When planning doesn't go as planned

One of the complications I came across with the previous batch-cooking and menu planning is I wound up with a couple of extra meals. Sometimes I find I have to use a fresh ingredient before it spoils and it doesn't go with the planned meals, or we don't have 3 or 4 people at home to eat an entire freezer meal, or we just want something else. Whatever the case, the last time around I did wind up pushing a meal or two from the old plan into the new plan. Which meant I didn't need to cook quite as much this time around, and I could push batch-cooking off one more day.

I cooked two weeks of meals in 2 days instead of all in one day, last Tuesday and Wednesday.

Here's what I cooked and how I portioned it for the freezer:

cooked 2.5 lbs ground beef with diced onions, cooked a large pot of chili con carne with most of the meat

• froze 2 cups of cooked beef and onions to use in beef and bean burritos
• froze 2 meals of chili con carne
• ate 1 meal of chili con carne

cooked pinto beans, about 2 quarts once cooked

• added some to chili
• froze rest of cooked beans to use in beef and bean burritos later in week

3 chicken breasts, simmered in water, froze some as is, cooked other 2 portions with veggies and seasonings

• froze one portion of diced chicken in stock
• ate 1 meal of chicken and dumplings
• froze filling for chicken pot pie

made double batch of pizza crust and double batch of pizza sauce and froze

• one pizza was made last Friday
• the dough and sauce are in the freezer for another pizza this coming Friday

I'll be making scratch hot dog buns and dinner rolls this Tuesday, to use Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

Here's how we're eating what I've cooked and frozen:

Monday -- We had hot dogs on my daughters actual birthday (a Monday), using frozen buns and hot dogs that I had intended to use the previous week. We also had tangerines and leftover birthday cake.

Tuesday -- chili con carne with scratch cornbread, plus a salad of tomatoes and lettuce from the birthday picnic

Wednesday -- chicken and dumplings with a salad of leftover lettuce/tomatoes, newly shredded carrots and chopped cabbage

Thursday -- just my husband and I for dinner. The meals I made and froze serve 4. Not wanting leftovers, I made scrambled eggs and bacon, plus baked potatoes, and steamed broccoli for dinner for 2.

Friday -- pepperoni pizza #1, green fig-applesauce, and steamed spinach

Saturday -- beef and bean burritos in homemade tortillas with fresh tomatoes and avocados, plus Cole slaw

Sunday --chili con carne over leftover cornbread with a side of buttered carrots

Here's where we are now. Monday -- baked potatoes,. topped with garden greens, cheese sauce, and bacon bits. I had previously thought to use the chicken frozen in stock in a chicken salad or chicken soup, but the rest of the package of bacon needed cooking/eating. So I switched to baked potatoes with toppings for the main tonight. We had pureed pumpkin as a side.

Tuesday -- hot dog cookout on scratch buns

Wednesday -- easy chicken and vegetable soup, using the cooked chicken in stock, seasonings, frozen mixed veggies and pasta, with scratch dinner rolls

Thursday -- chicken pot pie, using the cooked chicken and vegetable filling made when I cooked the chicken and dumplings.

Friday -- pepperoni pizza #2, vegetables on the side

Saturday -- chili con carne, leftover dinner rolls

Sunday -- tuna melt sandwiches, fresh fruit

The big birthday celebration

Here we are at the end of the week, and I'm still in progress of returning to normal routines. Our big birthday celebration spanned a couple of days.

The first of the days was last Saturday, as I'd told you all before. My daughters really wanted a picnic in a local park. Leading up to Saturday, the weather was looking iffy at best. Saturday morning we actually had some sunshine. Then some rain returned. So we made a plan for all to meet at our family home and decide in the moment. As some good luck would have it, there was a break in the rain right around lunchtime. So we headed over to this local park. There are paved walking trails, some picnic tables (both under a cover and in the open), and a zip line. We had the park completely to ourselves. And there was just enough time for us to eat our lunch of BLTs, tangerines, potato chips, and apple wedges, followed by some walking and play on the zip line.  When the rain returned we headed home for cake and gifts. 

The cake

So I need to preface this with some info on my daughters and their cake-baking. They have a reputation (in our family and within in our church family) of baking some pretty outlandish cakes. One cake that has been an item of conversation is the yellow cake, frosted with cooked fudge icing, topped with homemade caramel sauce and some whipped cream.

The cake was my daughters plan. One daughter wanted chocolate chip brownies, the other want confetti cake. The compromise was a cake with a chocolate chip brownie base, topped by three layers of confetti cake, with chocolate ganache in between layers and chocolate frosting on the top and sides. The very top of the cake had a rainbow of sprinkles. And around the base of the cake, my daughters piled up some gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins. The idea was gold at the end of the rainbow. It was a very, very rich cake. Oh well, it was a celebration after all. 

After my daughters opened their gifts, we all sat around the table talking until very late. I think my days of staying up late and then getting up the next day like normal have about come to an end. On Sunday we dragged ourselves out of bed to get to church on time.

So that was the big (in group size) celebration. Monday was my daughters' actual birthday. For the last several years, when we've celebrated with the larger family and friend group on a weekend, we've also done something fun, but smaller, on the day of, if their birthday falls on a weekday.

We hadn't made any firm plans for Monday. One daughter doesn't work on Mondays, the other daughter took Monday off, as it was her birthday, and my husband took the day off to be with our daughters on "their" day. When we all got up, we just sort of impromptu decided to go to the vintage district for the afternoon. And my husband actually wanted to come along with us. (Maybe it was the promise of pie that convinced him.) So we very quickly made some peanut butter sandwiches, grabbed the last of the apple wedges and potato chips, filled our water bottles, and we were off for a rainy day adventure, complete with a car picnic as the rain was significant.

Many of the stores were decked out for Easter. Even the shops that are solely vintage items curated their displays with a focus on spring. The entire town seemed to be feeling the spring vibe, too. Pink flowered trees in bloom and large pots of primroses, tulips and daffodils dotted the sidewalks.

By mid-afternoon we were ready for a slice of pie. While I can make pie at home for substantially less than buying pie from a shop, the fun is really in choosing the type of pie we each would like. So I figured a piece of pie each was part of the fun of celebrating. And with pie in our tummies, it was time to get back on the road and head home.

This was a big birthday for my daughters, and both of them had expressed that they were not looking forward to it. By the end of Monday, they had both changed how they felt about this marker in their lives. Thank you for reading along as I recalled the highlights of their celebration.

By the way, happy spring, y'all!