Holiday Meal Planning Made Easy With The Deck The Freezer Party!

As you all probably know I am a big fan of Meal Planning here at our home. We stay so busy and we are constantly on the go so it can be hard to figure out the ‘What’s for dinner?’ question every single day. I have found it so helpful to have a stash of freezer meals on hand for those super BUSY nights and when I saw this Deck the Freezer Party pop up in my email I was so excited that I just had to share!

I know that even though our schedules are already BUSY things always seem to get busier around the holidays… and this year will be NO EXCEPTION as we are preparing for OUR NEW HOME, which has had yet another delay… y’all please say a prayer that I don’t lose my sanity over here!

On top of all of that NONSENSE, I know we will have a lot of planning, crafting, and baking going on for the HOLIDAYS. I also planned to host a Polar Express Party in our new home but it is looking like we might not be able to do that either… I am seriously about to cry because I really want to do this again.

One thing I won’t need to cry about is what we will be having for dinner. I just downloaded the FREE Meal Plan and boy do is it look good! I will probably add a few more recipes to my list because we have a lot of people to feed and a lot of busy days ahead but this party is going to be a great way to get started!

 

What are you waiting for?

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I know I’ll feel good knowing that I have some healthy meals ready to go because during the hustle and bustle of the holidays it can cause us to throw out meal plans out the window and we may find that we are eating more fast-food which is not good for our budgets or our health. That’s where this Deck the Freezer Party comes in to save the holidays and make things a little less stressful!

What will you get?

When you sign up for the Deck the Freezer Party you will get a meal plan, recipes, shopping list and everything you need to prepare up to 6 freezer meals for those busy holiday nights.

The party begins on November 4th, so be sure to sign up for the Deck the Freezer Party today. I hope to see you there!


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 **This post does contain affiliate links to products and/or services that we use. If you happen to click through a link and make a purchase we may earn a teensy-weensy small commission (at NO EXTRA cost to you) if a purchase is made through these links. These links help to support our family, our blog, and our homeschooling mission. This means that we can keep bringing you great recipes, ideas, and tips for FREE! Click HERE for a full disclaimer.

 –Thank you!

Celebrating Our New Home with Some New Flavors

Last week I had shared some of our adventures with you and we had planned to have breaded chicken, Super Yummy Caulitaters and Oven Roasted Green Beans.

That was the plan until the UPS man showed up with our Hello Fresh delivery… I had completely forgotten that Mr. Awesome and I had picked out a couple of meals. Actually, I had let him pick out the meals and I thought they had sent the wrong ones until Mr. Awesome verified that they were indeed the meals he had chosen.

Then came the timing… we definitely didn’t plan this delivery out well. Mr. Awesome had an out of town meeting for the weekend which, of course, also happened to coincide with a very important date we had been waiting on for quite some time now. I was afraid that the meals might not be quite as good if we waited until he got back home and I really wanted him to try them since he was the one who selected them.

We decided to go ahead and make both meals for Thursday’s dinner along with some fried chicken for the kids. Mr. Awesome also grabbed a couple of steaks in the chance that he wouldn’t care for the meals. I moved the planned dinner to another day as we already had all of the ingredients here for it.

So what was in the box?

We had ingredients for the Maple and Rosemary Pork Cutlets with Couscous and a Creamy Apple Salad and also for the Pork Teriyaki Meatballs with Carrots and Zucchini over Sesame Lime Rice. It would’ve been a very hard decision to decide which one to make first as they both looked amazing.

After reading over the recipe cards I decided to start with the pork teriyaki meatballs.

All of the ingredients looked fresh and the directions were fairly easy to follow.

After prepping the veggies I made the meatballs and got the jasmine rice started before starting on the next meal.

The ingredients for the pork cutlets also looked very fresh and very appetizing. The recipe instructions were fairly easy to follow and I went ahead and got all of the vegetables prepped and ready

I also started the couscous which was something I had never made before and then got to work with the remaining preparations for the meals.

Things got a little crazy in the kitchen as I was browning meatballs and preparing the pork cutlets to the directions. It can be pretty intimidating when working with a recipe that you’ve never made before but when you’re doing it times two things definitely get crazy.

About 30 minutes later I had finished preparing both meals and had the fried chicken ready to eat as well.

How did they turn out?

Here is a picture of the maple and rosemary pork cutlets with couscous and creamy apple salad:

I really didn’t think the flavors of the salad were going to come together but after sitting in the bowl for a few minutes while I was plating the food they really did complement each other very well.

And here is a picture of the pork teriyaki meatballs with the carrots and zucchini over sesame lime rice again another flavor combination that I wasn’t sure was going to be a big hit.

What did everyone think?

Both meals were a big hit with everyone even with Mr. awesome who decided to save the steaks for another day. I added a little bit of Sriracha sauce to my plate and I loved the contrast between the spicy and sweet.

We had never tried couscous before but we did like it and we will be adding this new food to our menu plans in the future.

The one thing Mr. awesome did not care for was the carrots, so if I do make the meatball meal again I will definitely sauté him some zucchini minus carrots for his plate.

All in all, we loved the meals and the freshness of the vegetables was great. The only thing that we both noticed was that the pork cutlets were a little bit on the tough side but other than that the meals were wonderful and we will definitely be ordering again soon.

These meals were a great way to celebrate our good news a little bit early without the expense of going out and dragging all of the kids out to a restaurant. The recipes are fairly simple and I do believe I will be able to re-create them again in the kitchen and add my own touches to make them a meal that we will enjoy even more the next time around.

So have you tried hello fresh yet? If so, what is your favorite meal so far?

We had planned on publishing this post last weekend but our closing was delayed!

**This post does contain affiliate links to products and/or services that we use. If you happen to click through a link and make a purchase we may earn a teensy-weensy small commission (at NO EXTRA cost to you) if a purchase is made through these links. These links help to support our family, our blog, and our homeschooling mission. This means that we can keep bringing you great recipes, ideas, and tips for FREE! Click HERE for a full disclaimer.

 –Thank you!

Get A Little Peace Of Mind When You Get A Berkey

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I just love Facebook, don’t you? I would NEVER know about anything going on around me if it weren’t for social media… well, I’d know a lot less because I usually have friends who can keep me informed of important happenings as I don’t like to watch the TV.

I would probably not learn about many things though and some of them might be a good thing to not know about but the article I read this morning was something I definitely wanted to be aware of. There has been a confirmed case of Legionnaires’ disease in a city near us.  I might now have found out about the toxic baby food either if it weren’t for FB.

After doing a little research I am feeling much better about the whole situation although I am still praying for the person(s) affected by it. I am thanking GOD that we were able to buy our Berkey system earlier this year as this is one more thing we can worry a little less about! Our Berkey will definitely be making the move to our new house with us.

Use CODE KIRBY5 for a 5% discount on your order!

You can read more about the history of Legionnaires’ disease and its name HERE.

Continue reading “Get A Little Peace Of Mind When You Get A Berkey”

Toxic-Free Tuesday: Toxic Baby Food?

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This article sent a wide range of emotions through me when I saw it a few days back. I mean how on earth would this have ever been OK? Our precious babies depend on us for EVERYTHING and we depend on these companies to provide us with quality goods and products to help us care for our babies.

We’ve all read or heard about all of the nasty stuff in our foods and we all know how important it is to check the ingredients but many of us would probably just assume that baby food would be SAFE… the fact that these companies are doing this and putting our children’s lives in danger really makes me MAD.

Here is just a little from the article:

[A new investigation by the nonprofit healthy babies bright future reveals in a study 95% of baby foods tested contain toxic chemicals that can lower IQ. 

The study found arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury in dozens of the 168 baby food products tested, one in four baby foods contained all four metals.] Continue reading “Toxic-Free Tuesday: Toxic Baby Food?”

Life Update: Dentist Appointments, Bread Store, and New Glasses

This post actually started out as a different post but it got so long that I broke it down and decided to share this part of it with you today!

Things have been SO CRAZY BUSY here lately… I can’t tell you about everything we’ve been up to but I will let you know about a few things we have been doing down below. We are so excited about EVERYTHING that is going on and we just can’t wait to SPILL THE BEANS with EVERYONE!

For now, though I’ll tell you about some of our latest adventures here in our little cabin.

A trip to the movies

We took them ALL to see the new Lion King and it was so GOOD! My oldest son was a HUGE Lion King fan when he was little… and I believe he may still be very partial to the original but my younger kids only knew about the new Disney version of the series.

Here’s a trailer for it if you haven’t seen it yet:

Continue reading “Life Update: Dentist Appointments, Bread Store, and New Glasses”