Stick to the plan, ma'am

This week I decided to wing it in the meal planning department.

It was a disaster.

Mental meal planning doesn't work for me. It just doesn't. Compiling a list of meals ideas in my head isn't enough. I have to write it down on paper. Plus, I need to ensure I have the required ingredients to make said meals. After dropping darling daughter off at preschool, I had to make an emergency trip to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for meals for the next three days.

Quite simply, I was too lazy to meal plan. In some ways, I still am as I tend to make the same meals over and over again. Today I did manage to get my act together by opening up a cook book and surfing on the Internet in finding at least two new recipes. I've got a grocery list started and I'm ready to go grocery shopping tomorrow. I'd like to think I'll have fun, but I realize that grocery shopping has now become one of my regular and weekly chores. Sending out dear husband to do this task was so much easier, but I've discovered for me to meal plan successfully, I need to involve myself in the entire process, which includes going grocery shopping. Oh, the things I will do to meal plan.

Bulk shopping

About two weeks ago, when I was trying to find an obscure spice (it is likely not that obscure, but if it is beyond salt, pepper, and garlic powder it is classified as obscure in my books) I went to Bulk Barn. The problem with Bulk Barn is that the candy aisle is too big of a temptation for me. Regardless, when I was shopping for spices, which are much cheaper at Bulk Barn, a little thought occurred to me: "Why aren't I shopping here on a regular basis?"

I posed this question on the message board of a local moms group I belong to: can you save money by buying at the Bulk Barn? Respondents said yes it is cheaper to buy some stuff at Bulk Barn. They also noted you have to shop around because you can get some foodstuffs cheaper at other stores.

Last night, I returned to Bulk Barn to get supplies for next week's meals. As you can see from my receipt, no candy was purchased. I bought croutons for 97 cents. White liquid honey cost me $3.05. Steel cut oats, which were on sale, set me back 64 cents. Green split peas, $1.20; non-instant skim milk, $2.28; non-instant buttermilk, $2.38. In total, I spent $10.52. Total savings in regards to items being on sale: $1.19. Sweet!

I like the Bulk Barn for a variety of reasons. Although bulk in prominent in the name, I like the fact you can buy smaller amounts of various products. I have no need for a huge bag of powder milk, but I do need some for my bread machine. It would be ridiculous for me to buy a huge bag, spend $7 to $10 at the grocery store, only to use a bit of it before it expires. I plan on making bulk shopping a part of my grocery shopping routine, but I'll be skipping out on the candy aisle so I don't impact my waist line or my budget.

Crock Pot Mondays

In my quest in my battle to succeed at meal planning, I've decided to introduce a new feature to the blog: Crock Pot Mondays. Basically the premise is for me to post recipes that I've tried or currently trying in my slow cooker. This way (I hope!) I will be continually motivated to keep up with meal planning. Lately, my Crock Pot has been working overtime. In the last couple of days I've made lazy chicken and sloppy joes. I've got most of my recipes from Stephanie O'Dea's A Year of Slow Cooking blog. This woman's blog is giving the inspiration to expand my slow cooker repertoire from the usual fare I make. I really want to make a cake.

So what's in the Crock Pot today, you ask?

Lemon and herb roasted chicken

Ingredients:
* 1 whole chicken, thawed and skinned

* 1 head of garlic

* 2 lemons
* salt and pepper

* fresh rosemary

Method:

After you skin the chicken, rub it inside and out with salt and pepper. Place chicken in slow cooker. Peel garlic and stuff several whole cloves into chicken and sprinkle more cloves on top and around the chicken. Slice lemon and place on top, around and inside the chicken. Wash rosemary and do the same. The recipe states that if you are using dried rosemary, use a good amount, about two to three tablespoons. Do not add water. Cook on low for eight to 10 hours.

I've never tried this recipe, but I have no doubt it is a winner. I've made fragrant lemon chicken, which is a similar recipe and it was delicious. There is nothing like the smell of rosemary wafting through the house on a coldish September day.

Back on the meal planning bandwagon (maybe)

It has been a year since I wrote my first meal planning post. To be truthfully honest, nothing has changed. I'm not sure when I fell off the meal planning bandwagon, but it was several months ago. A staple in our meals has been a lot of shake and bake chicken and a lot of ham sandwiches (or hammages as darling daughter calls them) for me.

Today, I decided to take action. I hate cooking. Absolutely hate it. Slow cookers make cooking a bit bearable as I don't actually have to cook. I just assembling. I'm okay with assembling. When dear husband broke our slow cooker earlier this year, he went out and bought the hugest slow cooker he could find. Bigger is not always better as the slow cooker seems to overcook our meals because it is too big. So I bought a smaller slow cooker. Now I have two, I absolutely no more excuses why I can't assemble slow cooker meals.

I have yet to come up with a comprehensive slow cooking/meal plan. It is a work in progress. I've got some ideas, but it remains to be seen if I'll stick with it. Since I have a poor meal planning track record, I'll likely be writing a similar post this time next year.

So are you wondering what is my slow cooker? This recipe, taken from The Everything Slow Cooker Cookbook, is a slow cooker staple in my house. I usually tweak my recipes to suit my tastes. When I assemble this recipe, I usually opt using chopped onion rather than using onion flakes. Also, I don't put in the milk and cheese until 30 minutes before I'm ready to dish out the meal.

Wyoming Cowboy Casserole

1 pound lean ground beef

1 cup Colby cheese, cubed

1 can condensed tomato soup

1 can (16 ounce) whole kernel corn

1 can (16 ounce) red kidney beans (I usually drain and wash before throwing them into the pot).

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon dry onion flakes

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1. Brown ground beef in a skillet on medium-high heat; drain off grease. Spread beef on paper towels to cool before placing meat into the slow cooker.

2. Add all ingredients to the slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for four hours. Serves four.

*Serve over biscuits and with a salad.

Not buying groceries isn't the answer to reducing our food bill

I think I mentioned it earlier this week that we didn't have any food and dear husband had to go to the grocery store and pick us up some supplies. It was a combination of laziness and financial frugality on my part. In December, we spent an insane amount on groceries, about $700. I thought initially we were in the $625 range (which isn't exactly good) but I later found a receipt in the bottom of my purse for about $75. I could chalk up our food expenses to the fact it was the holidays, but we did cash in some Sobey points, which helped out.

So this month I'm on a mission to reduce our grocery bill. Eating leftovers for the first little while helped immensely. But the leftover train has run out and I'm back to planning and making meals.

Earlier this week, dear husband started complaining that darling daughter didn't have all that much fruit. She did, but I guess cutting apples and clementines isn't all that appealing when you can wash and rinse berries. But we did start to get low on the basics so I had to break down and buy food. Now, I want to point out that I wasn't going to let my family starve in my mission to reduce our grocery bill. But I have discovered that we waste a lot of food when we have a lot of food in the house. It is easy to not use soon-to-be expired produce or leftovers when it is hidden in the back of the refrigerator. Although I still have a close eye on the bottom line, I've eased up on the purse strings a little. If anyone has any tips, I'd love to hear them. I'll let you know how we fared at the end of the month.

Meal planning at its best, well, not really

I'm still on the meal planning bandwagon, but I think I've got one foot trailing on the ground and if I hit a bump soon, I might fall off the wagon entirely.

On tonight's menu: leftover pizza and veggies. Can you say desperate? Or is lazy more the word to describe the situation?

Basically we had no groceries until now. As I type this, dear husband has returned from the grocery store, putting our new found bounty away. Grocery shopping was on my list to do today, but it just didn't happen. We met some friends at Chapters this morning and the kids played in the kids section. I spent some of my time policing darling daughter. She loves books, but books don't love her. She is hard on them. She likes to rip pages. After we left the book store, I had no steam to go to the grocery store. So I found some leftover pizza in the freezer and made some veggies. Voila! Dinner of champions.

This week's meal plan list is in my head, not on a piece of paper, which isn't the best idea because it is easy to get off track. But I got dear husband to buy all the missing ingredients tonight so I should be back on the wagon tomorrow morning. In my quest to find new recipes to try out I discovered a new cook book in the express read section at my local library branch called Bake Until Bubbly. Let's just say it has some divine recipes. However, I'm sure they will be appealing to the tongue, they may expand my waist line.

Leftovers galore

The turkey has been eaten. The remainder of the pumpkin swirl cheesecake that I didn't end up stashing in freezer has been consumed. Any and all leftovers from Christmas Eve dinner are gone. However, the that doesn't mean the leftover parade is over in my household!

Hell, no. I'm up in my eyeballs in leftovers. My meal planning plans that I executed earlier this month are still going strong. And as planned, I'm eating leftovers until the cows come home (or when there are no more leftovers to be found in the freezer). On tonight's menu: leftover slow cooker lasagna. Yum. And there are two more containers where that came from.

A quick glance in the freezer reveals that I have some fiesta chicken, baked beans, spare ribs and some turkey hash to go through. Argh! I hate leftovers. I'm not a fan. But I'm better than dear husband. He'll avoid any opportunity to eat leftovers. I basically have to either cajole him or badger him to eat them. There have been times where he'll conveniently "forget" to bring his lunch (leftovers from the previous night's dinner) to work. But as previously planned earlier this month, the deal was that we'd get rid of those leftovers by eating them. I can't exactly toss them. It would be a waste of food. Plus, I have no green bin to recycle them. Plus, I'm hoping this will relieve some pressure on the grocery bill. The bright side of all of this is I don't have to cook or plan any dinners for at least a week. Yay for me. And when those leftovers are all gone, I can always start making meals again or crack into the cheesecake.

Meal planning extravaganza

In my quest to become a domestic goddess in the kitchen, I've taken to meal planning with a vengeance. I've made meals for the last five evenings. Any leftovers we have have been frozen and will be used at the end of the month during the holiday rush. Today, I did an entire inventory of the pantry and the freezers and made lists. I used those lists to help create a meal plan for the upcoming week. I scoured websites for new recipes. I opened up cook books that haven't been open for years. I based my grocery list on my meal plan. Yes, it was certainly an exciting way to spend a Friday afternoon.

I don't like cooking, but meal planning is helping to bridge the gap. I'm even starting to get excited about cooking. But before I start planning my ticker tape parade, I know that this meal planning momentum I have will likely peter out and I may return back to opening up the refrigerator door at 3 p.m., wondering what is for dinner. Although I know I'm not going to be Rachel Ray or Jaime Oliver, but I'm hoping I can at least serve dinner every night at 5 p.m.

Meal planning Mondays

In September, I blogged about my immense dislike of meal planning. I'm not much a big meal planner. In fact, I'm not much of a chef. I like to bake, but I detest cooking. That's what take out is for.

However, take out is not economical feasible or healthy. So someone has to cook meals and that someone is me as barbecue season has now come to a close. Lately, I've been doing okay in the meal making/planning department. Although I didn't plan any meals in advance last week, I made most of them. The only stumble in my new dinner making regime was on Friday. Dear husband decided that he didn't want leftovers and I decided to continue on the bad food day I was having (I had a burger and fries for lunch) that we decided to get some pizza slices for dinner. I hope to redeem myself this week.

So this week I decided it was time to bite the bullet, come up with a meal plan and grocery shop accordingly. Hopefully it will work. Tonight we are having chicken tetrazzini, which is simmering in the slower cooker as I write this. Tomorrow will be slow cooker lasagna. I have even browned the hamburger meat. Also on the list is meat loaf, a good ol' standby in our household. We bought a small whole chicken which will make a delicious meal. I was planning to make almond chicken and rice sometime this week, but I'm not a big fan of frying chicken in a frying pan. Too much work for my taste. Earlier today I found a slow cooker recipe for a chicken dish. I've already got all the ingredients, so I may make that instead. Although I dislike cooking, I'm a big fan of my slow cooker. I like assembling my meals in the slow cooker in the morning and turning it on. Not only does it make my house smell delicious and homey, it takes the pressure off of assembling meals around 3 or 4 p.m.

I'm hoping my new meal planning mantra sticks as I'm tired of opening up the refrigerator door, wondering what's for dinner.

Meal planning? What the heck is that?

Good God, dear husband is talking about meal planning. Right now, I've got my hands over my ears, going la, la, la, la, la, laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, la to myself to drown out his musings on the subject.

I hate meal planning. I absolutely hate it. I ordered a menu planner from dairygoodness.ca and it recently arrived in the mail. I have yet to open up the envelope. Oh, I have great intentions when it comes to meal planning. But as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved in good intentions.

I've tried meal planning in the past, but it only lasts a week. I think it stems from the fact that I hate to cook. I'm like Cher's character, Rachel Flax, in the movie Mermaids. Mrs. Flax didn't like to cook. She liked finger food. I'm a finger food type of girl. I can survive just fine on h'ordeuvres and tiny sandwiches.

However, dear husband can't. He is a meat and potatoes type of guy. He doesn't like tiny sandwiches all that much. And since barbecue season is winding down, we'll have to start considering planning our meals. Argh! And that means we'll have to start thinking ahead of what we want to eat for the entire week and that means making a shopping list. I know it makes economical sense to plan our meals for the entire week, but there is something inside of me that just can't do it. But at least meal planning would solve the problem of us standing in front of the refrigerator, wondering what is for dinner.