Well, I barely shopped. But we did eat all week.
I didn't do an honest-to-goodness grocery shopping trip this week, partially because I don't like shopping and partially because we didn't end up needing a lot of stuff.
I love it when that happens.
I made a quick stop for two gallons of milk and a bunch of bananas. And on another day, since I had to return some shoes to Target, I picked up a few quick groceries there to carry us through the week.
I spent $11.71 at Target, and $9.06 on my banana/milk stop, so I spent just $20.77 this week. That is a fortuitous start to November. Whee!
An upside of not going shopping is that I've been forced to use up almost all of the food in my fridge, which means there's actually some breathing room in there for a change.
Monday
We had grilled hamburgers on homemade fluffy hamburger buns, with potato cubes and a green salad on the side.
Tuesday
It was a breakfast for dinner night!
We had buttermilk pancakes, local sausage from the freezer, plus Orange Julius.
We did not have ours with peaches and cream, sadly. I miss peach season!
Wednesday
I made a beef, pepper, carrot, and green onion stir-fry, which we ate over rice. And I threw together a fruit salad to eat with that.
Thursday
The kids and I had an event to go to where food was served, so only Mr. FG really needed any dinner. I made him a bacon and cheese quesadilla, with pico de gallo, guacamole, and chips on the side.
Friday
It's a pizza night! I haven't decided exactly what kind we're having...
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What did you eat this week? Anything good you want to share?
Kristen,
Thanks for all the good info you share with your readers! I know you try to feed your family healthy, well-balanced meals. Will the recent findings on red & processed meats change your family's eating habits? I see that your meals for this past week tended to feature a lot of red and/or processed meats, so just curious.
We got dinner for two nights from a grocery-store rotisserie chicken (there are just two of us). We just grazed on it one night, and had chickens salad sandwiches with tomato & avocado the next night. When I think about our evening meals, I realize that we need to do a better job of including produce, an area where you seem to excel.
Well, from what I'm reading, the results of that report have been fairly overblown/misreported, so I'm not sure I need to take that crazy seriously.
We're eating a fair amount of beef because I have a quarter of a locally grown/purchased cow in my freezer. When we're low on that, we tend to eat more chicken, so it all kind of balances out.
Oh, and I should have clarified...the local sausage is just local pork ground and mixed with spices. It's not preserved or anything. I buy it in bulk and freeze it in one-pound portions. The bacon-totally preserved! But the sausage wasn't.
Grass fed beef is excellent for us! Keep eating it, Kristen.
I've tried to plan simpler meals that lend themselves to leftovers, since my husband started work this week. We've had:
(1) leftover baked rigatoni
(2) pepper, onion, potato fry-up with kielbasa
(3) roasted chicken and potatoes
(4) chicken and mushrooms with rice
(5) chicken + potato quesadilla, and sauteed spinach with bacon
(6) Saturday soup with all the leftovers, and grilled sandwiches
Lots of veggies and grains in this week's menu - oh how I love my local Sprouts Market!
Mon - Chipotle Chicken Enchiladas (your ATK recipe 🙂 ), black beans w/feta, Southwest salad
Tue - Wheatberry Feta Arugula Salad, grapefruit halves, garlic bread
Wed - Roasted sweet potato & black bean salad with honey-lime-cumin dressing, Naan bread
Thur - One pot spinach & tomato pasta sauce with whole wheat spaghetti noodles, yellow squash, garlic bread
Fri - Quinoa & roasted corn veggie burgers, cilantro salad, cantaloupe
All recipes but Mon from Cooking Light, my go to source for meal planning.
I ate this week, too. What a strange coincidence.
As a result, I wish to report that the beef & bean chili recipe from the recent Cooks Illustrated (I think Nov/Dec but maybe Sep/Oct) is very tasty. I made it without the beans.
Ooh, good to know, because Mr. FG hates legumes.
Wow! You did great. I'm still barely surviving with the new baby. Just making dinner is an accomplishment.
And that is ok, girl! It's a temporary stage, so just remind yourself of that. You'll be back to something nearer to normalcy in a while.
Congratulations! Enjoy your new baby and don't stress about the groceries or the house, it's such an amazing time 🙂
That beef stir-fry looks delish!!
What did we have this week for supper...Hmm....
Casserole of potatoes/carrots/sausages
Stuffed peppers (beef, lentils, rice, tomatoe sauce, stuffed in peppers)
Indian curry on rice
Omelets (my lazy go-to)
Tonight is probably going to be pumpkin soup with bruchetta mix+cheese on bread
Have a good week-end!
I'm coming to Kristen and Tamara's houses for dinner-yum!
Excellent job as usual, Kristen, for coming up with meals minus a trip to the grocery. I shopped at Aldi last week and I'm trying to stretch it into 2 weeks of meals, using freezer and pantry items.
We've had homemade knockoff Chipotle bowls ( instead of seasoned meat I used a really good vegetable crumble that I sautéed with onion and salsa verde.) We had rice, fresh avocado, black beans, shredded sharp cheese, lettuce, sour cream and fresh cilantro.
I made chicken with a cilantro pesto (totally made up the recipe, taking advantage of lovely fresh cilantro I got from Aldi at the start of the week) I puréed fresh garlic, olive oil, cilantro, salt and pepper and added to a pan in which I sautéed boneless chicken.
I inherited a bag of dry barley. I googled different ways to make it. I simmered it in the crock pot with chicken broth, onion, and garlic. It was quite good! I sautéed a small bag of Trader Joes mixed seafood with fresh lemon, garlic, and olive oil and served that atop it.
Last night was homemade pasta sauce using pantry ingredients snd tonight is beef stew in the crock pot. Ususlky Friday is pizza, however this is an easy alternative once everything is cut/ chopped and put in the crock pot.
I'm coming to YOUR house for all the Tex-Mex!
Haha- If I could eat at Chipotle multiple times a week I would!
The Chipotle knock off bowls are going to enter into rotation at our house. They were a hit, even though I snuck in the faux beef.
Maybe next time I'll make a marinated lime chicken in the crock pot and use that for our protein.
I go on cooking binges and then freeze everything in meal-sized quantities. This week I made squash soup, homemade refried beans, black bean/corn salsa, spinach quiche, lasagna, rice pudding. I feel like there was something else in there.
AND we had a ripe avocado yesterday and a new one today! WOOT!
Those hamburger buns look amazing! I love that you made Mr FG a special dinner, even though you were not eating at home. That's very sweet. I also really like your Friday pizza night idea. We love our Friday night hangout time and this would be a fun and frugal alternative to eating out!
Well, it was pretty easy...fry up a bit of bacon, put it inside a tortilla with cheese, and cook it in the skillet for a few minutes. And guacamole and pico de gallo are easy-peasy too.
So I don't deserve oodles of credit! Ha.
I am REALLY liking these menu posts, so thank you for doing them! I have not had much success with stir-fry meals. Do you have a recipe/method for your beef stir-fry?
Well, I used a recipe and was kind of "eh" about the results. I'll keep trying recipes and if I come across a really good one, I'll share it!
Have you ever calculated how much you save making your own bread? I'll bet its significant.
I'm astounded at the price of bread these days (I no longer eat it, but that's another story. . . ). The cost of bread ingredients is so little in comparison to the finished product--probably less than a dollar a batch (making several buns or a few loaves) if you buy yeast in bulk.
I haven't, but I did do a nitty-gritty cost comparison, and even when you compare dirt cheap $0.99 bread to homemade, homemade is cheaper. And that's with factoring in electricity too.
The cost savings is much more significant when you compare homemade to good loaves, or to things like buns or pita bread, of course.
I have to rack my brain to recall what we made for dinner this week!
Monday - Black Rice with Broccoli, Red Peppers & Peanut Sauce
Tuesday - Crockpot Chana Masala with paprika chicken on the side
Wednesday - pizza
Thursday - tortellini with shiitakes & shrimp
Friday - homemade veggie nachos with all the fixins
I made one of my daughters' fave breakfasts this morning with some odds & ends of bread: Pumpkin Spice French Toast. My kids LOVE this. Pumpkin puree, eggs, and spices.
I made this and it was amazing - I added herbs when sauteeing the veggies. With a spinach salad it was a fantastic lunch. I don't use "egg substitute", I just use some whole eggs (the iron and other good stuff is in the yolk), and egg whites. As for cheese, I just used what we already had - feta from a chicken/artichoke/feta dish, and cheddar. The cottage cheese is crucial, though.
http://www.cookinglight.com/food/top-rated-recipes/healthy-breakfast-recipes/healthy-garden-vegetable-quiche-recipes
Yay for eating whole "real" eggs!!