A few weeks ago, I spent some time organizing recipes, menus and shopping lists. When I listed all of the different meals I’ve prepared for my family (that they liked enough to have again), I came up with 45. In a previous post, I said there were 30 that I’ve successfully frozen. I guess I didn’t include those things that I prepare the day of (pot roast, 40 cloves and a chicken, etc.) or prepackaged frozen meals (Stouffer’s does an excellent job making lasagna, so I’d just prefer to use theirs instead of going to the trouble of making it from scratch). Our family’s schedules are so busy, that one batch of meals usually ends up lasting nearly 3 months. So, I made up 4 different menus to last an entire year. There are about 6 meals that I put on every list because they’re the kids (or mine and Tim’s) favorites: spaghetti, popcorn chicken and biscuits, lasagna, Nana’s chicken casserole, chili, and 40 cloves and a chicken. The remaining 40 meals I divided up into 4 menus; I ended up with 16 meals per menu (and a few side dishes). I then made a shopping list for each menu. Confused yet? The menu for this rotation is:

Spaghetti

Popcorn chicken, biscuits and corn

Lasagna

Nana’s Chicken Casserole

Chili

40 Cloves and a Chicken

Turkey, Dressing and Mac and Cheese Casserole

Stewed Beef over Egg Noodles

Comforting Chicken Noodle Soup

Mexican Chicken Casserole

Meatloaf and Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Meatloaf sandwiches

Barbecue and Baked Beans

Chicken in Peanut Sauce over Rice Noodles

Chicken Piccata over Angel Hair Pasta

French Toast

I’ll share the other menus and some recipes in future posts. My children will not eat most of the things on this menu. We learned early on with Pierce that food was one of those battles we’d be better off not fighting. By the time Reagan came along, I figured I might as well fix the same stuff for her that I was fixing for her brother. That’s how I became a short order cook. Go ahead and criticize if you must. Anyway, the kids will eat spaghetti, popcorn chicken, lasagna, chicken casserole, french toast (well, Reagan will), and turkey, dressing and mac and cheese. I make enough of each dish to get at least 2 (sometimes 3 or 4!) meals. I spent around $260 on all of the groceries (I already had a lot of my staples and didn’t need to purchase them this time). After 12 hours of cooking, I had 48 meals in varying stages of completion. Some of those just need to be reheated, some are ready for the crock pot, some I’ll pop into the oven. According to my math, that’s about $5.42 per meal! In Part Two, I’ll take you through a timeline of my cooking marathon.