Morgan Minute Episode 02

Our 7 year old, Jayne, did all the video for this episode! I hope you enjoy it. We won't have a new episode up next week because we will be gone visiting family. The following week we might introduce you to the Canadian dollar.


Morgan Minute Y14 02 from Adam Morgan on Vimeo.

A Month of Meals: Freezer Cooking Day

We have our menu, our recipes, and have done our shopping. Now it is time for food prep. What I love about this particular menu is that the food prep is so incredibly easy. Most of the items are already frozen. All you have to do is put the ingredients in the bag and you are ready to go. I did my freezer cooking in just under 2 hours from beginning till the last hand washed dish was dried.The first thing you will want to do if you are following my menu is cook your ground meat. This is the only actual cooking involved in our freezer cooking day. You will want to drain it and also let it cool before putting it into the bags. While you are waiting for the meat to cook start writing up your bags. I label them with their name, special instructions like adding water or what to serve it over, the date, and cooking instructions.

Once you are ready to put the food in the bags you want to do two things. First puff up the bag and zip it shut. gently squeeze to make sure there are no holes in the bag. We had a major mess on my mom's white table cloth because half a bottle of BBQ sauce gushed out of a hole in one of our bags. You live and you learn, right. Second flip the zip top out. This helps the bag to stand on it's own and hold the mouth of the bag open.

Now it is just a matter of tossing the ingredients in the bags. This menu is well designed for freezing. With just a bit of work you will have those quick and easy frozen meals we all love the convenience of using. In this 2 hours you will have 26 meals done for the month, just heat and serve. Okay, some of them will be served on rice or pasta, but that is quick and easy to whip up.

Now is the time for your questions! Ask in the comments or where ever you have seen this series. Tomorrow I will answer all your questions and link back to all the posts in case you missed one. See you then!

You can find the rest of the series here.

A Month of Meals: Intro and Monthly Menu Planning

Welcome to the first of a week long series on menu planning and grocery budgeting. Today I am going to give an intro and share how I go about planning our meals a month at a time. Tomorrow I will be sharing the recipes I will be using for my 4 week menu. Thursday we'll focus on the grocery list and shopping. Friday is all about freezer cooking. Saturday I will be posting a review, answers to questions in the comments section, or social media, and a link back to all the posts in case you missed one.

Our food budget has been low for a long time. Our budget is currently at $300 but has been as low as $100. Some things to take into account if you want lower your food budget:

• Don't buy boxed or frozen meals. They are costly, filled with junk, and also wastefully packaged


• Be prepared to cook from scratch.


• Stop serving "family" style. By dishing the plates in advance you can make sure everyone has appropriate serving sizes and you can pack up leftovers if you intend to split a meal into two or more meals.


• Is someone still hungry? Instead of adding seconds, add a salad or apple slices with peanut butter.


• Don't plan a different meal for each day of the month.

Right now our family has some unique needs. Yes, we are gluten free, but that is not what I am talking about. We are living with my parents while we wait to go on mission in Montreal. My mom is a bit territorial over the kitchen so we need to be able to get in and out as quickly as possible. There is limited food storage space too. Plus my mom usually cooks dinner for us but when she doesn't I end up finding out at supper time. While it is true that we personally won't be using all of this month's meals this month, we will keep them stored in the freezer for the month or two that Adam will not be working before our leave date. All these things I kept in mind as I began looking for meals to add to our menu. So, let's get started planning the menu!

I planned a 4 week menu for September. For us it starts today and goes to the last day of the month. That means we need 28 suppers, 28 lunches, and 28 breakfasts. That sounds a bit daunting, I know. When you stop trying to think of 28 different meals for each, it gets better. Variety is great but it is also expensive and time consuming. On a normal basis, I would make a new menu each month. We keep the meals that we aren't tired of to the next month and add new ones. We'll start with supper because it has the most variety. You will notice that some of the recipes make enough for 2 meals for our family of three and I have taken that into account.

Supper

 

Make 2 of each.

 

Pesto Chicken and Green Beans: 2 meals

Mexican Chicken Taco Stuffing: 4 meals

Pineapple Chicken Stir Fry: 4 meals

Ranch Chicken and Potatoes: 2 meals

Italian Chicken Stir Fry: 2 meals

Italian Chicken and Potatoes: 2 meals

Hawaiian BBQ Chicken: 4 meals

Corny Chicken: 2 meals

Baked Ziti: 2 meals

Mermaid Hair Casserole: 2 meals

Beef and Broccoli Pasta: 2 meals

 

All but the ziti will be included in freezer cooking.

 

 

Lunch

 

Onigiri (rice balls) 3 days per week: 12 meals

Tuna Quesadillas 3 days per week: 12 meals

Leftovers once per week: 4 meals

 

Leftovers may include left over, reheat, meals or any food that is close to date. Mix and match and turn it into something new.

 

 

Breakfast

 

Donuts once per week: 4 meals

Oatmeal 6 days per week: 24 meals

Cereal 6 days per week: 24 meals

We are not huge breakfast people. We usually add peanut butter or fruit to our oatmeal. Lunch is a busy kitchen time here so I tend to do onigiri, which can be made in advance or quesadillas which are super fast to make. Donuts with hot chocolate are a special treat on Friday mornings. It is important to budget in something special. This isn't some crazy diet and it shouldn't be a punishment. We really look forward to Friday mornings and we make it a special family time.

That seems to be it. We have all the meals planned for the whole month. The next step is to get all of our recipes together and I will see you tomorrow for that!

Have questions about planning the menu? Ask them in the comments and I will make sure to get them answered!

You can find the rest of the series here.

Family Photos

As you may have noticed from the new banner, we did some family photos for our missions application. We had some fun, and sadly some tears too. We did all the pictures ourselves. The copy we are turning in I edited, but the rest I didn't. I am still having issues with my computer, so it is difficult to do photo editing. Here are some of the fun shots we got...

Some outdoors shots

Daddy-son shots and a family hand shot

Some more fun shots

This is the winner for our missions application!

Ministry of Motherhood: A Review

I have been reading The Ministry of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson and couldn't be happier with the time spent. This book is all about discipling your children and giving them the gifts that God has given all of us. The gifts discussed include grace, inspiration, faith, training, and service.

If you are the type who skips the introduction to a book, make sure not to skip this one! It was quite a bit longer than expected but I was teary eyed by the end of the first section of the intro. The story of where Sally started her journey with her small children rang so true for my own life.  There is also information about how to use the book in a small group study or as a devotional on your own, as I did. The discussion questions throughout the book are open ended and very thought provoking.

Each part, containing smaller daily chapters, discusses one of the gifts. She gives many examples through narrative. I loved her telling of stories from the bible. They simply come to life and it is like you are right there inside history. The stories from her own life are wonderful too. I was able to relate to each and every one of them. They gave me an insider's view of how she practiced what she is teaching in the book.

This book has become one of my all time favorites. It is compelling and well written. I read it on my kindle and it was very well done in digital format. This is one that will stay in my library for a long time, to read again and again!

Thank you Blogging for Books for allowing me to review this fantastic book for you!

Pizza Building Party

This weekend we had Jayne's uncles over and we had a pizza building party for supper. We made a homemade crust and divided it among us, then each person made their own pizza. It was so much fun and we got to all do it together. Everyone tried something new and our supper tasted great!

Adam makes a stuffed crust and Jayne tastes some pepperoni.

Jayne nibbles on all the stray cheese that fell on the table.

Everyone gets the final touches done on their pizzas.

You can find the piza recipe that we use here.

Special Routines



One of Jayne's pizza creations



We do a lot every week and tend to do roughly the same thing each week. The one day we all look forward to is Saturday. It is mostly the same as every other day of the week. Adam still works and I usually did too. What makes Saturday so much fun is that it is pizza day! Every Saturday we set aside an hour to make pizza from scratch. I mix up the dough and do the dishes while is rises for half an hour. Then the fun begins! I give Jayne a section of dough and we make pizza next to each other. Jayne makes his all by himself. He has to taste every single ingredient before it goes on the pizza. He is always so proud of his pizza and it is one of the few dishes that he simply devours at the table.

What special things do you do with your family?

Goals for July

It is time to come up with goals for the month. So, here goes...

Family: Spend more time together and try to take things a little more slowly. Also we are going to WI Dells for 3 days next week with my family.

Home: Just stay on track. Keep extra good care of the garden. Stay on top of the vacuuming to keep down on the earwigs. We don't want another invasion like last year! So far the cleaner house and weekly vacuuming is really helping.

Homeschool: Keep working on setting up Jayne's school year. I have 3 months ready to go. I would like to get a minimum of 8 weeks put together this month. Also, keep plugging away at head of the class.

The Crazy Elephant: Keep up with my 4 listings a week (not including the holiday and vacation weeks) and set aside at least one hour a week to create.

Blogging: The plan is to make my homeschool fun, stretch it, and collection posts a weekly thing with other posts (TCE updates, meme's (mommy to Jayne) day, and handmade finds, ect) mixed in.

Work: Attend

Money: Keep making it and paying down our bills. We are so very close and have worked so hard to get them down. We are also going to try to keep our vacation spending to a bare minimum. I will definitely update you all on how that goes...hopefully well.

What kinds of goals do you have? Feel free to leave a comment and share. Writing it down for others to see is a great way to keep yourself on track. You can also comment with a link to your own post about goals. Good luck everyone and stick with it!