The Worst "Fridge Finds" Week

Hey blog party-goers!  It's my week to "host" Rhymes with Smile's link-up Fridge Finds, where you get a look into people's refrigerators and maybe get some ideas for meal planning yourself.

I'll start us off with a riveting picture of our refrigerator, in which I reveal we basically only have 7 variations of dairy products, a container of Addison's leftover "macky cheese" and bread.  Isn't Danny so lucky?

 

Nope, not a dorm fridge.  That's our real refrigerator.  Perfectly sized for hobbits.

I will go ahead and state my goal for this post.

Goal: to have the absolute worst and disappointing post of the whole link up party.

There, now I will definitely meet or exceed all expectations!!

The truth is that right now it's 10:45am and the day of the link-up and I didn't even remember it was my week until Blog Queen Hostess emailed everyone at 10am saying "Time to post your links to Meredith's blog!!"  And I'm instantly replying-all saying "Noooo!  Don't!  There's NOTHING THERE!"

I'd really hoped to plan ahead the week I hosted in order to impress the world with what a great homemaker I am.  I would showcase how I create healthy, frugal, organic, locally-grown, tasty, simple yet complex meals for my family every night.  But alas, here we are on link up day, there's nothing but milk in the fridge, and all that would not be true anyway, so my plan to fool the world has failed.  Shoot.

In reality, while I'm mostly a SAHM, I am working more this semester than in the past, teaching Spanish to home school students on Mondays and teaching a foreign language pedagogy class to graduate students at Tech on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  It's not *that* much, especially compared to full-time working moms, but it has felt busy. Combining the fact that cooking is not my favorite thing to do, and meal planning definitely isn't my favorite thing to do, and I've tried to make that aspect of life as easy as possible this fall.

My dear friend Mary gave me an awesome birthday gift this year, about 4 months early.  Do your friends give you gifts 4 months early??  I haven't even given Mary her birthday gift and it was in JULY.  Moving on... She gifted me with a whole year's subscription to eMeals, which is an online meal planner.*  You may have heard of it on Dave Ramsey.  Basically you can choose from a ton of meal "lifestyles" (from Gluten Free to Paleo to Slow Cooker) and you receive a personalized meal plan every week, along with the grocery list!  I'm on the "Kroger Classic" plan, which plans our meals around what's on sale at Kroger in our area that week.  I KNOW!  I don't even have to look at the weekly ad anymore!!!  Also, the plans are designed for a family of 4-5 people, so every time I cook it lasts 2 nights.  Winwinwinwinwin.

*it goes without saying that I am not being compensated for saying this.  C'mon y'all.  I have 15 followers and lately have updated every 2 months.

This week I did not follow the eMeals plan exactly.  This weekend I had to have Panera broccoli soup, but knew I should make it myself.  So I Googled a knock-off recipe and quadrupled it.  We ate it for two nights and froze the rest.

It was very yummy.  Not so heart-friendly but it was toddler-friendly so who cares?  I also made Artisan Bread dough a couple weeks ago, which makes enough for 4 loaves, so was able to accompany it with fresh bread out of the oven with zero work.

 

Wow - I'm actually sounding quite Suzy Homemaker right now, but don't worry, it will go downhill in a sec.

For Tuesday and Wednesday night, we're having everyone's favorite - bean soup.  This is what I pull out when the food budget is putting a hurting on your wallet but gosh, these people who live here still expect to eat something every single night.  It comes out to like, 20 cents a serving.  I'll add in a salad (we eat salad pretty much every night) and some cornbread to make it a little better. Doesn't this look absolutely fab?

mmmm.

Thursday and Friday I will return to some culinary normalcy with an emeals recipe for Asian-Glazed Chicken Thighs and fried rice.  Chicken thighs are something I have learned to tolerate.  I basically only ever ate white meat growing up, but thighs are so economical!

Saturday we'll have... I don't know.  Taking suggestions.  See?  Worst post.  Just tryin to meet my goals here.

Sunday we always have a big brunch after church (eggs + carb deliciousness like biscuits or pancakes) and then a Pear-Pecan salad for dinner.  The salad is just so good.  Go make it.

So there you have it!  My fridge and meals and confessions that I really don't like to do any of this meal planning and cooking thing.  Maybe you don't either?  Don't worry.  We can be good at other stuff.  Now go whip up some bean soup!