Current Fridge Protein & Leftover Inventory (Start of Day)
- Cooked bacon (prepped yesterday specifically for this morning — good call)
- 1 leftover grilled chicken thigh (last one)
- Small amount of taco meat
- Good Food chicken salads (a couple remaining)
- Frozen cooked ground beef (backup)
- Last of the Costco pizza
- Leftover lentil pasta
Morning (Out the Door for Last Co-op Day)
Knew it would be a tight morning so I made bacon yesterday — paid off exactly as planned:
- Kids had bacon and toast
- My teen made smoothies for herself and the three year old
- My 10-year-old Eleanor wanted a baked potato with butter, garlic salt, and bacon — solid idea!
- Planet Boxes were already packed from yesterday, so we just grabbed and went
Co-op — End of Year Celebration
Last day of the year, which means one thing: four Costco cakes. We are a four cake co-op!
The cups trick — started doing this years ago and I’ll never go back to plates for a crowd:
- Cut a square of cake, put it in a red solo cup or cocktail cup
- Kids can hold it, walk around, and won’t drop it
- Built-in portion control
- No giant plate slices, no cake sliding off, no chaos
If you’re serving cake to a crowd of kids, do this. It works.
Snack — Pizza
Brought Costco pizza along — a couple kids had it cold on the way home, another had it air fried when we got back.
My late lunch/early snack:
Came home hungry and wanted something real:
- Coleslaw mix with red onion and shredded carrot
- Last grilled chicken thigh, warmed up and sliced
- Leftover lentil pasta heated in the pan with the chicken
- Dressed with rice wine vinegar, honey, salt, pepper, garlic powder, Italian seasoning
- Tossed it all together
It hit the spot completely. That coleslaw mix is such an underrated base.
Dinner — Freezer Meatloaf (The Easy Button Done Right)
Did not feel like cooking tonight. Here’s exactly what I did about that:
Frozen meatloaf reheated with tomatoes and onions:
- Roughly 6 small tomatoes and half a red onion into a pan with oil, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning — just a minute or two, doesn’t need to cook down much
- Frozen meatloaf slices laid right on top — fully frozen, straight from the bag
- Lid on, medium low, walk away
The tomatoes and onions cook down into this beautiful little pan sauce that adds so much flavor to the meatloaf. And the chunks stay large enough that kids who don’t want any of it can just pull out a slice and never know the sauce existed. I actually think I prefer meatloaf reheated this way over freshly made. The flavor is just better.
It looks like effort, tastes incredible, and the active cooking time was maybe five minutes.
Rest of dinner:
- Pasta (lentil for me, regular gluten pasta for everyone else)
- Steamed broccoli (straight from the Costco bag)
- Watermelon
Dessert: My three year old requested Oreo milkshakes. Obviously yes. She drank hers to the very last drop.
Post-Dinner / Looking Ahead
What’s in the fridge now:
- Small amount of taco meat (last of it)
- Good Food chicken salads (for Chris and my teen)
- Frozen cooked ground beef (ready to pull if needed)
- Fresh brats from this weekend’s Costco run (totally forgot about those in my basement fridge…thankfully they have a good date!
I packed the last of tonight’s dinner for Chris’ lunch tomorrow.
Tomorrow:
- Lunch → finish the taco meat, maybe pull frozen cooked ground beef if needed, kids might finish any remaining pizza odds and ends
- Dinner → brat bites, something easy with the fresh brats