipe, this was a first for me, but I thought it would be perfect to have lots of little pancakes ready to go for the school year. Now I am not sure what happened but they rose up high like muffins lol, they were supposed to stay flat like a pancake does, lol oh well, not a total fail as they still taste great, I guess we will just cut them in half and use them that way lol.  I topped each one with a raspberry/rhubarb jam. I will be freezing them individually, when it is time to use them just top them with maple syrup and some whipped cream if you have it!

The final result looks like a nice muffin lol! I greased my pans well but they all still really stuck, probably cause of the fruit, maybe I will try something different next time! Super handy to have in the freezer, we made 60 of these today! 

Thanks for tuning in, I will continue to update as I get these recipes accomplished! 

***UPDATE*** #2

I decided to make these pizza muffins here is the link to the pinterest page I got them from: http://inspiredbyfamilymag.com/2013/09/02/pizza-muffins-freezable-recipe/

I decided to make these instead of making crepes, after making 60 pancake bites yesterday, I figured I had enough Pancake/crepe type foods for now lol. Today I made a little over 60 of these pizza muffins, they are so delicious and my house smells like a wonderful Italian Bakery! Who doesn't love pizza right?! I think these will be a lunch box hit! I will freeze them in baggies with 2 muffins per bag, I think that would be a nice lunch size for my daughter. These were so simple! I quadrupled the recipe to get over 60, 

Here is the original recipe: (my changes are in the brackets)

Pizza Muffin Recipe

• 2 cps flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbl baking soda
• 2 tsp of Italian herbs (I used parsley, basil and oregano, enough to make up 2tsp)
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 egg lightly beaten
• 2 tbl olive oil (I used canola cause it is what I had on hand)
• 1/2 cp of milk
• 1/2 cp pizza sauce (I used spaghetti sauce)
• 1 tbl honey
• 1 cp of mozzarella
• 3/4 cps diced pepperoni (I used Ham, my daughter likes that better)
• 3 tbl parmesan (I omitted this and added a little extra mozza)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Spray a muffin pan with non stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients up to the garlic powder.

Then whisk in the wet ingredients up to the honey.

Finally, add in the mozzarella, parmesan and pepperoni. Let stand for 10 minutes.
Stir the batter and divide among the mini-muffin cups. Bake 10-12minutes, or until puffed and golden.  Eat plain or use pizza sauce for dipping!

Perfect for freezing! I was able to make 18 normal size muffins.

here are a few mini's I made with the rest of the batter, these pans are perfect for when you just have a bit of batter left, not enough for regular muffins.

Here they are baked, they are beautiful #nofilter

So; beautiful and delicious and easy, how can you go wrong!? 

***UPDATE*** #3

It's chocolate chip zucchini day! YUM!

These muffins are awesome, right now we are lucky enough to have many huge zucchini growing in our garden, I made 60 regular muffins and 75 mini's the regulars are for our home to enjoy as well and family and friends, the mini's are all getting frozen for school lunches! 

I did a triple batch to get this many! 

Making all these muffins makes me extra grateful for my Kitchen Aid Mixer and my Pampered Chef Scoops! 

***UPDATE #4***

Today is quesadilla's making day, this was so easy and simple, I wish I would have thought of this last year! 

There is no recipe for this, you can put anything you want in between two tortilla's! My daughter likes ham and cheese, I asked her to pick a veggie and she chose peppers, now let's hope she doesn't pick them out at lunch time lol! 

This was super easy the only thing that took any time is shredding the cheese! 

We have a panini press, that is what I use to warm them up, it worked perfectly, you can use your oven too. I cut them with a pizza cutter and let them cool. 

Once they cooled I bagged them all, I made 4 large quesadilla's all together, 2 wedges per meal is a good size for my 5-year-old, add more or less as you see fit. In the end, I have 12 lunches! These will be perfect for those days when I have nothing to send!!! 

Ready for the freezer! 

***UPDATE #5***

Today I made Pineapple zucchini muffins, I wanted something with lots of fruits and veggies and I found this recipe online and really wanted to try it.

Here is the link to the recipe

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pineapple-zucchini-muffins/

I made a few changes, I removed 1 of the cups of oil, because that seemed like a lot and I replaced it with 1/2 cup of applesauce and 1/2 a cup of chopped apples, so now we have even more fruit in there, these are really yummy! I also added an extra 1/2 tablespoon on cinnamon, but that was just my preference.

In total this made 48 regular muffins and 12 mini's, I wrapped up some for school lunches and some we will keep out to eat now, YUM! This is a great recipe for all the nice zucchini that are everywhere right now! 

***UPDATE #6*** Final Update!

Today I made banana chocolate chip muffins! 200 in total! I am so sick of looking at muffins!! LOL! But my freezer is full and I love it! This is a really great banana chocolate chip recipe! Kids love them too! I am so happy to be done with the back to school baking, I now have more than enough to last the whole school year! 

I did package some muffins in packages of 9 for after school snacks when all my daycare kids are here, these are always so handy! 

Well, I hope you enjoyed my back to school baking ideas, and I hope some of you were inspired to do some back to school baking of your own! All together this month I made over 500 muffins! 

Thanks for following me along this journey!

Freezer Breakfast Burritos!

Today I made 40 breakfast burrito's! Summer is coming and that is always our busiest time of year! Breakfast on the go is so handy. We also love breakfast for supper, so when your in a hurry a breakfast burrito to go is the perfect answer, so let me tell you what I put in them:

Breakfast burritos are so versatile, you can really put anything you like, but here is what I used :

• 3 bags of hash browns
• 15 eggs
• fresh mushrooms
• 1 large onion chopped small
• 1 bag of cheese smokies chopped small
• 4 cups of salsa (I love to use salsa in my food, you have tomatoes, peppers and onions and you don't have to do any chopping, perfect!)
• 40 Ancient Grain tortilla's (you can use any type you like)
• 1/2 a block of shredded cheese

None of these measurements need to be exact, just add in more or less as you please, I seasoned with seasoning salt and smoked salt and pepper, but you can do anything you like.

Fry everything thing up and add it all into one huge pot, except the cheese. Stir till it is all well mixed. Scoop your filling onto your tortilla and then top with cheese, wrap your burritos in plastic wrap then foil, put them in the freezer and you are all done, this took me 1 hour and 15 minutes, that includes all the chopping etc till the time they hit the freezer! 40 burrito's in 1 hour 15 minutes, sweet! So let's figure out the cost's now.

Hash browns 2.50 each = 7.50$

Eggs 3$

Mushrooms 1$ (I didn't use very many)

Onion 50 cents

Cheese Smokies 5$

Salsa 2$

Tortilla's 10$

Cheese 4$

Totals 33$

that makes them 83 cents each, any burrito you would buy at the store is going to cost you a lot more then that, plus they are filled with junk, you get to build your favourite burrito this way!

Remember you can anything you want, sausage, bacon, beans, steak, spinach, celery, sour cream, avocado, green onions, quinoa, cilantro (yuck, lol) pickled or hot peppers.

I sure hope you enjoyed my blog today, let me know if you make these breakfast burrito's and let me know if you can make them in less than 1 hour 15 minutes!  

Free or Almost Free Summer activities! 2015

Let's face it, we could all, always use some free activities. So to help make the most out of all the beautiful days we have, here are some ways to take advantage!! These are great ideas for sunny Saturdays and Sunday Funday's! Here are a few ideas I came up with for Spring/Summer 2015, enjoy!

How we save money on groceries, so we can spend our money on fun stuff!

Saving Money on Groceries

Let's face it, we all would love to save money on groceries so we can spend our money on things we really need or want! So here are the tricks I use to help us save $$ on our groceries!

Our grocery budget is 150$ every two weeks, with this we feed my husband, myself, our daughter at home as well as her school lunches, all our daycare children, either lunches or snack every weekday, plus all our company, we have company 2 to 3 times a week, our pantry is full our freezer is full, our cupboards are full! We try to avoid processed foods whenever possible as well.

1- Make the most of your food, 1 whole roasted chicken can last for a few meals if you use it right, roast the chicken, slice up some potatoes and carrots, meal 1, take the remaining meat off the bones and make a chicken sandwich, wrap etc, meal 2 and lastly through all those bones etc in the slow cooker with some water, let it cook on low overnight and in the morning your home smells awesome and you have an excellent broth, just drain out all the bones etc now you have free broth for some chicken soup, meal 3. Winning!

2- Try to make your meat go further for example, when I am making a chicken casserole or a chicken spaghetti I only use one large chicken breast for my whole family, chop it up small and then there is always chicken in every bite, I have even done this for company and no one had any idea. using less meat saves you a lot of money! We also mix our ground beef with ground Buffalo or ground Deer meat whenever possible, it tastes awesome, this is also something I have served many times and no one had any idea there was anything other than beef in the dish, money saving big time!

3- Use your slow cooker, I can buy cheap cuts of beef, let them simmer on low all day and for supper we have a fall off the bone awesome roast and it cost a fraction of the price, love it! Also if you know you have a awesome slow cooker dinner home you are way less likely to grab take out or even stop at the store, which saves you money, big time!

4- Making lots of the same meal, at once, I figure if I am already in the mess I better make use of it, everytime I make lasagna I try to make 6 or 7 at a time, it is not that much more work to make 1 then it is to make 7. I love to make a big batch of soup and freeze the leftovers, I freeze them in little containers for school lunches or in larger ones for a quick lunch for the family, it saves you time and money!

5- When the farmers markets open or your Garden is ready, buy all the in season fruit and veggies you can, from here you can take them home and freeze them or can them and they will last you all year, they are in season so they will be delicious and you saved money, have you ever had to buy an out of season tomato? The prices are high, But who needs it when you have canned fresh tomatoes waiting in the pantry!

6- Meal plan, meal plan, meal plan! Planning your meals ahead of time means you won't be buying groceries you don't need or that you might waste. Once you have planned your meals (I do 2 weeks at a time) then you make your grocery list, everything you need to prepare those 14 meals is on that list, so no late afternoon runs to the store saving you time and money!

7- If you are shopping at Safeway or Sobey's make sure to sign up for Airmiles, many other grocery stores offer free customer cards, make sure you sign up for them, they are full of savings and cost you nothing! Just this month alone I used my Airmiles to save 60$ on my groceries, that is now money in my pocket! Awesome!

8- Only buy groceries that are on sale, my meal plans are planned around the sales flyer, what is on sale is what we buy, if it's not on sale, sorry try again next time. Some things like eggs and milk rarely come on sale, so I just make sure I am getting the best price I can for them. We save a ton of money shopping this way!

9- If you live in a city where there are several stores close together it may be worth it to stop in at another store and get a good deal, but watch how much gas you are using, saving 50 cents on peas isn't worth 2$ in gas :)

10- Stick to your list, we try to only ever buy what is on the list, impulse shopping can cost you a lot in the end, also never go shopping hungry, your cart will be filled with junk!

11- Try out off brands, almost every store has their own brand and these items can be hit and miss, some of the items are awesome, others not so much, but you never know unless you try!

12- Eat your leftovers! It makes me crazy to see leftover thrown in the trash, if eating the same meal twice bores you turn it into something new, what was ham last night can be a panini today or ham soup etc, you get the idea, never waste food!

So those are ways we save money on groceries! It can take a while to get used to all these changes but before you know it, it becomes part of your life and is very easy to keep up! Best of luck and let me know if you need any help with your meal plans I am happy to help!