Monday Made It - No Sew Bean Bags and Make Ahead Crockpot Meals

Another Monday link up with Tara - I LOVE these link ups...

Last Monday before I meet my new batch of kiddos.  

This week I made a bunch of stuff - but I'm going to show you my super easy bean bags that I put together without sewing anything and a bunch of different make ahead crockpot meals!  

I had to make some bean bags because of my Multiplication Fact Toss floor game.

Target has super cute and LONG socks right now on clearance for 75 cents.  I felt the need to tell the cashier that I would not be wearing these..  I picked up 2 pairs and they made 8 bean bags.  You just need some regular dry beans to go inside (though if you use lentil beans they are even softer).

I put 4 handfuls of beans into the first toe...

 then I cut it and made a tight knot.  It's not going anywhere.  

 Then I used the rest of the sock and turned it inside out...

 and made another tight knot on one side (I chose the thin side that I had cut).

 Then I flipped it right side out and filled it again with 4 more handfuls.  

Ta-Da 7 completed bean bags with 4 socks 

(not 8 because I ran out of beans until the next day...)

Easy Peasy - Done in 7 minutes!

Another thing I made was a mess in my kitchen!

(Taken from a recent post on my family blog - www.thesummafamily.blogspot.com)

What do these pictures have in common?  Other than a big mess in my kitchen... they are the ingredients for many different crockpot concoctions.  

 2 days ago I was thinking about how much I would love to have a freezer stocked with ready to go meals, but there wasn't room or money to buy a bunch of meat to create everything... then it occurred to me that I didn't need a lot of room or meat to make the seasonings of our favorite crock pot meals.  I just needed a couple of containers.  

So, I made 6 crockpot recipes that are our families favorites - all that we found either on Pinterest or on All Recipes.com... the links for them should be on the "Tales from the Kitchen" page (on the home blog).  Now we can buy the meat as we go along, and just choose one of these containers to throw on top of the meat in the crockpot.  I don't know if we even need to melt the liquids first - I wouldn't think so.

What I made yesterday was:

Parmesan Honey Pork (2 containers - it's a favorite)

Tangy Pork

Brown Sugar Garlic Chicken

Balsamic Chicken

Honey Sauced Chicken

Sweet Teriyaki Chicken

I love my crockpot, and I love how I don't really have to think about the food that is in the crockpot.  With Back to School looming ahead of us, I know from previous experience that I will not want to really cook the first couple of weeks of school due to exhaustion. (It really does take a lot out of you the first weeks teaching all the management stuff, in addition to starting up the curriculum, and learning about your new kiddos.)  This way I just have to worry about throwing a vegetable in the oven to roast, and cooking up some rice or pasta to go with it - and it's not like we will be eating these every day but a night or two a week, but they will help out a lot. 

Happy Monday everyone!