Meal Planning for the Week

Last week my meal planning was thrown off a little due to a visit from my brother and his family. We cooked out with family one day and then the next day my sister ordered pizza for dinner. This gave us a surplus of food because I never made it through the end of my roasted chicken as I had anticipated. Here is what is on the menu for this week:

Monday (today): We ate hot dogs, french fries, and the giant zucchini I showed you from the farmer's market
Tuesday: Potato soup. Yes, I know it is 90 degrees outside, but I have been craving potato soup
Wed: Left over potato soup and grilled cheese
Thurs: Chicken quesadillas and spicy brown rice (onion, red pepper mmm mmm)
Fri: Spaghetti with tomato sauce
Sat: Chicken Stir fry (zucchini, squash, chicken, red pepper, onion, and rice. Pretty basic.)

I have exactly $66 left in the food envelope to get me through the remainder of the month (or eleven days). Eating on such a small budget will require some creativity, but I think I can do it. Here are some of my ideas for budget friendly meals:

• Omelets (or eggs ranchero depending on my ability to get the omelet to stay together! ha!) (1 day)
• Pasta primavera (2 days)
• Baja Pie (I love it so much. I'm sure I'll be ready to eat it again in five days.) (2 days)
• Chicken Tortilla Soup (2 days)
• Chicken Stir Fry (2 days)

That should get me to the end of the month. Now, I know you're adding up my numbers and thinking "crazy, that does not add up to 11 days." You are so right, but I am going to my brother's house this weekend, so we will be eating out a couple of days. (When we eat out, the money comes from our blow envelope and not our grocery envelope.)

You are more than welcome to eat with me this week! (Maybe not in my kitchen, but you could buy all the ingredients and cook too. Just use any old omelet recipe, make Pioneer Woman's Pasta Primavera, make Betty Crocker's Baja Pie, B C's Chicken Tortilla Soup, and throw together chicken with rice and whatever veggies you have on hand.) But even if you don't make the same meals as I do, I wish you happy eating!

Trip to the Farmer's Market: A Frugal Success!

Do you see that? Yeah, that's my forearm, and that my friend is a zucchini, just one of the amazing purchases I found at the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. I spent a frugal $3 and bought enough veggies to last me for two weeks including three jumbo zucchinis, three squash, and a bag of potatoes. I also spent a dollar on some yummy chex mix

I will definitely be shopping at the market again, no questions asked. I couldn't believe the bargains! I think between cooking a whole chicken for four dollars and then three dollars in veggies, I could conceivably cut my grocery budget in half.

In other food related news, I made Baja Pie last night (or as Mr. Wookie and I like to call it "Badger Pie"). I think this is my new favorite recipe. The hubs really likes tacos, but I am not a fan. Tacos don't fill me up. They give me the allusion of being full, and then twenty minutes later I'm scrounging around for a second dinner. Badger Pie is a compromise piece. It has all the flavor of a delicious taco, but it leaves me feeling full like after I eat a Sonic cheeseburger (mmm Sonic).

I found the recipe from Betty Crocker Online, but here it is for you in a simple version:

Heat your oven to 325. In a glass dish, layer four or five tortillas (I used the ones by Mi Casa) and brush with a little melted butter. In a large bowl, mix two cups of cooked chicken (I got mine from the chicken I cooked last week), a can of black beans, a cup of salsa, two tablespoons of taco seasoning, and 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese. Spread the mixture over the tortillas and bake for 25ish minutes or until hot. Then sprinkle some more cheddar on top (about a cup, but I don't really measure...I just sprinkle until my heart is content) and then bake another minute or two until the cheese is melty and delicious. Serve on a plate with a wedge or two of tomato and avocado.

The recipe says it makes six servings, but I must be a heifer because I only got four servings.

Until next time, happy eating!

What's on the Menu?

This week, I've decided to try something new. A frugal challenge if you will. I bought a whole chicken for less than $5, and the bird will be the meat source for all my meals this week. Here's what is on the menu:

Sat and Sun: Roasted chicken with veggies (no special recipe, just lots of butter and herb)
Mon and Tues: Greek Chicken Salad
Wed and Thurs:Baja Pie
Fri and Sat: Calico Chicken and Potatoes Skillet.

To find these recipes, go to www.bettycrocker.com and do a search.

I'll let you know how each one turns out. I also found a good chicken tortilla soup recipe, but it's hot, and I'm not really craving soup right now. I think I'm going to put the recipe in my folder and pull it back out in the fall.

I promise to write more later, but for now I'm heading to Target to find a new bathing suit as my bottoms have stretched to their max and are now sliding off of me. If you have any great chicken recipes, I'd love it if you'd share with me!

How to celebrate your birthday when you're turning an unimportant age

Tomorrow is my birthday. To celebrate, I made Pioneer Woman's shrimp pasta recipe this week. My husband, although a little camera shy, very much enjoyed the pasta as did I:

I will tell you that the color of the pasta is a little scary. I mean, when you take bright red sauce and add a cup of cream, the pasta turns pink. There aren't many pink foods in life (in fact, I can't think of one off the top of my head), so my brain wasn't exactly pumped to eat this meal. However, my taste buds were a jivin'. Yummo! I will definitely make this meal again.

Lucky for me (and my husband), our one year anniversary is next weekend, so I'm planning on making a fantastic anniversary dinner! He doesn't actively read my blog, so I'll go ahead and tell you the menu:

*Chicken skewers

*Grilled Asparagus

*Rice

Not especially different or enthralling, BUT dessert will be amazing! I found a recipe for crock pot fondue:

1 and 1/2 cups chocolate chips (any flavor really)

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla

All you do is put everything into the mini crockpot, cover, and cook for one hour. Then you take the mini lid off and stir. I'm serving mine with pound cake, strawberries, and marshmellows. I'll let you know how that turns out. For now, I'm off to see my dad for lunch before his big trip out west.

Budget Meals for the Week

This week I am finally going to try a new Pioneer Woman recipe. I love to cook, but lately I've been kind of lazy. We've been eating a lot of hot dogs and chicken nuggets. I mean, you'd think we had kids. Here is my (slightly more adult) menu for this week:

Sun: Pasta Alla Betsy (Pioneer Woman's sister's recipe. Looks delicious! Shrimp, penne, butter. Mmm. Butter.)
Mon: Leftover pasta
Tues: Chef salad with ham
Wed: Leftover chef salad
Thurs: Steak, rice, and veggies
Fri: Leftover steak and veggies
Sat: $1.25 pizza

When I make my chef salad, I usually just cut up a head of iceberg lettuce, a cuke, an onion, a tomato, a package of thin sliced deli meat, and then I sprinkle some cheese on top. If I'm feeling frisky, I'll cut up some broccoli and/or a green pepper. I do another variation of this salad with steak or chicken (or heck, both!).

For my steak, I marinate it in Lawry's Steak and Chop sauce and then grill it on the Forman for five minutes. I typically marinate zucchini, squash, and onion in butter and garlic salt and than cook it on a grill or in a skillet. This is one of my favorite meals because it's super quick to make and it is still delicious.

This week I spent $42 on groceries. I think $42 is reasonable given that I bought some pricier meat. The shrimp was $5 and the steak was $7 for five portions. I'll let you know how the Pioneer Woman recipe turns out.

Creative Dining/Clean Out The Pantry

Let me just start off by saying that my grocery budget has been shot for the month. Unfortunately, I had to buy laundry detergent and paper towels last week. If you are the primary shopper for your family, you know that these two things can easily total $20 by themselves. Now, I know that I only have to buy these items once every five or six months, but I still cringe when I get to the last paper towel because I know that I'm going to have to pinch pennies some other way.

I've been getting by on $100/two weeks at the grocery store for the past five months. Sadly, this will not be the case for the first two weeks in May. I spent $83 last week at the grocery store leaving me with $17. I anticipated this purchase and put back a little extra for this week's grocery trip, so I have $40 for groceries. Now, I know that I've posted on here that I've been able to buy groceries for $30, but that was when I had meat in the freezer. My freezer is currently pretty bare. I've got a little hamburger and three pieces of chicken, but I'm determined to make this work!

Here's my menu for next week:
Sat: Chef Salad. (I have half a head of lettuce, onions, and some sandwich meat. I'm going to buy a cuke, a tomato, and a bag of shredded cheese)
Sun: Quesadilla with chicken (I have the tortillas and the chicken, so I'm going to use the remainder of the shredded salad cheese for my quesadillas. I'm also going to buy some rice and a can of corn.)
Mon: Grilled cheese and soup (I've got the cheese, the soup, and the bread)
Tues: Burgers (I have the hamburger. I need buns. I also have some broccoli left over and some french fries in the freezer.)
Wed: Burger leftovers
Thurs: Pizza (which I'm going to buy for $2.)

I will also need to buy some fruit and snack cakes (for our brown bag lunches) and some microwavable pancakes for breakfast.

and then of course Friday is pay day, so I can go shopping again before dinner Friday night.

Now, I know that grocery shopping may seem boring, but I enjoy competition. Did you know that I ran track back in the day? Yup. I'm into beating my personal bests, and folks, I've got to tell you, I think I can beat my personal best at the grocery store this week. I mean, we may not be eating fancy food, but it'll eat.

Eat in for a whole month

One of my 101 goals is to eat in for a whole month. This goal serves a few purposes. First, it helps me stay on a budget. Since I'm in debt payoff mode, I can save quite a bit of money by skipping the take out and the steak house. In the past, we've spent about $100 a month eating out. Instead of spending that money on food, I can send an extra $100 to SM. Second, I want to hone my cooking skills. What better way to do this than to cook! Third, I want to try new recipes. If I'm forced to eat in all month, I might as well get a cookbook from the library and try some new things.

So I've decided that I'm going to eat in the whole month of February. I chose February because it's a short month (I know, cheating), but I'm one of those people that has to get out every once and awhile. If I don't, I go crazy. So I'm hoping I can start out with a short month and then maybe I'll be able to sustain the project a little longer.

Last night the hubs and I had a Mardi Gras of sorts. We bought Papa John's pizza and watched t.v. No more Papa Johns or anything else until March 1 which is just a short 28 days away.

Menu for this week:
Potato Soup (typically this makes a lot of soup, so I can probably eat on this for two to three days)
Shrimp Quesadillas (a la Pioneer Woman)
Hamburgers
and Either meat sauce and spaghetti or parmesan chicken and spaghetti.

The potato soup is very easy to make. I actually got the recipe from http://eatathomecooks.com/2008/10/scramble-egg-wiches.html this blog. (Just search Baked Potato Soup)

I'll keep you updated on how it goes. I probably won't have a problem with eating in for a whole month. Poor husband will suffer though because he loves his fast food.