What I Spent, What We Ate | $76!
What I Spent
I spent $25 on my Hungry Harvest and $51 at the grocery store. It was a light shopping week!
What We Ate
Saturday
Mr. FG and I had our date night (tacos!) and the girls fended for themselves (which means things like grilled cheese or ramen, usually.)
Sunday
This was a here and there night...Mr. FG was out with Joshua, Lisey was at work, Zoe was out with her cousins, and just Sonia and I were at home at dinnertime.
So I made a pot of Parmesan polenta, because Sonia and I both love polenta but no one else is a huge fan.
Monday
We had the shrimp pasta dish I tried a few weeks ago, although Zoe had hers with chicken.
Tuesday
I grabbed some naan out of the freezer and we made naan pizzas...some regular pepperoni, and some BBQ chicken.
Wednesday
I tried a new recipe from a Cook's Country magazine for a steak salad (I had a pound of skirt steak in the freezer that needed to be used).
This recipe called for baking torn pitas into something like croutons, and those were really tasty, if just a bit too salty for my taste.
Thursday
I'd planned to make this shrimp recipe, but I ended up needing an easier meal. So I pulled some dried beef out of the freezer and we had chipped beef on toast, with sauteed asparagus on the side (thanks, Hungry Harvest!)
Friday
Mr. FG and I will probably do our date night tonight (maybe takeout and a movie?), since Sonia's birthday is tomorrow.
Monday- BBQ chicken legs, quinoa with carrots and peppers, smoothies
Tuesday- Pork roast (sooooo good), Cajun potatoes, peas
Wednesday- Chicken enchiladas with chips and avocado
Thursday- Vegetable beef soup, garlic bread
Friday- BBQ pork sandwiches, asparagus, aaaaaaaand..... Not sure. Maybe broccoli? Maybe salad? I just got lots of both.
On a side note: to get my 5yo and 2yo excited about eating something healthy I thought it would be fun to let them each pick one thing from the produce section at Aldi... Whatever they wanted. I figured the worst that could happen was I paid $3 for strawberries when I normally wouldn't pay more $1.50. But what did my 2yo pick? Pre-cut watermelon spears!!!!! $3.49 for 6 little spears, one of which was dropped on the ground and had to be thrown away. My frugal-self would never, ever, ever buy pre-cut watermelon spears. But he's oh-so-happy about his lunch today. 🙂
And watermelon in March is just always kind of expensive! At least this was at Aldi...at a regular grocery store, it would have cost a lot more. 😉
I keep reminding myself of that when I feel the cringe coming. 🙂
But just think Ruth - your little boy is excited to eat fruit!! That's money well spent to me - I had a furgal - a furgal! a furgal frailure myself yeasterday (wow now I'm from NZ 🙂 I bought one single truss tomato to use in a sandwich & coughed when I checked my receipt that it cost $2 for one tomato!! $10.80 per kilo, wow, I made sure I ate the rest of it in a tomato lettuce sandwich today so at least it was $1 per tomato serve but yikes, although, I have wasted much more money on many other things....
We continue with soft foods after mum's surgery. This week we have had spaghetti Bolognese. beef olives thin slices of beef, stuffed with mushrooms, bacon and whatever else I had and cooked long and slow), egg dishes twice and I can't remember the rest.
Fruit and veg are a shocking price in Australia at present. Between flood and drought stocks are low and horrid quality. This week it was $10 for a very small cauliflower. I guess it is time to resort to tinned and frozen stuff until things improve.
Hi Suzan, I am so grateful to a friend who taught me this - when using frozen veg, put them in a large bowl and cover well with freshly boiled water from the kettle and let sit for 3min then drain & cook as desired - this improves the taste & texture of frozen veg outta sight!
Risotto is soft - and yummy - you could do a pea & chicken one +/- mushrooms - you don't need much chicken and you can poach it in stock made with a cube; just an idea
Monday: leftover hamburgers and rice, my husband ate his never-ending tripe stew, frozen green beans
Tuesday: Chicken-fried steak with cream gravy, buckwheat waffles, frozen peas
Wednesday: Sirloin steaks, fried bread, pan-fried sweet potatoes, frozen green beans
Thursday: Pork chops with leftover cream gravy, garlic bread, green salad
Tonight: My eldest son announced that he would make dinner (though as he's only nine and has never actually made a whole meal before, this will be a heavily supervised endeavor). His plan is hamburgers, quesadillas, and grape tomatoes. He only added the tomatoes into his meal plan when I asked him what vegetable we would be having. I suspect that left to his own devices, his idea of a balanced meal would be much like his fathers', i.e., meat and possibly a starch.
Um, "father's," that is. He only has one . . .
What a relief.
Sunday: Homemade pizza, ice cream for dessert
Monday: meal size salad with leftover turkey meatloaf (I think?)
Tuesday: ramen bowl with sauteed veggies
Wednesday: second round of ramen bowl with sauteed veggies (I had lots of mushrooms and snow peas to use up)
Thursday: veggie burgers, sweet potatoes, green beans
Friday: I still have snow peas in the fridge....
I was very sick with a head/sinus cold last weekend and into this week, so we had a few easy dinners. Hubby made a few of them; thankful for that!
Sunday hubby invited his parents over for homemade lasagne and bread and we had brownies for dessert that oldest daughter had made.
Monday: leftover lasagne and bread
Tuesday: taco salads
Wednesday: I felt good enough to make dinner, so I made homemade cheddar/bacon/broccoli soup
Thursday: Deer tenderloin cooked like steak (so yummy!) with baked potatoes and California blend veggies.
Tonight....undecided
Sunday- at moms for leftover from my nephew Birthday party! spaghetti , left over ice cream cake.
Monday- Sausage peppers, onions, potatoes, kids had something else since they don't like this.
Tuesday- home made Belgium waffles, bacon.
Wednesday- chicken cutlet, butter noodles, Brussels sprouts.
Thursday- 10 dd, cooked dinner with my help. Chicken fettuccine Alfredo, I had a salad also, dd had chicken parm, since he doesn't like alfredo!
Friday- Hot dogs and homemade mac and cheese I think!
How do you do chipped beef? It’s not a dish I’m familiar with.
That asparagus looks amazing! I can't wait for spring asparagus! (C'mon snow... melt!)
What we ate this week...
Monday - Spaghetti with meatballs
Tuesday - Kale-veggie stirfry with Venison steak
Wednesday - Venison stew with Yams on the side.
Thursday - Leftover Spaghetti
Friday - Tacos in some form!
Monday and Tuesday- spaghetti and meatballs
Wednesday-chana masala
Thursday- ordered pizza and wings
Friday- chana masala and leftover pizza and wings
Spent $35 on groceries this week plus $20 for pizza and wings.
We’ve started something new for our family. Each person (there’s 4 of us) gets to pick a meal for dinner each week. This really takes the pressure off me to decide for the whole family and the kids are learning more cooking skills which is always a good thing.
Saturday - chicken fried rice
Sunday - chicken enchiladas with refried beans (of course)
Monday - Sausage and Peppers with pasta
Tuesday - egg rolls and potstickers
Wednesday - bbq sausage with Mac and cheese and green beans
Thursday - fend for yourself leftovers (as usual)
Friday - we go out to eat each week, this time it was burgers all around
We just got the feb/March Cook’s country. I’m hoping to convince DH to make that clementine cake!
Update: He randomly made it last night. Consensus: it's too sweet. They added sugar to balance the bitterness of the oranges, but I think the contrast between bitter and sweet icing would have been better. Since I'm not supposed to have much sugar, I had my piece without icing and it also tasted too sweet-- the sugar kind of dulls the orange.
This is good to know! I love to hear if a recipe isn't worth it.
It wasn't bad, but there are lots of recipes out there that take way less effort that are just as good or better. (Like ATC's lemon pound cake, for example.)
ATK (because Kitchen starts with K...)
Hi Kristen,
I'm always inspired by you and other reader's weekly menus! I've noticed that you sometimes make Chipped Beef. We've never had it, and have only seen it sold as a frozen meal. I am curious, do you follow a certain recipe to make it, and what kind of beef do you use? I'm always looking for quick, easy meals to make, and this seems like it can be made with pantry staples.
Thanks!
I have read from a few food bloggers that they think CC and CI recipes are too salty. I reduce the salt a little.
Can you link to the shrimp pasta recipe, please? Would love to make it for my husband! Thank you