Because food is my biggest expense after housing, meal planning has been an important frugal habit. In order to keep myself accountable for meal planning and hopefully share some family friendly, frugal and fast (my ”name what matters” in Lazy Genius parlance) meals, I’ll start posting Meal Plan Monday each week.
I have the day off work so my two youngest daughters and I decided to do some batch cooking. The youngest made her world-famous chocolate chip cookies. I tried not to eat them and succeeded (after the first one).
Potato Soup
It’s a rainy day in Georgia, and potato soup is always lovely. I was able to use the last of the whipping cream. My local ALDI has only been stocking these large containers of heavy cream. Annoying, because it’s hard to use it before it goes bad. That thing that looks like a pink worm is actually a strip of bacon. Don’t adjust your screens.
I also wanted to use up the 10 lb bag of potatoes I bought.
So while we were peeling and chopping potatoes anyway, we made lots of mashed potatoes to freeze. My kids love mashed potatoes and I don’t love all the work of making them. So it will be nice to have some on hand that I can easily microwave to go with dinners like:
Baked Chicken Leg Quarters
This recipe was so easy and good, so I’m going to cook it again, making enough for at least two meals.
While I don’t often do a batch cooking day, where I spend a few hours prepping and freezing meals, I often do a “cook once, eat twice” type situation.
We’ll have the aforementioned frozen mashed potatoes and whatever other green veggie I have on hand as a side.
Chicken Quesadillas
I’ll shred the leftover chicken and use it for this. We love just about anything with a tortilla wrapped around it, pan-fried in a little butter. (Topped with lettuce, avocado, guac and sour cream.) With my favorite frugal ingredient, beans, added. Speaking of beans…
I cooked a 2 lb bag of cannellini beans to use for:
Tuscan Bean Soup
Lately, I’ve been cooking a large batch of beans each week. I’ll cook this soup recipe and serve it with minimalist bread (I love this recipe!). Then freeze the rest to use for minestrone and white bean salad for work lunches.
Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese
Classic. My kids adore this and could have it weekly. The trick to making amazing homemade tomato soup is: chicken broth instead of water. I saute a bit of onion or shallot and a shredded carrot in ghee or butter until very soft (but not browned), then add tomato sauce and broth. I cook this until the veggies are really soft, then add a bit of cream or half and half.
Toasting the sandwiches in a pan with more butter than you think you’ll need is KEY to the best grilled cheese. I’ll use leftover minimalist bread for this.
What are you eating this week?
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