With all our sickness this has been a great week for weather related events.  I had a 3-hour delay for a workday on Monday, a two-hour delay on Tuesday and a remote learning day on Friday. This allowed me some extra time at home to start to get things back in order and prepared. On Friday, after finishing work I was able to immediately get started on getting things done around the house.  Dinner was already going as I had started in the crockpot during my lunch.

The soup on Friday was a new one to us. Everyone enjoyed and we placed some in the fridge for later meals.  One of the things I am trying to do is when I make a pot of soup, put some in containers for easy lunches but also freeze a container that can be used for a quick and easy meal later.  But this did not allow us enough for the freezer.  I was also able to pull out and make a breakfast casserole for Friday morning, using up things that we already had. It actually was a hit and will be a do over!   I even pulled out eggs from the freezer so that we did not use our precious egg supply right now.

One of the hardest parts of starting straight back to work after returning from a trip is the lack of food preparation that is done. This week, I knew I had canned a couple of soups so I used that for my lunches. We also had very simple dinners that basically included heat and eat. Lily also cooked on Thursday night and Saturday lunch which was a huge blessing! My goal for the weekend which I knew ahead of time was to try and get some meals made that first used up ingredients from our pantries and freezers but also that provided options for lunches for the next week.

Lily made meatballs for lunch on Saturday, which were great!  Hot dog buns were used for sub rolls and we pulled out a jar of spaghetti sauce along with BBQ Sause to use as a topping.  I ended up making cranberry meatballs for my dinner on Saturday night with enough left for at least one lunch this week.  Matt and Lily headed to Costco for some car stuff on Saturday as well. They brought back a rotisserie chicken which was enjoyed for dinner by others as well. I had also made a pot of rice for a dinner later this week which most of us added to the protein.

I pulled all the chicken off the bones and put in the fridge to use for our soup today. My Dad’s chicken stew which is most like a Brunswick stew has been on my short list.  I threw the bones and skins in the crockpot with water to make chicken stock. This cooked overnight and was ready for use this morning.  I was able to pressure can 8 pints of chicken stock which are now shelf-stable for future use.

I was able to use frozen onions and celery, along with a couple of expired cans of mixed vegetables along with cans of corn, tomato and green beans to start a big pot of chicken stew. We will be eating this for lunch as well as freezing one portion for future use and having 4-5 bowl available for next week as well.

My current plan is to have hamburgers for dinner, using buns from the freezer!  I am going to start a batch of cowboy beans in the roaster in the morning which will be another lunch options along with a batch in the freezer and other lunch choices as well.

I think we are good for both using pantry items and having prepared meals now!