Well, kids eat for free every day at my house but last night our dinner plans (re: the people who were coming to dinner at our house and bringing the food) cancelled due to illness and instead of figuring out what to make for dinner I went on a walk with the kids. When I returned to the house well after dinner time, I asked dh if we could head over to the local taco place for kids eat free night. He agreed.

Love that the cashier didn’t flinch when we got 4 free kids meals and a free taco with our order.

Wednesday

Breakfast was cereal. I found some major sales the night before at the commissary, so our pantry is loaded with cereal right now. Cereal is usually the breakfast of choice the night after I come home from the commissary because I stay up late putting the groceries away.

Lunch was leftovers. Dh was determined to get rid of every last bit of what was left in the fridge. The kids were less than thrilled with another meal of turkey, but after they finished the leftovers a box of Cheez-its appeared. After lunch we headed to the garage for a big clean out!

The garage clean turned into quite the adventure as we found evidence of a furry friend that has taken up refuge in the garage. Eeeek!

Everyone helped in the garage… or played in the yard.

Dinner was a favorite, turkey tetrazinni. I had planned on making some sides, but the garage cleaning, bike ride, and walk took most of the afternoon. The tetrazinni came together in less than thirty minutes, so even though dinner was started after 6:30 pm everyone was in bed before nine.

Thursday
Breakfast was French toast. I usually make my own bread, but the commissary had potato bread on sale for $1.17 a loaf, so I bought four loaves for one of our favorite breakfasts.

Lunch was salad, cut veggies, and sandwiches. Apparently leftovers were sent home with one of my kids from a church meeting this week, so we have another bag of salad to eat. A few of my kids love salad, so this was a great deal for us!

My peanut butter girl has decided that peanut butter also tastes good on peanut butter granola bars.

Dinner was served at California Tortilla. We had tacos, quesadillas, chips, brownies, burrtios, and drinks for under $30.

The beautiful weather has kept me outside and out of the kitchen, and that’s okay with me. There are plenty of dreary days for cooking.

After a crazy weekend I feel like we are finally settling back into our routine. Monday and Tuesday my goal was to eat all the leftovers to clean out the fridge in preparation for my big shopping trip.

Monday

Breakfast was leftover pancakes, cereal, and oatmeal. Lunch was leftovers and sandwiches. Dinner was leftovers from our turkey dinner the night before as well as the remains of the pork roast from last week.

Tuesday

For breakfast I made whole wheat pancakes. Lunch was my final attempt to rid my fridge of the leftovers, we had turkey, nacho bake, apples, cantalope. My daughter also created a new (to us) meal of pancakes and peanut butter. That girl will eat anything with peanut butter!

During lunch I put the turkey carcass on the stove top to boil in order to get the rest of the meat off the bones and make broth. I also made a turkey pot pie for dinner. I was almost out of flour so the pie only had a top crust.

We also discovered this week that Cora likes stuffing.

I left for a grocery shopping trip and forgot to mention to anyone that the broth on the stove needed to be watched. A few hours later I called home and asked them to turn the stove off. When I returned home all the broth/ water had boiled off and all the turkey was burned into the pot! I was so disappointed! All that wasted broth and meat!

Dinner was turkey pot pie. Pot pie is a favorite at our house and there are never leftovers! This time I experimented and made a crust that was 50% whole wheat. I still have a really hard time rolling out a whole wheat crust, any suggestions?

I love serving pot pie because it is an all-in-one meal. Grains, meat, and veggies all in one dish!

Coming up next: My big shopping trip!

Don’t forget to visit Jen and Kate and see what they are up to this week. Kate had a FAIL as well, I don’t feel too bad about the turkey broth!

My last Commissary shopping trip was on March 2 and I spent $157. Since then we have made two other trips to pick up a few groceries.

DH’s Commissary trip:
2 packs baby wipes $7.68
2 packs diapers $16.98
Pull-ups $9.59
Bread $1.88
2 Nasal Spray $5.50
2 gallons milk $4.30
Orange juice $4.99
Flowers $9.95
Coupons $4.50
Total – $59.39

My Aldi trip:
Eggs $1.35
Hot dog buns $0.85
Romaine Hearts $1.99
2 gallons milk $6
Hamburger buns $0.85
Ice Cream $5
Spaghetti sauce $1.19
Syrup $1.49
Bananas $1.43
Total $20.12

Total for the month $237.18

Sorry for the lack of updates, my week was crazy! As I was writing this post in my mind, I kept thinking of ways to explain why we were so off course this past week – but then I realized that life is always changing and nobody sticks with the plan every single week!

Wednesday

Buzz turned 8 and we celebrated with his favorite cereal for breakfast, Honeycomb. Since we didn’t have a party for him we decided to take the family to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch. Let me just say that this is NOT typical for our family, but we had coupons, and they give 15 free tokens if you have good grades, so I printed out our report cards and we headed out around lunch time. The restaurant was deserted and they kids had a great time.

For dinner we grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and had leftover potato salad, chips, and apples on the side. For dessert, birthday cake!

Thursday

I cannot remember what we had for breakfast… . For lunch it was sandwiches and leftovers. I had the pleasure of hosting some of my good friends for dinner. I made whole wheat pizza, and I think I even convinced Andrea that whole wheat crust tastes pretty good!

On Thursday night Erin and I headed out to Safeway to pick up a few ingredients for her chicken tortilla soup. She was doing a segment on our local Fox News the next morning and we needed a few extra ingredients. It was fun to hit the grocery store with one of my favorite money saving bloggers. She pointed out a few sales coupon match-ups and left me wishing she lived near-by!

photo courtesy of The Thrifty Mama

Friday

Breakfast was whole wheat waffles. We ended up eating breakfast late, so when I left for the Apologia Live conference my family was just starting to make lunch. I left the ingredients for nacho bake for dinner, but when I came home late that evening there were the remains of Dominos pizza in the fridge. .

Saturday

Breakfast was a leftovers and assorted cereal.

I was gone all day at the Apologia conference but it was reported that my family dined on leftovers and finally made the nacho bake for dinner.

Sunday

Breakfast was cereal, oatmeal, and toast. With daylight savings everyone had a hard time waking up and didn’t have time for a large breakfast.

Lunch was leftovers, and while everyone was eating I finally got that turkey in the oven!

Dinner was turkey, served with make ahead mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, and cornbread. I ended up with a lot of leftover turkey, so I will probably freeze what I don’t use up this week.

Cora had a fun weekend with her new friend Silas! Now if only Silas could get Cora to be a better eater!

Don’t forget to visit the other 3 Moms and read about their kitchen adventures. Jen has a great post on grocery shopping on a budget and Kate celebrated a birthday last week too!

Last week was an awesome, exhausting, and fun week. I had the privilege of making dinner for one of my favorite cooks, Erin, from $5 Dinners, and in other big news my turkey finally thawed after 10 days in the fridge!

Breakfasts:

Whole wheat pancakes

served with fruit, orange juice, milk

Whole wheat waffles

served with fruit, orange juice, milk

Oatmeal or Breakfast leftovers

Eggs/ Bacon

served with toast

Cereal

French Toast

Lunch:

Sandwiches, Cheese and Crackers, Smoothies, Yogurt, Fruit and Veggies

Dinner:

Turkey Pot Pie

Turkey (Finally!)

served with make ahead mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, carrots, cornbread

Turkey Tetrazinni

served with salad, rolls

Dinner with Friends

they are bringing dinner over in exchange for us helping them set up their website, we would do it for free, but I am not turning down dinner!

Meatloaf

served with rice, broccoli, applesauce

For more than 300 Menu Plans each week visit Org Junkie.

Honestly, I think everyone is going to stop reading my weekly menu plan because lately I have been no good at sticking with it!

Monday morning I had planned to make pancakes but Cora woke up sick and I was able to get an appointment first thing in the morning. The kids ended up with cereal as I had no time to make the pancakes. By lunchtime I wasn’t feeling well, so I put out a bunch of food and the kids made their own lunch. I ended up laying down as I could feel a headache coming on and woke up in time to make dinner. Since my turkey was still frozen solid, we had pink pasta, green beans, and apple slices. I made dinner, but still felt pretty crummy so I headed back upstairs without eating.

Tuesday morning I made our new favorite whole wheat pancakes. My kids skip the syrup if I add chocolate chips.

After breakfast I started the BBQ pork roast in the crock pot.

It was a beautiful day, so I sent the kids outside to play after they finished school. My kids love eating lunch outside, so they were thrilled when I brought out plates of peanut butter crackers, cream cheese crackers, cheese slices, popcorn, and rice cakes. It wasn’t until after lunch I realized I forgot to slice any fruit!

Even Cora ate outside today, she loved it!

For dinner we had BBQ pork roast, southwestern potato salad, steamed broccoli, and corn. It was so good. At about 3:45 pm I realized I forgot to make the rolls, but the dinner was still delicious. All my kids love the pork BBQ, and we have a little leftover for lunch. I’ll post the recipe later this week.

I am so excited about the rest of my week. On Thursday, I will be hosting four of my favorite bloggers as we have a little pow-wow at the Happy House! I can’t wait to share the details.

Don’t forget to visit Jen’s and Kate’s blogs to see what they are eating this week. I made a batch of Jen’s make ahead mashed potatoes tonight, and they smelled so good I almost ate them for dessert!

Has this ever happened to you?

You put the cake in the oven, you don’t set the timer because your oven is a bit iffy, the baby needs a diaper change, after changing the baby you wash your hands in the bathroom and notice someone’s aim was a little off, when getting the cleaner from the laundry room you notice the laundry is ready to go in the dryer, when you open the dryer you realize there is a load of dry laundry waiting to be folded, while folding the laundry you call your sister because you haven’t chatted in a while, when hanging up the phone you notice the garbage is overflowing and needs to go out, when taking the garbage out you trip over a sled in the garage which reminds you that someone left one boot on the back porch, while searching the house for the boot bandit you notice a picture is hanging slightly crooked, you fix the picture and a huge pile of dust flies off and starts choking you, you go to get paper towels to dust the picture frame and realize you are out, you call down to the basement to ask one of the kids to bring up the paper towels – and while they are getting paper goods they can restock the toilet paper too… toilet paper? Weren’t you supposed to be cleaning the bathroom? You go back into the bathroom and remember you put something in the oven over 45 minutes ago… THE CAKE!

You race back to the oven and pull out the cake. The top is dark golden brown and the edges are crisp. You start thinking about how much frosting would be required to overpower the hardened edges. You realize that no amount of frosting can make a brick taste like a cake so you contemplate baking another cake, but you really don’t want to use 3 more eggs, another mix, and your last bit of oil.

There is only one thing to do, sharpen your best knife and carefully cut away all the burned edges of your cake wreck.

But how do you frost the crumbly edges of your now manicured cake wreck?

This is the easy part. Place the cake in the freezer for about 45 minutes, and if you forget and leave it in the freezer a little longer, nothing burns!

Take the cake out and frost. The crumbs are frozen solid and you get a nice clean edge.

This post is linking to Kitchen Tip Tuesdays and Works for Me Wednesday.

I don’t have a lot of pictures of our meals from the weekend, things got crazy and I forgot to take pictures.

Friday

Breakfast: French toast, I was so excited about this recipe because I made 2 gorgeous loaves of egg bread the night before. I just knew this would be an awesome breakfast! Well, I found out Friday morning that I don’t really like egg bread. The kids seemed to like it, but I won’t be making it again.

Lunch: Sandwiches and peanut butter apples. My four year old LOVES peanut butter apples and would eat them for every meal if I would let her.

Dinner: Shepherd’s pie, a family favorite that was scarfed down before I could get a single picture.

Saturday

Breakfast: I was gone all day Saturday, but I was told that everyone at leftover French toast and the free sample cereal I received in the mail the day before.

Lunch: Sandwiches were reported, but I found an empty ice cream container in the sink and popcorn bags in the garbage, hmmmm.

Dinner: I had planned for dh to pick me up from the conference with the kids and then head to Bruster’s for our free ice cream. He arrived six extra kids all in pajamas. It wasn’t until we were on our way that I found out our local area isn’t doing the promotion until March 20th. The kids were all good sports about it and since I felt terrible that I hadn’t called before they all rode around town in their pajamas we took them to McDonald’s for ice cream. I wish I would have taken a picture of the looks on all the other patrons faces when my husband and I walked into McDonalds with 13 kids! I don’t know if they were staring because of the amount of kids, or because everyone was still wearing their pajamas!

Sunday

Breakfast: Leftover pancakes

Lunch: We had a family over after church and ate: whole wheat pizza, Cesar salad, carrot sticks, grapes, chips, cookies and brownies. It was great and since we ate late we called that dinner too.

Monday update: My turkey is still frozen solid! I am considering placing it on the basement floor so that we can actually eat it this week.

Don’t forget to visit Jen who has been eating from her fridge, pantry and freezer, and Kate who shared her grocery trip. I loved her before and after photos.

Well, last week didn’t go at all as I planned so this week’s menu plan is going to look very familiar to you. My turkey and the pork roast didn’t thaw in time for dinner so I ended up substituting with the nacho bake and whole wheat pizza.

Flexibility is the keyword for the week as we have friends coming to visit and I will be at the Apologia Live Homeschool Conference this weekend. I want to have food available, but also be flexible in case we go out for a meal.

Breakfasts:

served with fruit, orange juice, milk

Whole wheat waffles

served with fruit, orange juice, milk

Oatmeal or Breakfast leftovers

Eggs/ Bacon

served with toast

Cereal

French Toast

Lunch:

Sandwiches, Cheese and Crackers, Smoothies, Yogurt, Fruit and Veggies

Dinner:

Turkey Pot Pie

BBQ Pork (this will last for at least 2 meals)

served with Bobby Flay’s potato salad, chips, cut veggies

Turkey (making a 15 lb turkey this week to use in many meals to come)

served with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, carrots, rolls

Hamburgers and Hotdogs (hoping the weather cooperates enough to use the grill)

served with veggies, fruit, leftover potato salad (if there is any)

Meatloaf

served with rice or make ahead mashed potatoes, broccoli, applesauce

For more than 300 Menu Plans each week visit Org Junkie.

Wow, the week is almost over and I am still trying to get back on track with the menu plan.

Wednesday morning we had pancakes and fresh strawberries.

Lunch was sandwiches, smoothies, and my dh had a spinach salad. This smoothie had apples, bananas, strawberries, a whole orange, spinach, carrots, vanilla yogurt, orange juice, and a little milk. It was a big hit with the kids. Next time I will add a beet so it is a little pinker in color.

We had a meeting that ran late Wednesday afternoon so I threw together this nacho bake. It was a HUGE hit with everyone. I am definitely adding it to our menu rotation.

Thursday morning was eggs, bacon, and whole wheat toast. I also placed a bowl of grapes on the table for everyone to snack on throughout the day.

Lunch was macaroni and cheese, sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and grapes.

I had planned to cook a turkey for dinner, but when we pulled it out of the fridge it was still frozen solid! So I pulled out two packages of steak, because I knew they would thaw quickly. Dinner was fajitas, and I served fresh pineapple and strawberries on the side.

I have been way off track this week with menu planning, but we are still eating food that is in our house so I am fine with the change of plans. Tomorrow night we will be having FREE Bruster’s ice cream, care to join us?

Don’t forget to stop by Beauty and Bedlam and Cooking During Stolen Moments to see what the other two moms have been eating this week.