Apparently, we are a roll.  The bad news is eventually the “roll” has to end, right?

I’m hoping it won’t be this week. 

The ridiculously time consuming Chicken Rolls turned out pretty well with a significant nod from Chris.  He gave them “once a week” status. Though he did say that with a  mischievous twinkle in his eye given my rant about how long the silly things took to make.   They were good fortunately since the recipe {once again} makes enough for the Duggars.  Chris looked at the stove and calmly asked if someone was coming over for dinner. 

I think we had around 18 left over.  Yes, I did say eighteen.

Seriously.

So I took the tip from Jolene {thanks!} and froze them on the baking sheet.  This will be a meal I can pull from the freezer when I need to!

The Porcupine Meatballs were a win too and really turned out to be a really frugal and semi-healthy meal!  We used ground turkey for about $2.50/lb, brown minute rice, and regular old tomato soup.  If you haven’t ever given Porcupine Meatballs a try {or maybe you’ve never even heard of it, like me} it’s worth a shot.  It was super quick to whip up too, contrary to the Chicken Rolls!

Our Meatball Dinner inspired some “On Top of Old Smoky” singing afterwards. I listened as I cleaned up the kitchen, and I was extremely impressed with all the lyrics that Chris knew from the old song.  My memory of the song didn’t go much past the first line or two. 

It wasn’t until later when I joined them in the living room and saw Haylee reading the song lines off the computer screen did I realize the source of his “good memory.” 

What would we do without google?

Cooking for Sunday lunch usually does NOT happen for me, but it is something I’m trying to do more.  This week was so easy since I implemented my crock pot clothespin liner trick with my Ranch Pork Chops {or chop sticks as Wade kept calling them}.

I got up Sunday morning, grabbed it from the fridge, pulled off the clothespin, spread it out in the crockpot and wala! We were ready to go.  Sundays are already a mess of craziness trying to get everyone ready and to church on time, so I really don’t want to add too much more to the craziness.

Up on the menu this week…

Monday… Cheeseburger Pie 

Tuesday… Black Bean Quesadillas

Wednesday… Saturday Chicken

Thursday… Calzone

Friday… Miller’s Birthday Party

Saturday… SS Party

Sunday… Easter Dinner at B&R’s

As you can see we are par-tay-ing this weekend!  Wahoo!

My time this week…

5 minutes getting my materials ready to go &

47 minutes prepping FOUR meals and cleaning up.

This is week TWELVE of prepping my week’s worth of dinners in about an hour.  I can’t quite believe that I’ve been doing this for 12 weeks now!  Sometimes I feel like I’m a broken record, but I think this is something everyone should at least TRY!  It has transformed our dinnertime.   I am not stressing.  We are not eating chicken every other night anymore, and we have cut down our eating out drastically.  We also went from eating in the Living Room most nights to eating around the table.  What a concept.

It is definitely a no brainer to me.  Giving up an hour on Sunday afternoon gives me my dinners for the week in the fridge and ready to go. 

Uh,   So. Totally. Worth. It.

Here’s how you do it.

Most any recipe can be almost completely prepped ahead of time in order to save tons of time each night.

Follow the recipe up until the point that the food is put in the oven.  At that point, cover your dish and pop it in the fridge. 

Easy peasy! 

Click away for more Menu Monday Inspiration…