Num Nummies Monday 22 October 2012

Just about everything this week will be coming from the freezer. I have had a cold for a few days, and woke up during Saturday night with a nasty throat, so I don’t really feel like cooking much. Thankfully there is plenty in the freezer – both fully cooked meals (like the casserole) and uncooked but ready to go (like the pork and apple for the slow cooker).


Monday: Chicken and potato casserole (from the freezer)
Tuesday: Slow cooker – Pork and apple. Adding sweet potato this time too.(Pork from the freezer)
Wednesday: Slow cooker - Honey garlic chicken with rice (Chicken from the freezer)
Thursday: Sloppy joes mixture on baked potatoes (Sloppy joe mix from freezer)
Friday: Homemade meatlovers pizza, with fresh dough. (Everything in fridge or freezer already)
Saturday: Sausages and potato, on the barbeque (Sausages from the freezer)
Sunday: Roast lamb (from the freezer)


Wednesday’s dinner is a new one. I am hoping it tastes good, because I would like to include it in my list of ‘dump’ recipes for OAMC.

Imogen will be eating the same as us, except Friday night. We usually eat pizza after the two girls are asleep for the evening.

Breakfasts will be cold cereal for Imogen and my husband, as that's what they love. I have been stocking up on the cereal they like lately, as I found some good prices. I will be eating toast and some granola, when I get around to making it in the slow cooker. There are also some waffles in the freezer that I whipped up a few weeks back, and some fruit loaf from our local baker. It is soooo yummy. I buy it everytime we happen to be there, if there is a loaf from the day before, which get marked down.

I am trying to get more organised with lunches, but at the moment they are pretty much peanut butter sandwiches or wraps for Imogen, and something similar or leftovers for me after she goes down for her nap.

So that's this week.


I'm not really organised yet in the photo department, so here is one from a few months ago. Perhaps my daughter won't love it in a few years but this is such a classic shot of her at breakfast time...

And yeah, it's not a great photo, but I love it. My dad is always shocked by how much she tries to fit in at one time! Imogen is eating two Weetbix, by the way. I usually add some hot water to soften them up, then add milk.

She does love her Weetbix.

I would ask 'How many do you do?' but that possibly won't make sense if you aren't from Australia.

So I'll simply ask, what is your favourite breakfast over summer? I'm planning ahead so will add your suggestions to my rotations!

Thanks for dropping by today.

I will be trying very hard to link up with orgjunkie today on her Menu Plan Monday - first time ever!

Recipe organisation

I have spent bits and pieces of the last week going through my recipe collection. I have a tendency of bookmarking, pinning or printing recipes from the internet, or ripping pages out of magazines, of great-looking/sounding recipes and never quite getting to them.

So I am being firm! I have thrown away quite a few recipes that I simply cannot see myself cooking in the next month, if ever. The rest I will be attempting to cook and bake my way through over the next little while, especially the sweet ones. Although, "the next little while" is really only 5 weeks, as the baby is due soon after that!

I am also organising my OAMC recipes. I came across this post earlier this year - Putting together your Meal Plan Binder for the year. Mackenzie at  Bold turquoise organises her WHOLE year of dinners, printing all the recipes required for each month and putting everything into one folder. So if her family eats a particular meal every month, then there are 12 copies in the folder. She has a menu plan at the start of each section for the month. So organised. And it really does look so good!

Me, I'm simply aiming to get all my recipes in one folder, with a separate folder for OAMC. Not separate copies for each month though. Currently I have my recipes in a few different locations, and I think it would be a lot easier to have copies all together. I have a recipes book from my Mum that I add all my absolute favourite meals to. There are lots of recipes in there that won't make it to OAMC folder though.

I am also trying to get my hard copies of cooking forms in order too. I have several that I really like using on a regular basis, and several not so often. I have soft copies saves on my computer, and also pinned on Pinterest, but I would like to have at least one blank hard copy in my folders

These are the sites that I love for their forms:

Organized home - household notebook

Life your way

30 Day Cafe

Life as a mom - this is my favourite one as it totally focuses on OAMC. Very helpful when I first started, and  I find the forms really easy to use.

once a month mom is my go-to website for anything OAMC related. There are detailed monthly plans and recipes that make it all seem very straightforward. Living in a different part of the world however, means that those menu plans aren't quite right for my family! I flick through months that correspond a little closer to the season we are in, and pick recipes from those.


How do you organise your recipes?

Num Nummies Mondays

Welcome to the first post for Mondays at Unwinding at My Place!

Meffy has learnt that a different word for food - 'num nummies'. We can say that it's lunchtime or dinnertime, to not much response, but say that there are num nummies and she gets super excited!

So, on Num Nummies Mondays, I will post about our menu plan for the coming week, sometimes a new recipe I have tried, sometimes about my Once a Month Cooking (OAMC) efforts, sometimes really about anything food related. :)

The weekend before last I made my second attempt at OAMC for our household.

I did a OAMC stint about 6 weeks ago, and we had just finished everything up. And there were some yummy meals in that batch! Definate keepers for almost every OAMC time.

These were the meals and and other items I planned to make, and final results by Monday evening:

1. Chicken and black bean filling x 4 (we really enjoy this, plus Imogen eats it)



2. Chicken potato casserole x 2



3. Sour cream chicken enchildas x 2 (Imogen does not eat this, as it has some chillies in it)



4. Tuna casserole x 5 (they are only serves for me and Imogen, hubby is a non-fish eater)



5. Santa fe chicken x1 (I made 2 of these last Monday afternoon, and we had one for dinner)



6. Cheesy meatballs x 2



7. Vegetable sauce for pasta - not yet



8. Sausages x 2



9. Mashed potato and bacon x 4



10. Muffins for hubby for work x 12 texan size (but I only ended up freezing 8, and Imogen and I ate the others)



11. Two trays of brownies - not yet



12. No bake granola bars - not yet



13. Banana bread - not yet

We also bought some meat from the butcher to freeze for the month, with some lamb chops, steak and rissoles. At the moment my recipes for OAMC are heavy on the chicken side.

I was going to insert a photo of my freezer here, but I haven't quite worked that out yet. Next week for sure!

I haven't worked out how to link up the recipes from their original source, but I will do that this week, and have them linked up as part of my menu plan next week.

I did end up making a tray of brownies throughout the week, and have managed to eat half of them :). Yesterday morning I made up another batch of muffins (6 x Texan size, banana and choc chip), another brownie tray, and 15 no-bake granola bars. Yummo! 


I also made up a double batch of vegetable sauce this evening while dinner was in the oven. Full of goodness! I look forward to my own vegie patch later this year so we can eat even better foods.

Here is our meal plan for the week:


Monday: Chicken potato casserole


Tuesday: Cheesy meatballs and vegetable sauce with pasta


Wednesday: Steak with mashed potato bake


Thursday: Chicken enchildas


Friday: Chicken and black bean filling on wraps


Saturday: Rissoles and baked potatoes


Sunday: Probably cheese on toast


So that's how we're lookin' for the coming week. Next Monday I will have a couple of photos,  maybe more. I am planning to post about a recipe, which will likely be something sweet. :)

What are you eating this week?