Freezer Meals Shopping and Cooking Day 1

So let me start by telling you a little bit about the grocery shopping part. I usually plan meals out for a whole month on a white board calendar I have and then break up the shopping into twice a month on pay day the 15th and 30th (we usually have to make an extra shopping trip or two in between but they are usually a quick run and Dan will pick up the items on his way home from work.) So for these two weeks I decided I would plan meals exclusively from what we had in the freezer and pantry to make room for the freezer meals.  And it helped so much with the grocery budget when I ended up buying close to 35 lbs of chicken. I was able buy our grocery needs for two weeks including, lunches, snacks, Easter (including a ham),household items (baby wipes, diapers, etc.) fruits\veggies and enough food to make 18 freezer meals for less than $300.

I ended up buying the groceries in the morning of April 15th and spending the afternoon cooking 2 chicken stir fry meals, 2 chicken penne pastas, 2 crock pot chicken enchilada soups and cooking the other 14 chicken breasts in the crock pot.  I finished the rest of the meals on the 16th in the morning. So I ended up taking 2 days of cooking to do the chicken meals but they were both only half days. 

All the freezer meal supplies unloaded.

The chicken stir fry cooling.

The 18 freezer meals I was able to make.

The picture above includes (starting top left and going counter clockwise):

• 2 Crock pot chicken enchilada soups
• 4 Chicken chimichanga meals
• 3 White chicken chili soups
• 2 Chicken pot pies
•  3 Chicken enchiladas
• 2 Chicken penne pastas
• 2 Chicken stir fry meals

Tomorrow is May 30th so I plan to go a purchase the list of groceries.  It's a smaller list and will be good because I'm out of dinners from the freezer and pantry.  I'll actually have to buy more food this time around ;).  Luckily the chicken recipes were the more expensive ones. I'll let you know more about how the next step goes! Feel free to ask and questions!

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