Saturday Solutions: Mass Producing Breakfast

For a while now I have been trying to keep my freezer full of breakfast foods for the kids.  I like to do this because I am NOT the kinda mom that likes to get up and put on a huge breakfast in the morning, I guess that is one reason that I like to do Breakfast Night for them.  The most I like to cook in the morning is oatmeal. 

I like to try to keep things like waffles, pancakes, french toast, banana bread and breakfast burritos in the freezer ready to roll.  I also prefer not to buy these things, I like to make them.  Sometimes I will go all out and do everything at once but most of the time I will just do a big batch of something, like this morning I made a ton of pancakes. 

I used to dream about having two skillets to cook on but only had one.  I contemplated buying a second one but thought it was a little frivolous, it's not like I have ten children and really needed an extra.  Then, last month my dream became reality, during our Fall camping trip I realized that I had forgotten my skillet.  Honestly, this was not on purpose!  So, I "had" to go buy one.  This morning, there they sat - TWO SKILLETS!  Side by side!  What a blessing to whip up all those pancakes in half the time!  I was so excited that I quadrupled my batch!  If you are able to acquire two skillets, I say go for it!

You may be wondering how I freeze them, with out them sticking together.  I take a sheet cake pan (from my pretending to be a cake decorator days) and I lay the pancakes on sheets of parchment paper.  I spread them out so that they freeze with out touching.  After they are good and frozen I throw them into large freezer bags.  This way we can pull out only the amount we need and they are not all stuck together.  I also save the parchment paper for the next time I mass produce! 

When I am making french toast I cut them into sticks and freeze them this way. 

When I do the Breakfast Burritos I start out by making a double batch of Oven Scrambled Eggs and then top them with shredded cheddar.  You can also add some salsa to this but my kids prefer them with just the cheese.  I put an ice cream scoop full of the eggs on to each tortilla and wrap.

I also freeze the Breakfast Burritos spread out on a baking sheet before I put them into freezer bags.

For other freezer friendly family meal ideas {say that one five times fast} check out Raising Olives and Smockity Frocks!

Another Great Meatloaf Recipe

My friend, who I have known since I was like 8 just told me this recipe a few weeks ago.  This is a women that I talk to almost daily and so when she threw this recipe out to me and said that her mom used to make it and SHE had been making it for years I couldn't believe it!!  REALLY??!!  And you are JUST NOW giving it to me, R E A L L Y ? ? ?  

I have made it twice now and it is FABULOUS!  Trust me, this is a WINNER dinner!  I don't think she gave a specific name for it so I am going to call it the...

I Can't Believe You Waited This Long To Give Me This Recipe Meatloaf

2 lbs of Ground Beef
1 Onion
Salt, Pepper, Parsley & Garlic Powder
Potatoes, quartered
2 Can or 1 Box of Creamy Tomato Soup

It is really easy, she said to make up a meatloaf as you normally would.  I use 2 lbs of Ground Beef, 1 chopped onion, salt, pepper, parsley and garlic powder, but feel free to use the spices that you normally use.

After you make up the meatloaf place it in a 9X13 with the potatoes around the meatloaf.  Pour the tomato soup over the meatloaf and potatoes.  At this point I added a little extra parsley, because I love it! 

Bake at 350 for 30-45minutes or until the meatloaf is no longer pink in the center.  We had this with green beans. 

This meatloaf was is a Perfect 10! 

Wikki Stix Review & Giveaway!

We were given the chance to review Wikki Stix along with the Early Learning Trio which includes Alphabet Cards, Number Cards and Basic Shapes. 

  

All of my children have enjoyed playing with the Wikki Stix!  The girls have really enjoyed using them for school projects, making jewelry and to make models of different animals.  Alpha Boy loves to open his workboxes and find a few Wikki Stix and activity cards, I think he especially loves the letter and number cards.  Little Bits, well he has really enjoyed chewing on them and making them into balls to bounce on the floor.   

Things We Love About Wikki Stix

• They leave plenty of room to let your imagination run wild!   The possibilities of things to make are endless.  REALLY! 
• They are a great way to help children learn their letters, numbers and shapes.
• Wikki Stix are fun to use to make models of things you are studying in school like the muscular system, the shape of different states and solar systems.  You can see some other fabulous educational ideas here.
• I love how the kids can play and make all kinds of stuff and their isn't a huge mess to clean up.  That is a huge bonus!  Let me say it one more time HUGE BONUS!
• The Wikki Stix and the activity sets are very affordable.  The Wikki Stix sets start at $3.25.  The Activity Card Sets start at $13.95.  Think holiday gifts or stocking stuffers!

Here are some of the things we did with our Wikki Stix...

During our pyramids study the girls made their own pyramids.

Since the Wikki Stix are made off wax coated wicks they were very easy to build different things with.

  

Computer Girl using the Alphabet Cards, she is tracing the letter B and the butterfly.

Alpha Boy used the Wikki Stix to trace many of the letters.

Computer Girl showing off her work.

The girls and I were studying the muscular system and we used the Wikki Stix to demonstrate where muscles are in our body.

We had a lot of fun using the Wikki Stix and this hands on project helped us to remember what we learned.

Wikki Stix has offered to host a GIVEAWAY for a package of Wikki Stix and The Early Learning Trio Cards (Letters, Numbers and Shapes) to a LSG Follower!  Please leave a SEPARATE COMMENT for each way that you enter and PLEASE DO NOT FORGET YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS! The giveaway is going to run until November 10, 2010.  Here is how you can enter to win The Wikki Stix Package:

• You must be a Follower of LSG to Win! Please leave me a comment and let me that you do.
• If you have just become a new Follower, please tell me how you heard about this giveaway.
• SPREAD THE WORD! If you blog about this contest please come back and leave me a link to you post.
• Please visit the Wikki Stix website, and let me know which other Wikki Stix product your kids would like! 
• Facebook or Twitter about this giveaway and leave me a comment to let me know about it.
• Like Wikki Stix on Facebook and let me know. They have discount offers frequently. 
• Follow Wikki Stix on Twitter and leave me a comment letting me know.

We received these products free of charge, from Wikki Stix, for review purposes. The opinions stated in this review are our own and we were not paid in any way.

Grammar All Stars Review

We have been extremely blessed to be reviewing several book collections from Gareth Stevens Publishing this school year.   I wanted to share one of the ones that we have REALLY been enjoying so far, Grammar All Stars. 

Let me start by saying that these are not your average book, these books are of a very high quality.  The artwork in the Grammar Allstars books are fabulous, actually all of the Gareth Stevens books have great artwork!  I love that the kids go to these books all on their own, the stories interest them and they are reinforcing the language arts skills that they are already learning, which is a huge BONUS!   The girls really love reading these and many times I have seen Alpha Boy taking a huge stack of them to his bed with him for nap time, even though he can't read them he loves to look at them.

In each book we follow along with sportscaster Buzz Star as he teams up with a child reporter to call the plays for the games of the different sports.  As they go thru the games they share tips about writing and grammar.  These stories have been very enjoyable for all of my chidlren (ages 2-10), although they are geared towards children in grades 2-4. 

There are 3 sets in this series, Kinds of Words, Parts of Speech and Writing Tools, each set has six titles in it.

Kinds of Words

• Catch-A-Wave Compounds
• Half Pipe Homonyns 
• Pit Stop Prefixes
• Slap Shot Synonoms and Antomymns
• Karate Contractions
• Soccer Goal Suffixs

Parts of Speech

• Bowling Alley Adjectives
• Touchdown Nouns
• Hole-in-One Adverbs
• Slam Dunk Pronouns
• Home Run Verbs
• Tennis Court Conjunctions

Writing Tools

• Kick Ball Capitalization
• Make-A-Splash Writing Rules
• Pedaling to Perfect Punctuation
• Skating to Spelling Success
• Snowboarding Similes and Metaphors
• Track Star Sentences

These books make a great addition to any family library, whether you homeschool or not.  You can purchase these books indiviually for $19.50, in sets of six for $117.00 or the complete set for $351.00 directly from Gareth Stevens. As I said earlier these are very high quality, hard cover books, if taken care of I imagine that they would last for a very long time.

Menu Plan Monday

Keeping things REAL SIMPLE this week....
Monday
Chicken Stuffed Shells - The Lil Chef has been bugging asking me for the longest time to make these, they are her favorite.  I will post the recipe soon, they really are fabulous!

Tuesday
Meatloaf - do you all remember me mentioning that I was going to try a new meatloaf recipe with tomato soup, well I did and it was AMAZING.  I will post this recipe as well.

Wednesday
Breakfast Night - Egg & Sausage Casserole in the Crockpot

Thursday
Rosemary Chicken w/ Sweet Potatoes and Green Beans in the Crockpot

Friday
Super Yummy Taco Bake w/ Tortilla Chips - I know I make this ALOT but it is sooo good and so easy to make.  It is so easy in fact that I am going to double my recipe and stick a second casserole in the freezer.

Saturday
Pizza

Sunday
Spaghetti w/ Salad