What I Spent, What We Ate | $152.16, to be exact
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What I Spent
I spent $152.16 this week, so I am pretty much exactly on budget. Excellent.
July Spending
Week 1: $154
Week 2: $152
What We Ate
Saturday
I grilled some marinated chicken, made buttermilk biscuits, and cut up a watermelon.
Sunday
I grilled pizza for dinner and we ate it outside because it was so not hot out!
Monday
I grilled bratwurst (boy, I was on a grilling kick, I guess!), which we ate on buns. We also had raw fruit and veggies, and some chips.
Tuesday
I made a pan of stuffed shells (look at me, not grilling), toasted English muffins, and cut up some grapefruit.
Wednesday
I made pan-seared shrimp with lime quinoa, a recipe from Dinner Illustrated, a cookbook which I still have checked out from the library.
As of the writing of this post, there's a $1.30 coupon off of Dinner Illustrated at Amazon, so if you buy a copy, don't forget to click on the coupon!
I mean, it's only $1.30, but on the other hand, it's $1.30, and if you're going to buy it, you should snag the discount.
Thursday
We had BLTs and fresh strawberries. Easy peasy summer eating!
Friday
I'm planning to try a recipe for garlicky shrimp pasta from Dinner Illustrated. Things are getting pretty serious between me and that cookbook right now. 😉
Monday: Seriously overdone hamburgers cooked over a grate in the fire ring on the beach, cucumbers and carrot sticks with curry dip, fresh cherries.
Tuesday: Pork . . . things (they were labeled something like western style ribs, though I could not for the life of me identify where on the pig they came from exactly), rice, sauteed peppers/onions/mushrooms, steamed carrots and broccoli, green salad, watermelon (hooray for watermelon season! WITH SEEDS) (I dislike seedless watermelons quite a lot)
Wednesday: Happy ham steaks for the MiL's brother's pigs (happy for me, not the pigs who were most definitely not pleased to be turned into steaks for my consumption), sauteed vegetables--onion, garlic, zucchini, new potatoes--with eggs cracked on top and then baked, raw green beans and vegetables
Thursday: Sloppy joes in pita bread, pan-fried sweet potatoes, green salad. I had high hopes the pita might keep my sons from spilling all their meat everywhere, but it only sort of worked. Sloppy joes will always be slopping, I guess.
Tonight: It's son #2's sixth birthday, and he wanted pasta with pesto. We have enough basil in the garden for that right now, thankfully. And I will, of course, make it with walnuts. 🙂 I'll make Italian sausage too--which he has already informed me he will not eat because it's his birthday and he doesn't have to eat anything but pasta (and that's the way son #2 is . . .)--plus some peppers and onions that he definitely will not eat but everyone else will. I'll give him a choice between salad with homemade ranch dressing or still-frozen peas for his vegetable. Even on his birthday, he'll have a vegetable. But he gets to choose. 🙂
He doesn't want cake. He decided on vanilla pudding. Such a wonderfully quirky child, that son #2. Grandma is making the pudding, a double batch in a big bowl so everyone can scoop out enormous servings and feel very over-indulgent. Except me, because I dislike vanilla pudding. More for everyone else!
Ooh, pudding is SO much easier to make than cake!
Oh I am so with you on the watermelon; I love seeded watermelon; so much more flavour, sweeter, deeper pink...…. btw your meals sound delicious
Monday - meatloaf and mashed potatoes in my instant pot. I had been craving it for a month and was waiting for a good sale price on beef! Also made sautéed green beans with it.
Tuesday - grilled chicken (marinated with clearance salad dressing), wild rice, and broccoli/carrots.
Wednesday - chicken Parmesan and a side salad.
Thursday - grilled burgers, Mac and cheese (the new Kraft kind that has cauliflower in the noodles), cucumber/tomato/green onion salad. Luckily my husband didn’t notice the difference in the Mac & cheese because I still have 3 more boxes that I got for $0.25 each!
Friday - tonight we are meeting friends for dinner on a dog-friendly patio so that we can bring our pups. Should be fun!
I was wondering if you could tell me what/where is the box of produce from? Your meals look so yummy ☺ï¸
Hungry Harvest.
Yep, it's from Hungry Harvest!
Your meals looked very fresh and summery this go-round! We ate:
Monday - Crockpot Buffalo Chicken, mashed potatoes, leftover sauteed cabbage
Tuesday - Ham Salad on Texas Toast, watermelon
Wednesday - 3 Ingredient Beef Tacos*, seasoned beans, taco fixins'
Thursday - Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas, salad
Friday - Stuffed Sole Filets, Divine Asparagus
Saturday - will be YOYO
Sunday - Honey Soy Baked Chicken Thighs, small baked potatoes, yellow squash
This week I am making Peanut Butter Frito Cookies and Taco Snack Mix - more oven use than I wanted, but oh well.
*Ground beef, taco seasoning, Rotel - can't get any easier!
I've never heard of peanut butter frito cookies. I googled it and got a ton of recipes. Could you post yours?
I have never heard of them either. I am intrigued!
I spent a little under budget last week but hope to go even more under budget this week. Too often, it's not impulse buys that get me, it's seeing something on the grocery store shelf that I realize suddenly we are about to run out of at home, and I never put it on my list. I do this a lot -- I'm not sure what it says about me that I can't tell what we need even as I'm staring at my pantry, but show it to me on a grocery store shelf, and the light dawns.
On to the food:
We had steak one night with parsnip fries and salad, I think.
Bacon and a summer squash/zucchini skillet plus cauliflower in cheese sauce.
Tacos with cassava flour tortillas
A "chowder" I invented with crumbled pan sausage, bone broth, mildly sweet potatoes, corn, onion, garlic, celery, and milk. It was a surprise hit of the week, with my husband wiping out three bowls of it in a sitting. I served it with cottage cheese and fresh pineapple.
The miss of the week, basil-pesto-turkey meatballs (which I liked) over buttered rice, and roasted asparagus with onions and mushrooms. My husband hated the meatballs, as in, he took one bite. He is not the kind to "eat it anyway."
Floridians! (and perhaps others) -- Prime members spend $10 in-store on a single purchase at Whole Foods through the 17th, and get $10 in your Amazon account to use for Prime Day on Amazon. (I'm not affiliated with Amazon or Whole Foods).
This week has been sort of crazy, but we managed to eat at home, which helps!
Monday - Taco rice! (Brown rice with peppers, onions, ground meat and guacamole on the side)
Tuesday - Leftover Salmon from the weekend, brown rice, cauliflower and carrots
Wednesday - Brown rice, ground meat, salad and some more fresh veggies on the side.
Thursday - We ate leftover hamburgers that I made on Monday and added a salad and some brown rice on the side. Fancy we are not.
Friday -
oh man... still not reading through my comments to make sure they're complete
Friday - Tonight we'll be having *surprise* brown rice! I think I need to pick up some meat today and we have plenty of leftover salad and fresh veggies for the side.
Surprisingly I can remember what we ate this week. I tried to go heavy on the veggies and fruit so as to get our servings in while eating healthy....
Sunday we ate at a Graduation Party, so no cooking for me!
Monday - grilled steaks, baked sweet potatoes, grilled asparagus
Tuesday - I made Blt's minus the bread. We wrapped them in green leaf lettuce instead. Served with fresh peach slices
Wednesday - Mesquite BBQ grilled tenderloin, grilled asparagus, cucumbers and tomatoes with Italian dressing
Thursday - Grilled chicken salads
Friday - tonight will be spaghetti with meat sauce, garlic bread
Monday: Shoulder roast with baked potatoes and roasted carrots.
Tuesday: Leftover roast served with tossed salads and some leftover cous cous I found in the fridge.
Wednesday: Car shopping so we grabbed a pizza. Big fat fail but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Thursday: Cleaned out the fridge. Leftover pork (from Saturday) and beef, pizza etc. We also ate salads again.
Friday: Tonight we're making barbecue chicken, rice and vegetables. I need to go grocery shopping tonight as we're a bit low on the vegetables.
On a side note, since it was too hot to bake bread I broke out the bread machine this week and made a loaf of rye bread in there. It was a hit.
Everything sounds so delicious! I wish hubs would let us get a gas grill. I love grilling during the summer, but using our charcoal grill makes everything a drawn-out production.
The best thing I cooked this week was chicken taco soup. I threw all of the ingredients into a crockpot at 7 am, and it was ready for dinner at 5 pm. Man, I need more meals like that, because it saves so much time and dishes.
Yes, I feel like having a gas grill encourages me to grill more!
We just got a $15 egift-card for Domino's from Verizon for being their valued customer a couple of days ago. We will order some pizza and wings and try to stay below or slightly above $15.
I'm just so excited since we usually eat Chinese food at home and at restaurants (my hubby is Chinese). Now we have an excuse to eat pizza and wings! 😀
Ha! I must not be a valued customer, even though we have had them for over 10 years. (We have 5 y.o. phones that we got free and their cheapest plan!) But I did get a $5 Starbucks card with teh Verizon Up program!
I've been with them for 20 years, but no gift card for me either. Yay you though! And what a nice treat to change up the dinner menu.
Ohhh that's what stuffed shells look like. Growing up and being Asian I thought stuffed shells was like another version of baked mussels... because of the name. It's basically like a lasagna but more filling, less pasta, I'm in!
Saturday and Sunday: I was by myself, so dug out some pasta and ratatouille from freezer, added a can of white beans and ate that all weekend.
Monday: leftover brats, macaroni salad (I'm doing a pantry cleanout so macaroni!)
Tuesday: huge pot of rice and beans
Wednesday: quickie PB sandwich and banana on the run
Thursday: Non-frugal (but fun) Chinese takeout
Friday: will be the lemon chicken, rice and asparagus I couldn't bring myself to cook last night due to exhaustion
Saturday: probably leftovers from tonight. OR if no leftovers, then tacos.
I'm trying something new this month and made a plan for the main dishes for the whole month at the beginning of the month and I will add in the side dishes based on my Hungry Harvest box each week. It's helping me use what we have in the house and stick to our weekly budget.
This week:
Sun: pork loin, corn and salad from HH
Mon: Panera bread (I went to a concert and didn't cook)
Tues: leftovers from Sunday
Wed: chicken fried rice
Thurs: steak, mushrooms and roasted beets, potato, and fennel all from HH
Fri: pulled pork sliders and homemade cheese pizza for game night with friends
My week to cook.
Sunday - chef salad (including our first home-grown tomato of the summer!)+ broccoli and toasted bread
Monday - mushroom gnocchi +garden salad (more fresh tomato!)
Tuesday - breakfast burrito smothered with green chili + orange slices
Wednesday - Thai peanut chicken (including carrots and red pepper) with noodles + broccoli
Thursday - chicken, rice, mango slices, leftover broccoli
Friday - went out (free meal with our frequent-diner card!)
I try to stay within my budget of $75/week for the family. So far, I'm doing ok.
July 1st week- spent $81
July 2nd week- spent $57
July 3rd week- spent $64
I've been quite exhausted and didn't make everything from scratch, but here is what was for dinner.
Pork green chili (no beans), meatballs & spaghetti with French baguettes, chicken raviolis, oven fry chicken, pork chili over rice and beef enchiladas.
OH MAN, not only is this post so helpful, but all the comments are, too! I love this, what a community you've built. I shared this post in my weekly link round up: http://kaijumaddy.com/2018/07/15/weekend-link-round-up-1/
Thank you for sharing!