I'm beginning to feel like I'm always a week or two ahead of myself these days. With the holidays coming up and all of the preparation, shopping, and festive-fying that that means, I am already scheduling our little household three weeks ahead of time. I called Caleb earlier this week and told him the exact date we need to set up our Christmas tree.
Any earlier, it will be dead before the 20th of December. Any later and it isn't going up...we are travelling, working, etc.
Isn't that crazy? I feel like a nut.
Speaking of planning ahead, I have decided that planning our weekly meals a week in advance is really the only way to for us to function and keep to our grocery budget. We both hate the thought of running to the store on the way home from work to gather up the necessities for the evening meal and I find that we spend far less money when our menu is thought out and everything purchased at once. I am a huge fan of Aldi!! There is nothing flashy, nothing shiny to catch my eye and distract me (or my wallet), and the prices are dirt cheap. The only thing we've found it cannot purchase there is coffee. We are pretty snobby about the coffee.
Anyway, while planning my meals for next week, I've found that the only option for Thursday evenings is really something cooked up in the new Crock Pot! I need some good recipes! I'd love to hear from some of you, if you have anything you'd like to share! Has anyone ever made a dessert in the Crock Pot? I've heard of this but it remains a mystery to me...
Have a lovely afternoon and check out Life at Home's Tablescape Thursday...love the Blue Spode!
I have just recently discovered Aldi here about 3 weeks ago. We are buying our milk there now for $1.49 a GALLON!!!! With all our kids, my husband has treatened to buy a cow for milk!!! (I don't think our neighborhood would go for that, LOL). As for crockpot recipes, there are loads on line, it's according to what ya'll like. You can do chicken dumplings, beef stew, roast, bbq meat, just anything. A good, easy one is beef tips. What I do is just put in beef tips, onion soup mix (I use cheap brand) and cream of mushroom (or whatever cream soup you like, you really don't taste it) and salt or garlic salt and pepper. Then I just pop in a boil-in-bag of rice when I get home and it is delicious!!!! The meat really cooks down and it's so good you will want to buy plenty. If you have any left, you can use your stock to make beefstew. You can make it then, or freeze it to do that later. Then you can just add vegetables like small whole or cut up potatoes baby carrots, ect. (or even veg all and canned veg.) and diced tomatoes. I also do the beef stew when I do a chuck roast, cause the meat is usually just small pieces and I already have my vegies in, I just add a can of corn and whatever canned vegies I have and some diced tomatoes. Yummy. And economical because you get more than one meal.
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