Meal Planning Part II

In my last post I talked a little about meal planning and how it has really helped cut costs when it comes to grocery shopping. Today I'm going to talk about another side of meal planning that helps save even more money. At the moment our family consists of two people plus three animals, but they don't really count when it comes to meal planning. When we first moved into the condo and it was all up to me to make meals each day, I often found it frustrating that there were not many recipes that only made two servings. I would make big dinners and either Tom took some leftovers for lunch the next day or it got thrown out.

A few months ago (it took over two years to realize this which means we were throwing way too much money down the drain), I stumbled across a web site a mom ran that talked all about freezing meals. Did you know you can freeze just about every type of food out there? Well I didn't, and it was like a light bulb went off in my head as I read through the different articles. It suddenly dawned on me that I didn't have to be throwing out all of this leftover food, instead I could put it into Tupperware or Ziploc bags and freeze it for another time!

Nowadays I try to make at least one "big" meal each week, usually on Sundays. This meal almost always ends up being some sort of casserole meant to serve 8 people, and I always follow it to a tee. This process has helped to basically cut our grocery bill in half, even though we are still spending around $60 on average each week. For example, we may go and spend $15 on ingredients that are not already in the kitchen to make a specific recipe. We eat the specific recipe for dinner one day that week, Tom takes a serving for lunch the next day, and the rest is split up into containers to be frozen and eaten at some point down the road (usually the next week). With some of the bigger recipes such as my favorite- Baked Ziti- I can get sometimes 3 extra dinners to put in the freezer! So even though we may spend a few extra dollars one week at the grocery store, if I can get four dinners plus a lunch out of the recipe I consider that a success.

Part of this blog will include recipes I have tried and loved, most of which end up in my freezer as part of my meal planning. The first recipe I introduce to you is French Dip, which I made yesterday for dinner and it was extremely popular. I always get nervous trying new recipes with Tom- mainly because every time he knows I haven't made it before he says things like "that scares me"- and I worry he'll hate it. Well last night I was extra nervous because the au jus sauce "scared" him. All my worries went away though as I sat with bated breath watching him take his first bite, when he turned to me with big eyes and enthusiastically said through his full mouth "mmmhm!" The recipe was incredibly easy and there were of course leftovers which were frozen and we will eat for lunch this weekend :)

Crock-pot French Dip Sandwiches

I found this recipe on Pinterest, the original site from here. I tried a couple different things based off the original recipe and it turned out perfect!

Ingredients:
2 lbs London Broil (or really any other roast)
1 packet Lipton Onion Soup mix
2 cups beef stock 
Dash of pepper
French or Italian rolls (this version of the recipe will make 4 large servings)
Swiss cheese (optional)

Directions:
1. Place the meat in the slow cooker.
2. Mix together the beef stock, onion soup mix, and pepper. Pour it over the meat.
3. Cook it on low for 6-8 hours.
4. At the end of cooking time, take the meat out and shred it with a fork While meat is out, run the "juices" from the slow cooker through a strainer to get any big chunks out of it, and into a separate bowl.
5. Place shredded meat back in the slow cooker (I turned mine down to "warm" at this point). Take half a cup of the leftover broth and mix it into the meat.
6. Turn the oven on (I had mine at 350), take out your rolls. Open up the rolls so that the inside is facing up, and place a couple slices of the Swiss cheese on each of them. Bake until the cheese is melted and bread is toasty.
7. Pour remaining "au jus" into little ramekins/bowls, spoon meat onto bread rolls, and enjoy! 

I would have posted a photo but was too excited/hungry to eat it :)  Next time!