Two-Week Cooking Project

Two-Week Cooking Project: The Recipes

August 19, 2010

I’m gearing up to cook this weekend. Are you??

I wanted to share my Two-Week Cooking Project recipes with you. I’ve included recipes for the following dishes:

Chicken Enchilada Casserole (1 meal)
Chicken Fajitas (1 meal)
Hamburger Hot Dish (like homemade Hamburger Helper) (1 meal)
Sesame Beef Steaks (1 meal)
Crock Pot Chicken Parmesan from $5 Dinners (2 meals) (Didn’t get to this last time!)
Homemade Pizza (2 meals)
Grilled Chicken ( 2 meals)
Lasagna Casserole from Heavenly Homemakers (2 meals)

We’ll also be scheduling a “Leftover Buffet” once a week so that we don’t end up with a whole week’s worth of food leftover!

Download your recipes for this round of Two-Week Cooking HERE.

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Two-Week Cooking Project: The Menu

August 16, 2010

I’m gearing up for another round of our Two-Week Cooking Project, and it sounds like some of you might be in it with me. I just wanted to share my menu plan with you. Feel free to use this or create your own menu plan. No matter what we’re cooking, we’ll be doing it together!

Chicken Enchilada Casserole (1 meal)
Chicken Fajitas (1 meal)
Hamburger Hot Dish (like homemade Hamburger Helper) (1 meal)
Sesame Beef Steaks (1 meal)
Crock Pot Chicken Parmesan (2 meals) (Didn’t get to this last time!)
Homemade Pizza (2 meals)
Grilled Chicken ( 2 meals)
Lasagna Casserole (2 meals)
Leftover Buffet (2 meals)

I’ll be back later this week with the recipes and shopping list. My plan is to cook on Saturday.

So what’s your plan? Are you doing the Two-Week Cooking Project with us? Do you have a menu plan?

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Filed Under: Freezer Cooking, Two-Week Cooking Project

Two-Week Cooking Project: Are You In?

August 10, 2010

I just received some awesome feedback from Gina, a Saving & Giving reader. She took part in our Two-Week Cooking Project. Here’s her story in her own words:

“I decided to do the two week cooking with you. I did make the Southwest Chicken burritos (Big hit!). I made enough for 2 meals for a family of four. I also made beef and bean burritos (2 meals), made taco meat for tacos for 2 meals and just some ground beef for sloppy Joes and spaghetti. I I also made up a meat loaf that I just have slide into the oven.

I am so glad that I did this! Our central air conditioning went out on Saturday. The inside of my house has been hitting 92 degrees at night! I was not about to turn on the oven to cook anything. I just had to pop some of the burritos in the microwave and dinner was done!

Thank you so much for thinking of the 2 week cooking instead of the once a month. I kept saying I was going to do the once a month cooking but never got around to it. So when you said 2 week cooking, I thought that was something I could do. So glad that I did!”

What a blessing to have nutritious, home-cooked food ready to be heated without heating up the kitchen!

If you did the Two-Week Cooking Project last time, then you’re probably eating the second half of your meals this week. That means that it’s time to start planning for the next round of cooking.

I just wanted to find out whether or not you were interested in doing another Two-Week Cooking Project. So let me know what you think. Do you want to try it again? Or, if you didn’t do the first round with us, do you want to jump in and give it a try?

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Filed Under: Freezer Cooking, Two-Week Cooking Project

Menu Plan Monday – Week of 8/9

August 8, 2010

This is Week 2 of eating meals from our Two-Week Cooking Project. For our family, Week 1′s plan was interrupted by some unexpected leftovers and a major power outage. It wasn’t our outage but my parents’ (and tens of thousands of people in our area). We had them (my parents, not the tens of thousands) over for dinner one evening, and Jason was kind enough to grill us some pork chops that weren’t on the original menu. I bought too many, so we ended up eating them for two nights. (Love those leftovers!)

That’s the great thing about a plan. You can change it to fit what’s going on in your life.

That said, we’ll still be eating from the freezer this week. Here’s my plan for using up the meals from our Two-Week Cooking Project. By the way, if you missed this round of Two-Week Cooking, you can jump in next time or do a session of your own. It’s always a good time to start cooking ahead!

Monday
Crock Pot Chicken Sausage Stew

Tuesday
Slow Cooker Chicken Parmesan (Recipe from Erin at $5 Dinners)

Wednesday
Homemade Pizza

Thursday
Leftover Chicken Parmesan

Friday
It’s our 16th wedding anniversary! We’ll be heading out to dinner while Emma stays with her Grandma & Pa.

Saturday
My brother’s family is coming for a visit. We’ll be celebrating his birthday, my mom’s upcoming birthday, our anniversary, and my brother and sister-in-law’s upcoming anniversary. That’s a lot to celebrate! I believe this calls for DIY Ice Cream Cake or some other yummy celebration dessert.

Sunday
Southwest Chicken Roll-Ups (Recipe from Money Saving Mom)

That should leave me with just my Crock Pot Ground Beef & Beans Casserole and Hamburger Stroganoff in my freezer. I also have some extra ground beef (cooked) and an extra batch of the insides of the Pizza Stuffed Peppers, both frozen. I’ll probably roll those into the next round of Two-Week Cooking. I guess this is just an example of how planning for two weeks’ worth of meals ends up being three weeks’ worth of meals. I can’t complain about that!

Your Turn: If you particiapted in our Two-Week Cooking Project, are you going to end up with extra meals at the end of this week?

If you’re looking for some general menu planning inspiration, stop by Menu Plan Monday hosted by I’m an Organizing Junkie.

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Menu Plan Monday: The Two-Week Cooking Project Plan

August 2, 2010

I’m so relieved to have two weeks’ worth of meals in my fridge and freezer right now! It makes menu planning a LOT less stressful! (If you didn’t take part in our Two-Week Cooking Project, you can always do your own version. You’ll find all of the information from ours HERE.)

My goal is to make the meals that use the fresh produce first. So here’s the plan for this week.

Sunday
Crock Pot Pizza-Stuffed Peppers
If you also made these, don’t cook them for four hours! They were a little over-done. Edible…. but over-done.

Monday
BBQ Chicken, baked yams, green beans

Tuesday
BBQ Chicken Salads

Wednesday
Homemade Pizza

Thursday
Hamburger Stroganoff, Corn on the Cob

Friday
Southwest Chicken Roll-Ups

Saturday
Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo with side salads

That’s probably the easiest menu plan I’ve done in quite a while! Because we took the time this weekend to prep everything, I know exactly what’s for dinner this week and next week. Talk about making meal planning less stressful!

Feel free to join us the next time we cook for two weeks. We’d love to have you be a part of it!

If you’re looking for some general menu planning inspiration, stop by Menu Plan Monday hosted by I’m an Organizing Junkie.

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Filed Under: Freezer Cooking, Menu Plan Monday, Two-Week Cooking Project

Two-Week Cooking Project: The Results

August 1, 2010

Whew! I am happy to say that there are fourteen delicious meals stashed away in our fridge and freezer right now. I worked ahead a little bit and cooked the chicken in the Crock Pot on Friday evening. That made things go a bit quicker yesterday.

My husband offered to help me, and I gladly accepted! We worked together for about an hour, and I spent a combined 45 minutes before and after that time doing a few odds and ends. Here’s what we ended up with.

I’m going to be creating my menu plan so that I know what should be pulled from the freezer each day. Planning ahead will also ensure that we don’t end up eating pizza two nights in a row, just because that’s what’s left in the freezer. (Although, if you ask me, two nights’ of homemade pizza isn’t a bad thing!) I’d like to line up the meals so that we eat the ones involving fresh produce first.

“So, what’s for dinner?”

It’s nice to know that we won’t be facing that dreaded question any time soon. We know what’s for dinner, and we know that it won’t take long to finish making it!

Did you cook with us? If you did, let us know how it went. I’d love to hear your feedback! You’re welcome to link up your cooking post or leave your thoughts in the comments.