Batch Cooking

I didn't have a grocery list when I ran to the store yesterday.  I decided to make large batches of easy meals so we have plenty for leftovers and plenty to freeze for later.  This kept my shopping budget down since I only had to the buy the ingredients for a few meals this week.

Last night I made homemade chocolate chip cookies and since I had the oven already heated I decided to make a batch of blueberry muffins.  The girls helped me and had a great time.  Desserts this week are cookies or Popsicles.

Today, I ran home at lunch and made a breakfast casserole out of:

• Leftover frozen hash browns
• Some frozen diced orange peppers
• 14 eggs and 1/2 a container of egg beaters I found at the back of the fridge
• 1 onion, diced
• 12 turkey sausage links, cut into pieces
• 1/2 a package of cheddar cheese

We had breakfast casserole with toast or blueberry muffins and grapes for dinner tonight.  With the leftover casserole, I made 12 breakfast burritos to freeze and have a small container of leftover casserole in the fridge.

Tomorrow will be leftover meatball subs.  Mr. R really wanted some meatball subs so he had picked up a pack of frozen meatballs and hoagie buns a few days ago.

On Friday, I plan to make a crock pot full of Mexican bean and meat filling.  I'll be using:

• 1 bag of black beans, soaked overnight
• 2 packs of taco seasoning
• 1 pound of ground turkey
• 1 can of corn
• all the leftover brown rice that's in the box

Throwing it all in the crock pot in the morning, adding some water and letting it cook all day.  We have tortilla chips, flour tortillas, salsa and cheddar cheese.  We should be able to get 2 dinners of nachos, taco salad or burritos out of this and hopefully at least a dozen burritos to freeze.

We also have a bag of frozen chicken that will probably get baked this weekend.

There is $58 left in the grocery budget until next Friday.