This is crazy Back-to-School week for us (and most of the rest of the country, it seems). Tabby starts school Thursday and as coincidence would have it, our sitter is off this week, so we are farming out the kids to various helping hands throughout the week, including my mom, my aunt, a family friend and Matt, who has today. We are also heading out of town this weekend and have to get ready for that. The kids are also starting gymnastics (tonight).
But compared to last week, it’s an easy one, so we have lots simmering on the literal stove rather than the metaphoric one:
- I picked up some frozen oatmeal (all natural whole ingredients, steel cut oats) from Costco; not a bad price, but certainly something I can (and probably will) replicate on my own, maybe using large sized muffin tins for freezing the correct portions? Anyhow, defrosted with a little fruit, these are AWESOME.
- We made delicious Indian Hand Pies on Sunday night. They took a fair while, and aren’t something I’d do any weeknight, but the product was EXCELLENT and these would be great to freeze for on-the-go (literally) dinner or lunch anytime. Nutritional calculations I did revealed they’re only about 350 calories each, which considering they’re very filling is great! Next time I will probably just make my own dough since you need to re-roll the piecrusts anyhow to get the 12 rounds you require.
- We are making plenty of old favorites this week to use up ingredients we have on hand including: sweet & sour meatballs (last night), quinoa stuffed peppers (tonight), sloppy joes (tomorrow night) and bbq chicken burritos.
- We are going to make the newly found (and fab) banana pancakes for our breakfast while up in the mountains with the group this weekend. Plus bacon. Hopefully that will be a hit. Usually anything paired with bacon is.
And like that, August is almost over. I would have to say that my month-long meal plan was a decided success. It was a big time-saver knowing to just jump over to a list to find out what’s for dinner each week. And mostly, we followed the plan. Last week was an exception … I didn’t even grocery shop. And we had to add in here and there for unexpected events, but mostly, very successful. I want to try it again for the next few weeks before the next wave of crazy starts.
I must be the only one having a hard time with this back to school in August thing. In NY, school ends at the end of June and doesn’t start back up until Labor Day. I like it that way. Here in California, the local district started school 2 weeks ago. In early August. Something just seems so wrong about that to me. The last week in August I can kind of get, although I still think that there are 2 more weeks of summer!
It should be “normal” for me, but I rather agree with you … wish school went from Labor Day to Memorial Day … that seems sensible. We’re just a bit off here, usually starting a week or two before Labor Day and ending just after Memorial Day, but especially now as a parent summer/family time is all too fleeting.
I am so adding those Indian Hand Pies to my list. Thank you!