I can truly never go wrong when it comes to pasta around our house. Lazy Weeknight Lasagna is always a favorite. One recipe that we love is this red sauce. It’s simple to make and delicious. I don’t really have a “traditional” red sauce recipe, I use the normal base of ingredients but like to try adding a new ingredient in every once in a while. This time, I decided to add some carrots into the batch to tweak the recipe a bit. This recipe has a bit of good flavor and you can add more to suit by adding in some Italian sausage! I like to make red sauce in a big batch – at least double or triple the ingredients and freeze it in quart size portions.

Crock Pot Red Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 large onions, diced
• 4 carrots, peeled and diced
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 6 lb can diced tomatoes (12 cups)
• 6 to 8 cups water (depending on size of your crock pot)
• 2 Tablespoons salt
• 2 Tablespoons parsley flakes
• 2 Tablespoons dried basil
• 1 Tablespoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 2 pounds Mild Italian sausage (optional)

Directions:

1. In large pot, heat olive oil and cook onion, carrots and garlic until softened.
2. Add diced tomatoes and water to crock pot. Stir to mix thoroughly, then add spices and sausage if you wish.
3. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. Serve over your favorite noodles or use in lasagna.

What’s a favorite pasta dish in your family? Share it with us so it can become our favorite, too.

I can’t remember the last time we ordered our favorite take-out chicken dishes from a Chinese restaurant. Going out to eat never really seems to cross our minds. We’ve become so adapted to the life of  having a meal plan , that it’s been so easy to make our meals right at home. You’ll be surprised just how easy it is to make those meals you order from the take-out menu. Like this easy Crock Pot Sesame Garlic Chicken recipe I’m sharing with you today.

Crock Pot Sesame Garlic Chicken

Ingredients:

• 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts 
• Salt and pepper
• 1 cup honey
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, pressed
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup pineapple juice, reserve pineapple slices for garnish (optional)
• 4 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 6 Tablespoons water

Directions:

1. Season chicken breasts lightly with salt and pepper and place chicken in crock pot.
2. In a small mixing bowl, mix together honey, onion, soy sauce, ketchup, olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes and pineapple juice.
3. Pour sauce mixture over chicken.
4. Put lid on crock pot and cook on LOW for 5 to 6 hours or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours or until chicken is cooked through. (Crock Pot times vary depending on your crock pot.)
5. Remove chicken from crock pot with a slotted spoon.
6. In a small bowl, add cornstarch to water, mix and pour into crock pot. Turn crock pot onto HIGH and let sauce thicken.
7. Shred chicken by using two forks to pull apart. Return chicken to crock pot and toss with sauce before serving.
8. Sprinkle chicken with sesame seeds over rice, noodles and serve with broccoli (my fave) or your favorite vegetables. garnish with pineapple slices.

Happy Monday my friends! Did you enjoy your weekend? It was beautiful up here in the sierra foothills. After the cold bit of weather we were having, the sun feels very good.

When I woke up this morning, I wasn’t in my “get up and go” mode. I feel much more relaxed, organized and composed. Not that I’m not like this normally, but today feels different.  Maybe, because today is my first day of being a “temporary” SAHM. I say temporary because I don’t know for how long. After 7 1/2 years, my employer decided to do some “re-structuring” and I was let go. I was given the opportunity to work two more weeks and last Friday was my last day. I’ve been a working mom outside of the home (over 22 years) for so long do I really want to go back? Financially yes, maybe,  mentally no.

I’m sure or hoping there are lots of moms out there who can relate in some way or another. I don’t feel as stressed as maybe one should. Financially speaking that is. Not that we’re Richie Rich, just that I’m a very determined minded person who is resourceful and will look at all avenues of saving my family money. With me not working, that is a huge financial chunk of change gone for us. But, I think we’ll be alright. There’s an upside to every drastic lifestyle change in a person’s life. We’ll just have to see where this road takes us. But I can say, it’s truly a blessing to be able to stay with the kids and hubby more.

In preparation for this family lifestyle change, meal planning has been crucial. Groceries are a huge part of our family’s budget. Now that we will be living more frugally, I’ll be using crock pot freezer cooking a lot more. And you probably already know by now how much I love my crock pot. Yep, I pretty much had to invest in a second one months ago because it makes dinner time so easy. If you don’t own a crock pot, you need one. Seriously. Everyone should own one. This week’s meal plan is based on  the comforts and savings of crock pot meals.

Meal Plan

I meal plan at the beginning of each week. For me, it’s Sunday mornings when the house is quite and everyone’s still sleeping. I try and manage a decent frugal grocery budget and not go to the grocery store on a weekly basis unless we need dairy products like milk. Weekly meal planning saves our family money, reduces food waste, and keeps us from the urge to say, “Let’s eat out!”

Here’s our plan for the week.

My weekly meal plan and shopping list is completed and posted on our fridge:

Breakfast options:

(served with fruit)

French toast casserole
Pancakes
Waffles
Biscuits and Sausage Gravy
Cereal
Scrambled, Fried, or Hard-Boiled Eggs
Breakfast Burritos
Quiche
English Muffins
Homemade Bread
Biscuits
Muffins
Breakfast Cookies
Breakfast Potatoes
Mini Apple Pies or Turnovers

 Lunch options:

Sandwiches or Wraps (Tuna salad, egg salad, chicken salad, turkey salad, leftover meats, grilled cheese, blt, pb&j)
Quesadillas
Smoothies
Leftovers from dinner
Salad
Baked Potato
Homemade Pizza Pockets

Suppers Your Family Will Love

Need ideas for your weekly meal plan? It’s time for another weekly menu.  I enjoy menu planning because of  the simplicity it provides for my life. It enables me to decrease my grocery shopping excursions to twice a month and it allows me to  have more free time to focus on my family and home. For ideas in the weekly meal plan, we’ll be focusing on a variety of family meals. You’ll find the recipes on the weekly meal plan also available on my Recipe Index page with a grocery list included.

I’ve been a full-time working mom since my oldest (turning 21 in August) was born. I worked up until two weeks before he was born then went back to work when he was just 6 weeks old. Not because I wanted to, because financially I had to. And I still had to manage putting a healthy meal on the table for my family.

I’ve learned after having four kids to divide, manage and multi-task in everything I do in the kitchen when it comes to meal planning for my family. That’s when I feel in love with my crock pot and freezer cooking.  I soon discovered how to make some wonderful family meals that I didn’t have to spend a whole lot of time cooking. It’s absolutely wonderful  and stress free for a mom to come home from work  and your family dinner is made and ready.

Freezer Cooking and the Crock Pot

You can start off your freezer cooking with the focus being on one main ingredient like beef or chicken. Most people like to use chicken because it tends to  be cheaper and it’s always on sale. Browse your local grocery store ads for the best deals for your family. Need some ideas on freezer cooking meals for the crock pot? How about:

• Chili Cilantro Lime Chicken
• Sweet and Tangy Meatballs
• Sausage and Peppers
• Teriyaki Chicken
• 5-Spice Beef
• Lazy Day Stew
• Shredded Chicken and Chicken Stock
• Browned Ground Beef–Italian and Mexican Style

Grab yourself some zip-loc freezer bags and allow yourself at least 2 to 3 hours in your schedule. Once you get the hang of meal prepping and putting the ingredients together, it may only take you an hour or two. You can do your grocery shopping the day before for all your ingredients so you don’t feel so overwhelmed or the morning of if you have the extra time and feel comfortable. 

Depending on the size of your family, you can divide up each recipe into two zip-loc freezer bags allowing your family 10 meals for the freezer.

Need help with meal planning? Check out A Busy Mom’s Guide to Family Meal Planning. It’s 68-pages of creative ways to provide good quality meals for your family while maintaining your food budget.

One of my favorites childhood memories of Sunday Supper was sitting around the huge family table and having Roast, potatoes, carrots and gravy. It was such a comforting meal, our family had it often on Sundays. Growing up, my grandmother made it in the oven and the amazing aroma in the house made you drool with anticipation of a great comforting meal.

I’ve been know to make a Sunday roast or two in the oven but now my preferred method of cooking it is in the crock pot. I can chop and prepare all the ingredients the night before, put the crock pot in the fridge and it’s ready to go Sunday morning when I’m ready to pull it out and cook it. Of course having Roast for dinner is not just for Sundays. That’s the wonderful thing about cooking it in the crock pot. You can make a Roast any day of the week with a crock pot.

I usually only buy roasts on rare occasions unless I can find a good deal like the BOGO (Buy One Get One FREE) meat sale Raley’s has from time to time or in this case, I used my Raley’s Rewards to purchase two roasts. This was a great deal because the roasts were on sale too.

Perfect Crock Pot Roast

Ingredients:

• Roast (large enough to feed your family–but always think ahead for leftovers for future meal ideas)
• 1 onion (I prefer yellow)
• potatoes, (enough for your family)
• carrots (enough for your family)
• 1 Tablespoon (brown gravy mix–homemade recipe sharing later)
• 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste
• mushrooms (optional–I had a few on hand in the fridge)

Directions:

1. Peel your potatoes and carrots.  Slice your potatoes in half then into fourths.  We like ours cut into chunks but others prefer lengthwise.
2. Now, slice your carrots.  We slice the carrots the same way we do the potatoes. This helps cook all the vegetables evenly.
3.  Place the carrots and potatoes into the crock-pot.  Lightly salt & pepper them.  Add in 1/4 cup water.
4. Place your roast on top of the vegetables. Add the 1 Tablespoon gravy mix and sprinkle on top of roast. Pour the Worcestershire sauce over the gravy.  It is okay if some of the dry gravy remains.  As the roast cooks, it will liquefy.
5. Salt & pepper the roast.
6. Finally, peel the onion and cut it in half.  Take 3-4 outer layer sections and lay across the roast for flavor.
7. Put the lid on the crock-pot and cook on low over night (8-10 hours).
8. Optional: You can use the liquid from the roast at the bottom of the crock pot to make a wonderful gravy.

Now doesn’t this look delicious!

Recipe Note: **Leftovers will be added to Tuesday night’s meal.