Mealtime Monday

Welcome to Mealtime Monday. The picture to the left has nothing to do with today's recipes but just brought a smile to my face when I saw them on allrecipes.com. So I thought I would post them here to bring a smile to you. If you want to create your own egg chicks go here for the instructions.


Well it took me exactly 1 hour and 21 minutes to complete the following:

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• 2 Spicy Grilled Shrimp recipes
• 2 Vegetables Soups
• 2 Sweet and Sour Chicken Mango Wraps
• 2 Chicken Square recipes
• 1 cream taco recipe
• 2 Niki's Green Beans
• 2 Asparagus Packets

The great thing about all these main dishes is that they ALL can be frozen. (I would probably go ahead and fully make the cream tacos before freezing.) Sooo you might consider making a double batch of some of these dishes to store in your freezer for a rainy day. I love having a couple of frozen dishes on hand for when I don't have time to cook and yet don't want to resort to going out to eat OR when I want to bring a meal to a family in need OR for those times when we have been short on grocery money. I am hoping to have enough dishes saved up in my freezer to make it to the end of 2009 once my $5000 annual grocery budget is all used up!!!

Below is the prep and storage recommendations for this weeks recipes.

Monday: Chicken Squares. I fully prepped up until final baking. Although the referenced recipe recommends freezing- I simply stored mine in the fridge.

Tuesday: Cream Tacos: I tossed all ingredients except the milk into a freezer ziplock bag. I stored bag in fridge. Tuesday night- 1 hour before serving I will place in crockpot and cook on high. Stirring often until cheese is melted. 10 minutes before serving I will add the milk.

Wednesday: Spicy Shrimp. I dumped frozen shrimp and remaining ingredients into a freezer ziplock bag. I then stored in freezer. Tuesday night I will transfer bag from freezer to fridge to begin thawing. Wednesday night I will cook shrimp on grill along with asparagus packet.

Thursday: Sweet and Sour Chicken Wraps. I placed all ingredients except cucumber into freezer ziplock bag. (Not sure why I didn't go ahead and add cucumber but for some reason it just bothered me knowing the cucumber would be sitting next to raw chicken for a couple of days- weird- I know). I am going to store in freezer. Wednesday morning I will transfer from freezer to fridge to begin thawing. Thursday morning I will transfer to crockpot and add in cucumber for cooking.

Friday: Out or leftovers

Saturday: Out or leftovers

Sunday: Vegetable Soup. I prepared entire recipe in freezer ziplock bag. I will store in freezer. I will transfer to fridge on Saturday morning to start defrosting and then to crockpot on Sunday morning. Should be good to go by Sunday lunch.