How I plan my month of meals

I love planning and preparing and organizing.

When I married Josh and realized how much I actually had to cook I was spending so much money on groceries!
I wasn't planning out meals and I didn't really know how to save money on groceries!

Eventually I started to plan out a week of meals at a time and that was so helpful. But I was still spending so much on groceries!

Eventually I started to plan out dinners for the entire month!

I've had a lot of people ask me how and why I do it that way.

My whys:
I love planning
I save a ton of money (see below)
It's fun for me!
We don't waste food
I never have to wonder what I'm cooking that night

My how:

1. I start by printing out a blank calendar of the month. I really love the printable calendars from http://www.imom.com. They have a ton of other stuff on their site too, but I just think their calendars are so dang cute!

2. Next I write on the days that I won't need to cook (Vacations, anniversaries, birthdays, etc.)
My mom's side of the family gets together every 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month so I add those right away.

3. I go through my recipes and start adding (strategically)

• I try to make 4 new recipes each month so I add those first so I don't run out of room
• I try to pick 2-3 10/10s that Josh loves and make those each month. I kind of put those through a rotation so we don't have the same ones over and over each month
• Then I just start flipping through recipe cards and my binder of recipes. Like I said, I try to put these all through a rotation so we aren't eating the same things. 
• While I'm adding the recipes to the calendar I keep in mind which meals take a while to make or require a lot of prep. Those meals I keep to the weekends or my day off during the week. The meals that only take like 10 minutes to make I like to have on Mondays or my longer work days. (Because who wants to cook after a long work day?) That way I'm not lured into the idea of going out to eat when I could throw together a super easy meal.
• I also like to add a little CP in the corner of the day that is a crock pot meal. That way I can prepare the night before to get everything ready or just set my alarm earlier to get it ready in the morning.

(Josh's mom put together that big box of recipes for me! She made one for all of there sons. In the box are their favorite recipes! So each boy has some different recipes based on what the liked. Isn't that such a cool idea?!)

4. I always take a picture of this so I have it with me on my phone. Sometimes when I'm at work I completely blank on what I'm planning to make that night. So it's nice to have on hand to remind myself!

I even have a couple of friends that always want me to send my month to them!

5. How does this help me save money?

• We aren't eating out all the time just because I don't have anything to make for dinner
• I buy in bulk! I try to do 1 big grocery trip each month where I buy everything in bulk that I can. Then I have smaller grocery trips every 1-2 weeks where I buy the produce or dairy products that just won't last all month.
• I can plan freezer meals ahead of time. That way if we are short on money for the month I can just use freezer meals so I don't have to buy ingredients for other meals.
• We have found what recipes make for good leftovers so we are able to prepare in advance our portions of leftovers or making a separate meal for lunch the next day.

Guys. I'm telling you, plan out your meals this way! It is so much more efficient than just going day by day. And it is so much fun!!

Also, if any of these meals sound good to you... let me know! I'd love suggestions of what recipes to post!

Easiest chicken prep ever!

I use a lot of chicken when I cook. Like...a lot! And for some of my recipes the chicken needs to be cooked and shredded or cubed as part of the prep.

I finally realized that I can prep a whole bunch of chicken ahead of time to save me time with those recipes!

I prep mine in my crock pot!

I usually do:

 4-6 chicken breasts (depending on how much I need for the week)

1/4 cup of chicken broth

Salt and pepper

Other seasonings (depending on what recipes I'll be making with the chicken

I cook it on high for 4 hours of low for 8. Sometimes I even start it right as I'm going to sleep! It's ready when I wake up and the house smells delicious!

Once it's done in the crock pot it is too easy to shred! Most times it just falls apart when I try to fish it out of the slow cooker and onto the cutting board!

A few of the recipes I use this chicken for are:

Chicken enchiladas

Chicken cordon bleu casserole

Chicken fried rice

Salad that I want with chicken

...and a couple others that I can't think of right now..

When I prep this chicken I do make sure that I plan meals that will use it all of it so it doesn't go to waste. If I don't have enough dinner ideas to use it all I just take it to work for lunch! I sometimes only get 5 minutes to eat lunch so its a super quick and easy thing to heat up. I just have to remember to bring sauce or something to put on it so it doesn't get too boring too quickly!

Cook your bacon in the oven! Just do it!

So I use a lot of bacon in my cooking.
I mean... a lot.

I love everything about bacon. Except for the mess it makes!
Because I don't want to clean the mess up every time I started to just cook this all at once and just put the rest in the refrigerator. That way I can just pull it out and warm it up in the microwave or on the stove when I need it.

It was such a great idea but I still had to clean up a mess.

To fix that problem I started to bake my bacon! (BAKE-on ...get it? Haha lame joke).

Baking your bacon:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Line a cookie sheet with foil.

Lay your bacon on the foil.

Bake for about 20 minutes.
(My oven doesn't always cook evenly so sometimes a few of the pieces aren't quite as crispy as I like after just 20 minutes so I put them back in for a couple.)

When the bacon is done, transfer it to paper towel to get rid of the extra grease.


NOW you can just toss the foil! You have tons of bacon pre-cooked for anything you want AND you have little to no clean up! (Sometimes a little grease gets onto the pan, but it is nothing compared to cooking it on the stove!)

I hope you all go and cook your bacon in the oven now :)