February Menu

I'm doing it.  I'm posting my menu for February.  I'm trying something new.  I'm going to see if I can get my menu posted here, and I was able to put some links on the menus for the recipes.  Hopefully this will help.  I'll make a few notes following.

February Menu







I hope that this link works.  I have my whole February Menu up with links to recipes if I have them. 
I already shopped this week for the end of January through February 2nd.  I had to get ground beef for lunches this week, so I ended up figuring out what I needed from Sam's Club for the whole month.  When I got home, I had to put a roast in a freeze bag and put it in the freezer, separate a container of chicken and put them in freezer bags and put that in the freezer, separate some sausage and put them in the freezer, and cut up a pork loin and put that in the freezer.  I ended up cutting an 8lb. pork loin in fourths, then cutting each of those in half and putting two 1lb. sections in each freezer bag, but with the last 2lb. pork loin, I cut it into 4 smaller slices, making 8 boneless pork chops at $1.99 a pound.  Good deal, when boneless pork chops are usually almost $4 a pound or more. I ended up putting the ground beef out in the garage, where the temperatures were nice and cool, and I could deal with the ground beef the next day.

Today, as I posted on Facebook, I put 1lb. of ground beef in a freezer bag for Taco Soup, 4lb. in a freezer bag for a double batch of spinach lasagna I'm going to make, 4lb. in a bag for a quadruple batch of spaghetti sauce I am going to make, 1.5lb. for shepherd's pie, and 1.5 lb. for six 1/4lb. hamburger patties. Then I cooked up 2 sets of 2lb. for crockpot chili that is going in the freezer, 2lb. for beef stew that I added other items to and put in the freezer, and 2lb. for taco meat that is got separated into baggies and will be going in the kids lunches this week for "walking tacos". It worth a couple hours of my time on the weekends to make weekday cooking much easier. 

This week:
Monday: Crockpot Chili (still on the January menu).  Everything is already put together. I just have to pull out the crockpot, throw in the bag of ground beef and vegetables, add tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, garlic salt, pepper & chili powder. 
Tuesday: Lasagna Casserole.  This was made last month, and we only ate half of it, so we have the other half in the freezer to pull out and reheat. 
Wednesday: Breakfast for Dinner - eggs, bacon, fruit, hash browns.
Thursday: Savory Vegetable Beef Soup, already put together and ready to throw in the crockpot. 

That brings us to February. 
I'll make some Taco Soup, which is easy to prepare, and I will probably make some guacamole.  This recipe really rocks!  Guacamole 

Saturday I'll do my grocery shopping for the rest of the week. I do have Calzone's on the menu for Sunday, but with Ryan's gifted program, and going to one of my BFF's house for the Superbowl, we may not eat them.  Either that, or I'll prepare them and make them and bring them.  Maybe I can modify it to make mini calzones! 
Monday: I already have the chicken in the freezer.  I just have to defrost, cut up and cook.  
Tuesday: Cranberry Pork Roast.  I just mix the sauce and put it over the pork loin, which is already portioned in the freezer and let it cook all day. 
Wednesday: The Pollo El Paso is a dish we normally do in the summer.  It calls for the chicken to be grilled.  I will probably make it in a saute pan on the stove.  We'll see.  Sometimes we serve it cut up, and I might do that this time as well. 
Thursday: The Southwest Chopped Chicken Salad is a new meal that I've never done before, but it looks fairly easy. 
Friday: Velveeta Soup is total comfort food.  It only takes about half an hour to make.  I might do some prep work for some of these meals on Saturday the 2nd.  We'll see.

On Saturday, February 9th, I'll do some grocery shopping for the next week.  I need to get the ingredients to make a quadruple batch of Spinach Lasagna.  I'll probably spend a good portion of my day on Saturday between shopping and making that. It's another fairly easy week, so not a whole lot to do. 
Sunday: The Chicken & Spinach Enchiladas are already in the freezer from a cooking session in January. 
Monday: The Smoky Spicy Grilled Salmon will be on the stove instead of grilled, but the corn & black bean salad is easy to do. 
Tuesday: The Savory Vegetable Beef Soup is already in the freezer, and ready to throw in the crockpot for Tuesday. 
Wednesday: The Philly Cheese Steak Stuffed Peppers are a new dish I haven't tried before.  The kids will not like the peppers.  Well, Delaney might.  So we might throw the innards on some bread for the boys.  We'll see.  But it's just an assembly thing.  Not a big thing.  If we like it, then the next time I put it on the menu, I'll make enough so that we can freeze a bunch and pull them out and cook them.  Thursday: The pizza is already in the freezer - I was thinking of ordering Papa Johns, but I decided we were going to go with the Aldi Deli pizzas that are pretty big and will feed us all. 
Friday: Andy will probably make the Grilled Cheese Sandwiches & Tomato Soup. He's getting pretty good at that. 
Saturday: We'll go out for Andy's birthday.

On Saturday, February 16th, before we go out to eat, I will go grocery shopping.  I plan to bring home the ingredients for a quadruple batch of the spaghetti sauce, and a quadruple batch of the Potato, Spinach & Tomato Soup.  I'll cook up the spaghetti sauce before we go out to eat, and when I get home, I'll finish cooking it, if needed.  And on Sunday, I'll cook up the soup and have many batches ot freeze. 
Monday, we get Chili again.  By then, I'll have the green peppers, onions & celery in the freezer so that all I will have to do is open up the bag and dump it in the crockpot. 
Tuesday: The roast will come out of the freezer and go in the crockpot.  There is enough, that we will probably have plenty to make Leftover Beef Enchiladas.  I have a recipe for that, which I will share later.
Wednesday: We'll probably do eggs, bacon, hashbrowns & fruit.  But maybe by then we'll want to do an egg casserole, or pancakes, or waffles, or chocolate waffle sticks.  We still have plenty of time to decide, and it's nice to have some flexibility in the schedule.
Thursday: I will take a batch of the sauce I made on Saturday and throw it in the crockpot.  Yummy, yummy, yummy!  (It's a littel spicy.  You can play around with the spices if you don't like it spicy.  But it's SO GOOD spicy like that!)
Friday: Reubens & Soup.  I might do a premade soup, or see if we have anything around in the house.  I know I have several kinds of soup.  But in all likelyhood, we'll probably take one of the batches of the Potato, Spinach & Tomato Soup I make up on Sunday and eat it with our Reubens.  My family really likes that soup and would be thrilled to have it again in the same week.
Saturday: The Roasted Italian Pork Tenderloin is easy to make.  I have to double the coating, and we usually end up leaving it in the oven longer than the recipe calls for.  We use our meat thermometer to check for doneness.  It's worth it though.

I'll do my shopping for the next week on Saturday the 23rd.   It's not much of a "pre-prepped" week, but it's not a difficult week. 
Sunday:  I've already got the beef & veggies for the Shepherd's Pie.  I'll have to do minimal work.
Monday: I already have the fish.  I just have to decide what to put with it.  There are so many options.
Tuesday: This is a dish that doesn't take a ton of prep work, but we just make it the day of.
Wednesday:  This is a dish that our family likes, and I end up using 8 eggs.  But I also end up making a double batch.  So, I will end up with four quiches, and I freeze two of them.  Our family will eat two quiches in one dinner.
Thursday:  The burgers are already prepared and in the freezer.  We'll pan cook them this month. 
This week includes March, so I will probably end up either doing something that is already in the freezer, or maybe I'll try something new.  We will see!

Brag post. Feel free to skip.

On Sunday, I took Ryan to a gifted program that he is enrolled in, and I attended a seminar called "Challenges Facing Gifted Children and How Parents Can Be Supportive." I gleaned a plethora of information, and I've known that Zane exhibits a lot of characteristics of a gifted child, but the seminar made it much more obvious.  I know there are children that are way more gifted than mine, but it's really neat to see some of these things jump out.  One of the characteristics involve thinking an idea through and putting a plan in place. 

Tonight, Zane was on the computer, playing a stupid game, which I hadn't approved.  I had to explain to him why I didn't think it was a good idea for him to play it, and I told him that I wanted him to try a "Learn to type" website, just for 10 minutes. I talked to him about what a smart kid he is, and how one day, he is probably going to do something really amazing, and I told him that he is going to want to get his ideas down, and if he knows how to type, it will just make things easier for him.  I also told him that he was going to be innovative.  He asked me what that meant, so I told him, and he tried to hide a smile in his hands, but I still saw it.  I think he likes the idea that he is innovative.  I told him I only expected 10 minutes from him today.  After a little resistance, he finally decided that he would do it.  At the end of the 10 minutes, he called me over and said, "Mom!  This taught me something!  I can type something without looking at the keyboard."  He only did the basic keys:  aaasssdddfffjjjkkklll;;; But he did it without looking, and he was really proud of himself.

Anyway, for the rest of my story, he came upstairs while Andy and I were working on dishes, and he was eating some peanuts.  We were talking about peanuts, and baseball games, and other things, and Zane came up with a really cool idea, that might even be innovative.  He explained to us what he wanted to do with the peanut, and how he would do it.  Then he said that he would have a way to make a lot of them, and then he would take the money he makes from selling the product, and he would use it to buy machines to do it for him, and then that would make a lot more, and he would hire people to do some things.  I could have recorded it, or asked him to tell me it again so I could type it up, but I actually think it could be a good idea, so I am going to not write it here, because maybe some day, he will actually make it happen, and it will sell.

Anyway, he finished his little spiel, and Andy and I just looked at each other.  I told Zane that was a very innovative idea (his eyes lit up!) and then talked to Andy about the seminar and how it related to what just happened.  I am going to have to get Zane into one of those programs as well.  I need to get my hands on more resources, because I have a feeling that with the right tools, and a little bit of nudging, they could fill their days when they are not at school with some pretty amazing stuff.