What I Spent, What We Ate | Only one more week in September!
We've had pretty much all warm weather so far this month, and I think the lack of crisp fall days is making it hard for me to think that October is almost here.
But I know warm, humid weather is nothing compared to the weather difficulties people in Florence's path have faced, so I'm not going to feel sorry for myself!
What I Spent
We spent $154 on food this week, so only slightly over budget.
September Spending
Week 1:$124
Week 2: $151
Week 3: $154
What We Ate
Monday
We went to a friend's house to eat pizza, and we brought fruit and drinks.
Tuesday
We had eggplant Parmesan, which I know is surprising to many of you. But my parents told me the Cook's Illustrated version was very different than the version I remember from my childhood, and they were right!
I mean, I'm not going to wake up in the middle of the night craving it or anything, but I thought it was pretty good.
Which is saying a lot for me!
Wednesday
Grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, and salad.
Is there a better combo than soup and sandwiches? I think not.
Thursday
Sonia and I made Swedish meatballs with egg noodles. And we had spaghetti squash (from Hungry Harvest) on the side.
Friday
We had quite a few leftover Swedish meatballs, so I think we will just have those for dinner tonight.
Easy button!
Had a great week staying within my grocery budget ($80/week for 2 people) homemade yogurt with museli for breakfast, fattoush salad in flat bread with homemade hummus; these are repeated meals through the busy work week. Dinner was grilled bbq chicken served with corn salsa and brocolli, chicken parmesan with pesto pasta, chicken with brocolli teriyaki style, sausage with onions and peppers. Easy meals, and on budget, no eating out/takeaway. I plan on keeping it very similar next week. Using freezer/pantry clear out strategies more next week.
It has been a strange week here. We have eaten out twice. I have made chicken and rice soup out of some leftovers. Another night we had chicken thighs cooked Indian style with rice and salad. Pizza was one dinner. This was served with baby cucumbers and tomato. I can't remember what else we have had over the last week.
Regarding the eggplant parm, what was the difference between the CI version and the one from your youth, recipe-wise?
Have you ever tried using the spaghetti squash as your noodles for your Swedish meatball dish? Might be good to try with your leftovers. I have been using these in a lot of my dishes to cut down on carbs... not that you need to, of course, just another way to use them. I have found that if you get a lot of the moisture out of them with paper towels they are comparable to noodles so they make a great bed for sauces/gravies. The first couple times I tried using them as a noodle replacement, I didn't get them soft enough so they felt weirdly raw..like an undercooked potato.Of course, egg noodles are delicious!
I have been sick this week so it is somewhat of a blur, but I will try.
Thursday-chicken, slaw, and potatoes
Wednesday- orange chicken, roasted carrots and cabbage, and deviled eggs. Weird combo, I know.
Tuesday- pizza, I had a BOGO coupon
Monday- can't remember, maybe sandwiches?
The question I am now left with: What DO you wake up in the middle of the night craving? Personally, I don't crave anything but more sleep, but that's probably because I wake up in the middle of the night faaar too often.
Okay, WWA . . .
Monday: Sausage Surprise, cucumbers. Sausage Surprise is the name by my eldest son given to my latest skillet creation: browned ground beef and spicy sage sausage, onion garlic, tomato, rice, green peas, basil, oregano, and grated cheese (menonita cheese this time, which is a Mexican variety that is supposed to be like cheddar but I find to be more like a slightly aged mozzarella)
Tuesday: Chicken, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted bell pepper and onion, choice of leftover mashed potatoes or rice, tomato/cucumber/menonita cheese salad
Wednesday: Antelope tacos, pickled carrots, cucumbers. Our neighbor, who is a hunting guide, gave us a huge antelope roast when he had a client that only wanted the trophy (meaning the head for mounting). I cut it in half. This is the second half I've cooked. I was lazier in its preparation, so it wasn't as good as the first time I made it (which is very good, if you're wondering how antelope tastes--tastes like beef, for real). So I used the leftover kind of bland and tough meat to make taco meat by dicing it and simmering it in a sauce of tomatoes, onion, garlic, chili powder and cumin until it was tender. The carrots I shaved into strips with a vegetable peeler and pickled in vinegar, salt, and a bit of sugar to top the tacos. They were really good.
Thursday: Roast beef; baked potatoes; roasted calabacitas (a type of squash similar to zucchini), onion, and carrots; creamy cucumber salad
Tonight: Two of my sons are in a play at school and will be eating dinner there. I have some pinto beans soaked and ready to cook, so the remaining four of us will have those with leftover rice, scrambled eggs, and probably more cucumbers in some form. I have a LOT of cucumbers on hand, thanks to generous neighbors.
I did fairly well, budget-wise, until last night where we ate take-out Chinese. We don't do that much anymore, so it was nice to get a cook's night off! We had:
Monday - Leftovers! (:
Tuesday - Salami and mozzarella Sandwich rolls with roasted red peppers
Wednesday - Chicken Soup (using leftover Comfort Chicken from freezer)
Thursday - Chinese take-out
Friday - Fish Tacos, Black Bean Pineapple Salsa
Saturday - yoyo - Hubby and I will be at a winery pick-up and they are feeding us
Sunday - Seasoned Pork Chops, Loaded Mashed Potatoes, carrots
I am sure ready for some fall weather here - I have landscaping to do!
Ooh, eggplant parmesan. I've had a few okay ones- I'm not the biggest eggplant fan, but I keep trying. It's always so much better when someone else makes it...
This week, I made cauliflower and potato soup, and black bean burgers, and we had Chinese food one night (daughter's choice, to celebrate her first day of preschool). Tonight, I'm making a smoky cabbage and lentil soup. 🙂
Fruit with pizza? That sounds like an odd combo.
Monday: Chicken in the slow cooker. Brown rice and salads.
Tuesday: Pork chops, roasted potatoes and vegetables
Wednesday: Clean out the fridge of leftovers
Thursday: French toast.
Friday: I'm not sure. My kid has a cold so she stayed home from daycare but she and my wife were supposed to go out with her mom and leave me alone. We'll see, I guess.
We often have fruit with pizza. It helps get something healthier into the meal and I know my little kids will eat it, even when it's competing with pizza.
I'm so ready for fall, too!
I sure feel for the people still dealing with the aftermath of Florence, too -- I live in hurricane country now but I grew up in a river town that floods frequently, so I'm familiar with both of those, and they are truly awful. Where I grew up was also an earthquake zone and we got ice storms some winters. I read somewhere that the U.S. has some of the worst weather in the world, and I think I agree.
Last week I was a little over budget, too, but I stocked up on a couple of things which pushed it up higher. And I love eggplant Parmesan! I'm curious, too, how was this one different?
What we ate:
Tomato soup, homemade cassava crackers, cottage cheese and fresh pears
Cabbage/pork "curry" with homemade applesauce and green beans.
Burgers and parsnip fries
tacos on cassava tortillas, also with cottage cheese and fruit on the side, fresh peaches this time.
Chicken wings with salad and pressure cooker "baked" beans.
Pork chops, sweet cooked carrots, and cooked cabbage.
And one night, nothing but foraging in the refrigerator. We were working on a project and ended up too late to get anything cooked.
Part of the reason the US has a such a variety of terrible weather is that the country is very large (4th largest in the world). Although Japan, which is much smaller, manages earthquakes, typhoons, and floods with some regularity as well.
What are cassava tortillas and do you have a recipe?
I make the tortillas with Otto's Naturals cassava flour (often called the best cassava flour by several food bloggers). The recipe is on the bag so I don't have it on me, but it's basically their flour, water, salt, and olive oil. There are other recipes on the internet but this one strikes me as the simplest. It takes a little getting used to for working with it; it's a tender flour and tears more easily than wheat flour, but Otto's website has recipes for cake, breads, and more and several paleo bloggers have recipes using it. I love the pancakes and lavosh style crackers. You can buy the tortillas already made online, but they aren't cheap.
Sunday was apple, bacon, mac and cheese; Monday and Tuesday were kale, potato, and sausage soup; Wednesday was rice fritters from the freezer that I made last month along with broccoli and cooked apples; and last night was organic Aldi hamburger patties from the freezer with instant mashed potatoes and the rest of the cooked apples. I started in on a second college degree four weeks ago AND a new part-time job and have never been more focused in my meal planning! My classes are Tues-Thur and T/Th I'm there until nearly 5, so those are the days that have to be most ready to go. This was the first week since I started that I had to do a mid-week grocery run for anything - bananas and broccoli - so I think I'm doing pretty well! Ok, now off to Aldi, the produce warehouse, and the regular grocery store to stock up for the next week!
Last night I made chicken drumsticks braised in a homemade tomato sauce with wine. We served it over linguini and had garlic bread on the side. I was thinking of putting zucchini in with the chicken but my zucchini had gone bad. I hate when that happens! My family loved the recipe and the leftovers were packed up for their lunches! Win, win!
Sat - chicken nuggets and salad
Sun - pasta with meat sauce
Mon - naan pizzas
Tues - beef & cabbage stirfry
Wed - bangers and mash with coleslaw
Thurs - brinner - Dutch babies and bacon
Fri - stuffed shells, soda bread, and salad
Is that PINEAPPLE that I see on the pizza?!?? Noooooooo!!!
STEP-AWAY-FROM-THE-PIZZA!!!!
Ahah, I'll never get it, pineapple, yuck.... My husband loves it... go figure!
Hah! Thank goodness for the mushrooms to balance out unwanted and unwarranted tropical fruits besmirching the pie!
Well...I DID make egg salad today - using eggs I bought at the warehouse store the other day 🙂
Monday- Sloppy joes, watermelon, green beans, pudding
Tuesday- Taco salad for me. My husband took the kids to Culver's for some quality time with Daddy. 🙂
Wednesday- My husband had a volleyball game, so I took things like grapes, oranges, and cheese sticks for the kids to eat. But Grammy bought them hot dogs. The hot dogs won.
Thursday- Meatloaf, mashed purple potatoes, watermelon
Friday- Vegetable beef soup and french bread - both from the freezer. 🙂
I've been decidedly uninspired in the kitchen lately - maybe it's the heat. 9 straight days over 90 in Denver. It's finally "cooled off" into the 80s, so maybe I'll get my mojo back. In the meantime, I found a great sale on chicken breasts and bell peppers, so I made fajitas... LOTS of fajitias! 🙂
You can never have too many fajitas.
Mighty tasty! It's been rainy and warm here too, but that's Texas for ya. I'm actually going to bake some of your cinnamon bread this weekend to convince myself it's almost fall. 🙂
I stopped keeping such a strict track of our eating, but here are a few good things we had this week:
1. I made a really rockin' meatloaf. We have a huge surplus of ground beef right now, and I was tickled to use two pounds of it for dinner. We paired the meatloaf with tasty steamed carrots.
2. Yesterday I made a cold Italian pasta salad to go with our pesto chicken. It was really good! I made it with Italian dressing, chopped mozzarella, pickled peppers, and cubed salami.
It's very fall feeling here. Cold and rainy, although it makes a good excuse to splash in puddles with my kiddos.
What we ate this week-
Monday - Homemade chicken soup.
Tuesday - Hamburger soup that I had in the freezer. Tuesdays are now our extremely crazy days and I might have to do a little more pre-planning to make this day work well. or simply have a stock of freezer meals for this day)
Wednesday - Chicken and rice and cauliflower and carrots.
Thursday - Homemade meat patties with roast sweet potatoes and broccolli.
Friday - Same Homemade meat patties as yesterday served as hamburgers with zucchini and salad.
Man i am over SoCal heat -- upper nineties for the forseeable . . .so, I was happy to incorporate last Sunday's rotisserie chicken (purchased with coupon) into pretty much every lunch and dinner I made this week.
A couple classic chicken, nuked potato, steamed broccoli, and salad meals
Many, oh so many, salads with diced chicken and whatever I had lying around the 'frig -- for lunch to take and dinner to eat at home. Actually really enjoyed this, cuz HEAT.
Opened a surprisingly tasty can of Campbells( !) organic veggie chili, mixed in a handy dandy can of extra pintos and topped with free sour cream and green onions. Finished with yummy grapes which are both cheap and in season. Lots of sparkly water and my own iced tea.
Some cereal mixtures for breakfast (free bran flakes mixed with marked down other bran flakes) and toast for breakfast. Bought doughnuts for Fun Friday but no regrets - D is for doughnuts, as i explained to the kids.
Best news -- cheapo meals for the most part and NO WASTE. Zip Zilch Nada. Me so proud !
Thank you and everyone here for encouraging this!! 🙂
This week was Blue cheese stuffed burgers, no buns so I wrapped in lettuce and he wrapped with tortilla. Another night was Quesadillas & salad. Grandpa took us out to eat and the meal was so large we had it for dinner, lunch than again for dinner. The place we ate at always serves yellow carrots. They are so good! Fried chicken, rice and noodles other nights.
It was really windy here Friday, lots of power outages. It was 80 out and once the cold front went thru it was mid 40's. What a drop!
It was a fun week, we managed to trap feral mom and her little kitties. They will all get fixed and we hope the littles can be handled enough to go to homes. Mom won't -she has an attitude but no more kittens for her. We will see she is taken care of.
Yay for TNR. I have a strict "no rabies, no babies" policy myself.
I'm not good at remembering...Here's what I do recall for the last few days:
Wed- frozen chicken tenders and fries
Thurs- baked ham and potatoes
Fri-frozen pizza
Sat- scalloped potatoes & ham
Sun-crockpot beef stew
I've been trying to come up with new meals once I took note of our freezer stash. DH won't eat things from when he lived at home (meatloaf, vegetables, lasagna, chili, anything vegetarian, hamburgers, and meatballs to name a few) and it's definitely been a hindrance in my desire to try new things. I mean, meatballs can be made with different products and spices, but he still refuses. I made vegetable lasagna once and only with mozzarella cheese but he still refused. It was actually pretty awesome.
I have NEVER been a fan of eggplant in any way, shape or form. However, when we used to visit my beloved late spinster (do they use that word anymore?) aunt, she used to cook us her speciality - ratatouille! She was so proud of her favorite eggplant and tomato creation (shudder)! Needless to say, because I loved my aunt dearly, I always ate her slithery eggplanty concoction with a cheerful smile! Do I miss my aunt? Desperately! Have I had ratatouille since her death over 10 years ago....not a chance!
This made me chuckle!