Sausage Biscuits

I have been pre making our sausage and biscuits on cooking day! I use this biscuit recipe that is here on the blog! I cook them and let them cool. 

I cook up the sausage and let it cool. 

I put the sausage in the biscuits and wrap with Saran Wrap. 

On sausage and biscuit day I just pop them out of the freeze and microwave. My microwave oven is pretty fast so I only cook for one minute in the Saran Wrap. 

If you over cook the biscuits will harden 

ONCE a month cooking but HOW!!!

This is how I do it!

I simply have a piece of construction paper and I write every day on the paper for ONE month! I use the front and back! I mark off days we are going out of town. I write in breakfast every day and I rotate them every week. I have seven breakfast food that I make and freeze. 

Monday: breakfast casserole

Tuesday: breakfast burritos

Wednesday: eggs and biscuits

Thursday: sausage and biscuits

Friday: pancakes or french toast sticks and boiled eggs (not frozen but make once a week)

Saturday: oatmeal

Sunday: muffins, fruit and milk 

I do the same thing for lunch! I have seven lunches and I just rotate them. 

Dinner: I try to pick our favorite recipe and have it twice in the month. I plug it into two spots. Then I go on to pinterest  and find some good looking, filling and frugal looking recipes that we will eat! 

I add veggies every day and some times if we are lucky it is stuff from our new garden. If not I buy frozen veggies

If you look on our pinterest in once a month cooking there are some ideas there. Others ideas we eat for dinner are:

chicken and rice casserole

hamburger helper casserole (our favorite-I'll blog it tomorrow)

baked ziti

lasagna

baked spaghetti

chicken pot pie

Mexican durito chicken casserole

chicken enchiladas

bean burritos

tacos

and I'll be thinking of more and post later!

Breakfast burritos

This is super easy!

Flour tortilla 

Eggs (I plan one egg per burrito) 

Ground up sausage (I plan for 1 lb of sausage for 10 burritos) 

Cheese (I plan for 1/2 slice per burrito) 

I scramble the egg and cook the sausage  in big bulk! 

Put the eggs and sausage in the flour tortilla and add uncooked cheese on top. 

I roll the tortilla up like a burrito and wrap in Saran Wrap! When it's cooled I put it inside of a zip lock bag! 

When we are ready to eat it, throw one in the microwave with Saran Wrap. Cook for approx 1:30 (depending on microwave) 

Eat it up! 

Week ONE...Once a month cooking report!!!

We did it! Here's our ONE week menu! And saving below!!!

I almost caved on Wednesday night...LIKE really almost caved in

 and went to drive through! It was also hard on the last day of 

school not to go out to eat to celebrate. I didn't realize how much I 

was using food to celebrate! 

It is FOR sure taking some adjusting.

I"m happy to report I saved $532.00 this week by planning 

our meals, fixing them ahead of time and not eating out. We 

didn't have any cereals. I am not opposed to cereal but one

 box feeds 1/2 our family so if I am doing this to save money

 and get on track then we are not doing cereal for a time.

We bought buy milk, coconut milk, fresh veggies, someone 

gave us a bunch of bananas they didn't want and caroline 

and I drank protein/greens shakes every morning for 

breakfast instead of what the others ate just because that's

 what we always do.

Steve still ate out for lunch at work and Leah bought herself a

 box of cereal. Leah also went out with friends for one meal.

LAST....I am not a nutritionist at all but even the gravy and 

biscuits have to be better than french fries every day and I 

LOST 2 lbs!!!

SO....here we go to week TWO!!!

Come follow us on our journey and join us by cooking once a 

month too and reporting here to let us know what you 

saved!!! I am actually enjoying this after I got it all cooked

 and organized.

Homemade Whole Wheat Bread

I have to admit that it has been YEARS since making homemade wheat bread. This is for sure a big kid favorite but on my quest to STOP the eating out I decided to pull out the whole wheat bread recipe.

It was a big hit after school for snack instead of pudding pops!

I am still pretty shocked that we are sticking to the menu!!!

Ingredients

In a large bowl add:
• 3 cups really warm water
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. yeast (or 2 yeast packets)
Dissolve and wait until yeast froths then add:
• 1/4 c. shortening or real butter 
• 1/4 c. honey
• 1 Tbsp. salt
• about 6 cups of wheat flour

Instructions

• Add flour a cup at a time until you have a soft dough. Knead for 3 minutes and put into a bowl. Cover with a cloth and let raise about an hour or until it has about doubled in size. It raises on top of a warm oven.
• Punch down and Knead again for 5 minutes. Cut dough into three equal parts and place bread into greased baking tins and raise again for another hour.
• Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes until brown on the top. Butter the top of the bread while still in the oven and let cook another 2 min. Remove and let cool about 10 minutes in the pans, then turn out and cool 10 more minutes before slicing.
• Makes 3 regular or 2 large loaves.

Frozen Bananas!!!

Did you know that you can slice and freeze bananas? 

Every morning Caroline and I drink a protein shake.  I decided in my once a month cooking that having bananas for our shakes was gonna be rough. 

We are getting milk, coconut milk,  salad and a few things weekly but I wanted to try to find a way to still have almost everything prepared to keep us on track. 

We sliced the bananas and put them on wax paper. After they freeze you can throw them in a zip lock back and use as needed. 

We did the same with our strawberries and blueberries. Wash and let air dry then freeze and grab a handful for our daily shakes!!! We get our veggies for our shakes in our greens with two scoops. It is full of EVERYTHING we need!!!  Happy MOM dance!!!

Homemade Pizza lunchables WoW

I can not believe I actually made pizza lunchables. I've been wanting to and to be honest I thought the kids would all freak and NOT like them. I was so shocked that they loved them even one of my teenagers took them in her lunch box today!

Here's my recipe!

• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast                                
• 1 cup warm water                                                  

• 2 tablespoon olive oil                                         

• 1 tablespoon honey                                            

• ¼ teaspoon salt                                                  

• 2  cups of all purpose flour                                     
• 2 cups of whole wheat flour

Dough:

1. Mix the yeast and water in a small bowl, cover and let stand for about 5-10 minutes.
2. Mix the oil, honey, salt and yeast mixture in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the 3 cups of flour, a cup at a time. If the dough seems too wet, start at the fourth cup, ¼ cup at a time. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead until moderately stiff, about six minutes.
3. Get a golf ball size  of the dough and  roll out the dough with a rolling pin on a cookie sheet. 
4. Let the dough rise while you make the sauce.
5. Use a fork and poke holes all over the dough. 
6. Bake for 10 minutes on 350 degrees
7. Let cool on cooling rack until completely cooled!!!
8. Place all the pizza crust in a zip lock bag and freeze for later!

In separate baggies I put mozzarella cheese, a pizza crust, pizza sauce, pepperonis, and a spoon 

It was super easy this morning when I packed lunches. I already had the baggies with cheese, pepperonis, pizza crust, and sauce made up so all I had to do is grab and throw in some carrot sticks, celery and a water!!! It is super cheap too. 

Taco soup

Taco soup! 

Another super easy peasy recipe that our family LOVES💚💚💚 

We get two cans of all of our favorite beans! 

Red beans 

White beans 

Black beans 

Kidney beans 

Pinto beans 

2 cans of corn

2 cans of total tomatoes 

1 pkg of taco seasoning 

1 lb of cooked and crumbled hamburger meat 

1 pkg of powdered ranch dressing 

Dump it all in the crock pot and cook on low for 5-6 hours 

Yum yum 

Serve with cheddar cheese and sour cream (optional) 

Homemade yogurt

Ingredients: and things you need!

1/2 gallon whole milk

1/2 cup Dannon plain yogurt with live active     
cultures

1 or 2 boxes of jello (your flavor of choice)

(optional)

2 cups of pureed fruit of your choice (this is 

optional)

1 crock pot

1 blanket

Turn Crock pot on LOW

Pour into crock pot 1/2 gallon of whole milk

 or coconut milk 

Cook on low for 2 1/2 hours

Turn crock pot off after the 2 1/2 hours and let

sit for 3 hours with the lid on.

After the milk has sat for 3 hours scoop out 2 cups of the

 warm milk into a bowl. Add 1/2 cup of dannon plain yogurt -

this is your yogurt feeder. The next time you make it you will

 have your own feeder.(with live active cultures)

Add one box of jello (some don't use any flavoring or some 

use flavored pudding for creamer yogurt-depends on your 

taste)

whisk and whisk and whisk

Add yogurt, jello and milk mixture back into the crock pot and 

cover with a towel and blanket.

Wait 8 to 9 hours before peaking!

Dip out 1/2 cup and save for your next yogurt feeder so you 

don't have to keep purchasing Dannon plain yogurt with live 

active cultures.

Add strawberries and bananas or fruit puree of your choice. 

My kids don't like any lumps in their yogurt so we pureed our

 fruit all the way up until it was smooth. 

Some people add honey to sweeten!

This is great for morning smoothies! 

We add strawberries, bananas,  and two scoops of greens 

some ice and blend it up and YUM YUM..



UPDATE: WE froze some as popcycles. They were a HUGE

 hit!!!

HOMEMADE BISCUITS!!!

The thought of myself making homemade biscuits makes me crack up. My quest for saving money and time has made me have the strongest desire to make everything from scratch.  We have chickens so we eat a lot of eggs.  We eat breakfast burritos and Egg and biscuits, boiled eggs, egg sandwiches and more! Once a week for breakfast we eat egg and biscuits. I didn't realize that you could freeze biscuits and eggs already cooked until my recent search! I made some uncooked biscuits and some cooked with eggs already made so on those rushed mornings we could grab, heat and go! 

This is the recipe I tried that seemed to work well for us. 

• 1 1/4  cup All-purpose flour
• 1  cup of bisquick 
• 2 tbsp Baking powder
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Sugar

Dairy

• 6 tbsp Butter, unsalted, COLD and cubed 

• 1 cup Buttermilk
• Mix all the dry ingredients together and then add the buttermilk. 
• Cut up the cold butter and toss it in. Mix it quickly and dump it out on a floured surface.  Only kneed THREE times. Do not over work. (I did this and it makes them dry and hard)
• Cut the biscuits out with a cup or a circle cookie cutter. To freeze place on wax paper and then in a zip lock bag.  To cook after you freeze them Bake on 450 degrees for 20-22 minutes. 
• To cook unfrozen  Bake on 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes. 
• Makes 8-10 biscuits
•