I have had a request for a blog on my meal planning. Let me preface this by saying that I am FAR from being a type A personality. I have high anxiety which gives the perception that I’m a type A, but I’m not. I plan just enough to ease my anxiety, but I’m still pretty flexible.

I like to plan our meals for 2 weeks, but I am also in the time of the year when I do my yearly meal planning as well. I plan for 2 weeks so I know exactly how much we need to buy when C gets paid to give us 2 weeks of meals. In terms of our yearly planning I store everything that we grow in some form or another. Pickles are a snack, not a mandatory food item so I only made enough to give us 1 quart of pickles every month. If we run out and find we want more I will just keep more next year, not a big deal. The zucchini I cut up with the squash so we have some to pan fry or put in stews, but the majority I shred for casseroles and bread. The two really big ones are the poblanos and the tomatoes. One of our favorite meals is stuffed peppers. I stuff enough peppers with either bean and cheese or beef and beans for 26 nights worth of meals. That gives us one meal every 2 weeks. The tomatoes I save at least a quart of either stewed for roasted tomatoes for a 2 week period. My intention is to have a quart per week, but i’m not sure our tomatoes are good for that this year. If they are then I am also going to can some salsa. There are so many things I make that have a tomoato base, it’s so versatile. The rest of the pablanos I chop up and freeze to use in things instead of green peppers (they have the same flavor but with a nice bite). I slice and freeze my eggplant that I use later to make eggplant casserole or fried eggplant sandwiches. C dries all his peppers and makes ground red and green peppers and also really amazing hot sauce. The jalapenos and banana peppers we pickle and make jalapeno jelly. I am currently trying to get together my fall garden but it’s not growing so well. I’ll update you on that later.

Today I had C go shopping at the restaurant store. He picked up 3 kinds of cheese (two of which should last the month), baking powder, 10lbs of ground beef, a big bag of sausages, and sour cream. The total came to $90, which I’m totally good with. This is what my meal planning looks like for the next 2 weeks:

pork chops with tomato rice Mon 1
chili rellenos with fried green tomatoes Tues 1
grilled cheese with tomato soup wed 1
squash lasagna thurs 2
spinach and mushroom quiche Fri 2
quesadillas sat 2
ranch taco salad Sun 2
blackbean burgers with cole slaw and jalapeno poppers MON 2
chimichangas TUES 2
grilled veggie sandwiches with friend onions WED 2
cornbread fritters with cucumber tomato salad THURS 1
pizza FRI 1
Nachos SAT 1

We still need to pick up lettuce, cabbage, milk, cream, and buttermilk to complete the meal planning. Breakfasts and lunches are thrown together from eggs, bread, cheese, leftovers, etc. I don’t worry so much about those. Everything else, the veggies, breads, sauces, etc I make or pick from the garden. The groceries we still have yet to buy will cost about $15. That makes $105 spent for at least 2 weeks of meals, plus we are working to not have to go to the grocery store more than once a month after the new year.  All but one of our chickens were killed so no chicken until next summer (we are buying another 25 or 50 in the spring), C is going deer hunting when the season is upon us, and we will have bacon again starting in Feb.  I am very much looking forward to that.  We will have a years worth of bacon plus some to sell.  The thing that is hurting us the most is not having much meat, but we are surviving.  We eat a lot of beans.  A lot of beans, but things continue to get so much better.  We were having issues feeding ourselves at this time last year, now we have a quarter of a freezer full, and with the addition of a deer, or two or three, we will have plenty of meat.  The key is to store as much as we can in some sort of usable form.  It’s exhausting now but I will have much more time on my hands in the winter.

Hope this was helpful!

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