What I Spent, What We Ate | It's a new year!
I know I skipped a lot of Friday menu posts in the last six weeks.
We did buy groceries and eat dinner, though.
And I haven't added it up, but I think I ended the year averaging right around $150/week, as I have the whole year long.
So.
I'm going to go ahead and just keep that grocery budget for this year, since it seems to be working just fine.
What I Spent
I did not do much in the way of grocery shopping this week, actually. I spent a whopping $33.
Which means that I really need to get myself to the store soon...produce is running low!
What We Ate
Saturday
Mr. FG and I had a date night...pizza! Which always keeps us in our $20 budget range.
Sunday
We had a belated Christmas celebration at my parents' house, and they fed us. 🙂
Monday
I kinda flew by the seat of my pants this week (NOT a good idea for me), and I am struggling to remember what we ate on Monday.
I sat here for a long time, wracking my brain, and could only remember that I made muffin tin popovers.
But what did we eat those popovers with???
OH!
I made orange glazed chicken.
And I am too impatient to try to recall what veggie or fruit we had with this.
Tuesday
New Year's Eve! I took Sonia, Zoe, and a friend skating (Mr. FG had to work) and then we ate naan pizzas when we got home.
Wednesday
I made a chicken stir-fry over rice.
Thursday
I made chipotle chicken kebabs on the grill.
I used to grill all the time in the winter, but I haven't used my grill in eons. I figured it could use a dust-off. 😉
I also made a pan of sweet cornbread muffins and I grabbed a container of homemade applesauce from the freezer.
Friday
Since I've been flying by the seat of my pants, I do not currently have a plan for tonight.
But today, I'm going to sit myself down and make a plan for tonight-next Friday.
Because flying by the seat of my pants meal-wise is 0% fun.
I think "we" all have been flying by the seat of our pants! lets see if I can remember myself what we had!
Sunday- Made homemade Pot Pie, DS has chicken parm since he doesn't eat this!
Monday- Beef stew, DS pasta, DD pizza bites I think, since neither eat this.
Tuesday- New Years eve, we go out as a family.
Wednesday- DH family gets together, we did appy's and dessert. I did shrimp cocktail, brownies, Buffalo chicken dip.
Thursday- Hot dogs, tater tots, beans for me, and as an appy left over shrimp cocktail! (then un-decorating the house., except for the tree that will be tomorrow.!)
Friday- I think its breakfast for dinner (taking down the tree!) (so just the outside will still be standing!)
The holidays are just the worst for throwing everyone off of their usual planning routines!
And sickness. We've had sickness all through Christmas and the new year. It really makes planning and cooking so difficult.
I hope you are all well soon!
Thank you. This is some sort of virus that just doesn't want to quit! It's been 3 weeks!
I'm definitely in the camp of "if I fly by the seat of my pants I will forget how to do everything in the kitchen."
Monday: Pork chops, rice and salads.
Tuesday: I'm sure I ate something but I can't remember what.
Wednesday: Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, broccolli etc.
Thursday: Leftovers from the night before.
Friday: Cleaning out the fridge. I hate having no plans so like you, I plan on planning out this week with my wife later tonight. We're kind of caught in a food rut so we'll see what we can do to change that.
We ate a lot of leftovers this week!
Sat- Pea soup with leftover Xmas ham, plus cheese bread.
Sun- Leftovers from above.
Mon- Chicken corn chowder, salad, bread.
Tue- Mon leftovers.
Wed- More Mon. leftovers.
Thur- More Mon. leftovers.
Fri.- Out with friends tonight.
We are leaving town for a few weeks, so the above leftover-heavy week of dinners reflects my attempts to deplete our refrigerator before we go. My husband, bless his heart, loves my home cooking and is happy to eat repeat meals if they come from our kitchen.
Sunday: I made cabbage soup, and we ate it even though it was too tomatoey. We also had cheese and crackers.
Monday: chicken fajitas
Tuesday: Hubby ate out with coworkers, and the boys and I ordered pizza. I'm planning on on mostly eating in this year, so it was a last hurrah of sorts.
Wednesday: We ate at a friend's house (she invited us to stay last-minute, so we didn't contribute anything).
Thursday: I re-vamped the cabbage soup from Sunday. Much better!
Friday: cabbage soup (for me and the kids at least-hubby will probably fend for himself)
Monday- my mom and kids ate leftover ham, corn casserole, and leftover cranberry sauce while my husband and I were at a funeral visitation. We got Chipotle on the way home with some gift cards.
Tuesday- We hosted a New Year's Eve party from 5-9 since we all have little kids. I made a veggie tray, fruit tray, and pigs in a blanket.
Wednesday- Turkey and noodles (which is turkey/chicken noodle soup with very little broth because my kids would make a huge mess), salad, leftover corn casserole
Thursday- Date night!!!!! My kids all went to my parents' house for a sleepover, so we had all kinds of time. Used an Olive Garden gift card and (as happens on most of our dates) we went to Lowe's. 🙂
Friday- Pork roast (which I need to get started), broccoli with cheese, and the last of the corn casserole!
I have almost all of next week planned out, which I'm pretty stoked about. But I need to clear space in my fridge to start thawing a turkey.
We don't do frequent money chats like you (we should) but we just revised our budget. That combined with me hoping to find more meatless recipes we like and cheaper ways to cook, I'm hoping our grocery budget will be less stressful for me this year.
Monday— spaghetti garlic bread
Tuesday—meatloaf. Green beans. Roasted ranch potators
Wednesday— ham mashed potatoes stuffing Parm green beans apple snicker salad
Thursday— our for Chinese—lunch ( cheap!) and snacky supper
Friday— leftover game n eggs. Biscuits
Loving those googley eyes!
What we ate:
Saturday: Hot dogs over a fire, green salad and leftover flatbreads.
Sunday: Blanking out totally!
Monday: Tacos (so good after days of christmasy leftovers, finally went grocery shopping)
Tuesday: Beef Burgundy stew to start the new year right. I had a chickpea version.
Wednesday: Leftover stew
Thursday: Pasta with grilled cauliflower and fennel steaks.
Friday: Maybe something with butternut squash. We still have a LOT of cream left from Christmas too. Creamy butternut 🙂
The holidays are like a time warp. Last week seems like about a year ago . . .
Saturday: Vegetable soup, elk and chile stew, garlic bread, cheese
Sunday: Bunless cheeseburgers, bread and butter, cucumber slices, leftover soup and stew
Monday: T-bone steaks, mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms and onions, frozen green beans from my garden
Tuesday: Roasted extraneous rooster, roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli, sauteed swiss chard from my dad's garden, a very rich chocolate pudding to use up the seven egg yolks I was left with after making our Christmas chocolate roulade
Wednesday: New Year's Day always means health (pork--this year a pork shoulder), wealth (greens--this year frozen kohlrabi greens from the summer garden), and happiness (black eyed peas) for me and my entire immediate family, thanks to my mother's New Orleans roots. And rice, because you have to have rice. And leftover pudding, because I made a double recipe and we had a VAT of pudding, Not that anyone was complaining.
Thursday: I gave myself a late birthday present of driving to a small city 90 miles away and staying in historic hotel there by myself for one night. Thus, I did nothing but order my dinner in the hotel's bar. I assume the rest of the family ate leftovers, but I don't actually know that. They could have eaten candy for all I know. And I don't care, because I didn't even have to think about it. I know all of you who are in charge of day in and day out cooking for a family know what an incredible treat this was for me.
How come my fruits and vegetables never look at me that way?
Let's see if I can remember what I cooked. I planned, but I've forgotten my planner, so...
New Year's Day is easy --hog jowl, mustard greens, black-eyed peas and cornbread! We have this traditional meal every year so no trouble remembering that one.
Some of the leftover Christmas ham, pulled from the freezer one night, with orange-honey golden beets and sauteed zucchini and onions with Italian herbs.
Tuna salad made with shredded carrots, celery and onion, in an avocado-garlic dressing, plus fruit.
Beef fajitas (mine on cassava flour tortillas) with zucchini, onion and mushrooms. Cheese and salsa on my husband's fajitas.
Steak with a salad.
And... more. That's all I can remember, but I am surprised I remembered that much. My grocery bill is down some because my husband is getting "Meals on Wheels," but he usually prefers my cooking, so it hasn't helped as much as I hoped. Still, anything less beats nothing less.
That's because you don't have Sonia, Zoe, and Lisey living with you. 😉
Trying to get back on a track/on a routine after the holidays. We finally finished our mammoth DIY kitchen remodel and cooking is a pleasure again.
Sunday--spinach and ricotta lasagne; made the bechamel sauce with almond milk cos I needed to use it up, but it's better with regular milk
Tuesday--homemade pizza (a NYE tradition at this point)
Wednesday--veggie chili and baked potatoes (still eating leftovers for lunch)
Thursday--we ate out, vegetarian pho at our favorite Vietnamese place
Tonight--salmon with green beans and roasted sweet potato
hmm.. lets see:
Saturday, we ate a nice big green salad, after all the heavy eating, we were looking for something light
Sunday, Pea Soup with rolls
Monday, My daughter treated us to pizza night!
Tuesday, we had our last 2019 dinner delivered, it was cheese-steak sammies from local pizzaria and a big salad
Wednesday, Happy New Year, i made a pot of Menudo (my daughters request)
Thursday, leftover Menudo
Tonight.. Tostadas!!
Saturday - Cheeseburgers for the fam and a Mushroom Burger for me, along with roasted potatoes and carrots.
Sunday - Pork Tenderloin, Mac and Cheese, English Peas. I heated up a leftover Mushroom Burger for myself
Monday - We had to make a trip into town after I got home from work, so we went to Burger King. I had an Impossible Whopper and my husband had a regular Whopper. We shared fries and I had water.
Tuesday (NYE) - Quesadillas (Veggie for me, Chicken for the fam), chips, salsa and guac.
Wednesday - Parmesan (Eggplant for me, Chicken for the fam), biscuits, angel hair pasta and salad.
Thursday - I had leftover Eggplant Parm and fixed some drumsticks and baked potatoes and corn for the fam.
Friday - We're going out, so not sure
Monday- I can’t remember what we had for supper.
Tuesday - We had our annual New Years Eve prime rib dinner for family and friends. With the steak, we had salad, baked potatoes, deviled eggs, and homemade cheese cake for dessert.
Thursday- I made taco in a bag. And there are plenty of leftovers to choose from.
Friday- I’m planning on making potato soup and cornbread.
I've come to realize that semi-planned works best. I make a short list of main dishes, based on what I need to cook or haven't eaten in a while, and refer to it in the evening. Occasionally I'll plan sides as well but typically its one of the usual half dozen.
For me, a day-by-day plan doesn't work. Often enough, I don't feel like making that dish or events override the plan. For example, yesterday everyone was having an appallingly bad day and we kept pissing each other off, so after we pulled ourselves together we went out for ice cream for dinner.
YMMV.
"we went out for ice cream for dinner"
sounds like my kind of meal!!!!!
I think ice cream should always override the plan, honestly.
My mother-in-law does this kind of semi-meal planning at the beginning of the month. She lists out all of the meals she plans on having (and having the ingredients for), and then she can tailor the meals to what's going on.
WilliamB, I also do semi-planning as I find it adds more flexibility. Before I go to the store, I'll select a few recipes & check if there is any ingredient I might need. I always have a few meals in the que that I know I have all ingredients for. I do this on a short-term basis likely weekly or every 2 weeks, unlike Jody S.'s m-I-l who does it monthly. I do a very general meal plan before I make a grocery list. It's nice to know there are others that plan the same way.
I vowed to make a new recipe every week- this last week I made pioneer woman’s butter chicken and her cast iron pizza! Both were excellent. Today I just made 2 quiches- looked online for recipes and kind of improvised- spinach, mushrooms and onions. I am freezing one for a later date. I made my own pie crust and used various cheeses from Aldi I had in fridge. So proud of myself!
Woohoo! Good for you!
That's awesome Nan; good for you!
Hi. Does your $150 a week budget include things like toiletries, cleaning supplies etc?
Yep, everything except contact lens supplies, which I rather randomly budget for separately! Ha.
I don't use a whole lot of cleaning supplies, though.
I do much better with a plan for dinner- flying by the seat of my pants winds up costing me money or not the best food to eat.
love the fruit 🙂
Not planning is disastrous for me - I lost my planning mojo a lot last year but found it over the holidays again - such a relief; I find it so exhausting after a long day to have to decide/shop/plan then cook. I found it best to plan weekday breaky, lunches & snacks or it goes to custard & I buy too much takeaway. I plan for the wk but am happy to move things around as needed - I tend not to plan w/e meals as I don't always know what I'll be doing & it gives me 2 nites to eat what is leftover or I go out with or to someone else's place. My new trick is to do vegie prep for the next couple of nites during or after cooking tonites dinner - this feels relaxed & I'm prepping when fed & then the next meal is much quicker & easier to prepare
I too like a few of you don't have a clue what I ate this wk but somewhere in there was steak & vegies, lentil vegie soup, dim sims from the freezer. Tonite I will have panfried savoury mince & vegies with pasta - the best part is the already chopped vegies ready to go 🙂
Oh, my gosh! Remember when your kiddies used to put their stuffed animals in your grocery pictures? The googly eyes reminded me of them and their little selves. 🙂
Yep, I was thinking about that just the other day!