Grocery Shopping Day

Well I forgot veggies. Not sure what were's gonna eat veg wise this week. I'm sure I can find something in the bottom on my freezer. I went to three different stores today, and I think I did pretty good.

From Store 1:
14 Dannon Yogurts .33 ea -1.00 Q -.75Q
4 Lean Cuisines 1.67 ea.
2 limes .40
Cook This Not That. 14.99 (I LOVE this book series! Had to have it!!)
Total: 26.28

From Store 2:
Freschetta Brick Oven Pizza 3.99 -1.00Q
Knorr Rice sides 1.00 x2 -.60Q
Gushers 2.00
2 golden del apples .64
1 gala apple .35
1 Lean Cuisine 1.78. I couldn't find this flavor at the other store.
Total: 9.48

From Store 3:
Turkey- FREE!!
2 Twix bars .59 ea-B1G1 Q (hey the Q was gonna expire tomorrow!)
3 Luna bars 1.00 ea -B2G1 Q
Total: 3.38

Final Total: 39.14
Total Savings: 52.54
Not too bad. And part of my grocery bill was a book that doesn't come out of my grocery budget!

Meal Planning Monday

Christmas is officially over! New Years is right around the corner, but that is much less of a hassle. I do love Christmas, but... I'm glad it's over. I don't have much left in my budget this month, so a lot of our meals will come from the pantry/freezer.

Tonight: Russ made sandwiches

Tuesday: Spaghetti, garlic bread, zucchini

Wednesday:Chicken Cordon Bleu, salad, 

Thursday: Honey Ginger Pork chops, rice, corn, tomato wedges

Friday: Dinner at a friends

Saturday: Stroganoff, rolls, veggie sticks

Food Waste Wednesday

Today I cleaned out my fridge and took an honest look at what was in there, and what I would eat, and what was really was waste. Then I started going through the cabinets and pantry and made the same tough decisions. Sometimes it's just easier to leave in the pantry (or the fridge) and tell yourself that you will eat it eventually.

I did take a photo but for some reason it won't load.

I was going to take inventory to list all that was gone but it made me depressed, so I didn't do it. Now I wish I had, since I don't have the photo.
I remember there was applesauce. It was a 6 pack, and I ate two of the cups and thought it was gross both times. I know I'm never going to finish the other 4, so even though they technically weren't spoiled, I knew I need to get rid of them. There were 2 half boxes of cereal. I bought them and didn't like them, but kept them around thinking I would get to them some day, but I also have other (yummy) cereal I keep eating instead. I'm never going to eat yucky cereal. Out they go. There was a lot of stuff in tupperware at the back of the fridge- scary. some moldy cheese. a protein shake that was gross but decided to put in the fridge instead of the trash. Just gross weird stuff. I'm not going to eat it, and I have TONS of food in the house, so it's just better than I throw them out than hang out to them (and feel guilty whenever I see them.)

Meal Planning Monday

This week is going to be really crazy/busy. Then Christmas. So I'm going to try and make really simple meals this week.
Tonight: Chili dogs and salad
Tuesday: Honey ginger pork chops (from freezer) with rice and veggie sticks
Wednesday: Linguine with alfredo sauce and chicken. garlic bread (and probably more salad)
Thursday: Not sure if I'll be here or gone yet, plans are still tentative.
Friday: Off to California for Christmas
Saturday: Still in CA

Not quite meatless

One of the first budgeting tips you'll find is to go meatless at least once a week. And I really love reading Cate at Budget Confessions chronicle her meatless meals.  I'm really bad at planning meatless meals. Mainly I switch between either French toast or soup and grilled cheese. Honestly, we don't go meatless very often in this house. But this week I've tried another tactic. I made One pan taco dinner with one pound of ground beef.  The recipe says it feeds 4 but it really makes a TON on food. Not only did I freeze half of it, I had leftovers! To those leftovers, I added diced can tomatoes and stuffed the mixture in roasted red peppers and topped with cheese. Yum! So it may not be meatless but it's only 1 lb a meat that made (at least) 2 dinners to feed 2 people. Then tonight I made BBQ chicken sandwiches. I put 1 chicken breast in the Crockpot and poured BBQ sauce on it and let it cook. So simple and the smell brought me right back to an annual work party/picnic at my dad's work that my family and I LOVED! When it was cooked through, I shredded the chicken and added a bit more sauce. Then I served it on hamburger buns with homemade potato wedges. Probably the easiest dinner ever and since we only need 1 chicken breast (instead of the usual 2) it was frugal too.
The whole point? It may be hard for me to go 'meatless' but that doesn't mean I can't stretch out the meat! I'd normally use 2 chicken breasts or 1 lb ground beef per meal.  By cutting those in half I saved approx 2.85. K, not a fortune, but everything adds up, right? Isn't that why we do this?

Food Waste Wednesday

Not the best week for me. I cleaned up my kitchen earlier in the week and honestly didn't want to make dinner and mess it up! I've learned my lesson. This week waste:
Packaged salad- about half is left
2 tomatoes
1 lemon
1 pk thyme- I bought this specifically for a chicken recipe and never made the chicken!
I gotta stop doing that!
Not in the picture is 3 green onions that I thought I could just peel off the top skin part and use, but when I went to do that for a salad I was making, I saw that they were too far gone.
I gotta stick to my meal plans!

Meal Planning Monday

K this week my goal is to use up what's in the freezer/ pantry and to buy as little as possible.

Monday: Chicken fettuccine with salad and garlic bread

Tuesday: Chili dogs

Wednesday: Teriyaki chicken, rice and corn

Thursday: Fish fillets, broccoli and cheese

Friday: Honey Garlic Pork chops, rice pilaf, veggie sticks

Saturday: soup and grilled cheese

Food Waste Wednesday

So the only food I wasted this week were the 4 chicken thighs I had to throw out after my Spicy Honey chicken fiasco and then some leftovers of a foil dinner I had for lunch that didn't turn out that good. I ate half of it, and then just threw the rest away. I feel pretty proud of this actually- especially compared to last week. Next week is gonna be tough; we have a lot of things that could go bad, so I'm gonna have to be pretty watchful. Lots of dairy products that need to be eaten.

P.S. I FINALLY organized my freezer! I have a deep chest freezer that I absolutely love but it gets so messy and disorganized and everything gets lost in the bottom. So now it's nice and organized and it turns out I have SO much food! Next week, I'm really gonna try and use up a lot of that food.

Meal Planning

Ok, so last night I finally made spicy honey chicken I've heard everybody raving about, and I don't know if I messed up major, or if everyone else is crazy but it was awful! It tastes super weird and made a HUGE mess. So I wasted 4 thighs and I'm not happy about it! Plus, I was so concerned about the chicken I forgot about the rice, which turned into a soggy mess. We gave up and went to In and Out.
My goal is to find a good oh 20 recipes that I can just rotate, cuz right now I'm pretty much scouring the internet for a recipe that sounds good and sometimes it is. Sometimes it's just ok, not 'rotate worthy' and sometimes it ends up like last night. So here's the plan
Monday: Chicken/ bacon swekers
Tuesday: Biggest Loser Finale!
Wednesday: (I work till 8 so it's gotta be something quick...haven't quite thought of it yet)
Thursday: Sweet and Savory steak
Friday: (ok I had a whole plan for this, and bought all the ingredients, and just went to look for the recipe to know the title and I can't find the recipe!)
Saturday: chicken and rice pilaf

Food Waste Wednesday

This was a bad week for us! It all started when I got sick on Tuesday night.
In this picture:
 1 apple
just over 3/4 of an onion
almost a whole yellow peper
2 greek yogurts
1 yoplait yogurt

The onion, pepper, and one of the greek yogurts was supposed to me made into a dip for thanksgiving, but I was too sick to make it. I haven't made dinner at all in these past 2 weeks, and I really haven't been eating much of anything, so a lot of things went bad. I'm almost back to normal, so hopefully next week won't be so bad.