The Ground Beef Post

This week we are a little short on cash but we have a freezer full of ground beef. I sat down and thought of cheap meals we could have out of the pantry.

Here is the list I came up with:

Spaghetti: I buy tomato sauce and stewed and diced tomatoes at Costco by the case so we always have enough on hand to make pasta sauce. Spices and brown sugar finished off the sauce. Last time we were at Costco they had Whole Wheat pasta by the case so I picked up three cases.

Chili: I buy bags of beans and cook and freeze them all the time. So we have kidney beans in the freezer. The cases of Tomatoes and sauce come in handy here as well. Just add the ground beef and spices and top with a little cheese, that we also buy in bulk and the it's dinner time. I have cornmeal so I will probably make corn muffins to go with the chili.

Shepherd's Pie: Frozen mixed vegetables, some BBQ sauce, ground beef, mashed potatoes, and cheese.

Poor Man's Stroganoff and frozen broccoli: Whatever noodles I have on hand, ground beef, sour cream, mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese. It's much better than it sounds. :)

Hamburgers and baked beans: ground beef, dried onions, garlic powder, Worcester sauce mixed together and made into a patty. Topped with cheese and tomato on a hamburger bun.

"Hamburger Helper" and frozen corn: my own mix. Diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, some spices, ground beef, and shredded cheddar all mixed together with whatever noodles I have on hand.

Of course if we get tired of eating off of our ground beef stash I also have lentils and black beans and rice that I could make.

We go to Costco about every two-three months and stock up on meat, cheese, and tomato products. Sometimes we get other stuff but so far those are the things that seem to be the cheapest at Costco. It's amazing with those three things on hand how many meals I can make.
I get our rice and pasta there sometimes. I love their frozen broccoli and we get a few bags of that, but we don't really like a lot of the other frozen veggies there.

At the store yesterday all I had to buy was frozen veggies, two packs of lentils, sour cream, eggs, a couple of tomatoes, flour, grits, tortillas, hamburger buns, and bread.

I have not gotten back into making our bread yet so I still buy the best I can at the grocery store.

Just a little peek into our menu for the week. :)

Be Blessed!

So much to say

I have a few quiet minutes and I have so much to cram into this time of blogging.

First I do want to follow through on the grocery post but we have not done a lot of grocery shopping the last couple of weeks. Just eating out of the freezer/pantry.

I will try to work through it and figure something out. :)

DH is still unemployed so we are doing all we can to make our money stretch. In March it will be 2 years. It's really taught us a lot about trusting God.


I am working through a Bible study book called Becoming More Than a Good Bible Study Girl by Lysa TerKeurst. It's been a real blessing in helping me to get back on track. One thing I read that just blew my socks off was that there is a battle going on for you and your affections everyday. Of course the devil does not want you to spend quiet/quality time with God so he will fight for your time. When I read this I thought, hmm, who do I want to see win? Do I want to see the devil have ANY victory? It has really helped me to be more committed to my time with God.

We are still in limbo with homeschooling. Finally I decided I had to switch some stuff up. I thought we were going with Math U See, and we still might, but in researching I found Christian Light Education. Someone from the Well Trained Mind message board said she used it for Math and Language Arts and I thought, YES! I have tried so hard to stay away from workbook type curriculum that it never occurred to me to use them for the necessary and not so fun subjects. It will really free me up to spend more time with the fun stuff like History and Science. Also CLE really fosters independence which I so very much need from my older kids right now.

I might even order the Science books so I can make sure they are getting science and then add in more living books and hands on stuff as I get the chance. As soon as we have a little more money I am going to order the next set of God's Design For Science. I really enjoy those books for Science. For history the younger kids are using Story of the World while my 6th grader is using Mystery of History.

For writing my 6th grader is using Writing Strands. My 5th grader is doing copy work and my 3rd graders are using A Reason For Handwriting the transition book.

Lily is growing so much. She is crawling and standing and even doing a bit of cruising. She is 8m old today. I was pushing a cart around the children's museum the other day and she was holding on to the back and taking a few steps. I can't believe that it's already been 8 months! I feel like I was just having her yesterday. Last night we found her very first tooth poking through. What am I going to do with this baby?

She only weighs about 14 pounds and she is so short that her 3-6m clothes all still fit her perfectly. It's a good thing because when I looked at the 6-9m box the other day it was a pretty empty. I have some clothes but it looks like a trip to the consignment store will be in order. I love it there so it's no hard thing for me. :) I can get the cutest outfits for $2 and $3. A little more pricey than the thrift store but I know the clothes are clean and intact.

Well my quiet time is coming to an end as I hear little people stirring. I had fun sharing what is going on with us. I do love to blog.

Be Blessed!