February Cook-at-Home Challenge

[Kat]

I made BLTs on homemade bread last night and baked some fries from the freezer as a side. Still eating leftover birthday cake now and then, too. Lunch today will be the rest of the potato soup and some bread. I think tonight I will make that macaroni and cheese...

[earthshepherd]

Pita bread (homemade) with hummus tonight. The mideast version of fast food! Really good!

[Anne Lee]

Frozen pizza and salad tonight. I have to figure out the food I want to bring with me while I travel. Hmmm... salad, lentils/brown rice, tortilla, fruit, cereal and for dinner...?

[Bastelmutti]

Anne Lee,
We have done pack of tostadas/bag of tortilla chips, can of refried beans & jar of salsa before - doesn't even need to be heated, but it's a bonus if you have a microwave. Plus shredded cheese and/or sour cream if you have a cooler.

[Kat]

I did follow through and make that homemade mac n cheese...and boy was it ever good! :-) I made some lima beans from the freezer to go with it, and there is enough of both for lunch today. I have to teach tonight, so I pulled some BBQ pork from the freezer so DH could eat a sandwich and some chips for dinner. I am pulling out some baby back ribs to thaw and then tomorrow I will put a rub on them and cook them for dinner.

[Stella]

We did go for lunch yesterday with our valentine's money from grandma. This month I am aiming to eliminate eating out because I am tired. I am not counting date night coffee. Zach and I want to take advantage of date nights before the baby comes. That is a worthy expense to us.

[TMC]

I am so in this month. We did pretty good last month.

You all would have been proud of my ingenuity today. DD is in a musical and had rehearsal until 5:30, than our first 4-H meeting for our family was at 6:00, and 1/2 hour away. I made wedding soup in a thermos, grilled cheese sandwiches and wrapped them in aluminum foil and met them at the meeting. DH and DD sat in the back and ate their dinner. We didn't know it but the leader had everybody pitch in for pizza. It doesn't matter though because with DDs restrictive dietary guidelines these days (DX severe reflux) she couldn't have eaten the pizza anyway. She's OK with having her own food because she has learned that eating this way has stopped her bellyaches.

[Rosemary]

Meals planned for the next week. Tacos tonight and tomorrow night. The remains of the beans will go into black bean soup on the weekend.

I was noticing that we've been eating a lot of dried beans this past month (and we normally eat them regularly, so I really mean a lot)! It must be partially due to it being winter, and the general lack of fresh vegetables. We eat plenty of green stuff, but not nearly as much as we do in the summer, when the farmers' markets are full of a huge array of beautiful vegetables. Plus, hot foods are more appealing than cold salads this time of year, and beans figure prominently in most of my soups, stews, and chilis. I've also been cooking for myself for lunches instead of grabbing something simple like a PB&J sandwich - lentil soup, black-eyed pea/veg stew, bean/squash burritos, etc.

Stella, sorry you're so tired! This is a really rough time of year to be in that last fatiguing trimester - the mornings are so dark, and it's so cold, and so annoying to be outside with all of the messy slushiness and necessary winter gear... and equally annoying to have to clean up all that winter gear along with the drips and gravel and salt that get dragged indoors. Wishing you a smooth finish to your pregnancy, and I hope your energy starts to return with the longer days!

[earthshepherd]

TMC. what a great "take-out" supper!
I had to buy a car this week, because my old clunker finally, completely, bit the dust. That knocked our cash assets down by quite a bit, so now home cooking is going to be even more important as I re-save money to catch up my savings fund. DH and I did go out to lunch yesterday to celebrate the new used PT Cruiser (it's SO cool), but we used a gift cert left over from Christmas, so technically we still haven't bought a meal out.

[leslieann]

The January challenge was great for me, even though I didn't post at all. I was reading and thinking all along and we ended up with only ONE meal out (one of those unplanned and under-appreciated times when you are at Home Depot and suddenly starving and without food in the car....fifty bucks later, we all had had lunch but I don' t like getting caught like that). Anyway, last night we dodged the bullet with DSD chanting "Let's get pizza" but because I had Planned Ahead all the stuff for beef stir fry was here, DH had that in his head, and so he cooked it. Yay for us....

So I am aiming to continue to cook at home! And I guess one lesson for me is to have the meal "plans" public so DH knows that there is something in the hopper. Thanks to the thread starter(s).