Monday, August 14, 2017

Life Hacks | Meals with Baby

My new baby was fussy. I was completely exhausted. Company was coming. For some reason I chose to make Spaghetti and Meatballs from scratch. 
Some reason.
Some strange reason.
It ended up being two and a half-ish hours of slow going. Very, very slow going. I wanted to sit down. My back hurt. My brain hurt. But it was smelling amazing. The spicy Italian sauce mixing with the hearty meat aroma…

This meal would be perfection. Or at least, pretty good. 

By some miracle finishing touches were being achieved.  

POP.

Rain was falling all over my kitchen floor. The counters, the open shelving, in the bowls, the sink, the plates…

Slowly turning, I realized that the rain was not wet. Or rain at all. It was glass. Everywhere, and in everything. Heart beating fast, I checked the food. 

Speckled and speared with glinting shards…it was all for naught. 

I made Ethan and our company some turkey wraps and sent them to the living room while I slowly cleaned the glass out of everything. Apparently I had set my glass pan down on a burner that was still hot. 

I wanted to cry. I would’ve, if it weren’t for the guests. 

I say, “The End”, to complicated meals. At least while trying to shush a fussy Haven.

With Thing 2 on the way, I’ve been researching FREEZER MEALS. This week I started my first experiments, and I’m in love. It’s totally amazing to dump a bag of prepared ingredients in the crock pot and presto. Supper is ready in the blink of an eye. It took me a single evening to get (if I remember right) twelve meals prepared. So far, they’ve all been pretty fantastic. 

They say these type of meals are best used before six months is up, so when I hit trimester three, I will be stuffing our big freezer for all it’s worth. And I’m so excited about it. 

The garden has had a pretty hefty yield (yay for the first garden ever!!) so I’ve been canning beans, freezing corn, putting up green peppers, making pickles — basically whatever I can get my greedy fingers on. I’m dreaming of opening cans of garden-fresh vegetables to compliment my bags of frozen goodies. Fast food at it’s finest. 

The recipes? Click on the links. 

A little note: I usually reduce sugar, skip soy sauce (replace it with amino acids), and try to stay away from super carb-laden stuff. The recipes below are ones that I’ve tinkered with and adjusted to my family’s tastes, but I’m sure they’re fantastic as they are. 

Feel like giving this a try? Let me know how it turns out!

5 comments:

Elisabeth said...

Oh no! That's horrid.

You know that you could make spaghetti sauce and freeze or can it? I think store bought spaghetti sauce is a nice thing to have on hand for those nights when you just don't feel up to a lot of meal preparation.

There's also sweet n sour meatballs that you can make ahead of time - serve it over rice. It's very good and works for wild game meat, too.

Anna said...

Agreed. It WAS horrid. I kept telling myself how funny it was going to be later 😂😂

Thanks for the ideas!! I could go for a sweet n sour meatball about now...

Anna said...

Whoops! Sorry guys! I had this post "scheduled" for today and forgot that it was going to post itself before I added the recipe links. Hang on, and I'll throw in an extry post with those included this week:)

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Anonymous said...

I would have cried in front of the company! And I would have never thought to have turkey wraps...would have probably needed to go out for supper! You handled that very nicely.

Love the idea of fast-food healthy style! Can't wait to check out your links.