What I Spent, What We Ate | Last one for October!
What I Spent
Greetings from the cat, who is keeping me company as I write this post. 😉
We spent $138 on food this week. including a Hungry Harvest.
October Spending
Week 1: $230
Week 2: $115
Week 3: $145
Week 4: $138
And here are the numbers for this year so far, in case you are the type who is interested!
2018 Monthly Averages
(goal is $150/week)
January: $544
February: $588
March: $641
April: $728
May: $535
June: $749
July: $578
August: $498
September: $598
October: $628
Average so far is $141/week.
What We Ate
Monday
We ate baked potato soup, plus cornbread, plus green beans.
Tuesday
Leftovers from Monday night.
Wednesday
We had a funny combo for dinner...first wedge salads, and then rice pudding. 😉
Thursday
I roasted a pork tenderloin, cooked some Hungry Harvest baby potatoes in a cast iron pan, and steamed a spaghetti squash (also from Hungry Harvest!).
Friday
Sonia and Zoe are having dinner at a friend's house, so Mr. FG and I are going to go grab a bite to eat on our own. We haven't decided where yet, though!
I would be so happy to eat rice pudding for dinner.
No rice pudding at our house this week. Although there were cupcakes.
Monday: Brisket, macaroni and cheese, steamed carrots and broccoli, cupcakes (not a birthday, but I did have leftover frosting from my daughter's birthday cake I needed to use up)
Tuesday: Pork ribs, corn muffins, green salad
Wednesday: Man Food, that is, my husband cooked and made a skillet of ground beef, mashed potatoes, garlic, and Velveeta cheese. It was so cliched, it was comical. It tasted pretty good, but it was incredibly heavy. I also had pinto beans and squash on hand, so I added that to the Man Food, as well as green peas. Because I, not being a man, cannot eat just grease and starch for dinner. 🙂
Thursday: Cornell Chicken in the oven (waaaay better on the grill, but then, what isn't?), roasted potatoes, roasted bell pepper and onion, green salad
Tonight: I have a haunch of antelope given to us by our neighbor that I was going to cut up today, so I'll see what I can do with some of that.
Now, I would have said the antelope is the man food 🙂 -- dinner at your house sounds great!
Nah, antelope is so lean it might as well be chicken breast. Now 72/28 ground beef and Velveeta cheese . . .
I was highly unambitious and quite busy this week, which was reflected in dinner choices. Meals this week included:
- Japanese restaurant with my parents; the bulgogi was so good I got another order to-go.
- Roast boneless pork chops
- Burgers (just plain beef, not even gussied up)
- Smorgesborg
- Tonight will be either sausages and/or the leftover ribs someone gave me.
Fruit and veg were whatever was on hand: blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, oranges, apples, plums, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, cukes, sweet peppers.
What was the deal with the mystery restaurant you mentioned last week? Fill us in!
Sadly but not unexpectedly, my parents had picked a restaurant they liked, which happened to start with P. It wasn't the Japanese restaurant mentioned above.
This week we finished a pork roast from the weekend and various leftovers from the freezer. Not sure what else were having tonight, but potatoes for sure. We got a new bag of potatoes that's smelling. That's disappointing, but that happens sometime.
Oh, hello kitty! Zap sits with me sometimes when I write and it's such a cozy feeling. 🙂 Poor baby got shots yesterday at the vet and has been feeling sleepy and cuddly; I won't complain. 🙂
Food was a little better 'round these parts this week. A few meals, like a coffee braised roast and Korean bowls, didn't turn out like I'd hoped. Ugh! However, we did all right with scrounging around to make things work.
For breakfast I made some tasty oatmeal pancakes with raspberries. Yum!
As usual, I'm scratching my head to remember what we had...
I know we had pot roast twice. I made different sides for the different nights; we had lima beans and cooked carrots, then asparagus and parsnip mash.
We had a frozen pizza one night when I got home late. I ate some random leftovers, mostly, since I am not supposed to be eating wheat.
We had cauliflower cheddar soup with homemade broth.
Homemade sausage with lima beans, homemade masa harina corn cakes (tortillas, really), and another veggie that I can't think of.
Hog jowl, squash and onions and more lima beans. We are quite tired of lima beans now.
Hi, lovely kitty and hooray for random meal nights! This week I cleaned out the freezer fairly well - just have one more container to go!
Monday - Ranch Pork Pot Pie
Tuesday - Sloppy Joes, leftover potato salad from Sunday
Wednesday - BBQ Smothered Pork Chops, scalloped potatoes and carrots
Thursday - Chicken Enchiladas, coleslaw
Friday - Baked Spaghetti, corn
Saturday - YOYO
Sunday - Lazy Daisy Meatballs, rice, salad
**once the freezer is more empty I can clean it in advance of the holidays**
Always a crazy week around here, school soccer, travel soccer practice. But we got it done.
Sun- at mom/dad Ham, baked Potatoes/pickled Beets, corn.
Monday- Raviolis' and meatballs, salad
Tuesday-(took out chicken) but we had pancakes and apple slices instead (dh took kids out for Halloween costumes , I had to make quiche for a work party)
Wed-late soccer practice, so no chicken again, we all ruffed it. Dd had pizza bites, I had a Taylor ham sandwich, dh and a cheese steak and mac and cheese, dd had mac and cheese.
Thursday-finally got to the chicken, chicken cutlets, corn, stuffing.
Friday-dd has dance at school, think the rest of us are going to have shrimp in garlic sauce.
I should be a better planner!!!!
My husband just recently got back from being deployed for several months so I've been making his favorite foods every night.
Sunday - chicken tacos & corn spoon bread
Monday - mushroom Swiss hamburgers
Tuesday - sliced ham, broccoli cheese rice, candied carrots, sliced apples & leftover corn spoon bread
Wednesday - chili cheese hot dogs
Thursday - spaghetti with Italian sausage and garlic bread
Plus I made an apple crisp for dessert for the week. Not sure what we're having tonight - I had planned on making homemade Belgian waffles & scrambled eggs but my book club meets tonight & we're having breakfast foods there! Probably will end up with some kind of take out 🙂
Yay that he's back now! I bet you are enjoying that, and so is he.
Mmm rice pudding . . .
Well, we keep clearing out the 'frig and pantry and wnt mostly veggie this week
Sunday -- whole wheat pasta with turkey tomato sauce (working off the cheap frozen chub))
Monday -- Golden Lentil Curry soup (from Minimalist Baker) Yumyumyumyum and how
have I lived without coconut milk??? It is seriously my new favorite food and made this soup
extra luscious, along with subbing a potato in for 1/2 the carrots.
Tuesday --Red Lentil Chili (also from MB, also yum!) salad, grapes
Wednesday -- Leftover chili, salad
Thursday -- Last of chili for me, tuna sandwich for husband, broccoli, salad
Tonight is treat night with daughter so it's up in the air.
Food fails : Deeply discounted mushrooms -- ate as many as I could but some are going into the trash 🙁 also found an older cream lurking that is WAY past date so down the drain. Really trying not to overbuy perishables happy weekend all!
I have to work backwards or I cannot recall my week! lol
Thursday night... random leftovers or sandwiches... I had a headache and it was a ROUGH day at work...
Weds- Chicken and veggie stew with noodles...
Tues- Pasta and ricotta bake.. using up leftover stuff from the freezer
Monday- Swedish meatballs and noodles... First time I have ever eaten and/or made.. and likely the last.. not a fan of the flavor...
Tonight.... Leftover shredded pork roast ( white meat).. that is too dry.. so going to Dr it up with a jar of gravy.. and whatever to use it up! likely with salad and mashed taters....
The pic with your cat makes me a bit sleepy. Maybe it's because the bedding looks so warm and comfy in this cold weather. Love the variety of your dinners! Hubby and I cook almost the same dishes every week. Sometimes it gets old, and we eat out. Gotta experiment with more recipes!
Monday- Cheeseburgers, sweet potatoes, and grapes
Tuesday - Husband had a home game, so my mom brought over a pizza to eat before we went to the game, then we had some popcorn there.
Wednesday - Someone gave us a Chipotle gift card after my baby was born and I've been saving it for this week because we have so much going on. Three burrito bowls were enough for the 4 eaters to eat, plus enough for my husband to have some for dinner the next night. It was delightful.
Thursday - Hubby had an away game and the kids and I went to a friend's house to have dinner with a friend and her 2 kids.
Friday - My husband's work puts on a huge Fall Fest for the community every year and it's tonight! So before the kids load up on candy and smores we will probably have cheeseburgers and fruit. Huge shout out to my mom who is coming along tonight and has been going to all of the home volleyball game with me to help manage my kids who are 4, 2, and 3 months!
This week has been pretty bad for us because I've been working overtime just about every night this week.
Monday: Chicken, salads and potatoes
Tuesday: Pork chops, rice and vegetables
Wednesday: Shake and Bake (using a homemade copycat recipe) rice pilaf and broccoli. I was working until late so my wife took care of this day.
Thursday: Cleaning out the fridge and eating leftovers.
Friday: Homemade pizza.
Sounds excellent to me! Did you get food on the table? Was it moderately nutritious? Then you win!
It was a weird week! Busy work evenings for my husband made for a few solo days and more eating out than normal.
Monday- I prepped chicken Caesar salads before we had to run some errands in the evening. Hooray for planning ahead and not eating out! But I can’t say I did so well the remainder of the week. 😉
Tuesday- Solo evening, so on my way home I used some Chick Fil-A points to get nuggets!
Wednesday- More errands! But we decided to make it a date night and ate out (with the help of a gift card).
Thursday- I was solo for dinner, so I had leftovers from eating out the night before.
Friday- We’re heading out of town for a friend’s wedding, and tonight is the welcome dinner. Tomorrow is the ceremony, so no cooking for me until Sunday!
This week I made:
Chicken noodle soup which took care of multiple nights
Chili - - another multi-night meal with refrigerator rolls
Coney Island burgers
Tonight is homemade pizza
My plan to eat down the food in the freezer failed as the freezer failed. So that is now empty. Late last week I roasted a chicken. It lasted for five dinners and lunches in various forms. I was pleased to see the end of that. We also had steak burgers, soy sauce chicken, rice, beans, peppers and asparagus, then lamb chops with asparagus, pan fried potato and other vegetables. Dessert most nights has been strawberries, grapes or mandarins. The hot weather hit with a vengeance yesterday and all I could think was to make things simple and to not heat up the house with cooking. My daughter popped in after work and cheerfully announced that it was over 40 Centigrade, more than 100 degrees.
Monday and Tuesday- broccoli and cauliflower with a curried peanut sauce over brown rice
Wednesday and Thursday- bean burgers, with homemade rolls, homemade pickles, and local roasted butternut squash
Thursday and Friday- Haitian pork, that used some of our spicy peppers from the garden, and mashed potatoes
I also made canberry muffins as snacks for my son, which came out pretty good. This weekend I am going to try to make a spicy salsa using the green tomatoes from our garden. *fingers crossed*
Fall baseball ended so things are really freeing up. That being said, soccer is now on the late fall schedule which means everything is 7:00-8:30 pm for us rather than spread between 5:30 & 8:30. On the plus side, its a bit easier to coordinate dinner for the younger set. On the downside, we have more days per week where the older set eat at 9 pm. Also, my ability to create interesting meals twice a night is running on empty.
Saturday - Balsamic roast beef (IP pot roast), mashed potatoes, carrots
Sunday - Lemon chicken, pan fried potatoes, tossed salad
Monday - younger three had chicken nuggets and broccoli; remaining five had homemade pizza late
Tuesday - Pork chops with apples & cider, FG potato bread, spinach salad
Wednesday - younger three had chicken nuggets with carrot sticks; remaining five had take out pizza
Thursday - younger six had leftover pot roast sandwiches and carrot sticks; remaining two had homemade macaroni & cheese
Friday - younger six had spaghetti & meatballs; remaining two had homemade pizza
We had a crazy week with 2 sickies and Mom feeling ugh!
Monday - Greek lemon, chicken, orzo soup and bisquits
Tuesday - baked tacos and cheesy rice
Wednesday - my baby girl (21) treated me to dinner out
Thursday - dinner out ($55) after 8.5 hours at the hospital. We celebrated a clean scan and were just exhausted. We are 9 months out from finishing treatment for Medullablastoma, a form of brain cancer that my daughter was diagnosed with 20 months ago.
Friday - Take out pizza ($25), We had trunk or treat from 5-7 and I didn’t make it home from work till 4.
Saturday - ranch chicken tacos
Tomorrow - the hubby is smoking a pork butt and I am thankful because I’ve caught the bug the two sickies had.
Saturday I indulged a craving for homemade potatoes au gratin, which I haven't made in at least 5 years. Invited some family over to help me eat them and baked a ham and sautéed some veggies to go with, but the potatoes were definitely the star. We ate the whole pan and my family asked me to make them again for Christmas.
Sunday I made a creamy chicken and wild rice soup which I also ate Monday and Tuesday.
Wednesday I had a ham sandwich and fruit.
Thursday and Friday were pizza.
This week coming up, we will have:
Monday: Soft tacos with carnitas, black beans, yellow rice and toppings
Tuesday: Korean chicken rice bowls (crock pot meal)
Wednesday: Chili, cornbread and hot cider (we always have this for Halloween night and my kids would be very upset with a change in tradition)
Thursday: Homemade pizza
Friday: We have plans to hang out with friends and order some Chinese food.
Saturday night we will probably have leftovers and Sunday we are visiting my in-laws.
Kristen, how do you cook the potatoes in cast iron? Just in oil, so they’re fried? Do you add any seasoning? You start off with raw potatoes? They look so good!
So this recipe called for cooking the raw potatoes on both sides in a shallow pan of oil. But I have to say, I prefer my usual method of parcooking them in the microwave and then just browning them on the stovetop. It's faster, cooks the potatoes through more thoroughly, and you have less chance of burning the cut sides of the potatoes.