Eating from the Freezer Menu Plan

I have not being doing a very good job at sticking with our grocery budget lately. I blame rising food prices and two small hungry people and one very tall man with a hollow leg. Needless to say, I have got to start being more strict so I think I may have to go back to cash this month.  I have been using a debit card that is linked to a checking account solely for groceries but doing cash again might make my shopping trips a little more realistic on how much I spend.

This week I'm planning on only buying a few dairy items at HEB, bread from the Dollar Store and stocking up on super cheap produce at Chicho Boys Fruit Market. Did you know that Dollar General sells Nature's Own breads for just a dollar? They have whole wheat bread and sometimes english muffins and bagels. The store is right on my way to the gym so I go once or twice a month and stock up. The selection can be hit or miss depending on when they've gotten a shipment in.

Target has eggs on sale this week for 99 cents a dozen plus an additional 5 cents off with the Cartwheel app so I stocked up with six dozen yesterday.

Here's my menu for the next few days. We will be gone for Easter weekend so this is a loose menu for about 7 dinners. I will fill in with whatever veggies I get at the produce market tomorrow.

Monday - Cobb salads with leftover grilled chicken
Tuesday - BBQ chicken in the crockpot with brown rice for David and the kids. Side of broccoli salad. Let's see, it's currently 2pm and my chicken is still frozen so I should probably get a move on dinner soon!
Wednesday- Muffins of some sort, kale sweet potato and egg hash
Thursday- Left over grilled chicken topped with avocados, cole slaw
Friday- At my parents for Easter weekend.

Meal ideas for next week with current food from freezer
Homemade pizza. I have a fantastic grain free pizza crust I will share soon. I cannot find the original link anywhere but I did print a copy.
Egg Roll in a bowl with fried brown rice
Beef and vegetable kabobs

First VoxBox Review

I received my first Influenster VoxBox a few weeks ago with three full sized hair products to sample and review. If you are not familiar with Influenster, it is a social media website that allows users to rate and review products. They also send VoxBox occasionally to users to allow them to try out full sized products for free!

I was supposed to write about this product weeks ago but the week I got my box was the week Laura had four days of the stomach bug and then I got a double ear infection which ended up with a perforated eardrum in my left ear and temporary hearing loss. I wasn't doing much of anything that week. I'm lucky we were fed and clothed most days. Thank you Trader Joe's for frozen meals and Kali for keeping the kids one morning.

I was sent the Dessange Paris California Blonde Shampoo, California Blonde Conditioner and Brass Color Correcting Cream. These products are specifically designed to protect, nourish and blonde hair. By the way, if you thought I was a natural blonde, you'd be wrong.

I have about four different bottle of shampoo in my shower currently because I am always hunting for the perfect shampoo that doesn't weigh down my baby fine and very thin hair. I have't had highlights in probably five or six months so I'm not sure how well this worked to protect my color since it has already faded and grown out some over the last few months. It didn't weigh my hair down or feel greasy even when I use the conditioner. Colored blonde hair can turn brassy over time or if not done properly in a salon and I like the results with the color correcting cream. It made my color look better and my hair super shiny and soft.


*I received free products to test and review, however all opinions are solely my own. 

This Week's Menu

Here's my tentative dinner menu plan for this week. I say tentative because something always seems to come up or I forget to start a crockpot meal and I suddenly realized it's 3pm. For instance, today's meal was supposed to be Buffalo Chicken Salad and I made Egg Roll in a Bowl instead. I will link up to recipes from online and I plan to slowly create a recipe page here on my blog.

Monday- Buffalo Chicken Salad  Egg Roll in a Bowl - this was pretty good. I think David liked it better than I did and the kids didn't eat much of it. Next time I will serve it with fried brown rice. It certainly is a frugal and healthy meal. I only used half a pound of ground turkey in it.

Tuesday -I prepped these while making last nights dinner. Veggie and ground turkey stuffed red pepper with cheese. Red bell pepper loaded with sautéd shredded carrots, spinach and kale blend and red cabbage. Green salsa from Trader Joe's and half a pound of ground turkey sprinkled with cheese on top. I added white beans to a few of the peppers for the kids and David and a lower carb version sans beans for me.

Wednesday- Buffalo Chicken Salad. I eat the buffalo chicken out of the crockpot and burn my mouth because I am obsessed with spicy Buffalo Chicken flavors. It's not David's favorite but I made it up to him with steaks last week.

Thursday- Company over- Maple Pork Tenderloin on the grill from Danielle Walker's newest cookbook- Against All Grain Meals Made Simple . Pork loin marinaded with maple syrup, olive oil, garlic and dijon mustard.

Friday- Bean and ground beef chili. I cheat and use canned beans. David loves the "chili magic" starter beans so that's what I buy.

Saturday-  Easy Peasy Grilled Chicken. I have started making this once a week. I am a picky eater and generally don't like eating a recipe more than once or twice a month but this one is a winner and the kids like it (with ketchup of course). Chicken thighs marinaded in soy sauce, honey and splash of olive oil. Sides- steamed veggies and sweet potatoes. If I have time/energy I like to make a little sauce in the Magic Bullet of mayo, soy sauce, honey and Sriracha sauce. The soy sauce makes the mayo clumpy if you try to simply mix it in a bowl instead of blending it.

Sunday- Company over- Hamburgers and sweet potato fries. I splurged since we are having a family from church over for dinner and bought the frozen pre-made sweet potato fries.

Spring Photos

I have been wanting a few pictures of all four of us together especially now I no longer have braces (!) so yesterday evening we loaded up the minivan and headed down to a park near our house.  It was about an hour before sunset and I was pretty happy with how well I timed it because the lighting was fantastic. My camera remote didn't seem to work more than two feet away so we were stuck using the self timer "hurry up and get in the picture" method. Daniel wasn't too keen on David holding him so it took several attempts with the self timer to get one good photo. 

Paleo Brownie Cookies

Recipes courtesy of Heather at Home To Heather Blog

These are delicious and super easy to make. I've gained a few pounds after weaning Daniel and have been back on a relatively strict low carb diet but these were my one bit of carbs and sugar this entire week.  They also only have coconut flour instead of almond flour which is significantly cheaper.

Paleo Brownie Cookies

Print

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

20 mins

Serves: 10

Ingredients

• ⅓ cup coconut flour
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• 1 ripe banana
• 2 eggs
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ¼ cup honey
• ⅓ cup chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350F
2. In a large bowl stir coconut flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt together with a fork, breaking up any lumps.
3. In a medium bowl, mash the banana, add the eggs, honey and vanilla and stir well with a fork.
4. Add the wet ingredients into the dry and stir well until incorporated. Add the chocolate chips.
5. Drop batter by tablespoons onto a cookie sheet prepared with parchment paper.
6. Bake 12-15 min until bottoms of cookies have slightly browned.

Original Source

*Update 

I have calculated the nutritional information for the recipe using Spark People. Take this with a grain of salt but here's the lowdown. Definitely still a treat if you're watching carbs. 

Nutrition Facts

8 Servings

Amount Per Serving

• Calories 144.0
• Total Fat 5.2 g
• Saturated Fat 2.7 g
• Polyunsaturated Fat 0.3 g
• Monounsaturated Fat 0.6 g
• Cholesterol 46.5 mg
• Sodium 22.5 mg
• Potassium 117.6 mg
• Total Carbohydrate 24.9 g
• Dietary Fiber 4.0 g
• Sugars 17.2 g
• Protein 3.0 g

Jan's Spicy Chicken

Here's a simple, freezer friendly recipe my Aunt Jan sent to me that we have enjoyed several times now.

Sriracha Chicken

Ingredients

• 8 boneless chicken thighs - about a 1.25 pounds
• 8 slices bacon
• 2 T Sriracha sauce (adjust or leave out for kids)
• 2 T lime juice 
• 2 T olive oil
• 1/4 tsp cumin (could use more if you like cumin flavor)
•  3 T honey (I have reduced this for our low carb diet, the original recipe calls for 1/3 cup brown sugar)

Directions 

1. Mix together last five ingredients and toss chicken in marinade.
2. Wrap with bacon, you can secure with toothpicks but it's not really necessary 
3. Allow to marinade if you're well prepared and thinking ahead. If not, through them in the oven now! 
4. Bake 350 for 25-35 until chicken is 165 degrees and then broil 5-6 minutes to crips bacon. 

*Alternatively, this is great grilled for about 6 minutes per side, medium heat. Keep an eye on the fire because the fatty thighs tend to flare up the grill fire. I speak from experience. 

* This can be prepared and placed in a 9x13 or similarly sized pan and frozen for an easy meal. Allow 24 hours to defrost in fridge. We had this a few weeks ago when I was knocked out sick and I was so thankful to have a meal ready to go. 

*I will sometimes toss a few pieces meat in the marinade without the Sriracha for the kids to eat, then add the Sriracha after I have prepared a few pieces of meat for them. Or just bake them plain chicken, they always want ketchup anyways!