30 Day Cooking (and then some)

My goal this weekend was to put enough food in the freezer to last at least a month, and some dinners to pull out still in the second month - to get us through until we're on summer break (April 27th is our end date).

Saturday morning I put a pork roast in the crock pot, cleaned out my fridge & wore gloves to reorganize my freezer. Then I spruced up the kitchen and went shopping. I shopped for about 3 hours to the tune of about $700.

I bought 45 # of hamburger and fried up 25 of it (5# was made into taco meat for nachos, tacos & burritos). I had bought 80% lean, so each 5# only made up 4 meals. I have a 14" skillet that easily handles 7# and can handle 10# of hamburger at a pop, so it doesn't take but a couple to three hours to fry up that much meat. I fried up 5# of sausage. I made 20# into meatloaf and of that made several batches of meatballs. I made 11# of grilled chicken breast on my XL George Foreman grill (I use it ALL the time since Dave doesn't grill). I bought 10 dz eggs & made them into meatloaf, egg casserole, & hard boiled 36 eggs for egg salad & to eat just for a snack leaving 3 dz raw to be used later. I bought a cooked ham and had the meat dept. slice it for sandwiches & bought swiss in bulk to go with it. 2 beef roasts for beef & noodles & shredded beef sandwiches.

• 16 hamburger - casseroles (I have about 4 different ones we eat), chilis & stews, & meat sandwiches (sloppy joe).


• 4 taco/nacho/burrito options


• 2 sausage & rice casseroles


• 3 egg casseroles


• 120 meatballs = 6 meals' worth


• 8 meatloaves (I've got a new recipe to try to make them cupcake size and put ingredients [like a ho-ho] inside the meatloaf and there's about 4 different kinds of meatloves to made & try) *See the boys mixing up the meat mixture? I didn't trust them to not get it all over their clothes. They enjoyed helping!


• 11 chicken meals (5 shredded or diced for chicken salad, chicken & noodles, chicken casserole & 6 whole breasts to be decided later)


• 14 lunches of ham & swiss divided into meal-sized portions - Dd#1 seperates the ham in the picture.

We had pork roast for dinner and I froze the left-overs for a pork & noodle dinner. I already had 8 alfredo sauce packets, 2 spinach lasagna, 3 frozen fish meals & hamburger patties. I bought 10 pkgs of hotdogs, 10-bologna, 10-frzn. french fry pkgs. and lots of misc. pantry items to complete the dinners above.

By Saturday night I was tired -- but thrilled that it's done for a loooong time....!!!!