Meal planning made easy

I had a super fun evening to share with everyone. This is a fun and easy way to make meal planning a little easier. I decided to host a Friday Freezer Night at my house this past Friday night. The basic idea is to bring enough ingredients to make one meal 5 times. Here is an example : I decided to make Beef Barley Soup. I bought enough ingredients to make this soup 5 times (because I had 5 ladies coming over). This way each of us left with 5 different meals (6, if you made your meal for your family) to either cook this week or put in the freezer for later use. It was a blast! The ladies all came with such yummy food to share! We prepared it all here at my house which took all of an hour. That's right, ONE hour to prepare these 6 meals. I can handle one hour and get 5 other meals in return. Here are some pics:


To get prepared I tried to set up various stations of utensils and stuff that we might use.


Here is my set up for my station


I also made some yummy sweet snacks : Nutella Brownies and Gingerbread Muffins


My new favorite fall drink is Honeycrisp Apple Sangria. It was a hit with the ladies and with me!! PS: I used Brandy instead of Peach Snaaps, it was just as good.


This young lady made her meal before she got to the house so she got to help out and read cookbooks while the rest of us slaved away ;)


We made messes but it was soooo worth it!!


See, the sangria was a hit and a well needed drink while we were mixing. We were working hard!


Yummy spaghetti for spaghetti pie


Oh yeah!!


This young lady made the best chicken salad pasta that my family has snacked on all weekend! It never even made it to the freezer.


The best part of the night was the 3 hours of conversation afterwards. It is so important to connect with other mommas. It makes us feel normal and less stressed about our lives and children. Our conversations were heartfelt and allowed us all to get to know each other a little more. It is nice to feel connected with strong, smart, and loving women in our big town. We weren't meant to be momma's alone, it isn't good for our souls. Then throw in a freezer full of food, it was a great night to say the least!

A huge THANK YOU to all 5 mommas that came out to my house carrying huge bags full of supplies and food to try an idea I had. You all had delicious meals to share and your friendship means a ton to me.  We had a good time! We talked of continuing this and I can't wait to stock back up that freezer and refill my "feel like an adult" bank.

My last pic will be of this stuff: Christmas Crack.

I made this for a football party last night. It is ridiculously delicious. It is SO incrediably bad for you but that doesn't even stop you from eating it. Good thing I am only making it once, never again for the pure fact that I can't keep my hands out of it.

Menu

My menu for this week is  below. I was super excited to try a few new recipes! This week was a little different as far as prep goes. So far all meals are made! Yep, they're done, finished, ready to be cooked or reheated throughout the week. As tired as I was on Friday after cooking all these meals, I am super excited that I don't have to do much of anything throughout this week for dinner. Open the oven door and stick in the pan, my kind of cooking :). I would like to say I will continue to do this but we all know that life tends to laugh at us when we make grand plans. I didn't however like all the washing I did. My kitchen looked like this :

Every time I turned around. So back to the sink I would go. It was what was so exhausting. Oh well. I will enjoy it this week!

Sunday: Buffalo style cauliflower - wanted to try this for a while
Sweet potato enchiladas with creme sauce

Monday: Shepherds Pie

Tuesday: Butternut Squash soup with homemade crusty bread

Wednesday: 2 Bean Chicken Soup - I had a bowl of this last night just because I couldn't wait. This is so delish with a cut up avocado in it. I made both types of beans at home which made it so much better. If you haven't tried to make black beans (or any other beans) at home from scratch, try it. It is super easy. Throw a pound of dried and rinsed off beans in a crockpot with 6 cups of water. Cook on high for about 3 to 4 hours or on low for longer. You can add in any spices. So good and so healthy and soooo cheap!


Thursday: Eat out of the FREEZER night. After some looking yesterday, our freezer is full of little odds and ends that could make a good meal. There are a couple pieces of salmon so I am sure me and the hubs will eat those with some veggie. There are veggies and other various odds and ends the kids can have.

Friday: Homemade chicken nuggets with some baked carrot sticks (substitute for french fries). The girls are going to decorate their own leaf cookies since we are having a little sleepover.

This week for lunch the hubs and I are trying a new salad recipe. Since the craziness of football practice is over, working out can commence! I am soooooo ready to get back into the gym. But with that said, I have to start eating more protein to help me actually make it through a workout :). I found this great recipe for an asian salad that will go great with our quinoa patties that we both love. I will be making those today and portioning them out for both of us to enjoy at lunch each day this week.

No where to turn

My years teaching in title 1 schools are over but they are not long forgotten. For teachers in these schools, the children are forever etched in our minds and have permanent residence in our hearts. Maybe not all of them but the ones that are forgotten, led astray by neglectful parents, or just plain abused, these angels never leave our hearts. This is one of the biggest reasons I left and will not be returning even though I loved teaching more than anything. My heart overflowed for these children and I bent over backwards to make sure they had the same chance in life (or at least 2nd and 3rd grade) that every other kid. I can honestly say there isn't a day that goes by that some of these kids aren't on my heart. But that stress and dismal outlook on life took its toll on me and my family.

Since leaving teaching, wonderful angels, like the ones I had in my classroom, rarely cross my path, our families path. We are involved with sports with parents who care, who support, who attend. We are blessed and lucky and don't take a minute for granted. This football season an angel, like one in my classroom, crossed our path. He is a great kid. Kind, quiet, so incredibly polite it is almost unreal how genuine he is, handsome, and so desiring attention from anyone. We have taken him to most practices and taken him home afterwards. We take him to all games (ok maybe one we didn't) and we take him home afterwards. We have him over to play and take him out to eat with us when we go. We offered to take him to a college football game. We found out he was walking over 2 miles to school and home, EVERY SINGLE DAY. We paid for his bus services the next day. (Do you know how far that is? Can you imagine sending bubba out the door at 7am to walk to the school and then walk home, every single day?!) We (and others on the team) give him clothes and shoes and feed him every time we take him home. I have grown to love this kid.

Tonight was our very last football game, ever. Tonight was the last time this group of boys will play and be coached by dads. Tonight was bittersweet. I was so glad for practice and late night freezing cold games to be over but I didn't realize that it meant the end to making sure this angel is ok. This was the last night that we might have to take him home, the last time he might get a balanced meal, the last time he would be so polite when saying thank you for giving him a ride home even though we take him home, every night. I didn't realize all those feelings I used to have while I was a teacher would come back. The fear of whats to come of this young man. The sadness that he doesn't have a good home to go home to. The anger I feel towards his family and the circumstances. The overwhelming feeling of loss of having him in our lives and being able to help him, to now be gone. The frustration that I feel towards his parents for not even being able to come to his VERY LAST GAME and listen to the awesome words spoken about their son. Words that were powerful enough to move this momma to tears and he's not mine. The utter disgust I have for parents who neglect their children. The devastating loss this world will have if he is left to fend for himself, even longer than he already has. But my mind goes back to all those angels that have permanent residence in my heart. The children of our world are suffering in great numbers from something other than hunger (which is a huge need don't get me wrong) and abuse (which again is huge) but they are suffering from lack of love. It is huge and it is the hardest to say you have to have. Which has left me here, tonight. Crying on my couch because there is no way, other than a few things here and there that I can do to help this baby, this angel. He has no where to turn and neither do I.

The worst feeling I have is embarrassment. I am embarrassed because all of us are no better than his parents. We make every excuse to not help him and to hold his parents lack of judgment dictate what we will do for him. We avoid get togethers because he stinks or is a little socially inept. We moan and complain because taking him home or picking him up causes us to be in more of a hurry. We are no different than his parents. We are forgetting that he didn't choose this life and/or lifestyle. We are forgetting that he is a part of OUR world, OUR community, OUR school, OUR FOOTBALL TEAM, OUR hearts. We are forgetting him. I refuse to feel this anymore.  I am left here to think of ways to help him throughout this next year. Putting reminders on my calendar to call his parents to see if he can come over, spend the night, maybe make it to that college game, and make sure his holidays are good. Make sure he knows that our home is a safe place to come. We aren't perfect but our kids get love, attention, and unconditional support. I refuse to be embarrassed anymore.

To this angel these few times a year that we invite him into our home might be the best, they might be the worst, but I know it will hopefully break the endless cycle he is on. It only takes one to break the chain, right. He is worth it. Just like my kids would be worth it if the tables were reversed. I would hope someone would show them what love looks like. So my prayer tonight is for this angel to be etched on my heart and for God to help guide him and his parents to find that love. I want so much more than the dead end I am feeling right now for this young man.