$145 for 16+ dinner meals? Yes please!

[nachoqtpie]

So, today my best friend goes it for a c-section for her first child. She's breech and they didn't want to chance having to have an emergency c-section trying to turn her, and it works out better for her type-a personality anyways. I decided as a "welcome home" present that I would cook them 7 dinners so they didn't have to worry about cooking in that first week. She's not going to feel like it, and he can't boil water even tho he's a cook at Outback.

So anyways! I spent all day yesterday grocery shopping and cooking. I spent exactly $143.18 on everything, which I added some household stuff as well so it's not ENTIRELY accurate, but really close. That made 7 meals for them, which I'm sure will have leftovers, (I bought toss away containers for all of their stuff and some of mine) and currently I'm sitting on 10+ meals for us! Well... really 9+, we had one of the meals last night because I didn't feel like cooking any more! BUT!! I haven't bagged up all the chili that I made or finished all the eggplant parm, so, there will be more! Here's what I made, and how much it made

Taco Pasta- 3 meals
Chicken & black bean chili- 2+ meals
Meatloaf- 3 meals
BBQ chicken- 2 meals
Shepards pie- 2 meals
Eggplant Parm- 2+ meals
Chicken stuffing casserole- 2 meals

There are 2 of them, and they got roughly the same portions that we did, so they are going to have leftovers, which was the plan. I even included a small container of mashed potatoes to go with their meatloaf! Most everything has veggies already in it, and the only thing that wasn't homemade that I COULD have made was the cream of mushroom soup. I figured with an entire day of cooking ahead of me, I would cheat just this once. The meatloaf made one smaller sized meatloaf and 2 COMPLETELY FULL bread pans for our family. I guess I COULD have been nice and made them a bunch of pancakes and whatnot.. but they both love cereal in the morning... so.. I'll give them that.

***ETA
I COULD have gotten better prices on some of the stuff if I had gone to the commissary, but I was already at Walmart picking up the packaging stuff anyways, so, I just shopped there, but had to go to my local grocery to get the eggplant.

 

[lesa]

Wow! That was a lot of cooking! I can't think of a better gift, in the whole world! They will surely appreciate that! Where can we put in our orders??

 

[The Mama Chicken]

Where were you when my twins were born? That is an amazing gift! You are a great friend!

 

[nachoqtpie]

LOL!! The people at my church say things like that all the time. I took fresh blueberry muffins in for our Pastor one day and I got a text later of "OH MY GOODNESS!! These are Heaven!"

I figured that since I knew what it was like to be a new mom, and everybody else had gotten her stuff for the baby, that I would give them something that they wouldn't have a lot of after Kaylen was born... time. (I got her other stuff as well. An ADORABLE little red dress, and a book with 500 ways to bond with baby) It was a lot of cooking, but, it does save me time in the long run. I can just pull something out of the freezer and pop it in the oven. I wrote all of the instructions on the outside so even her hubby could follow the directions

 

[nachoqtpie]

*** Update

The chicken & blackbean chili made 4 4 cup bags.

Still finishing the eggplant tho.

So, that means that it has made 18 meals so far which brings the price per meal per person is $1.33. Of course... that will come down once I get how many meals the eggplant will make!