WIS, WWA | a blur of not-cooking
I kind of remember hitting a wall in the semester last fall when dinner-making seemed very hard. And I was only taking one class at that time.
So, I suppose I should not be surprised that I have now hit a week where my dinner-making efforts were almost non-existent.
But I only have three more weeks of school left, plus finals. I AM SO CLOSE.
What I Spent
I spent:
- $15 at Safeway
- $18 on Domino's pizza
- $10 on McDonald's
- $18 at Panera
So, $61. Which is not bad, considering that I was not exactly knocking it out of the park this week with the whole cooking thing.
What We Ate
Saturday
Zoe was at work, I don't remember where Lisey was, and I went to my parents' house for dinner! My mom made chicken soup, french bread, and salad. 🙂
Sunday
I did not cook, I remember that much. And I know I gave Zoe $10 to get some McDonald's before work.
Monday
I made Aussie chicken, and we had applesauce and cucumber slices on the side.
Tuesday
I survived my last day of lab, but man, I had no energy for making dinner at the end of the day. I plopped down in a chair, and our cat fell asleep on my lap.
So I ordered some pizza from Dominos, using my phone. 😉
Wednesday
I was not hungry at dinnertime, so while I had chemistry class, the girls got some mac n cheese from Panera.
Thursday
I had a $150 gift card to a waterfront seafood restaurant, and I'd been holding onto it for a while. Zoe is allergic to all shellfish, which meant she didn't really want to go eat there.
So Lisey and I got a little dressed up and went out for a random Thursday night dinner together. 🙂
Zoe ate stuffed shells at home (I'd frozen some last time I made a batch).
Friday
I do not currently have any pressing school things that are due! Sooooo, I dunno, I think I will actually cook dinner tonight.
I might even do something crazy like...go grocery shopping. 😉
Yay for random Thursday night mother-daughter dates! And yay for living in a time when a magic box can make pizza appear without you needing to disturb the cat! My week has a clearance item theme it seems.
WIS: 11.67 @Price Rite, 79.01 @Aldi and 12.89 @Giant for a total of 103.57 worth of quickity trips this week.
WWA:
Fri: tokyo bekana salad and pepperoni and mozzarella focaccia. The mozzarella was a clearance find from Giant. And we had donut ice cream for dessert because packages of 4 were on sale at Aldi for .89 and I bought a lot.
Sat: spinach salad and chicken and rice with vegetables mixed in. This dinner used a clearance package of chicken quarters and a clearance package of spinach both from Price Rite. We had donut ice cream for dessert again.
Sun: spicy mix salad and laze-sagna (a lasagna-like creation that used up a few random broken no cook lasagna noodles and was basically all the standard lasagna ingredients mixed together and baked in the same cast iron pan used to cook the onions, garlic and Italian sausage (which was also a clearance find). The whole thing was topped with more of that clearance mozzarella.
Mon: spicy mix salad, air fried sweet potato fries and copy cat Ikea meatballs served over egg noodles. I made this instead of my husband and I followed a recipe I found online. It was good except that my lack of regular experience making dinner showed because I used the teaspoon of salt the recipe called for and it was just way too salty. If I make it again, I'll definitely reduce or even omit the salt completely, but I feel like if I cooked more regularly, I would have questioned that amount of salt on my first time with the recipe. Oh, well. Salt and learn...Also the ground beef and ground pork I used to make the meatballs...clearance from my freezer, AKA the magical box of frozen sale items.
Tue: sheet pan roasted cauliflower, (not) dahl (which were lentils cooked in what my husband at first thought was plain coconut milk, but turned out to be a coconut broth-like mixture that had Thai flavorings like lime juice added in. It tasted good, but decidedly not like traditional dahl. We also had a sourdough bread wreath with brie baked in the middle and German wafer cookies for dessert. None of these ingredients were from a clearance find, but the brie was on sale from Aldi.
Wed: weenie Wednesday: clearance hotdogs on the foreman grill, buns from the freezer, a bag of frozen fries I bought on clearance at Aldi and grapes on the side. And we had more donut ice cream because yummy.
Thu: sauteed turnip greens with candied walnuts on top, thaco Thursday using up leftover rice from the chicken and rice and some tilapia sauteed, shredded and mixed with salsa. We put this in crunchy corn tacos and topped with shredded cheddar cheese. The tilapia and the cheese were...um...clearance...
Tonight: salad and focaccia, I presume...
Have a wonderful weekend!
Well done Kristen! That is why you are frugal in the first place - to be able to have take-out when things and time get really tight.
Lisey and you look great! I bet that was a lovely outing
What a fun idea to dress up and go to dinner on a Thursday! You both look great!
We had a birthday party for my husband last Saturday. I hit the easy button and had it catered from Pei Wei ($ well-spent IMO) . The portions were generous, so we had a ton leftovers that we enjoyed thoughout the week.
Sun-Tuesday: Pei Wei Leftovers
Wed: Can of Soup over mashed potatoes
Thurs:"Meat" crumbles & broccoli with a peanut sauce with lefteover rice
Friday: I'm bringing Marsala Chicken to a Potluck
As I meal plan for next week, I know we will not be eating any sort of Chinese food!
Ordering a pizza on my lap while a cat snoozes on me sounds purrrfect. And so does a random dress up date night with your daughter! Hooray for easy nights of no cooking!! This week I ate:
Monday - Chinese Chicken Stir Fry, ramen
Tuesday - Instead of the taco bowls I planned, I made some soft tacos with leftover taco meat from a previous meal. I added red bell pepper, tomato, the rest of some salsa and served refried beans with cheese on the side. So yum.
Wednesday - Shrimp Caesar Salad with garlic croutons
Thursday - Corn Chowder, garlic toast
Friday - I think I'm eating leftover corn chowder - not sure yet. But I have plans to make cranberry sauce, dressing, and Crispix mix for Thanksgiving tonight. So easy button I shall press.
Saturday - Going to host a wine tasting at my house in the afternoon, so I will make a couple of roasted chicken thighs with sweet potatoes and some apple and cabbage slaw for my daughter and myself afterwards.
Sunday - Dinner out with a friend
This weekend is going to zoom past FAST! Have a happy one!
https://cannaryfamily.blogspot.com/
Both you and Lisey clean up good, as my grandpa used to say. I feel like the difference in your ages is exemplified by your choice of boots. My feet hurt just looking at hers, and yet I remember having some almost that high when I was her age. 🙂
I was the school cook all week, and was not surprisingly unenthused about cooking much more when I got home. Everyone was fed, though. Both at school and at home.
Saturday: Beef soup made with the leftovers from the previous night's pot roast (plus extra onion, beef stock, and green chile), cheese, blueberry cake (actually a double muffin recipe, but I double it and I feel like muffins are sweet enough that it's basically a cake)
Sunday: The two chickens I had stashed in the freezer when we got our neighbor's excess were the ones my husband thought were young enough to roast, so I did that. Also roasted potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, and a recipe for no-bake energy balls my son had made in math class (practice with fractions) and brought the recipe home.
Monday: I had made a pizza crust the day before when baking bread, and baked some sauce onto there at the same time. Then I just stashed it in the refrigerator still in the pan, so when I got home, all I had to do was shred some cheese for the top and bake it another ten minutes or so. We also had leftover beef soup, because one (half sheet pan) pizza is not enough for everyone by itself. Carrot sticks before dinner, too.
Tuesday: I brought home some leftover hot dogs from school lunch the day before and fried those in butter. Also made some rice with the chicken stock I was making with the Sunday's chickens, and there were frozen peas. I had made a Thanksgiving meal for like seventy people at school, and yes, leftover hot dogs at home was the best I could do after that.
Wednesday: What my MiL calls chicken slop--leftover chopped chicken heated in gravy (or, this time, chicken stock thickened with cornstarch) and served over a starch. I put it over leftover rice, and added some peas right in with the chicken and gravy. My MiL always made turkey slop after Thanksgiving, which is where the name came from. It is sloppy, but surprisingly tasty and popular. So popular that I didn't have enough for everyone to have all he wanted, so I opened a jar of peaches to calm the ravenous hordes.
Thursday: My daughter and I drove in the afternoon to a town an hour away to my son's basketball tournament. The kids had some things from the concession, and then we all had school lunch leftovers--meatloaf and mashed potatoes--when we got home. My husband stayed home and brought the other two boys to judo. He fed them bean and cheese quesadillas before judo, and he had some of the meatloaf and potatoes when they got home, around the same time I got home with the other two. Divide and conquer.
Tonight: Yeah. If I had ANY OPTION for takeout, tonight is the night I would probably do that. However. In the absence of that, I might task my eldest son with dinner. He likes to cook, and I don't often let him because I just need to feed the crowd quickly with as little effort as possible. Tonight I might let him go crazy and see what he comes up with. And then his younger brother can do the dishes. He, in his turn, actually likes to do dishes, but again, I'm usually just trying to clean up as quickly as possible without having to supervise anyone, so he doesn't do them often. Anyway. I might delegate. Or I might make scrambled eggs. We'll see.
Haha yes, I am SO in a flat shoes phase of life. 😉
WIS: $35 at Price Chopper, $28.40 at Trader Joe's, $11 at Wegmans, and $7 at Ollie's. (I also bought two gift cards at PC and a lot of non-food items at Ollie's, but I'm not counting those.)
WIA: As usual, nothing that would make the Food Network seek me out for an audition. But I did make some spaghetti with clearance pasta, clearance turkey sausage, and clearance tomato sauce. It was also quickity, so I think it would pass the Becca test. 🙂
But ham was on sale at PC this week, so I bought the smallest shank I could find. Still too much ham even for me--but I'm going to freeze some of it for later use, make a ham and potato soup tonight with a recipe I haven't tried before, and save the bone for a future split pea soup.
@A. Marie,
If I ever write a book, maybe I'll call it "quickity cheapity."
@Becca, I'd buy that!
WIS - $137 at Kroger
WWA has been hit or miss the last 2 weeks. At least 1/2 the time I have eaten out at lunch & just had something light for supper. This probably cost me another $100 over a 10 day period, but worth it as I’ve been traveling 1 1/2 hours each day except for last Saturday to visit my dad who has been in the hospital. He will be released to return to the nursing home today.
I did manage to throw together some meals- soup, grilled cheese & soup, burgers & fries. The weather has turned cold here this week, so soup has been a warm & tasty meal for us!
I have a doctor appointment later so no travel today. Probably will have either “regular” chili or Cincinnati style chili tonight.
Have a great weekend everyone!
$17 at Hannaford's; $42 at Market Basket; $12 butcher
A weird food week because we were up in Maine at my in-laws' house (with them!):
Sat: MIL made baked halibut with Aleppo, lemon & rosemary (NYTimes), parsley potatoes, and green beans
Sun: We made lasagne Bolognese, sautéed zucchini, eggplant, & red pepper, and salad greens. Also made a delicious cocktail with balsamic vinegar, Amaretto, Lambrusco if anyone is looking for a fun drink to serve to guests for an Italian meal. (https://ice.edu/blog/balsamic-lambrusco-cocktail)
Mon: MIL made grilled lamb chops, peas with mint & twice baked potato
Tues: We made Slovenian goulaz, polenta, sautéed cabbage. Started with gougères stuffed with roasted hen-of-the-woods and cream sauce. Vanilla ice cream drizzled with pumpkin seed oil and pepitas
Wed: out to dinner to celebrate in-law's anniversary. Almost had a heart attack when the check came & found out the pasta with lobster sauce that both partner and FIL ordered was $62.... each.
Thur: pumpkin soup, klobasa (Slovene), štrukli, cabbage salad. Woopie pies for dessert (brought home from Maine)
Saturday - I went out to dinner at a hot pot restaurant with friends, husband took the kids to Jamba Juice and a kfc/Taco Bell combo drive thru, everyone had a fun night!
Sunday - baked ziti (I love this recipe because it makes a huge amount so we have great leftover lunches for the week after)
Monday - Cottage pie (smallest cottage pie I’ve ever made, I only had a half pound of ground beef and two small Yukon gold potatoes, it fed us perfectly though with no leftovers)
Tuesday - lemon pepper chicken, steamed carrots, broccoli and cheese rice a roni (my mom made rice a roni so much when I was a kid that I got sick of it and never buy it as an adult, I decided to give it a try after so many years though, I actually enjoyed it and my kids loved it and devoured it all),
Wednesday - leftover sloppy joes and buns from the freezer, French fries, peas and corn
Thursday - Thai combination fried rice, honey shrimp and mini egg rolls
Friday - frozen pizza
You and Lisey look so glamorous! A little take-out is fine considering that you are making high As with a heavy school schedule.
WIS: $110. I have spent a lot for two people lately stocking our freezer and pantry, which now are groaning and can be eaten down a bit.
WWA: Whole wheat pasta with homemade sauce, apple-plum crisp, homemade baked beans, sausage-veggie quiche with a crust made of rye crackers -- yummy! Many plates of eggs, oatmeal and baby food for our middle dog. I cooked a lot this week as I am home all the time now and have had a sick dog: she spent most of Monday at the vet getting an escalation of her heart disease seen to. She is feeling better now.
I think it's so fun that you dressed up to go out!
I spent nada on groceries last week, as I usually do every other week - I'll shop after work today.
What I ate:
One night I got home really late due to a lot of errands and a meeting with my Stephen minister, so supper was a bowl of Lovebird cereal, which is expensive, but is absolutely AIP compliant. I don't eat cereal for breakfast, I eat it as a snack, dessert, or in place of a meal when I'm exhausted.
Burger, cut up carrot and grapes
Zoodles (zucchini noodles) with a topping of seasoned ground beef, onion, garlic, and mushrooms.
The rest of that pack of ground beef fed visiting family on the weekend, so:
Meatloaf, but this was meatloaf that was in the freezer from a month ago. I had it with English peas and mashed parsnips.
Tuna salad made with raisins, shredded carrot, parsnip and onion. I had a lot of parsnips.
Soup made with homemade stock, leftover turkey from the freezer, and an assortment of vegetables, including - parsnip!
I invited my daughter over (her daughter was at her dad's for the week) and we had brats on the grill pan, Caesar salad and sweet potato salad.
Tonight may be leftovers. It depends on how late I get home, as to whether I'll cook.
We are trying to eat up things that we have in the house before travelling for Thanksgiving leaving Wednesday morning.
Sunday: We grilled a bunch of steaks that I had in the freezer. We ate some with baked potatoes and salad for dinner and I saved the rest to make steak fajitas later in the week.
Monday: Baked ziti, made a double batch to also serve as lunches.
Tuesday: Steak fajitas with the leftover steak
Wednesday: I made a pot of chicken noodle soup with homemade rolls.
Thursday: Baked potatoes with toppings including chopped broccoli, bacon, cheese, etc.
Friday: I will probably use a gift card to order Chinese food as an end of week treat.
Saturday: Fancy ramen bowls with toppings (edamame, soft cooked eggs, chicken, etc.)
Sunday: We have a bunch of partial packages of frozen appetizers so I will cook them all and also make a veggie tray with dip and some popcorn and it will be football snack dinner.
Monday: Mac and cheese casserole and the leftovers from the veggie tray
Tuesday: Leftovers or grilled cheese sandwiches
Loving the pic of you & Lisey! And, yay for mom/daughter dates.
It was a wild week at work, and soccer tryouts, parent meetings, & just a lot of crazy going on.
We had:
-Chicken shawarma (16 y.o request) x2.
-Burgers with mashed potatoes & squash x2
-Trader Joes orange chicken, veggie fried rice & edamame
-Pasta with some sort of Costco bagged breaded chicken
As for tonight, I think we'll make gyozos, and serve them with chicken wings.
I know the weeknight cooking problem so well. Was working really hard on a project the last few months which meant overtime. Plus studying in the evenings. I would like to hear some tips how you all deal with this. Despite batch cooking which I can only do in certain limits as my freezer has not enough empty space.
@Lina,
I say all this with the caveat that I'm so spoiled because my husband does most of the cooking. However, if I were to find myself in the situation of needing to do the cooking while working full time, this is what I would do:
1. Lower my expectations immediately. If it's got a carb, a protein and a veg, it's good enough. Full stop.
2. Throw some money at convenience-premade sauce, quick cooking rice, precooked meat, prewashed salad, etc.
3. Do some meal prepping at whatever time works best (like chop veggies the night before and put in fridge, or get out all the shelf stable ingredients I would need in the morning when making coffee, etc.
4. Lean heavily on the helpful appliances like crock pots, instant pots, rice cookers, bread makers etc. Like my best friends would be the dump and push a button kind of dinners.
5. Buy lots of eggs because they can become a meal so very fast and they're so versatile and last for a long time in the fridge.
6. Use vegetable sides that can be eaten raw with minimal prep instead of full salads or veggies that need lots of cooking. Or, buy bags of frozen veggies that are another push a button kind of thing.
7. Create a schedule of sorts with easy meals on busier nights, like one night sandwiches, one night tacos, one night canned soup over rice, one night eggs of some kind, one night something frozen and premade like veggie burgers or a frozen stir fry, one night pasta of some kind, etc.
8. I would probably also schedule some take out nights but maybe find ways to make them cheaper and healthier by having homemade sides and drinking water, etc. Like, for example, you could order a hamburger for everyone, but microwave some frozen veggies to go alongside them instead of getting fries. Alternatively, you could prepare a protein at home or use leftovers and then add it to a carb from take out, like adding diced leftover ham into restaurant fried rice.
@Becca, lots of good advice, thank you. Actually I did some of it already during the last couple of weeks when I tried to manage our food waste better and utilized all kind of leftovers in the fridge. As it is only my husband and me we ate on a big pack of taco wraps several evenings with different fillings. All from meatballs to scrambled eggs. 🙂 but yes, eggs are a good idea. We used to have one take out night on Fridays where we often bought pizza and made a fresh sallad to go with it for something more healthy. Unfortunately even the price for take away pizza has gone up so much in our area that I try to do it no more than two times a month.
Another thing which I try to incorporate more often in my weeknight meals is whole wheat pasta. I mean pasta and some ready-to-eat pasta sauce is fast but somehow not that healthy. Feels healthier with whole wheat pasta and some veggies added to the sauce. 🙂
@Lina,
If it's trying to easily up the healthy aspect of your meals without adding time, I would go with frozen veggies and/or freeze dried ones. You can take a handful of frozen veggies and stir fry them to add them to sauces or scrambled eggs. You can add freeze dried veggies to anything that is boiled or steamed like soup or rice. Using frozen or freeze dried removes a lot of the prep work which is often a stumbling block for me. When I'm really tired, I look at whole veggies that need to be washed and chopped and maybe even blanched or something before they can be cooked and I just think "nope." When I was a nanny as a college student, I used to make Mac and cheese or those little rice boxes for dinner for me and the two kids I watched and I always added about a cup of frozen veggies to the noodles or rice. I was vegetarian at the time, but if I made that now, I might add canned chicken/tuna, chopped deli meat or shredded rotisserie chicken too.
@Becca,
PS Here's two YouTubers I like to watch who are making cheap, healthy meals for smaller households and they seem to be doing it fairly quickly.
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCXEDyOivRuvlaoSDwyvNkWQ
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCl3bc2T3lQ5iMWeDCi0gHUg
Here's a third YouTuber who is cooking for just herself and her husband. She's lower cost, but maybe more time invested because she's cooking entirely from scratch. Still good ideas.
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCl3bc2T3lQ5iMWeDCi0gHUg
@Becca,
Sorry third YouTuber link should be this: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4YOggKgpkIR_UmXyaeqBA/videos
Friday – My husband has been anxious for a new restaurant to open in town (the opening day has been pushed back multiple times) and it finally opened! We were ready for a long wait to get in but a couple spots opened at the bar so we sat down, had dinner, and made friends with the bartenders. My expectations for the food was low but I was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed my meal!
Saturday – this night begins my three-night streak of SkinnyTaste recipes. She’s my go-to for most recipes. I made Cubano Style Stuffed Pork Tenderloin and paired it with roasted red potatoes.
Sunday – Family favorite: Cajun Chicken Pasta on the Lighter Side. My son doesn’t like mushrooms but he eats them without hesitation in this sauce.
Monday – Making soup on my son’s soccer nights has been a life saver and this one helped clean out the freezer: Southwestern Beef and Black Bean Soup
Tuesday – leftover night
Wednesday – I was the only one home for the night so I had leftovers
Thursday – Soccer night soup: Zuppa Tuscana, which again helped clean out the freezer
WIS: 0$ - Next week is my every 3rd week shopping trip
WWA:
Friday: Homemade Pizza (2 regular + 1 GF) We have 2 very athletic hungry guys staying with us for a few days.
Saturday: Cross Rib Roast, chanterelles, roasted butternut squash, green salad
Sunday: Chicken Fried Steak, chanterelles, green beans, green salad
Monday: Huge beef veggie soup, cornbread muffins, salad
Tuesday: Guys went home, leftover soup, muffins & salad
Wednesday: slow cooked bbq venison, macaroni & cheese bake, green beans & salad
Thursday: Enchiladas and refried beans from freezer, last corn from garden
Friday: Beef and broccoli, rice and some apple slices for dessert
WIS: $36 @ Publix
Saturday: I made a huge pot of chicken noodle soup.
Sunday: I made turkey stuffing meatballs with a spicy cranberry sauce for dipping, baked sweeet potatoes, and steamed broccoli with yellow peppers
Monday: Leftovers
Tuesday: Turkey breast in the crockpot, baked sweet potatoes, and turnip greens
Wednesday: Soup in the crockpot using the leftover turkey, leftover cheese tortellini, fresh mushrooms, onions and a massive container of fresh spinach. So yummy and perfect for a cold night.
Thursday: Turkey chili served over baked potatoes. Again so yummy and perfect for a cold night.
Friday: definitely leftovers.
Saturday: I have been seeing this chicken cobbler thing all over the internet so I plan to make a riff on that since it sounds a bit like chicken pot pie but I will modify the recipe to make it WW friendly and service it with salad (my newest, lovely friend :-))
Happy weekend folks!
I had a Facebook memory from 2016 this week where I was taking care of my mother (paralyzed) while my dad was in the hospital and I made your recipe of chicken with mushrooms, swiss and ham. I haven't made that in a long time, but Mom liked it very much.
Feel too crummy to cook tonight. Got flu and Covid booster yesterday and ugh. Probably takeout.
@Rose, I hope you bounce back from your shots. I had both together and they kicked my behind. I missed work the next day due to the most awful exhaustion.
@Ruby, Thanks. I put off my usual workload till tomorrow. I don't think this has happened to me before re vaxx. Had to get them though because will be visiting immunocompromised BFF next week.
I do need to make that chicken again! It's delicious. If I could remember the name of it (sigh), I'd post a link! Kristen's recipes are always delicious in my experience.
derp.
https://www.thefrugalgirl.com/easy-cooking-swiss-mushroom-chicken/
That's so fun that you and Lisey got to do something special like that together!
This week we had...
Sunday: Turkey pot pie with a biscuit crust
Monday: Ham, green beans, shells and cheese
Tuesday: We made a last-minute decision for the entire family to go to our school's playoff volleyball game (last-minute to the tune of deciding 3 minutes before we needed to leave) and ended up getting McDonald's on the way to eat in the car. I will say that the cost of the tickets (which they hike up for postseason play) plus gas plus dinner was a bit of a killer this close to Christmas and I had to work to not be grumpy about it when we got to the game. I would have felt better about it if I had packed dinner for us. But it was good family time, which we were a little short on in this busy week, and it was good to be there to support the team, coaches, and families so I'm glad we went.
Wednesday: Sheet pan dinner (brats, cauliflower, carrots, sweet potatoes, russet potatoes), pineapple, and chips with dip to try to use up the rest of a container of dip
Thursday: Quesadillas and a layered taco dip
Friday: Ham and potato soup with a salad
Monday-baked chicken, roasted green beans, potato, onion
Tuesday-salad with leftover baked chicken on top
Wednesday -beef stew ( used leftover vegetables from Monday dinner) with Sister Shubert rolls
Thursday- leftover beef stew
Friday- leftover beef stew for daughter ; husband and I will split a Subway sub before tonight’s dancing
Saturday- early dinner (at a restaurant… not sure where) with friends before we attend a Christmas concert
Sunday: Chicken taco soup. We tried a new recipe that involved pre cooking some veggies, blending those veggies with broth, cheese, and tortilla chips, to make it thicker, and then adding the chicken and the rest of the veggies. We really liked it!
Monday: Started cooking a butternut squash recipe but it wasn't ready in time, so we paused halfway through and ate leftover soup.
Tuesday: Butternut squash and apples with coconut milk couscous. An old favorite!
Wednesday: Preschooler's choice, which tonight meant cereal
Thursday: Savory french toast
Friday: Leftovers
Saturday: Date night!
I had some russet potatoes I needed to use, so I made au gratin potatoes with presliced ham and roasted broccoli on the side. That was good for 3 nights. I think tonight will probably be as tuna sandwich.
I peaked at Kristen's recipe for stuffed shells. I use a small cookie scoop to fill the shells when I make them, which makes it super easy with minimal mess. Glad to hear I can freeze them!
Trader Joe's: $45 but some of it was for my older daughter and Christmas gifts.
Friday: There was leftover waffle batter in 'fridge and I have some protein pancake mix that I added to it and made pancakes and fruit.
Saturday: Burgers, baked beans and something
Sunday: A local church has an annual turkey dinner fundraiser. We used to cook a turkey for it when they had it in house and would get a free dinner from it. Since Covid they have been doing it through a restaurant and we get it.
Monday: American chop suey. Have not had it in a long time. I used up some leftover pasta and pizza sauces sitting in the fridge. And I had a pound of ground beef in the freezer. I added some pickled pepper strips to it. Applesauce
Tuesday: I worked. Leftover from Monday, garlic toast, applesauce
Wednesday: Police in town put on an annual Thanksgiving dinner for town senior citizens--free. Before the dinner, I sold tickets to an annual fundraiser drawing for the club I belong to and then had dinner. I brought a dinner home to my husband.
Thursday: Trader Joe's mandarin orange chicken, cheesy rice (free), and leftover corn souffle from Wednesday's friendsgiving lunch with the watercolor group. (Wednesday I ate a lot.
Tonight: Turkey burgers, leftover rice and leftover corn souffle.
WWA:
Saturday - homemade wonton soup (made lots for quick freezer meals), store bought spring rolls & gyoza
Sunday - oven baked Greek ribs, rice, greek salad, store bought pecan pie
Monday - leftovers
Tuesday - planned to make chicken soup but ended up with sautéed chicken breasts, baked potatoes, broccoli, peas
Wednesday - shrimp burgers, oven fries
Thursday - meatloaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli, peas
Friday - leftovers
Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend
Not cooking for a week towards the end of the semester following a bunch of big tests/labs seems reasonable to me!
This week I spent only $120 on groceries. And some of that was for a school party celebrating a delightful teacher. Oh. And we ate out on Sunday but I don’t know how much that cost, maybe $45-50? So not the win I thought it was. Oh well.
What we ate:
Saturday- I can’t remember.
Sunday-dinner out with a family from church—trying to build friendships in our new home
Monday-Korean lettuce wraps with veggies and rice
Tuesday-fajita rice bowls (chicken, rice, peppers, beans, corn, tomatoes, Guac)
Wednesday-chicken noodle soup
Thursday-Mac and cheese and chicken noodle soup plus veggies and salad
Friday-I’m hanging at the ER with my son and I have no idea what I’ll do (likely vending machine snack or skip dinner altogether). Husband and other kids will fend for themselves.
Ohh, so sorry to hear you are in the ER. No fun.
Prime rib, mashed potatoes, broccoli, mushrooms & onions, and focaccia.
Potato pancakes, broccoli, and mushrooms
Steak tacos with lime sour cream sauce, jalapeño relish, pickled radishes, lettuce, and queso fresco.
Roasted butternut squash and root vegetable soup with sourdough bread. It was my first ever attempt at making sourdough and it was pretty dense and flat. But it tasted well enough when I sliced it and toasted it in olive oil to dip in our soup.
Got Chinese take out after a busy day.
Steak nachos with leftover steak, homemade cheese sauce, black beans, jalapeño relish, lime sour cream sauce, and black olives
Tonight we are having sourdough discard pancakes, scrambled eggs, and fruit.
You all could consider doing some modeling on the side.
Aww, thank you. I passed the compliment on to Lisey!
this week was:
* pork chops with potatoes/feta side
* chili
* carrots/potatoes/sausages casserole
... and I can't remember what else
Monday nights dinner plans were tossed and I went and bought the Chinese take out husband was asking for. Fed us and the girl and then the boys had some after work and the next day before works.
Tuesday, chicken and stuffing casserole as previously planned,
Wednesday I tore apart 2 rotisserie chickens I brought home from a work events and made bbq or buffalo chicken pizza on Naan and flatbread from aldi. Then froze the rest of the chicken for future suppers!
Thursday- Frozen pizza or leftover meatballs and pasta from the fridge before back to school for a sports banquet.
Friday- we went to see a local Christmas tree display and hit a local Italian place, first time the event has run since 2019 and all the kids were there so it was a nice evening!
Today- all kids will be home tonight also so I am getting ready to toss a rump roast into the crock pot! Will add veggies to it later!
Tomorrow...something else from our freezer.. need to avoid the stores right now ! lol