Our boys are now 6, 9, 11 and 13 1/2. I know that in a few more years, I’ll look back on these days of “how much they ate” and laugh because they’ll soon be eating even more than they are now. But wow. It is a fact that our family went through SIX DOZEN eggs last week. Six. Dozen. That’s seventy-two eggs. And I had to ration them or they would have been gone before the week was up. (I think we may need to take another look at our 2011 Grocery Budget!)
The boys seem to all be going through growth spurts lately and I’m not sure I’m going to able to keep up. Even if I can, I’m not sure the chickens can. I hate to ask my friends with chickens to squeeze their flock just a little bit harder so that they can keep up with the Coppinger boys, but I’m afraid I may have to.
I decided over the weekend to get a bunch of food made up to make life easier during soccer season, and I think I got ahead a little bit…but with the way my family has been eating lately…I’m not really sure how “ahead” I actually got.
For instance, I made a double batch of Taco Corn Fritters, knowing they would be great for “grab and go” meals and snacks. I let the boys eat them for lunch that day, thinking that at the very least, we’d have 15 or so fritters left over for the freezer. Nope. There were four left. Emphasis on the word were, because now I think we’re down to one. So much for freezing our corn fritters. :)
I also re-created our Easy Breakfast Casserole and made Mini Breakfast Quiches as one of you ladies suggested during our Gluten Free Recipe Parade. I’ll share the recipe in a few days, but I used a dozen eggs, made 24 quiches and there are exactly zero left. I believe I, myself, got to eat a grand total of one quiche. It was good, if I remember right.
Ah well. This appears to be the new norm. I will embrace it and run with it and continue making mountains of food. God gave me boys and He gave me a love for cooking. I’m pretty sure He knew just what He was doing!
I made a batch of Breakfast Cookies, sending some home with a friend of ours who came over to celebrate his birthday. You’ve gotta love being able to give the gift of a plate of Breakfast Cookies. It was his request, after eating some at our house another time.
Here are a few other food items I was able to make and HIDE from my children so that they would actually make it into the freezer:
I cooked a whole chicken so I’d have a nice container of chicken and some broth for future meals. I also made a TRIPLE batch of Whole Wheat Tortillas. Yay, a tower of tortillas! (I have some rice tortillas in the fridge for Malachi to use right now.)
I made a quadrupal batch of Sloppy Joe Meat for the freezer. Then I adapted our Popcorn Chicken recipe to make Rice Flour Chicken Strips. They aren’t the prettiest things in the world, but now I have chicken strips to use this week for chef salads and tortilla wraps!
I was kind of on a roll with meat apparently, so I made six pounds of Turkey Sausage. I froze some of it in patties so that I can cook it up quickly for breakfasts and lunches. I cooked up the rest of it and froze it in meal sized bags. These bags of Turkey Sausage are wonderful to have on hand for Easy Breakfast Casserole and Pancake Sausage Muffins.
I made up a new batch of Taco Seasoning Mix, and I’m happy to report that everything I made is still in the jar. Nobody seems very interested in snacking on a spoonful of Taco Seasoning for some reason. At least I got ahead a little bit in the area of food seasoning. Score one for Mom. :)
Been doing any extra cooking lately? Can you keep food around your house, or does it get eaten before you can even put it on the table?
A couple of years ago, I wrote 
