Only 1.5 weeks until our big move. Here’s a look at what we ate this week as we clean out freezers and pantries and try to survive!
Food We’re Working With
I’ve put in a couple of Walmart pickup orders for fruits and veggies (we are going through fruit like crazy!). Otherwise, we are working our way through our freezers and pantry in an effort to use up food before we move. You can compare these pictures to last week’s shelves to see how we’re doing. This shelf doesn’t look like it’s emptying out much, but we used quite a bit from our stores this week.
You can tell a big difference in our freezers compared to last week!
I don’t have time to bake that turkey, so he’s likely going to make the move to Lincoln with us. ;)
And now on to the meals we ate last week!
Our Big Family Food and Fun
I had a Breakfast Casserole in the freezer, which was GREAT to have on Sunday for lunch. I slid it into the oven frozen, turned on the oven to 225, and let it bake while we were at church. It was done the minute we walked in the door and we ate it with fruit. SO EASY. I highly recommend putting some of these in your freezer!
Kelsey (Justus’ wife) had come to help us over the weekend and brought frozen Sloppy Joe meat with her. I warmed it for our Sunday evening meal and served it with green beans and watermelon. What would I do without my wonderful daughters-in-law? :)
Monday I had to take BabyBoy#11 in for a medical procedure, so I appreciated having lots of ready-made foods to pull out and serve for breakfast. I set out last week’s Mudballs and Pumpkin Muffins then warmed up leftover Breakfast Casserole to go with those. (Our air fryer warms food up so nicely!) Everyone ate well as Baby and I headed out.
Our fella was a trooper through his morning. I was glad he fell asleep on our way home to take a well-deserved nap! :)
Knowing I’d be gone all morning, I had mixed up Chicken Salad and put it in the fridge before I left. We made quick sandwiches when I got home and ate them with carrots, tomatoes, and watermelon.
For the record, chicken salad sandwiches taste better when cut into triangles. :) Also, this little girl LOVES peanut butter on her carrots. If you struggle to get your kids to eat carrots with other dips, try peanut butter. It works for Kiya!
After lunch, we played outside before naptime. Anna chose her own outfit today: shorts and a swim cover-up. Oh, and moccasins. :)
All three little girls crawled into the wagon, so I took them for a short ride. Then it was naptime – one of my favorite parts of the day after a long morning!
For dinner that night I baked a Meatloaf that I’d made a few weeks ago and frozen. Brayden and Kiya scrubbed potatoes so I could make these amazing Mashed Potatoes, plus I stir-fried some veggies and warmed up leftover corn and beans. Justus and Kelsey came from Lincoln for a church event so they joined us for dinner.
For breakfast on Tuesday I made scrambled egg sandwiches and served them with canned peaches.
I cooked three pounds of hamburger one night, seasoned it like this, then we put together tostadas with some shells someone had given us. I made this Cream Cheese Salsa Dip as a topping option.
This week at the YU campus is a camp called Soul Quest. Malachi is there as a camper for his final year with this amazing group of friends. (Malachi is second from the right.)
On the Wednesday of Soul Quest, they send out their hundreds of campers and staff out into our community for service projects. OUR FAMILY was blessed to receive one of these groups this year! They sent 26 high schoolers and adults over and we handed them all paint brushes!
It was a great, but full, morning. Thankfully, earlier I’d put lunch in the crock pot so it was ready to serve our family as soon as the crew left. This casserole doesn’t look pretty, but it truly was tasty! What do I call it? I have no idea. “Clean out the Fridge Casserole?” Yes, that’s it. I used last night’s taco meat stirred into frozen hashbrowns with the leftover Cream Cheese Salsa Dip, shredded cheese, sour cream, and salt. I cooked it on low all morning and it was delicious with steamed green beans on the side.
I left that afternoon to work for several hours while sitters came to stay with our kids (and Matt kept painting the house). Elias picked up pizza on his way home, using the gift cash we decided to enjoy for our Wednesday pizza night until after we’ve settled into our new home.
We sent the kids outside to eat their pizza because the sitters also did some cleaning while they were here. We always hope to keep the floor clean for at least five minutes after our sitters have worked so hard. :)
I went all out the next morning by getting out cereal and oatmeal packets for breakfast. ;)
In an effort to clean out our freezers, I pulled out this super discounted pork roasts I’d gotten marked down for $1.49/pound.
I put them in my large electric roaster, seasoned them, and poured barbecue sauce over the top. Then I slow cooked them all day to shred and freeze in meal-sized portions.
All day these pork roasts smelled AMAZING!! That evening, I shredded all the meat and scooped up some for us to eat for dinner before bagging up the rest for the fridge and freezer. This made five meal-sized portions for us.
I had two pounds of strawberries so I sliced them and made this Cheesecake Parfait to eat with them.
For lunch on Thursday I made grilled cheese and tomato soup – a funny meal on a 90 degree day but a great way to use up soup from the pantry!
Elias was home on his lunch break from work so he grabbed some grilled cheese to take back to work with him, plus chips and guac.
Friday we had a family of eight coming to help us get our house ready to sell. So in preparation, I had thawed two of these big packages of chicken legs. (Remember how I got these for around $0.75/pound?!?!) What a great way to feed 17 people!
I dumped on some sauce and put these in the fridge to marinate all day while we worked.
Meanwhile, Eva (Asa’s wife) came to help us all morning and early afternoon. We took all the littles to the library for the morning so Matt could paint. For lunch we invited our friend Tori to join us and headed to the backyard. We had a lot of sticks we wanted to burn up in our firepit so we thawed the hotdogs we had left in our freezer for the kids to enjoy. We grown-ups enjoyed the pork roast I had cooked the day before.
Our other friends arrived after lunch and they were a powerhouse, working so hard on our house with us all afternoon. I got the chicken on the smoker and we pulled out some easy side dishes. It tasted so good after working in the heat all day!
We were marveling at our two tribes of kids filling up the kitchen and spilling into the living room. :) We are so thankful for our precious friendship with this family.
Matt and I are feeling pretty worn out (but also very grateful). But this might explain why I said “yes” the next morning when Keith and Anna requested butter for breakfast. Nothing else. Just butter. Here’s a slice of butter, and here’s another slice of butter…
So this is where I’m at right now. Thank goodness I do have plenty of butter in our freezer! :) :) :) I did manage to pull off some Father’s Day treats today, which I’ll share about next week. Hope your week is off to a great start!