Keeping Kids Fed--Monday's Project

During my pregnancy and the stage of having a new infant I purchased bread because I just didn't have the extra energy to make it.  But lately, I've been feeling energetic again and have noticed that quality bread has gotten VERY expensive in our town.

So, on Monday, I decided to make up a week's worth of bread for my menu plan.  I took my favorite recipe and multiplied it by 6.  I'm thankful for my enormous tupperware bowl that I got at a yard sale for 25 cents because it is big enough to mix it all in.

If I had been making 1 loaf, I would have used my trusty bread machine.  But this batch was far too big for that.

I set it on the porch in the hot sunshine for a while and it rose very nicely.  Am I the only one who uses her van to raise bread sometimes in the spring, summer, or fall?  Cars sitting in the sunshine are always nice and toasty, perfect for raising bread dough.

The recipe x 6 ended up making 3 pans of homemade hamburger buns, 1 pan of breadsticks, 3 smaller loaves and 2 large loaves.

We ate the breadsticks with ravioli later in the week.

We shared a couple of loaves with friends who came over for Pray and Play one morning.

We used the buns for BBQ chicken sandwiches one night and Ham and Cheese Melts another night later in the week.

Would you believe that every bit of this bread was gone by Thursday night after dinner?  That means from Monday afternoon, when we had some for snack, to Thursday night, we ate 6 large loaves worth of bread!  If we hadn't shared with company it may have lasted a day or two longer, but still, that means our family can easily eat 6 large loaves a week! 

In a perfect world I would make this much bread every Monday.  I'm going to try to continue to do so on Mondays in the future, but I'm not opposed to being flexible and buying bread as I need to if my schedule doesn't allow for it.  Do you bake your own bread or find it cheaper/easier to buy it?

Bulk Cooking when You're a Mama

 Since my kids eat like animals (AKA inherited their Daddy's appetite), I decided that it's high time I jump back on the bulk cooking wagon.  I haven't bulk cooked since September when I stocked the freezer for having a baby!  I just don't have the time these days to carve out an entire day to bulk cook.  There are little people who would not survive if I did!

I decided to do an afternoon of bulk cooking since I found that to work well during my pregnancy with Katrielle.  It truly is amazing how much cooking one can accomplish in just a few hours when you are focused and motivated!

In the morning I put a crockpot full of pinto beans on to cook and also a rice-cooker full of brown rice.  In the afternoon, when the two little ones were down for a nap, I got started on my main cooking.  I pulled 6# of roasts and chicken breasts from the freezer and seasoned them and put them in the oven.

Then I called my little helpers, Jeremiah, Ali, and Arianna (a 4 year old friend I babysit on Thursday afternoons) and had them come to the table and make banana muffins.

Being that my husband calls me Mrs. Monk I'm a little OCD about germs and cleanliness while cooking, I told myself that I wouldn't worry about what the kids did while they made the muffins and I just would avoid eating them.  I want them to learn to cook and being uptight about everything won't help them to be joyful about cooking so I thought it was a great solution for me.  And of course Jer licked the raw egg fork.....ick!

When the little helpers were done with their double batch of muffins, I popped them in the oven and they ran outside to play.  I then made a quadruple batch of whole wheat pancakes (NEVER AGAIN!!!!  I may not have to make pancakes again until September!!!!) and cooked 100+ of them up and froze them.  The baby woke up sooner than I expected so I loaded her onto my back in my backpack and she proceeded to pull my ponytail and suck on it the rest of the afternoon.  I put the 14 C. of cooked rice and 6 C. of cooked beans in the freezer in small containers, took the meat out and let it cool before chopping it into small pieces and freezing in meal-size portions, and cooked up 2# of macaroni.  I made a fruit salad (for a dinner I was attending that evening), and some mock Devonshire cream and hazelnut chocolate scones (for a Royal Wedding Party with my girlfriends that evening), and cleaned up the kitchen.  When the muffins were done I fed the kids a few each and then froze the rest for handy snacks for the coming week.  I was hoping to get to Berry Granola and Whole Wheat Graham squares but I was pooped and my kids needed me to make them dinner so I saved those two items for later in the week, as well as a crockpot of homemade yogurt.

Here are my best tips for cooking with kids around:

1.  If possible, swap an afternoon of babysitting with another mom or utelize a mother's helper or Grandma so that you can get more accomplished and have fewer interruptions.  If that is not an option:

--Let the kids watch an afternoon movie while you work

--Put them to work.  It may be a little more work but it will keep them busy and someday they will actually be more help than hinderance so it's good practice for them!

--Spend extra time with the kids in the morning and if possible, wear them out on the playground or in the yard so that they will be happy to do quiet activities or nap in the afternoon while you cook.

2.  Planning and preparing is crucial to the success of bulk cooking.  Do your planning, organizing, and shopping the evening before WITHOUT the kids so you are totally ready to go the next day.  Don't forget to buy ziploc bags or containers to freeze your foods in if you need them.  (Ask me how I know this......)

3.   Figure out what your top food needs are and make these things. I don't mind making dinner every night but our family constantly seems to be out of snack foods and I'm not a morning person so I find it hard to make pancakes first thing in the morning. So, I made sure to make up a bunch of pancakes and a bunch of snacks (muffins, graham squares, scones) and a few things that would make meal prep faster in the evenings (rice, roast, chicken breasts, pinto beans, macaroni).

4.  Put your "servants" to work.  I used my crockpot, rice cooker, oven, griddle, dishwasher, and most of my cooking pots simultaneously!

5.  Don't over-do it!  Plan to stick with your time-frame of 3-4 hours and allow yourself some time to sit down and browse a magazine and eat some chocolate for a little break while things are baking.  I wanted to do a lot more than I did, but at the end of the day, I had to admit my limitations and realize that it's not the end of the world if I have to buy bread on sale than trying to make up 20 loaves of homemade bread to freeze.

My Monthly Menu Plan System

At the beginning of the month I print one of these calendar grid pages off of the internet and fill it in with all of the meals I hope to make during the month, based on what we have in the pantry, what I'm cooking for bulk cooking days, and what we like.  Then each night, I cross off what we had for supper so I know what we have left to choose from the next day.  This way I can be "prepared" but still eat according to what "sounds good" each day.  Of course the last couple of days of the month I don't have much of a choice!

Easy Freezy Recipes

I tripled all of these recipes for my Feb. bulk cooking day. I also made roast beef by slow-cooking it in the oven in water and 2 packets of onion soup mix. The Cheesy Fries recipe, also from this cookbook, was posted a few days ago.

Taken from Taste of Home's 5 Ingredient Cookbook

Green Chili Burritos

1 can of beans (refried)

8 flour tortillas (6 inches)

1/2 # cooked ground beef (we skipped this ingredient)

1-2 C. shredded cheese

1 can green chilis

Mix ingredients and put in tortillas. Roll up the tortillas into burritos and place in a pan. Bake until heated through.

I opted to dump a can of enchilada sauce over my 3 pans of burritos before freezing. They are super yummy!

Green Chili Rice Casserole

1 can of cream of celery soup

1 C. sour cream

1 can green chilis

1 C. shredded cheddar

3-4 C. cooked rice or 1.5 C. instant rice (I used cooked brown rice)

Mix all ingredients and bake until heated through.

Fiesta Macaroni

1 16 oz. package of elbow mac

1/3-1# of ground beef (I used 1# of ground turkey for my tripled recipe)

1 16 oz. jar of salsa

10 oz. shredded cheese

1 can chili beans

Cook beef and drain. Cook and drain macaroni. Mix beans, cheese, and salsa and add to the cooked macaroni. Add hamburger. Stir well and bake until heated through.

(This is my adaption of my mother-in-law's easy lasagna--my kids love this!)

Easy Lasagna

1. C. sour cream

2 C. small curd cottage cheese

3 C. shredded mozarella

11/2 jars of Ragu (I used the Six Cheese flavor)

1/2 box of lasagna noodles

(You can add hamburger if desired, or chunky tomatoes, etc.)

Cook lasagna noodles until done. Drain. Put 1/2 c. spaghetti sauce in bottom of pan. Put one layer of noodles across the pan. In bowl mix sour cream and cottage cheese together well. Spread 1/3 of white mix across noodles. Add a layer of about 1 C. of mozzarella. Put another layer of sauce on top of the cheese and then another layer of lasagna noodles. Do the white layer, cheese layer, sauce, and noodles again and then one last time, ending with sauce-covered mozzarella on the very top of the lasagna. (Feel free to do 2 layers instead of 3 if you prefer--it doesn't really matter). Cover with foil and bake until heated through, pulling foil off for the last 20 minutes to let the top brown a little bit. When frozen, you can thaw for a few days in the fridge or bake frozen, just be aware that it may take 2 hours to cook, depending on your oven. Leave 20 minutes for the lasagna to "set up" before dinner and it will be more firm for cutting rather than runny. Feel free to added grated parmesan with the mozzarella for a more authentic (but also more expensive) lasagna.

Bulk Cooking Results

Does it make me really weird that I LOVE bulk cooking? Even after a 6 hour power shopping trip (without the kids, which included a 2-hour chat with a friend in a quaint coffee shop) to a nearby town with a Walmart, I was so excited to begin my bulk cooking that I couldn't wait until Monday and decided to do it Saturday afternoon! It was the easiest bulk cooking day I've ever had because I chose 5-ingredient recipes from my Taste of Home cookbook. Each recipe only took 30 minutes or less of actual prep/packaging time. It was done in no time, even with kids running around! 6# of roast beef cooking in onion soup mix.

Some people doubt that God cares about the little things, but I know He does! I prayed and asked Him to help me be a good steward and find the deals when shopping for my meals and almost EVERYTHING I needed was on sale, including beef roast (which is usually pricey), green chilis, refried beans, bacon, shredded cheeses, etc.
Bacon, green onions, and cheddar packaged with the french fries to make cheesy fries
Safeway had a big sale on cheese and it was only $5 for 2# of shredded. I bought $15 worth of cheese to make my meals.
Fiesta macaroni



Assembling lasagnas



The final results:
3 Green Chili Rice Casseroles
1 Bag of brown rice
3 meals of sliced roastbeef
3 bags of Fiesta Macaroni
3 pans of lasagna
(1 not pictured because we ate it last night for supper!)
3 bags of Cheesy Bacon Fries
3 Pans of Green Chili Burritos



I managed to squeeze the 18 meals in the freezer and still fit my hubby's ice-cream in!
Most of these are new recipes but they were made with ingredients we like so I doubt we'll have trouble eating them. We've already tried some of the Fiesta Mac since tripling the recipe made more than enough for 3 bags and it's delicious! I'll share the recipes soon!

This ice-cream wouldn't fit so the kids were happy to help me take care of it! It's becoming a monthly ritual that when I stuff the freezer they get to clean up the last of some of the ice-cream!


This week I plan to mix up 5 or 6 bags of dry ingredients for rolls to use in the bread machine and then most of my cooking for the month will be done! All I will have to do each evening is throw the meal in the oven and add a quick side dish or two, like baked potatoes, salad, peas, cooked carrots, etc. to the meal.

February Meal Plan

Here is my meal plan for Feb. for The Freezer Cooking Daze hosted by Money Saving Mom and FishMama going on today-Tuesday. I plan to shop tomorrow (leaving the kids home with Daddy--woohoo!) and cook on Monday. This month I challenged myself to use a lot of new recipes. So most of these I have never made before but am trying out of a cookbook I got for Christmas last year from my Mom called Taste of Home's 5-Ingredient Recipes.

When I did bulk cooking in November and December I noticed that four meals was almost too much of one entree, mainly because they lasted through 2 meals each so that meant we were eating one dish 8 TIMES in a month!!!! We were so sick of Sherry Chicken by the end of December that we gave my parents the last meal's worth!

So, this time I'm doing 3 each.

Freezer Meals:

Easy Lasagnax3
Fiesta Macaronix3
Green Chili Burritosx3
Bacon Cheese Friesx3
Roast Beef and Baked Potatoesx3
Green Chili Rice Casserolex3

And here are the meals I will cook regularly (1 time each):
Black Bean Soup and Quesadillas (Have some leftover in freezer from a bulk batch I made a few weeks ago)
5 Bean Soup and Biscuits (in freezer--leftover from soup-in-a-jar a friend gave me)
BLT sandwiches
Pancakes and eggs
Waffles and eggs
Nachos
Spaghetti
Authentic Enchiladas for Mom's family B-day dinner
Pepperoni Pizza-Ali's request for her B-day meal

and

Leftover Nightx2

My menu plan best serves me if I have the 30 meals for the month listed on a calendar sheet on the fridge and if I choose each day what sounds good off of the list. Busier days I will grab a frozen meal, days where I feel like being creative or cooking up a storm I will make one of the non-freezer meals.

The Best Bread Machine Caramel Rolls EVER!

Cinnamon rolls are so pretty!

3 ½ C. bread flour
1/3 C. sugar
1 t. salt
1 C. room-temp water
1 large egg
¼ C. softened butter
1 ½ t. yeast
(You will also need brown sugar, cinnamon, pecans, butter, and caramel ice-cream topping).

Place Ingredients in pan and put on the dough cycle. This cycle is usually 1 ½ hours. Remove the dough from bread machine and roll out on a lightly floured surface.

Spread 2 T. softened butter across the flat dough and then sprinkle with ¼ C. brown sugar mixed with 1 t. cinnamon. Finally, sprinkle with ½ C. chopped pecans (optional--leave out if you don't like nuts) and roll up. Empty one jar of caramel ice-cream topping into two lightly greased pie pans or 1 cake pan. Cut the roll of dough with dental floss (place under the roll and then bring ends of floss up and crisscross at top of roll and pull to make even slices) and then lay the rolls in the caramel in the two pie pans. Cover with plastic wrap. You can put them immediately in the fridge to rise overnight or let them rise 30-50 minutes before baking at 350 for about 30 minutes. If you put them in the fridge, pull them out about 30 minutes before you plan to bake them and let them rise as the oven is warming up. These are so simple and so delicious!

Note: The key to making them perfect is letting them cook long enough. I've under-cooked them a lot of times so this time I made sure to let them get really toasty, golden-brown colored and then I dumped them out of the cake pan onto a cookie sheet covered in foil and toasted them a little bit before serving so that the tops weren't doughy at all. I made these on Christmas Eve and then merely warmed them up in the oven for a few minutes on Christmas morning and served with gourmet scrambled eggs and strawberry and yogurt smoothies. Hopefully this will become a family tradition!

Tortilla Recipe

For those of you who asked about my tortilla recipe, it's here. There are some recipes on the web that don't use baking powder if you prefer that; one of my friends makes those because she doesn't like the taste of these. I've recently been quadrupling this batch and using ALL whole wheat instead of half and half. Use whatever variety of flour you like best. Using my new large pancake griddle alongside of my skillet, I can whip out about 30 tortillas in an hour and then freeze them in gallon ziploc bags so I can whip one out whenever we feel like tacos or burritos.

Grandma's Popcorn Balls

1/2 C. white or brown sugar
1 C. white Karo syrup
1 small box of Jello
5-6 Q. popcorn

A simple, frugal way to make the popcorn, thanks to a tip from Frugal Friday: Put 1/3 C. popcorn kernels in a small brown paper lunch bag. Fold the top over and tape with one piece of scotch tape. Cook in microwave until pops are 4 or more seconds apart (my microwave takes 1 minute and 30 seconds). Make 3-4 brown bags of popcorn and dump the popcorn into a large pot.

Combine sugar and Karo syrup in sauce pan and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Remove from heat. Stir in small box of Jello. Be sure to separate the popcorn from the unpopped kernels otherwise the popcorn balls will be filled with little seeds that will try to break the recipients' teeth! Pour the mixture over the popcorn. Stir well. Lay the popcorn on wax paper and serve as is (like caramel corn) or coat your hands in butter and shape the popcorn into balls and set on wax paper to harden. Store popcorn in airtight container or hardened popcorn balls in Ziploc bags

Update on OAMC

I wimped out and hardly took any pics this time around due to our crazy busy week. However, everything on my list is done and I'm quite happy with the fact that meal prep for the rest of the month should be a snap. The biggest problem I have is the size of our freezer. We do have a deep freeze in our shed, but don't really have the space for it here. So, we make do with the little above-the-fridge freezer. However, at our last house I could store about twice as much. Our fridge is very small and so is the freezer. I ended up having to pull as much as I could out of our freezer, saving some to thaw for meals in the next 7 days, giving my kids ice cream for dessert to try to free up freezer space, and having to cook half as much rice as I wanted to. I would have liked to save all of the cookies and muffins for later in the month but I had to thaw some already since the space just isn't there. Because of this issue, I think my future bulk cooking days will omit actual meals and that I will go back to doing meats, beans, rice, tortillas, and shredded cheeses and stick with dry mixes as much as possible for baked goods.

Helpful Tips I picked up on this go-around:

*My new griddle from Black Friday (I used my Christmas money for my first little cheapo mp3 player and a pancake griddle) made tortilla making so much nicer! Before, I could do one tortilla at a time and it took a couple of hours to make them. Now I can do 4 at a time and it's done within about 45 minutes. Yay!


*I really like doing just a few hours a day stretched out for more days. I was so sapped after the last bulk cook-a-rama, but this week I have just been focusing on a few bulk things a day and life has been much easier, even though we've had tons of stuff going on in our lives this week with church events, ballet recitals and performances coming up, and family things.


*Dry mixes are awesome! Having 7-Grain roll mixes on hand last month to just throw in the bread machine with water and 2 T. butter sure was handy! I forgot all about the cornbread mixes I made last month and never used them but this month since I have 4 bags of frozen chili made up, I will pair them with that.


*My dishwasher is such a blessing for clean-up! I doubt I would do these cooking days without one!


*Whether or not you cook once a month or not, you ABSOLUTELY should have a generalized guide for a month's worth of meals. I know people survive without them, but I think that it is a wonderful blessing to have at least a rough idea of how the month is going to go meal-wise so that you're not racking your brain for supper ideas at 4 p.m., or trying to find time each week to sit down and make a menu. If you like more variety than the same meals over and over go for themes. For example: Monday is Italian night. One week chose Ravioli, the next choose Pizza, the next Spaghetti, the next Alfredo. Tuesday is Mexican night. Wednesday is Asian. Thursday is Fast Meals. Friday is Kid's Favorites. Saturday is Breakfast for Dinner. Sunday is Leftover Night, etc. When you go with themes you will find that a month's worth of ideas come together in a flash. Then you just have to stock up all at once or weekly to buy the ingredients.

Once a Month Cooking!

It's that time again! I'm having fun stocking the fridge and freezer this week in preparation for the busy month ahead. Instead of doing all of the cooking on 1 or 2 days, I've decided to just spend a couple of hours a day on it for 4-5 days until it's done so that I can do it when the kids are napping or sleeping.


Here's our menu for the month. I tried to keep this REALLY simple because of all of the holiday events going on and I am using up a lot of the things we had on hand to keep our costs down.



Breakfast for Dinner x4
Vegetarian Black Bean Chili and cornbread x4
Sherry Chicken over brown rice x3
Elk Roast with baked or mashed potatoes x 4
Turkey-for misc. meals
Granola-2 gallons
5 7-Grain Roll mixes
Pizza x2
Ravioli x2
Spaghetti x4
Pumpkin Cookies (6 dozen)
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffins (5 dozen)
Whole Wheat Tortillas x4 (about 40)
Tuna Casserole x4


Since we're most likely to have breakfast for dinner (waffles, pancakes, french toast) on the weekends, I'm not going to prep that ahead of time; it will be very simple to whip up with what we have on hand.


My freezer is quickly filling up so I don't have to room for more spaghetti noodles in it therefore 3 of the spaghetti meals will be not frozen ahead of time; I have all the ingredients on hand in the pantry and some hamburger from last month's bulk cooking in the freezer which I can quickly add to the sauce. Lest you think I'm superwoman, I will tell you I'm not making the ravioli from scratch. I buy the frozen bags in the store and merely throw them in a pan with a jar of spaghetti sauce and a couple of cups of mozzarella and bake. So the ravioli x2 technically wasn't "made" by me.


Last month the tortillas, homemade cream of chicken soup, and the roll mixes were my favorite things to have on hand. And my hubby, who hates cooked oatmeal and tends to like the less-healthy cereals LOVES the homemade granola and requests that I make it all the time from now on!

Making Thanksgiving Slightly Healthier

My attempt at creating a healthier apple pie was a smashing success! My dad, who hates whole wheat bread and my husband, who said it's a crime to try to make Thanksgiving food healthy, both gave it the thumbs up for delicious!

Crust:

1 C. whole wheat flour

1 C. unbleached all-purpose (or experiment using a different kind)

1 t. sea salt

2/3 C. coconut oil

5-7 T. cold water

Filling:

6-8 apples, peeled and sliced

1 T. lemon juice to stir into apples to help them retain their color

1/2 C. honey (I warmed this in the microwave and mixed in the spices and butter and then dumped over the apples)

2 T. ww flour

1 t. cinnamon

2 T. butter

Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes! This was the yummiest pie I've ever tasted! I think a big part of that was knowing that I was eating a somewhat more nutritious piece than one loaded with lard and bleached flour and white sugar!

Ali made this green bean casserole with her Mama's help. Though the fried onions still make it a high-cal dish, it was a bit healthier made with homemade cream of chicken soup from my last bulk cooking day, which was made with ww flour.

These luscious butterhorns are my favorite! I substituted half of the white flour for whole wheat and I always use butter instead of shortning. You can use coconut oil in place of butter if you have it. The recipe is here.

No one even noticed that I used half plain yogurt mixed with half of the ranch dressing. If you make your own dressing, you could use all yogurt in place of sour cream.

NOT PICTURED: The potatoes I made were from Trisha's freezer mashed potato recipe. Instead of peeling them, I mashed them up with the skins on, for a higher-fiber dish. It was so handy having some freezer stuff on hand to make cooking for Thanksgiving much easier!

Alas, one's best efforts to make a healthy meal are in vain when a Grandma is around! My mom, as usual, had a sugary treat for the kids. I thought the indian corn was cute, although sickly sweet, so I included a pic here.

How To Make a Monster Truck Cake

My little boy loves monster trucks and apparently he's not alone! When looking for cake ideas I noticed that almost all of the cakes had a THREE candle on top of them. Must be a 3-year-old boy thing! I combined several of the ideas I liked from cakes I found online and got some tips from a friend who made a monster truck cake last year.

Large glazed donuts covered in black frosting, make the wheels. Every mama of boys should have a jar of black food coloring around so she can make racecar/tractor/truck wheels, soccer balls, etc. I put Hershey's Kisses in the wheels for hubcabs.

One gal online had built a wooden platform for her cake. I decided to do something similar. I have a little wooden cutting board that is the size of a loaf pan. I covered it with foil and "glued" four baby food jars to the bottom with honey.

One person had made no-bake cookies for mud. I liked this idea, but knew that with all of the cake and ice-cream, we'd have enough sweets, and Mommy especially doesn't need the temptation of no-bake cookies around! So, I just took a few cups of oats out of my 50# bag and colored them with a couple of Tablespoons of cocoa and about 1/2 C. of water. They look lighter in this pic but they are actually darker and looked just like dirt.

------------

I didn't get pics of the body of the cake. Oops! I used one white cake mix and baked it in two glass loaf pans. I discovered that I could have used two cake mixes because the loaf pans were deeper than I had realized. Be sure to grease and flour the pans well so the cakes come out nicely. Cool completely in the fridge or freezer for a few hours. I dumped out the loaf pans and since one loaf of cake wasn't thick enough I put them together on top of the base board and then took a knife and made a diagonal cut down the front to make the windshield. The piece I cut off was then placed in the middle of the cake body to form the cab of the truck. Then I covered the whole thing in frosting. If I did this again I would probably use a whole cake mix in one loaf pan for the body and then a rectangular chunk of cake added on top from another loaf pan for the cab.

Reese's candies for tail-lights

I used homemade cream cheese frosting. One batch was more than enough for the whole cake. If you purchase your frosting, buy at least two containers of it. Jer wanted a green truck but you could make any color you choose. Laffy Taffy ropes make a nice roll-bar in the back. You can also use sour straws. Foil makes nice windows on the truck. If I ever make another (and no doubt I will with two little boys in the house!) I will add the child's name on the side of the vehicle.

If you want to get more dramatic you can even smash the little cars with a hammer before putting them in the dirt.

There are numerous monster truck cake photos online if you want more inspiration! Just google Monster Truck Cakes

Baking/Cooking Day!

The results of my two day cook-a-rama!

Multi-grain roll mixes. I just need to throw a bag in the bread machine, add water, and 2 T. butter. I find that as a homeschooling mom, I have less motivation to bake so making mixes will get the ball rolling and could also be used for holiday dinners and/or church potlucks.

Results of Day #2, minus a couple of the pizza ingredients for my son's upcoming birthday (still in the fridge). I'm doing 4 homemade pizzas for a family birthday party.

Results of Day #1, not including 4 bags of tortillas (already in the freezer), and 2 batches of Chicken Tetrazzini (we ate one for supper and gave one to my mom as a fun surprise when she dropped by after work for a minute.)

Lots of food!

Did tortillas for a couple of hours while chatting with

a dear friend on the phone (kids were asleep in bed.)

40-ish wheat tortillas ready to go! My family will have these eaten in no time!

Healthier and cheaper!

Homemade cream of chicken soup. Used wheat flour instead of white. Using natural chicken broth (no MSG) and milk and spices makes a much healthier cream soup than store-bought.

Froze it in baby food jars and when I ran out I used plastic cups and when they are frozen I plan to pop the soup out and put in a ziploc.

Cramming it all in the freezer was no easy task!

Making pumpkin pancakes (triple batch) for breakfast

Cream butter imported from Denmark was on an amazing markdown deal this week so I snatched up a few. It is delicious butter!

Super yummy granola using this recipe. I substituted butter for the oil and did a double batch.

------------------------

Written Results of Baking Day:

4.5 cooked, shredded chicken breasts

1 dozen hardboiled eggs (kid snacks)

3 # elk hamburger cooked as taco meat

4 bags of brown rice

4 bags of chicken tetrazzini

5 C. zesty hummus

40 large whole wheat tortillas

2 dozen pumpkin pancakes

Pizza dough for 8 pizzas

Bagged 10# of mozzarella from Sam's Club divided into 2-pizza portions to freeze

4 multi-grain rolls mixes

4 cornbread mixes

4 large bags freezer potatoes

2 gallons honey/raisin granola

10 C. of homemade cream of chicken soup

All in all, I think it took about 10 hours of work in two days. We still did a park playdate, went to the grocery store, went to the post office, and did schooling one of those days (the other day my daughter wanted to nap, and since she NEVER wants to nap, I felt her body must really need the sleep!)

How did I get it done with kiddoes? About 6 of the cooking hours were when they were napping or in bed for the night (and my daughter colored pictures while the boys napped) and when they were awake I allowed them to watch one movie each day while I cooked. If Justus was awake he sat in his high chair and snacked or ran around in the kitchen or re-arranged my pantry (one of his favorite pasttimes.)