I LOVE crock pots....I have the one pictured below..it holds 6 quarts and it is pretty.....not that that helps the cooking but it helps me every time I walk in and see it! I use mine all the time. They are relatively inexpensive...I have 2....my other one is small for dips and things like that.

Yesterday morning I loaded it up with boneless skinless chicken breasts......15 to be exact(on sale at Kroger last week :) I filled in all the way up with water. I didn't season these at all because of what I needed them for but sometimes I do this for chicken soup and I season the water. I turned it on low and left it for 10 hours. Oh my goodness...TENDER!!!!

This is the breakdown of how I used the meat.......6 chicken and cheese (remember all that free cheese!!) quesadillas. I would normally use 3 for my family but I was feeding another family of 6. It really doesn't take a whole lot of meat on these.



5 chicken breasts I used to make Ritz cracker caserole.....we don't eat many caseroles but this one is so good.....1 can cream of chicken soup......3/4 cup sour cream(you can't taste it I promise!) 1 sleeve Ritz crackers(Iuse the whole wheat kind) 1/2 stick of butter

Shread chicken with fingers and put on the bottom of pan...I usean oval casserole dish.....9x5 mix soup and sour cream together and spread over the top of the chicken. Crush crackers over mixture and drizzle melted butter over all. Bake 30 min. at 375 I serve with veggies and a salad.




The remaining 4 chicken breasts I froze covered in the broth and I will use them at another date either for quesadillas or for chicken and rice. Either way the crock pot was already running so why not load it up....now I am partly ready for another meal.

Meals.

One of the hardest things for me to get used to in regards to coupons was meal planning. It took a little juggling but I am pretty good at it now. For the most part I get the same type things over and over again so I can plan based on what I know I will get....for instance I regularly get spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce, tomato paste and pasta. I collect all the supplies and wait for a really good sale on hamburger meat. I get my biggest pot and dump in everything.

One little trick I learned about cooking hamburger meat...you probably know this but I'll tell you anyway....brown meat slowly and stir frequently, this will help it to be tender. I have made the mistake of rushing the cooking time by turning the heat up...not good! I'm not very patient so this is hard for me! :)

I put it all together and then put as much of it as I can fit into my huge crock pot...on low...all day.....this just simmers it all together without burning to the bottom. I simmer the rest on top of the stove for 1 hour and then I use that sauce to make up 2-3 pans of lasagna. I cook these for 30 min..,...which is half way....cool, cover tightly and freeze. I have a convection setting on my oven so I can load it up with all three pans at once...if you do not have this...you can load your oven up as well but you will want to move everything around after 15 min.

We eat spaghetti the first night out of the crock pot and then I divide the cooled sauce into gallon freezer bags for another day. I am not one to have a "cook for the month day," but there are many things like spaghetti sauce that I make in huge batches.....seriously I make about 4 gallons at a time in 2 huge pots...my thinking is that it really isn't much more work but it saves me greatly in time later and if I am going to heat up the oven and use the stove anyway..it saves me there as well.

If you have a small family...you may not want to do 4 gallons :) but you can do 3 - 4 times the amount needed for your family. One of the great things about freezing spaghetti sauce is that if you have unexpected company...you can pull a bag out......set it in a large bowl of warm water and quiclky thaw to have a fast home-cooked meal!

Menu week 1

Ok so we are at the end of week one of only spending $10 a week for 4 weeks so that I can help our daughter fulfill an amazing dream. I have had so many people say that I should write more about the things that we are eating. Well we will see how the last week is???? I may be asking for you all to have us over for dinner?? :) But for now there hasn't been a drastic change. I really was so stocked...the only thing that I didn't have much of was toilet paper. There was NO way that I could stay within my $10 budget and buy TP so I burned my CVS bucks on TP...I know...I know.....but I will build them back up again! I saved enough to still get a few items and rebuild without coming out of my pocket!


This weeks menu was:

Breakfast....

*Whole wheat choc chip muffins( you will be seeing these a great deal as my whole family loves them and we have plenty of stuff to make them)
*Cereal....we eat alot of cereal for snacks as well.
*Pancakes
*Eggs and pancakes
*Oatmeal...another thing my kids like to snack on.
*Grits

Snacks....
*Bananas
*Carrots and celery...dipped in ranch of course
*Cheese and crackers
*Blue corn chips and salsa
*homemade muffins

Lunch....
*Cheese roll ups
*soup
*Turkey subs
*PB&J
*left overs
*Ravioli...it might have been the kind in a can?? :(
*salad

Dinner....
*Breakfast...eggs,bacon and pancakes
*potato soup and grilled cheese sand.
*grilled pork,salad, mashed potatoes, broccoli,cauliflower and carrots and rolls
*Chicken and dumplings, green beans and mac&cheese
*Roast, roasted potatoes, green peas and carrots
*Pizza....ice cream
*Quesadillas, chips and salsa and cheese dip


That is it through Friday night. It will help my meal planning because Eric will be in Haiti all next week....he eats a whole lot! :)