[ Thankful Thursday ]

I have had a couple of questions about the whole freezer meal thing and my Monday Meal Plan post. Oddly enough, my two friends, both named Natalie, asked them. :) Here's the first one:

"I've been hoping to do this, but never really gotten around to organizing myself enough. I love that there's hardly any prep-time, too. Lately, I'm always running around at the last minute trying to figure out if we have enough stuff for spaghetti, bleh.

So, was it hard? How long did it take? Did you do it with your sis-in-law? Wouldn't this make a great Enrichment Group? These are my thoughts and questions on the subject."

To answer this one, it was not that hard, largely due to the fact that the woman who organizes all of it gives out the recipes. We did it in a group of 5 women (my sister-in-law and I split our meal(s) into 2 8x8 pans because neither of our families can eat an entire 9x13 pan of food in one sitting), although most of the time it's 7+ women. That has its' downside though: we're not liking all of the meals. I think I'm going to recommend some new recipes next time. Second, it took me 3 days to make 20 meals (4 of each recipe). Thankfully, I've been cooking long enough that I have a few shortcuts for prepping (as I've stated before I LOVE my Kitchenaid food processor, and the blender came in REALLY handy this time around). I think it would make a good Enrichment Group, but you've got to get a committment from all the ladies who sign up, and you'd probably want to do it on a smaller scale.

Second question:
"Wow, I think it's great that you plan your meals. Probably saves you a lot of money and headache. How did you get started with all of this?"

Answer to that one, we went through a period (aka almost a year) where we were struggling financially, and we had a very strict budget. In order to follow this budget, I planned out our weekly meals to the minute detail which included shopping all the ads and then planning meals around whatever was on sale. I usually came within a few cents of our budget. It's just kind of stuck with me since then. It's great though because yes, we save a lot of money doing it this way rather than just haphazardly going to the store and trying to figure out there what to eat that week. It's also great because we have been eating so much better, quality and nutritionally.

If you guys have any other questions, just let me know. We're almost a full week into the freezer meals, and I've found a couple of keepers. I'll be posting the recipes next Monday.

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It's Thankful Thursday. It's always hard for me to pick just one thing to talk about each week. There are so many things to be thankful for in my life, I guess I'll just have to do a giant thankful post for Thanksgiving (isn't it awesome that it falls on a Thursday!). Anyway, this week I am very thankful for the fact that I am a stay at home mom. I feel so blessed that I have this opportunity to be at home while Jocey is in her early years. Jon is such a good husband and father to work his butt off to make this possible. It's been a sacrifice for both of us to not have two incomes, but it is definately worth it. I love the fact that Jocey gets to grow up with her mommy at home with her, that she feels safe, that she is developing so well because she gets one on one attention from me (or Jon) every day. It's been a blessing in our lives, and I thank Heavenly Father every day for this chance.