What we have in the freezer now.

I have managed to get 21 meals in our freezer this weekend. Tomorrow I will finish off the other 6. 

Here is what I have done so far. 

Moroccan meatballs. 

chicken schnitzels. 

cooked the meat for the Singapore noodles.

Tuna patties.

Eggplant Parmesan

spaghetti bolognaise.  

I have also made some chicken stock for the meatballs. 

Tomorrow I will finish off by cooking the mushroom pasta and preparing the meat for the Warm Chicken Noodle Salad. 

I was going to do a run down of what I do for each meal in my prep and what I do when it is time to prepare each meal but really need an early night and to do a few other things so I will just go through one meal. .

I will post more about it this week. 

First on the list was the Moroccan meatballs.

I mixed up the meatballs, rolled them together and laid them out on trays. I put the trays in the freezer for about 2 hours and then put the meatballs into freezer bags. 

I will get the meatballs out of the freezer the day before we have them and let them defrost in the fridge. On the day we cook them, I will put them in my slow cooker and then add pasta sauce, diced tomatoes and onions. They will be served with pasta and vegetables. 

OAMC

Today I started getting ready for our big cook for the next 4 weeks.

I have done my menu plan, shopping lists and been through our cupboard to see what we already have.

I have been cooking our meals ahead off and on for a long time now. Over the years I have learnt many things and I am much more efficient at it now.

I start off picking out the recipes I will be doing. I do 9 different meals 3 times each and on the last night, we either get take away or just have some leftovers.

This month we have:

Moroccan meatballs.
Singapore noodles
Teriyaki chicken noodle salad
Tuna patties
Chicken fried rice
Schnitzels
Eggplant Parmesan
Spaghetti bolognaise
Mushroom pasta.

Once I have chosen the meals I put them in a calender and print it off. This way I know what we are having and we spread the meals out.

After the menu plan, I do my list. I put a 3x3 table on a word document and each section has a meal. I then put all the ingredients we need for the meals for each one.

I then go through my list and work out what I need for our cooking day and what we will need to buy each week. I highlight the things we need for our cooking day and then put them into a shopping list. Many things are doubled up but I simply put amounts next to them rather than write the item twice.

Next is the weekly shopping list. I work out what fresh items we will need and put them in a list. For instance, when we have the schnitzels, I want to have salads to go with them. I generally buy this when I do the weekly shop rather than ahead.

Once all the lists are made, I go to my cupboards and see what we have already and cross them off the list.

Then I do my shopping.

Tomorrow I will go into details with my meal prep on the cooking day and how I freeze them.

If any one wants to see my lists, I have put them in google doc's and you can find them here:

Menu list and ingredients.

Weekly menu plan. 

Weekly shopping list for week 4.

The end of the weekend.

Spring has sprung here and the weekend has been great. Steve and I went for a walk yesterday and today. We are going to be walking in two weeks in the City to Bay run/walk. We are doing the 6km walk with Brigette and Daniel is running the 12km. I am pretty confident we will be able to walk the 6 km in one hour.

This week is going to be pretty busy. Tomorrow morning Joseph has his final physio session for a while. They give the children a break so that they still enjoy coming along. On Tuesday, Christopher will have speech therapy and then on Wednesday I am taking Tom to Adelaide to get his new pump.

This weekend is our oamc. I want to get a post up here for Nancy since she is going to start doing this for her family. 

Now that we are in spring and summer is not far away, I am going to start doing some different meals. In winter we have a lot of crock pot meals and soups. In summer, I tend to do salads and meals that don't need a lot of heating and make the house hot.

These are the meals I have decided so far are going to be on our list this month:

Teriyaki Chicken noodle salad.

Singapore noodles.

Moroccan meatballs.

Chicken Fried Rice.

Tuna Patties.

I will choose another 5 later this week.

So the weekend is just about finished. I will roll our fruit buns out soon and then head to bed. I hope you all have a great week. I will probably be scarce on blogging since the week is going to be so busy.

Weekend Wrap up.

Yesterday Tom turned 12. He got Skylanders from us for his birthday. We also have Harry Potter DVD set coming for him. It was a busy day since I had to drive to Melrose to pick up Madeline.

Madeline and Brigette have been at the National YCS Conference which is in Melrose this year. It is on till next Tuesday but Madeline wasn't feeling too well so decided to come home.

I wanted to do another oamc this weekend. We haven't done many since Joseph was born but thought with the trip to Melrose I wouldn't have much time to do this. I was able to get 3 spaghetti sauces and 9 chicken meals in the freezer though over the weekend. I will do a few more this week too so that we have enough for the next month's main meals.

There is only two weeks of school holidays left. I have a list as long as my arm that I want to get done in the next two weeks. I hope I will be able to get most of it done. If I can make myself go to bed early and get up early, I am quietly confident I can.

I hope you all have a great week.
Therese.

Tasty Tuesday. Our menu plan for the next four weeks.

Last weekend, I did our big shop for the months main meals. Now that the weather is cooling down here, we are having more meals from the slow cooker and soups.

Here is what is on the menu this month at our house:

Butter Chicken.
Pasties.
minestrone.
fish and salad.
sausage casserole.
spaghetti.
Shepherds pie.
vegetable noodles.
spaghetti and meatballs.
tuna mornay.

The only meals that I don't do in the slow cooker are the pasties. spaghetti. shepherds pie and fish and salad. If you want any of my recipes, feel free to ask and I will post them.

Some OAMC recipes.

Here are some of the recipes I use when I prepare meals ahead.

Fish Parcels. We haven't actually made these since I posted the recipe. I just don't get to our fish shop much and the supermarkets don't have fresh fish often.

Pasties.

Schnitzels.

Tuna Mornay.

Spaghetti sauce:

2 onions
750 grams mince meat.
1 tin tomato soup
1 tin diced tomatoes
salt, pepper, oregano and any other spices you want.

Dice onions and cook till transparent.

add mince and spices and cook till mince is well done.

Add tomato soup and diced tomatoes.

Once sauce has boiled, remove from heat.

Allow to cool to room temperature and put in freezer.

I remove from freezer and defrost in the fridge for 24 hours. I cook our spaghetti for about 5 minutes and then do a layer of sauce, a layer of spaghetti and a layer of grated cheese. I finish with a layer of cheese and bake in the oven till cheese is melted. Usually about 15 minutes.

Lasagna:

I make the same sauce as the spaghetti and also make a cheese sauce. On cooking day, we do layers again but with instant lasagna noodles. I really hate lasagna sheets that need to be pre cooked. I just cannot work with them.

I need some new recipes.

I am feeling like we eat the same meals over and over. I need a bit of a change so thought I would ask you all for your favourite main meal recipes.

I need ideas for casseroles that freeze well and snacks as well.

So if you have any recipes that you love to cook and eat let me know in the comment box.

A busy Sunday.

This morning Steve picked all our leeks that we were suppose to have for winter. We grew them for potato and leek soup but they were all minuscule until now.

I have enough there to make about 6 meals of soup with so we decided to cut them up, cook them and freeze them. Now next winter we will have them all ready to make some soup with.

I also made some extra pasties and egg and bacon pastries to use up the extra puff pastry that we had in the freezer. We will have these for tea and I will freeze the rest for another night. I really want to have a good stash of meals ready for when the baby comes I think it will be hard to cook ahead once he arrives so will spend some time between now and Christmas trying to stock up.

It is only 8 weeks till Christmas now and I have a list of sewing I want to do between now and then. I also have a few plans in my mind of what I will do after Christmas mainly for the baby.

What are you doing this weekend?

Our Day.

When we are cooking the months main meals in advance, it is all hands on deck. Here are Madeline and Christopher helping with the washing up.

Today I prepared the Chicken Schnitzels, meatloaf and stew. I decided to take photos of the chicken schnitzel prep for Lisa.


put flour and breadcrumbs on a piece of greaseproof paper and some egg and milk in a bowl.


Place a chicken fillet in the flour first.


Next in the milk and egg.


finally in the breadcrumbs.

Now for the wrapping:


Place a piece of baking paper over a sheet of alfoil.


Place two schnitzels on sheet and wrap.

Wrap them up and freeze.

When you want to cook them, take them out of the freezer and defrost for 24 hours in the fridge.

Place in oven at 180 for 30-35 minutes. Check that the fillets are cooked the whole way though. Sometimes they take a bit longer especially if they are thick.

We eat them with salad on rolls and I think they are one of my favourite meals for the month.


I make our stew with kangaroo fillet. Here is a picture of kangaroo fillet. It is very lean.

For our stew, I cut up the kangaroo fillets and a mixture of vegetables. I freeze them in a plastic container all together.

When we eat them, I get them out of the freezer and in the fridge for 24 hours. I put them in the crock pot with a tin of tomato sauce, a packet of French onion soup and a tin of diced tomatoes. This is cooked on high for 5 hours.

Happy Fathers Day.

Happy Fathers day to Steve.

We had a quiet day here. I made Steve Steak with Onion Blue Cheese sauce.

The children had sausages instead but were happy with those.

The only cooking I did was three meat loafs because I had a headache for most of the day. I finally felt better tonight after having a bath and soaking for a while. I decided since I was making one for tea to make the other two for the freezer. I was glad that I went to the little bit of extra effort and got them in the freezer.

Tomorrow I will do the chicken fettuccine, chicken enchiladas and sausage casserole so that all the meat is cooked. I will cook the meat for the cheeseburger pizzas too but think I will wait till Tuesday to cook them since tomorrow we will be doing school work.

Happy Fathers day to all the other dads too.

OAMC

Today I started cooking our main meals for the month.

So far we have 3 of each of the following:

Spaghetti sauce.
Chilli Con Carne.
Salami and cheese pizza.
Hamburgers.

Still to cook are:

Chicken Enchiladas.
Chicken Fettuccine.
Pasties.
Quiche Loraine.
Sausage Casserole.
Cheeseburger pizzas.
meatloaf
Ham and Pineapple pizzas.

I will split these up over the next two days. I am really tired tonight but it is good to have all these meals in the freezer and not have to worry about cooking once they are all cooked.

I hope you are having a good day too.

Day two of my oamc.

Today I started the cooking and preparing food for freezing.

The first thing I do is cook the meat. Last night I cooked the chickens and made the stock. Usually I would cook the mince too but since the Kangaroo meat shop was shut when I got there, I had to wait till the morning to buy it.



I cook 4 kg at a time and that is enough meat for about 3 lots of 2 different meals. This lot of meat is doing my spaghetti sauce and the cheeseburger soup.

Once the meat is cooked, I make the spaghetti sauce.



This sauce will do three meals.



Here it is in the containers ready for the freezer.

While the sauce was cooking, I cut up all the vegetables for the pumpkin soup. I forgot to photograph the soup prep.

After the pumpkin soup I did the cheeseburger soup.



Here is Christopher helping me cut up vegetables for the cheeseburger soup. After the soup I did the chicken schnitzels.



Here is the cheeseburger soup we had for tea tonight.



To make the chicken schnitzels, I put the fillets in flour, egg and milk and breadcrumbs.



I then wrap them in alfoil lined with baking paper.



Here are all the meals ready for the freezer. I have three spaghetti sauces, three serves of chicken schnitzels, three serves of pumpkin soup and two serves of cheeseburger soup (it would have been three but we ate one for tea.

Tomorrow I will have a break since it is Sunday, On Monday I will make:

Hamburgers, chicken and corn soup, mushroom pasta, stew and meat loaf.

Day one of my oamc.

Today I started my oamc for our main meals.

I was going to write out a post about all the things I do, but I think it will be easier if I write it day by day.

I usually take 4 days to cook all our meals but since we are on holidays, I am doing it over three this month.

Day one I do the following:

1- choose the meals.
2- Write a shopping list.
3- Go shopping.
4- cook any meat the needs to be cooked ahead.
5- cut up vegetables.

1. Choose the meals:

I choose 10 main meals and we have them three times each month.

My 10 to cook this month are:

poppy seed chicken.

hamburgers.

stew.

chicken schnitzels.

pumpkin soup.

Spaghetti Boglanaise.

Mushroom spaghetti.

meatloaf.

cheeseburger soup.

Each month, one meal will not be prepared ahead but will be a meal I can do fairly quickly on the day we have it.

My main meal that isn't being prepared ahead this month is Easy Oven Cooked Fried Rice. We have it without the meat usually since this is one of my meatless dishes.

2- shopping list and 3- go shopping:

I write down all the ingredients we need for all the meals and then go through the pantry before I shop to see what we have from the list. Anything we have, I cross off. I then do the shopping.

When I come home from shopping, I sought all the ingredients for each meal into a bag except for the things that need to be refrigerated.

4- cook meat ahead and 5- cut up vegetables:

I put all the chickens into a big saucepan to make chicken stock and cook the chickens.

I usually also cook the mince. I buy the mince from a kangaroo meat factory. Tonight I didn't get there before they closed so I hope they will be open tomorrow morning. Otherwise I will have to buy the mince from the supermarket.

tonight I will cut up the vegetables for the meals I am doing tomorrow. I usually keep these in the fridge in containers that we freeze the meals in in.

Tomorrow I will write about day two and post some photos.

A productive day.

We are now in the Autumn season here and days are not too hot. It was perfect weather for Steve to get out in the garden.

He has got rid of the crops that are no longer growing and started to prepare the ground for some new plants.

I started our oamc today and Christopher was sure I needed a hand. He is rather cute but when I have a lot to do he can get in the way. I knew he would be more helpful to Steve who was now putting manure on our garden.

I got Christopher his wheel barrow and Steve would fill it up with manure and then Christopher would follow Steve over and dump his lot on the garden. He had lots of fun and was out of my hair for a while and the best part of all was he helped Steve.

Tuesday.

Thanks to all who prayed for Christopher. He is still a bit under the weather but definitely improving.

This weekend I am having my cooking weekend and preparing our main meals.

I am going to have a go at making some of my own shortcut pastry. I haven't made this before. I have tried filo pastry and that didn't turn out very well at all. I am making my own pastry for some pasties. The recipe I am using is here.

The other things on my menu plan are:

King Ranch Chicken.
Chicken Spaghetti.
Zucchini Slice.
Tuna Mornay.
Mushroom pasta.
Shepherds pie.
Pizza's.
Chicken Chow Mein.
Chicken Snitzel's.

Weekend.

Day six of The novena to St. Therese

Last night we went out to our parish dinner. It was a fun night. The money raised will help our youth get to WYD. The countdown has begun here. Steve, Daniel, Sam and Madeline will travel to Sydney and take part. Brigette, Tom, Amelia, Christopher and I will keep the home fires burning.

I have lots of plans to go out to a few parks, take them out for tea one night, hire some movies and play some board games.

The weather here has suddenly got cold. We will have to start using our heaters a bit more now. Tonight after mass the house felt so cold.

I have started cooking our months meals this weekend. The tiredness that comes with early pregnancy seems to be taking its toll on me so I will have to spread cooking the meals out over the week.

A busy day.

I had my big cooking day today and will finish of the main meals tomorrow. It is a big job but I am seeing the benefits of cooking all at once.

The food bill is much cheaper. We don't need to dash out and get some take away because I am just too tired to cook or cannot be bothered.

Steve spent a good part of the day working in the backyard. We are still having some warm weather so it is nice to spend time outside working on the yard. Our next big project for our home improvements will be putting in a pergola and landscape around it. We have to save a bit of money before we can afford to do it so we are working on smaller projects at the moment. Tom and Amelia are going to do a vegetable garden as a part of their home school curriculum. They are going to grow zucchini, pumpkin and broad beans. We also want them to look after a couple of pots of herbs. We planted some basil today and hopefully we will get some parsley as well.

First day of the month.

Since it is the first day of the month I am putting my list together for my oamc.

I am trying a couple of new dishes this month.

King Ranch Chicken from Kalona

Cheese stuffed Italian Meatloaf

Easy Pantry Pasties.

I am really looking forward to tasting the King Ranch Chicken and the Italian Meatloaf. The pasties will be for Amelia's birthday which we will celebrate next Thursday. I will make some sausage rolls as well.

Busy busy busy.

Today Steve had a sick day. He has a bad headache, earache and swollen glands. He will probably feel rotten all weekend. If you could all say a little prayer for him that he feels better soon I would appreciate it.

We have a busy weekend planned. I am doing all our main meals for the month and freezing them.

We will wind back the clocks as day light savings finishes this weekend. I love the week after day light savings finishes. It is really easy to get up early in the morning.

Next week will be the last week of term one. We will be on holidays for two weeks. I am going to sew curtains and make winter clothes for the children during the break. Sam and I will have our eyes checked and see if we need a new set of glasses and we will spend lots of time together as a family. I am really looking forward to it.

Preparing for Easter.

We have had a good week this week. Last weekend I was kept pretty busy doing our once a month cook. I have it all done now and won't need to cook main meals for another three weeks. I want to do a bit of baking though over this week and make some pumpkin damper, some Hot Cross Buns and some date muffins.

We have our friends Di and Mark coming with their children to stay for Easter. I want to have plenty of healthy snacks so that we don't overload on Chocolate too much. Tom and Amelia will be having quite a few cooking lessons to get all the goodies ready.

The school week went well this week and Tom and Amelia know our routine well now. This week I am going to make more effort to get to week day masses with them. I haven't gone nearly as much as I would have liked over lent.

As well as daily mass this week I am also giving up my computer time and spending more time in prayer. I will miss everyone but it won't be long and blogging will be on a daily basis once again. I will also catch up with all the wonderful blogs out there that I haven't read much over lent due to limiting time on computer. Comments are still welcome but I won't be moderating them till next Saturday.

I hope everyone has a blessed Holy Week.

Therese