Thrifty Missy

 How thrifty can you be under $120? Aaannnnndd---GO!

No I can't complain about much, but I sure wish I could cook. And just because I can't, I think that's why God blessed me with a husband who can cook a five-star meal with barely two ingredients.

This little beauty was a life-saver!

But still, how can I make sure something is ready for him to eat when he gets home from work? We get a steady stream of pizzas from "a guy we know", but man cannot live on pizza alone. So I set out on a quest to find some way of compensating for my lack of culinary skills.

Thus came the Crock Pot! My friend at work lent me her little recipe book (as seen here, thanks!!) and I sat my fanny at the kitchen table and wrote my grocery list. Early one Saturday morning, I rode to my local Krogers, got a small black coffee and filled my cart with all kinds of delicious foods. I even grabbed ingredients for salsa and spent 5 lovely minutes trying to explain to the cashier what tomatillos are.

When I got home, the kitchen was already spotless so I got all my supplies out and chopped, diced and boiled like a mad woman. The next time I do this kind of marathon I am most certainly (a) going to frame my receipt and (b) take thousands of pictures to share.

At the end of that following Sunday (I was too tired by 10 pm so I threw in the towel), I had 29  meals in my deep freezer! How magical is that? And the best part is, now I can cook! Since all of the bags are labelled, all I have to do is set the slow cooker on "low" before I leave for work and make some pasta or rice and veggies when I get home.

Label clearly

Note to self, line baskets

What's left in the freezer

Where I really saved a lot of money was in having left over seasoning packets for things like Carne Asada and such. Any time the hubby and I take a trip to Jungle Jim's, I keep an eye on the discount racks as they tend to have some really great treasures every once in a while. I also took time the weekend before to can my own pinto beans so that saved me somewhere around seventy cents per can of beans especially when it only cost me around 2 pennies per pint. Since we made salsa while I was putting bags together, I had fresh salsa for the recipes that called for it and that afternoon I pressure canned 16 pints.

Freezer meal list

All in all, this tiresome adventure has left me with 29 freezer meals, 16 pints of salsa, and a very happy Hubby Crockett. Do you have any good recipes? Post them here!

Love,
Betty Crockett
XOXOXO