Freezer Meals: Shopping Day!

After all my prep work it is now time to do some shopping! I go shopping alone and treat myself to some fast food while I am out. After all I have earned it!

My friend asked for pics so here you go :)

Aldi $93.56

Costco $413.17 (Only for the food used for freezer cooking, I subtracted out all non food items)

Commissary $88.68
Sorry no pic of this cart I was a bit tired!

Total for the 69 freezer meals: $595.41

That is $8.63 per meal or $1.23 per person per meal.

My grocery lists:

Costco

Meat

14lbs	Ground Beef
39lbs	Chicken
6lbs	Pork Roast
6lbs	Beef Roast
3	Whole Chickens
3lbs	Pork Chops

Breads

21	Corn Tortillas
40	Flour Tortillas

Dairy

12 cups	Mozzarella
15 cups	Cheddar Cheese
1.5 cups	Asiago cheese

Vegetables

45	Onion
69	Carrots
15	Zucchini
21 Stalks	Celery
27	Bell Peppers
36	Red potatoes

Canned goods and Non-perishables

170oz +1 large can	Crushed tomatoes
165 oz	Tomato Sauce
1	Soy Sauce
1	Honey
270 oz	Beans
120 oz	Pineapple
114oz	Beef broth
50lbs	Flour

Aldi

Bottles

5	Italian Dressing
3	BBQ Sauce
3	Alfredo Sauce
1	Worcestershire Sauce
3	Buffalo Sauce
1	Teriyaki Sauce
1	Dijon Mustard
3	Spaghetti Sauce

Breads

3	Hamburger buns

Boxed and non-perishable

3	Macaroni
9 cans	Tomatoes with Chilies
3 cans	V8 Juice
30oz	Enchilada Sauce
8 small cans	Green chilies
1	Almonds, sliced
6 cans	Cream of chicken soup

Dairy

3 cups

Half and Half

Meats

3 packs	Pepperoni
3lbs	Deli Ham
3lbs	Sausage

Seasonings

1	Quick cooking tapioca
1	All spice
1	Ground cloves
1	Ground ginger
1	Italian herbs
1	Ground mustard
3 packets	Ranch dip powder
3 bottles	Minced garlic
1	cumin

Frozen

32 oz	Pepper Strips
1.5c	Peas
6 cups	Green beans
75oz	corn

Baking

3 Tbsp	Shortening
2 bottles	Yeast

Prepping for baby #6: Freezer meals!

I am a momma of many. I have 5 children all born in the last 8 yrs, three of those children are toddlers right now (twin 2yr olds and a 18mth old). I am also currently 8mths pregnant with our 6th child. I understand what it means to be busy and tired. I thought I would share one of my trade secrets. How do we survive life with a newborn, no family in the area for support, and 5 older children who need attention? One of my biggest tips is to have three months of meals in my freezer before the baby is born. I love not having to cook for months at a time and still be able to feed my children good wholesome meals. I know it seems overwhelming to think about. Three months is a lot of food! I thought it might be helpful to do a blog series following my planning, prepping, shopping, and cooking as I prepare for the birth of our 6th child.

The first thing I do is decide how many meals I am going to be making. I like to do three months of meals at a time. We also plan to eat leftovers every 4th day, this allows me to have less in our freezer and also makes sure we use up all the leftovers in our fridge as we go. So for 3mths of meals I need to make 69 meals.

I also like to make a one month repeating meal plan. So day 1 of month 1 is meal "A", that meal will also be day 1 of month 2, and day 1 of month 3. This also cuts down on my cooking time, as well as the amount of money I need to put out upfront for the meals. I take one recipe and triple it. Divide it among three bags and freeze. This save a a fortune since you can buy in bulk (costco anyone?!) and then divide the large bulk item by three.

Once I know how many recipes I am looking to make I look through my recipes and get some ideas for meals my family likes, that will freeze well, and take little to no prep to cook the day we plan to eat them. I tend to go for meals that can be put frozen into the crockpot in the morning and be done by dinner time. No muss no fuss.  Pinterest is a great resource for finding freezer meals. I go through and find the recipes and copy them into a word document which I save on my desktop.  Once I am done finding recipes I format the document so that it is easy to read and recipes are not broken between pages. I don't want to be knee deep making a recipe and not be able to find the second page of instructions.

A inventory list is also very helpful to have. Here is the inventory sheet I made for my current freezer cooking project
 Qty    Meal      Date Frozen   Amt. Used      Notes

3	Meat Stew
6	Spaghetti Sauce
3	Pork Roast with Veg
3	Sausage and bean supper
3	Chicken tortilla soup
3	Chicken Taco soup
3	Creamy Farmhouse Chicken
3	Teriyaki Chicken
3	Savory Vegetable Beef soup
3	Healthy BBQ Chicken
3	Cilantro Lime Chicken
3	Cincinnati Skyline Chili
3	Honey and Spice Glazed Pork chops
3	Chicken Enchiladas
3	Hot ham and cheese pinwheels
3	Alfredo Wraps
3	Honey Sesame Chicken
3	Crockpot pulled pork
3	Crockpot Buffalo Chicken
3	Whole Roasted Chicken with Veg
3	Italian Chicken
3	Pizza Casserole

As I use a meal I mark it on the sheet. This allows me to know at a glance what is in my freezer without having to dig around  and freeze my hands off.

I then print the recipes out and start working on my grocery list. This is not fun. I tend to write it all out by hand at first. Once I have all the total amounts down I like to type it up in a word document so that it is easier for me to read in the store. I like to shop at three different stores when I am doing a big bulk shop like this. I like to go to Aldi, Costco, and my local commissary.  I get the majority of my supplies from Aldi and Costco and fill in any items I can't find by going to the commissary. I find that it is cheaper for me to shop for bulk items at aldi and costco.  When I do my grocery list I divide my grocery list by store, then by food type. So all of my boxed items are together, all of my meats together, etc. I don't want to be shoving that massive shopping cart back through the store when I have forgotten something!

Lastly I like to print out labels for my freezer meals. I don't know about you but when I am making 69 meals I get tired of writing on all of those bags! I buy some sheets of shipping labels (I use the ones with 10 labels per page). On each label I put the name of the meal, anything that needs to be done to the meal at the time of cooking (such as add more broth), and what accompaniments are recommended (such as serve with rice). I type this all out on the first label and then copy and paste it on to the remaining two labels. Print it out and I am good to go!

Next up....shopping!

Trim Healthy Mama ~Why no posts?~

If you have been following along with my Trim Healthy Mama challenge you will have noticed that there have been no updates in the last week. Why? Normal pregnancy stuff. The baby has gotten to the point where she is pressing on my stomach making eating harder and harder. I have zero interest in food right now, I don't want to eat it or think about it. A few bites and I am stuffed to the point of feeling sick. Since I have zero interest in eating or cooking right now kind of follows I have zero interest in writing about cooking or food right now.

As for the diet I have been sticking to the general principles and adding in more crossover meals to try and get more calories in since I am eating so little.

Tomorrow is the last day of the challenge and also happens to be my next checkup with my OB. I will be sure to check in with you all to let know know how following the plan for a month affected my weight gain and overall health.

Trim Healthy Mama ~Day 21~

Breakfast 
Today I was blessed to be able to sleep in. Once I got up we had to hurry to get ready to go to our appointment at a local car dealership. Since I didn't have a ton of time and everyone else had already eaten I had a bowl of raisin bran cereal.

Lunch
Luckily the dealership had sandwiches available for us. I had a half a turkey sandwich and a bottle of water.

Dinner
Unfortunately we were STILL at the dealership. Longest day of my life! I had a half a buffalo chicken sandwich and a sprite.

The good news is that we were able to buy a 8 seat SUV to fit our growing family and I don't have to go back to a car dealership for a long long long time. So happy to have that over with!

Trim Healthy Mama ~Day 20~

Breakfast
This morning I was rousted from bed by a maintenance worker who was here to install my new garbage disposal and kitchen tile floors.  Since I didn't want to be in his way I didn't get breakfast till 11am. I was way to hungry to deal with cooking much at that point. So I just made some cheesy eggs.

Lunch
Since I ate breakfast so late I didn't eat lunch today.

Dinner
Tonight for dinner I made this Unstuffed Cabbage skillet with whole grain macaroni instead of brown rice (just because my family prefers pasta over rice).

It was super simple to make and since I already had all but one of the ingredients on hand  it  was super cheap to make. I paid $0.89 for the pasta and I was good to go.

Trim Healthy Mama ~Day 19~

Breakfast
Trim and Healthy pancakes....come on you know you wanna try them!

Lunch
I was exhausted and queasy at lunch time so I had a nausea pill, some crackers, and some laughing cow cheese and called it a meal.

Dinner
Tonight's dinner was a "empty out the pantry" meal. My husband's pay was short this pay period and cuts had to be made somewhere. That somewhere is most easily found in the grocery budget. Some meals in the next two weeks are going to be a bit odd. They will be using pantry items to make healthy meals, they just might be a bit odd.

Tonight we had a Mediterranean themed meal. I put several tilapia fillets from my freezer in my crockpot, still frozen. Added some frozen tomatoes from my garden, a jar of olives that have been in the door of my fridge for a while, and diced up an onion. I cooked it all on low till the frozen items were defrosted and the fish cooked.

Once everything was cooked I diced up some whole wheat bread that no one was going to eat (my family prefers white bread) and mixed it in.

Wham bam we have a healthy E meal on the fly.

Trim Healthy Mama ~Day 18~

Breakfast
I wanted to make the cinnamon rolls from the book today.....I really did.....trouble was hubby let me sleep in because I was up a lot last night because of my hips hurting. When I woke up I was starving and couldn't wait to eat so I went with simple fried eggs.

Lunch
I had take out for lunch. I am so terrible!

Dinner
Leftover layered dinner for dinner tonight. Nothing too exciting as I spent most of the evening scrubbing the living room and the bedrooms/bathrooms.