Meal Planning for June/July

How can it be the middle of June already?! 

It dawned on me the other day I only have 10-14 weeks before baby #6 comes.   

I'm not ready for this... Does that sound weird? lol.  We have everything we need.  Thanks to my sister, we have a car seat and a new cloth diaper stash (I'll be sharing that in a later post).  Thanks to big kids, we already have a ton of clothes and the bit of baby gear we need.   If we have a boy, we'll have to make sure we have nicer clothes for church... and depending on how fast babe grows depends on what I'll need to make or find for winter clothes... We've never had a baby in the fall or late summer before, they've all been late winter/spring babies.   

Now that being said.. I'm feeling this heat.  Oof it's rough.  I'm used to walking a lot in the summer.. because that's when we can walk and I was really looking forward to being able to get out and walk at least a few times a week.  Well..  Those walks are going to have to slow down or get shorter, baby did not like the walk we took the other day. 

Now.  Onto the meal planning. 

I'm switching some things up a bit.. We are trying our best not to turn the AC on unless needed.. which means I'm trying to cook food in the oven on batches and on colder days.   I'm also trying out some freezer foods for when baby comes..  Frozen homemade pizza, frozen croissant breakfast sandwiches, frozen homemade hot pockets.   We also decided to help the budget and the taste, we need to mix the wheat flour with white flour... and use just white flour for things like cookies and pizza dough and bread... because it just tastes better.  

So.. on my list for breakfasts when Dennis is home (we're pretty boring the days he works.. eggs, bacon, yogurt and cereal for the kids).  
Croissant breakfast sandwiches
Omelets
Cinnamon Rolls
Cowboy Hash 

I'm really hoping we like the croissant breakfast sandwiches, because I can pre-make those, freeze them, then all we have to do is put them in the oven or toaster oven and it's a quick breakfast.. I'll also make some egg free for our four year old.  

For Dennis' work lunch we're not changing anything.  Salad (which is a home-mix of romaine, cabbage and spinach) with croutons, bacon bits, sunflower seeds and dressing.  A pickle, boiled eggs and some sort of Little Debbie-type snack for a treat.  The dressing depends on what Aldi has. 

For our weekday lunches, we're trying homemade hot pockets, I've been making meatless goulash for the kids and PB & J... I usually eat eggs or leftovers depending on what's there.  

Wednesdays we're back to getting chicken strips from Sam's.. and we bought a french fry cutter to do homemade french fries in hopes with a uniform cut, they'll cook better.. my homemade fries aren't that grand.  We're usually cleaning or doing yard work on Saturdays, so that's a pretty easy lunch for me to throw in the oven.  If we have a ton of leftovers, we'll do leftovers instead. 

Saturday lunches we'll have a week of Chicken Breast Lettuce Cups (basically a chicken breast sandwich except using lettuce for the bun, and a week of meatball subs, then rotate... 

Snacks.. I'm sure I'll make cookies at some point.. but I'm getting fruit and raisins and peanuts.  And we always have popcorn. 

Now onto the main event. The Dinners.. Most of these we'll do more than once, but there a few of them we've never had that we'll only do once.  
  

Dorito Taco Salad
Honey Mustard Chicken Avocado Salad
Homemade Pizza (some pepperoni, some Hawaiian)
Pesto Parmesan Chicken and Salad
Skinny Sweet Chicken and Salad
Smoky Maple Mustard Fish Fillets and Broccoli and Potatoes
Teriyaki Chicken Sandwiches and fries
Sweet and Sour Chicken and Fried Rice
Crockpot Hawaiian Meatballs
Shrimp and Avocado Salad
Avocado Caprese Chicken Salad
BBQ Chicken Salad
BLT Salad
Chicken, Broccoli and Rice Casserole (freezer meal!!)
Pineapple Chicken Tenders and Salad
Dijon Grilled Pork Chops, Broccoli and Potatoes
Cheesy Chicken and Sweet Potato Casserole 


Man.. Now I'm hungry just typing that all up again!  


The baby is doing good, kicking up a storm, especially when the big kids try to cuddle.  

Shopping trip coming this weekend with a trip to the Farmer's Market!! Hopefully we can get some good deals. 

Have a good week! 

~Tabitha

Baby Quilt Time! Getting Ready for Baby 2018

This is sort of a bitter sweet post... More sweet in my opinion.  

We lost a baby in October.  Dennis was my lifeline, reminded me to look to God, made me talk to him (side effect of having a husband with a degree in psychology lol) and put me on Ashawagandha root (I can never spell that right!!!). (I think I just gave my 9th grade English teacher an anxiety attack for overuse of parenthesis in a horribly run on sentence.)  For whatever reason, God decided he needed our baby in Heaven.  

Thankfully, God gave us a new blessing.  

In the pregnancy world, the baby after you lose one is called a rainbow baby.  

In the Bible (Genesis 6-9), the rainbow is a promise of renewal.  A promise that God is still with us.  


As soon as I found out I was pregnant I knew I was going to be making a rainbow quilt of some sort for this baby... When I got to 10 weeks, I told Dennis I wanted to do this and why.  He said "Well... in the Bible a rainbow is a promise that God is always with us... so we should do something that incorporate Noah's Ark, too."  I am SO thankful for the way his mind works.  <3 


So I went on a hunt.  And what a hunt it was.  I wanted a big panel with a Noah's Ark theme, to be surrounded by the material my friend I lost in January gave me.  Partly because I already had the material, mostly because she grieved almost more than I did when we lost our angel in October.. then we lost her unexpectedly and I still grieve for her, though I know she's in a better place.   

I finally found what I was looking for at Hancock's of Paducah. I had no idea that finding Noah's Ark themed material was going to be so difficult!  The surrounding rainbow colored fabric is what I had from my dear friend.  We bought a light blue minky fabric for the backing from Joann's.  I love the minky fabric, I bought it for Hannah's quilt and knew that's what I wanted again.  We have extra batting from previous projects, so I didn't have to buy that.  

The cool thing about the minky, we hadn't ordered the panel from Hancock's yet.. We had decided to stay in town between church services one Sunday and went over to Joann's.. picked the blue that's gender neutral and hoped it matched.  IT MATCHES PERFECTLY!!!

Now... because I wanted it before July (baby will be here by September hopefully and I have a million other sewing projects), we bought it when we had the money... then forgot the coupon when we went to Joann's... so paid an arm and a leg for the minky.  OOF.  

We spent $60 on the quilt (mostly the minky as the panel was only $10 with shipping)-but it's really the only expense we're going to have with this little one.  Everything else is either hand me downs, or things I am sewing from patterns and fabric I already have.  

I am going to try machine quilting... but that's something I've never even attempted and it seems all of the tutorials I find say it's best to use some sort of a template.... SO.. if anybody has any ideas that don't involve more money spent, please pass them along because I have no idea what I'm doing. 

So here's how I laid the quilt out.  Yes, I know the quilt squares aren't "square" and the ends don't match up... but I have a plan and will do a bit more laying out before I sew.. This quilting stuff is still pretty new to me. Please excuse the mess, I just cleaned and vacuumed yesterday.. but.. well.. kids. lol

Have a great week! 

~Tabitha

Meal Planning and Budget Shopping For May/June

It never fails.  The grocery list price always hurts and I think it's getting bigger even though it doesn't seem like we are eating any more than we did a few months ago.  

If I put a recipe up and you're interested, please let me know and I'll share the recipe.  I forget so much, but I'll stick a reminder on my computer if I know somebody is interested... 

So the meal plan...   

Breakfasts are pretty normal.. I found a yummy cinnamon roll recipe that freezes them, then you thaw the night before-also uses the bread machine to mix the dough making it super easy on me.   

Saturday lunches we have Hawaiian Fajitas, meatball subs and smoky maple mustard fish fillets. 

Every other Sunday we do pizza for lunch.. the weeks we do pizza, we have BBQ Ranch Chicken Sandwiches for supper (mini hoagie buns from Sam's are surprisingly low in carbs!!).  The other Sundays we do hot sandwiches from a fast food restaurant for lunch with chips and drinks from home, and homemade pizza for supper.  I found a pizza dough recipe that uses the bread machine that we are loving.  One recipe makes two pizzas for us as we prefer thin crust... For now we are using regular cookie sheets, but round pizza pans are on my list so I can pre-make the entire pizza before hand and have them frozen.  

Weekday lunches aren't changing too much... I did find an entire turkey in the deep freezer, so that's going to meet the slow cooker and the kids and I will do something with it.  Along with Peanut butter and jelly with homemade bread (I'm really loving this bread machine). 

For snacks I'm making cookies (I freeze a bunch so they are not just sitting out on the counter), fruit, popcorn, we'll get ice cream like we usually do in the summer, and I'm hoping to find teddy grahams and m&ms cheap at Aldi's to make a popcorn trail mix for something different. 

Suppers...  Everything is on a repeat this month, so there's not that many different ones. 
Dorito Taco Salad
Honey Mustard Chicken, Bacon and Avocado salad
Teriyaki Marinated Chicken with broccoli
Simple Mexican Chicken with homemade refried beans
Easy Parmesan Chicken with broccoli and roasted potatoes
Five Spice Tilapia with fried rice
Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken with bacon green beans and roasted potatoes
Garlic Chicken with salad
Oven BBQ Asian Chicken with fried rice


Ouch.  That shopping trip was painful. In more than just the sore back way.  Dennis isn't feeling well so he sat in the car with kids while I did the shopping.  He's not allowed to do that anymore. :/ lol 

Now I will say in my defense that I've never actually looked at the total pounds of chicken we use... This month I bought the pre-frozen chicken breast (10 lbs for $18, cheaper for us than buying it from the butcher counter like we usually do)... So while before I could write down on my list how many breasts I needed then count how many are in a package and get however many packages...  But this time I had to go by weight... so I made a guess and got 20 pounds of chicken... Which still seems like a lot of chicken, but I would have rather had extra than not enough.   

Also in my defense I point you to the baby belly, which was unchecked in the store lol... so in Aldi I grabbed a few extras-hey, they looked good! And Dennis should enjoy them, too.  I also picked up some sandals that were originally marked $30 and were $8.99.   Can't go wrong with that, right? Especially with my swelling feet not fitting into ANYTHING (yes I'm milking these pregnancy symptoms for everything I've got).   

That was really all the extra I picked up..  Ok ok, we spent $3.50 on a dozen donuts.  But cinnamon rolls DO get old lol.  

Now, we already have earned $2 back from the savings apps I have-Saving Star and Ibotta.  We're waiting on receipt verification from the rest, which give us points that are particular to the app, we have to earn so much to get a payout.  

Ok.  So... for the damage.  $683.71


Now that you've picked yourself up off the ground...  Yeah.. It's painful.  I'm REALLY hoping that chicken will last us a few months.  I also completely forgot what I was going to type... So...  



Have a good week! 

~Tabitha

Oven Barbecued Asian Chicken with Fried Rice

So we're trying a lot of new meals this month.  One of the ones even the kids loved was this Oven Barbecued Asian Chicken.  

It had dawned on me that as we were going through planning meals... we forgot to plan sides.  OOPS.  I did pick up potatoes and frozen broccoli-but there's some things you just don't want potatoes and frozen broccoli with.  Like this.  So I took to Pinterest and found a fried rice recipe. 

As if I wasn't wary enough about making Asian food, I had to throw in fried rice on top of it.  But you know what? IT WAS GOOD.  Good enough we're doing again tonight.   

Some of these ingredients we failed to find at Walmart..even though the website said they had them.. I don't know if we just couldn't find it because we were looking in the wrong spot, or if we couldn't find it because it was the last store and we were exhausted and a little worried about the impending blizzard.  So it's what we went online and found.... The fried rice I left out some veggies, the eggs (due to allergies in the family) and I didn't have some of the sauces... So we just left them out.  

I'm also told there is a better alternative to the soy sauce that has the same flavor... So since this meal is definitely going in the rotation-we'll be keeping that in the house now.  It's called Braggs Amino Acid.  

Oven Barbecued Asian Chicken 

1 bunch scallions
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1 TBSP reduced sodium soy sauce 
1 TBSP minced fresh ginger
1 TBSP minced garlic
1 tsp Asian hot sauce, such as Sriracha, or to taste (I use red pepper flake)
1/4 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
4 bone in chicken thighs (1-1 1/4 lbs total), skin removed, trimmed (nope.. didn't trim it)
4 chicken drumsticks (1-1 1/4 lbs total), skin removed, trimmed (again.. nope.. didn't trim it... 
1 1/2 tsp toasted sesame seeds 

Preheat oven to 350. Coat a 9x13 inch baking dish  with cooking spray.
Thinly slice 1/4 cup scallion greens; set aside. Mince the white. Whisk the scallion whites, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, hot sauce and five spice powder in a large bowl. Add chicken and toss to coat. Arrange the chicken in an even layer in the prepared baking dish, meatier side down. Pour any remaining sauce from the bowl over the chicken.
Bake, turning once halfway so the meatier side is up, until an instant read thermometer inserted into the thickest part without touching bone registers 165 F, about 1 hour (or let it cook an hour, cut into it near the bone and hope it doesn't bleed lol).  Transfer the chicken to a serving platter and top with any remaining sauce from the baking dish. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and the reserved scallion greens. 



Now-this could easily be a freezer meal. Put the coating and the chicken in a ziploc bag and shove it in the freezer, thaw then throw it in the oven. Or, if  you don't want to freeze it, you could make it the day ahead and just have it ready to go in the oven..

We also used the leftover sauce to go on the fried rice... Mmmmmm yummy. 


Now.. I'm told (from the blog I got the recipe from) that cold rice makes the best fried rice.  So, you could easily make your rice a few days ahead of time.. The fried part only takes about 20 minutes-so start on that when you turn your chicken halfway. I'm going to leave out the ingredients I didn't use.. So this is an egg free recipe.. But just click on the link to get the original recipe.

Fried Rice
3 TBSP butter, divided 
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
1 small white onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/8 tsp each salt and pper
4 cups cooked and chilled rice
3 green onions, thinly sliced
3-4 TBSP soy sauce, or to taste
1/2 tsp toasted sesame oil (I used avocado oil since that's what I had-but I next month we're getting sesame oil)

Heat 2 TBSP butter in pan until melted. Add carrots, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Saute for about 5 minutes or until the onion and carrots are soft.  Increase heat to high, add in remaining 1 TBSP of butter and stir until melted.  Immediately add the rice, green onions and soy sauce, stir until combined.  Continue stirring for an additional 3 minutes to fry the rice.  Remove from heat and stir in sesame oil until combined.  


Honestly, I was more than a little wary about my cooking abilities with this one... I've tried Asian foods before and they've never come out great.... So I was really excited when this one was yummy.  


Enjoy! 

~Tabitha

I also just realized I forgot to get a picture... But I promise it looked and tasted yummy! 

Dealing with Morning Sickness

Morning sickness.  The only bad thing about being pregnant.  

I have to remind myself that even though I feel like crud, it means baby is just perfectly fine.  


I'm 21ish weeks this week.. Usually way past the traditional time for morning sickness.  But baby has other ideas.


My typical go-tos have failed me. :(   What I usually do.... 

Papaya Enzyme (basically chewable, all natural tums... but they taste good).   It has done the trick since my sister found it 4 years ago.  You can find it at Walmart.. 

Mother Ease by Solar Ray.   It's a mix of stomach settling herbs that usually helps..  I gave my bottle to a friend, so I can't go look.  

I've also used peppermint tea and ginger ale.   I know many women who chew on ginger chews.   

A lot of women also have good luck with bread or crackers as a stomach settler.  I've always been told to keep soda crackers by the bed and eat a few before I get up in the morning.  The last few pregnancies, bread and I have not gotten along, so crackers or dry toast (or even toast or some breads with something on it) are out of the question.  

When I was pregnant with Grace (4 years) and Hannah (2 years), I was mostly able to eat some version of what I was craving, and I was usually good...  This baby is just turning everything upside down, proving that every pregnancy is different... Usually any form of fast food makes me sick, but this time it's the one thing that doesn't make sick some weeks.     

My only advice for those suffering from mild morning sickness... Make sure you keep your doctor/midwife informed of how you're eating.. Nutrition is very important to keep you strong and baby growing healthy.   Obviously there's many women who suffer from extremely bad morning sickness, your doctor can help with that.  If you can't keep anything down, call your doctor.  

I'm in no way a medical professional, so please don't take my experience as such.  I'm simply a mom of 6 whose dealt with morning sickness for 5 pregnancies.   


Have a great week! 
~Tabitha

Budget for Shopping April/May

So I probably should have combined this post with the last post.  LOL  Oh well. 

Go check out our menu plan to see what we're eating this month.  

Our budget was $600.. We spent $580.  So...... We did save a bit of money, but not much.  

I was pleasantly surprised to find some "Friday the 13th sales".  But other sales, and coupons weren't the greatest. 

Our local little store had a buy one at full price, get a second one for $.13 sale.  So I went and grabbed donut holes, raisin bran, already cut philly chicken meat and Smithfield pork loins before we left town.  Spent $27.89.. almost half price. 

Fareway Foods, normally a store I avoid like the plague, and I quickly remembered why.   What we got on sale was pre frozen chicken breast, on sale 5 lb for 4.99 (normally 6.99), shredded cheese 8 oz for .99.  Boston Pork Butt Roast, we spent $5.80 on 3 pounds.  Sirloin Steak, the ad said it was $5.99 a pound, so we told them we wanted one pound, we got 1.8 pounds because we didn't check the label before we left the store.   Old Orchard Juice, 64 oz, was also .99 and we got the kids the treat of gummy snacks for .99 a box (normally $2.50).    This was the store that killed our money saving spree, as we ended up spending $75.22.  

Aldi's was $107.36

Sam's surprised me.  I haven't had a total at Sam's under $200 in quite awhile. The only thing we had on instant savings was some cereal.  But we still only spent $197.65

Walmart we couldn't find some of the specialty seasonings we were looking for and given the blizzard we were trying to beat home, we didn't stop at an ethnic food store in the city, so we ended up going on Amazon when we got home.  We spent $171.82.  

We're also trying out some grocery savings apps... After we figure out how they all work and that they do actually work, I'll share what we are using..  If you use any money saving apps, let me know!  

Have a great week! 
~Tabitha 

Meal Planning for April/May

This is not my week for anything I think... Let's try round 2 with this.  

I opened the blog to find a post on morning sickness I had forgotten to finish... So I'm still working on that. 

We realized last week that I had planned from a Saturday to a Wednesday last month.. so we had to go pick up a few things to get us through this week.  We're trying to keep our shopping days on Saturdays. 

Dennis has been helping me with the grocery lists and meal planning the last couple of months, which I absolutely love.  Not only is it finding us some yummy recipes, but it's getting us out of the rut of the same old stuff.  So we have a lot of new recipes again this month, but they all sound really yummy to us.  

Now, most of these recipes are from a site through his work, so I can't link to them this month.  If you want a recipes, let me know.  I'm definitely going to try sharing some of our favorites. 

So, the two we've tried (because we had almost all of the ingredients) BBQ Ranch Chicken Sandwiches and Garlic Stuffed Roast...  Both are actually really good (yes, I was a little surprised).  The roast actually called for a standing rib roast, but we had a deer roast in the freezer that needed ate, so used that instead.  

We have both been wanting to get back into smoothies, but have been struggling to find a way to be able to afford it... So we're going to try getting frozen fruit from Sam's, then we'll have juice or almond milk to finish them off.  Once the fruit is gone, so are the smoothies... 

We also have two birthday meals this month, Andrew and Hannah.  
Andrew got the choice between ice cream or premade cupcakes (because I just don't have the ingredients or time this week to get a  cake made for Saturday, luckily he loves ice cream)... Now we just have to make a special stop to get Dippin' Dots because it seems none of the stores we are stopping at have them.  Weird. Hannah is getting a cake or cupcakes.. Haven't decided yet lol.  

Breakfast meals:  Other than the normal eggs, bacon, yogurt cereal and the like...  
Strawberry Banana Smoothie
Breakfast Pizza 
Basil Tomato Frittata
Coconut Carrot Morning Glory Muffins
Cinnamon Rolls (depending on how the muffins go over anyway)

Saturday lunches we're doing one new a week 
Mediterranean Stir Fry 
Pulled Pork
Easy Beef and Bean Taco Casserole
Roasted Chicken Salad

Sunday dinners-rotate every other week
BBQ Chicken Sandwiches
Pizza

Wednesday lunches we're doing leftovers

Dinner Meals:
Oven BBQ Asian Chicken
Garlic Chicken
Five Spice Tilapia
Teriyaki Marinated Chicken
Garlic Stuffed Roast
Smoky Maple Mustard Salmon (using tilapia instead)
Dorito Taco Salad (I got this recipe from a friend on Facebook, and the calories are surprisingly really low plus it's yummy enough the kids ask for seconds)
Ritz Cracker Chicken
Crockpot Chicken Tacos (using the turkey I found in the freezer)
Sweet and Spicy Balsamic Chicken
Glazed Chicken
Crockpot Chicken Philly
Easy Parmesan Chicken
Cajun Chicken and Rice
Caprese Chicken 


Something new to us this month, we're are making our own bread.  I have a recipe from a YouTuber I watch a lot (Our Tribe of 10) that I'm going to try because it uses honey instead of sugar.  I am buying hamburger buns and hoagie rolls this time... but I will also be trying the hamburger buns again.   

I think that's all that's happening this week!  


Have a great week! 
~Tabitha