WIS, WWA | from frosty to warm
What I Spent
- $33 at Domino's pizza
- $20 at Safeway
- $6.50 at Aldi
So, only $59.50 for me this week.
What We Ate
Saturday
Dominos!
Sunday
I made ham and cheese panini, with fresh produce on the side.
Monday
Chicken quesadillas, with broccoli on the side. I'm still working through those $0.99 packages of organic chicken that I got on clearance at Safeway.
Tuesday
More quesadillas, since I had more chicken filling left!
Wednesday
It was a random fend-for-yourself night. I personally ate...Aldi Triscuits and hummus.
A truly blue-ribbon meal right there. 😉
Thursday
Tuesday, the weather looked like this: frosty and chilly!
But then on Thursday, it was so warm! I think we hit at least 70 degrees.
I brined some $0.99/pound chicken thighs I got from Safeway, and then I smoked them on my grill.
I pulled the meat off the bones, and we ate that on buns, with assorted sauces.
And I just cut up some fruit on the side.
I am so happy to have a grill again!
Friday
We definitely have enough chicken left for a second night. 🙂
I'm beginning to wish we had a grill, but I know that we would never actually use it, so I will just vicariously enjoy your chicken. Yum!
WIS: Quite a bit this week. First, 54.56 on a small Aldi trip. Then 222.52 @ the local health food store, but about a hundred of this was for supplements and vitamins to help me build up my immune system again. Then we spent 334.93 on a nice restaurant outing for the whole family plus two friends-our first in over three years, so we definitely splurged. On my regular grocery day, I spent 63.93@ Giant to stock up on cat litter, shampoo, conditioner and pepperoni, and then 214.70 on a more normal-sized Aldi run which included all the Easter basket stuff. So, my total this week...890.64. Some weeks are just like that. The dinner was lovely and I regret nothing. 🙂
WWA:
Fri: mixed greens with balsamic vinaigrette, focaccia topped with bacon, mozzarella and parmesan cheese and tiny tomatoes.
Sat: pad Thai noodles topped with sauteed swiss chard, parmesan crusted tilapia filets.
Sun: the dinner out. We had lots of delicious things like grilled salmon over sauteed greens and a butternut squash bisque, vegetable tagine, homemade mashed potatoes, grilled lemon asparagus, greek salad topped with more grilled salmon, mini lamb sliders, and cheesecake and bread pudding for dessert. The less adventurous eaters among us had pizza and a cheeseburger. Everything was delicious and the children were very well behaved on account of the novelty of it all so it was a successful outing.
Mon: crock pot pork loin diced up and stir fried with beans and onions served with mixed greens on homemade poppyseed buns.
Tue: leftover pad Thai noodles with Swiss chard, stir fried tofu and kale, orange juice.
Wed: mixed greens with balsamic vinaigrette, apple slices, and spaghetti with peas, egg and a hint of bacon grease topped with shredded parmesan.
Thu: husband made something inspired by a video game meal called pork sucre, which is like a sweet and spicy pork served over coconut rice. For his version, he fried spicy chorizo with pink beans, pineapple chunks, orange pepper, celery, onion and spices. Then he made coconut milk rice and a lime crema (sour cream, lime juice, sugar and cilantro) to go with it. We stuffed all of those things and mixed greens into crunchy corn tacos and it was delicious.
Tonight: our usual salad and focaccia to end a very long week!
Have a great weekend, everyone!
@Becca, I wish I had someone in the house who liked to grill, but my husband is not into it, and neither am I. Too bad, because pretty much everything tastes better cooked on a grill.
@kristin @ going country,
Maybe one of your kids will enjoy grilling! My 15 year is a much better cook than I am (because he is much more interested in it).
@Becca, why do I hear Edith Piaf in my ear? Non, Je ne regrette rien! (Look it up on You Tube, children.) My personal anthem.
@JDinNM, what a surprise to see this mentioned! Just last night I was in Amazon trying to decide if I should get this collection in vinyl or CD. Old school vinyl won.
@kristin @ going country, Neither my husband or I are into grilling sadly.
Grilling sounds so nice!
Eating out plus my grocery run came to about $195 this week. I also spent $40 on soda/mentos and other soda science experiment ingredients per the request of my son. Not sure that counts towards grocery budget?
Meals:
Saturday:Mediterranean rice bowl with chicken, tomatoes, cucumbers, lemon and hummus
Sunday-Panera after church
Monday-stuffed bell peppers
Tuesday-pasta and meatballs
Wednesday-dinner at church with soup and sandwiches
Thursday-rice Bowl with chicken, Guac, beans, peppers, cucumbers, salsa and whatever else people found in the fridge.
Tonight we’ll have apricot chicken served over rice with salad
@Kaitlin, Well, depending on how the science experiment worked out, the $40 could go under "educational expenses" or "entertainment" or "household cleaning expenses"!
I see nothing wrong with Triscuits and hummus--whole grains and protein. When I'm left to my own devices, I'm very likely to eat nothing but fried potatoes or chips and dip. Good thing I'm never left to my own devices.
Saturday: Leftover meatloaf, rooster rice, and raw cabbage
Sunday: Steaks, garlic bread, sauteed mushrooms and onions, pureed calabaza, sauerkraut, raw cabbage, crispy rice treats. Incidentally, whenever you see squash and sauerkraut start appearing, it's because I have pretty much no fresh vegetables left. This time it was because my husband's planned trip to The Outside World was canceled due to snow on Friday, but re-scheduled for the following Friday (today, yay for fresh food!), so I just did the best I could this week for vegetables.
Monday: Leftover steak, fried potatoes made from some extra potatoes I had baked the day before while I was baking bread and fried in the grease rendered from the cooking steaks the day before. I also cut up the last of the carrots for carrot sticks.
Tuesday: Sausages I brought back from our Christmas trip to Texas and have been somewhat hoarding (still sad I can't get good sausage here), bread and butter, the last of some baked beans that were in the freezer, frozen peas, chocolate chip/almond cookies. I ended up with a literal case of unsalted toasted almonds from excess commodities last time, so I see a lot of granola and cookies with nuts in our future.
Wednesday: I had actually cooked a pork shoulder the day before, but sort of last minute realized my boys were having pork sandwiches at school for lunch. That's why we had the sausage, and I saved the pork for an easy after-work meal. I just fried it in its own rendered lard with spices and served it in corn tortillas with cheese, etc. I had also baked some of my frozen peaches the day before while the oven was on, so the kids had baked peaches and cream. Lucky kids. That was the vegetable stand-in for the night. Pretty sure they prefer fruit baked with maple syrup and cinnamon to cabbage. 🙂
Thursday: Bull enchilada casserole. I will eventually finish the bull meat that's been in my freezer for over two years now. It was a bit of a fractured dinner night with judo interrupting our usual dinner time, so I just made something that could be kept warm in the oven whenever anyone ate. The kids had ice cream floats and bizcochitos (a type of cookie) at school at a celebration for the basketball team, so they weren't very hungry, anyway. And the tomatoes in the casserole were the sole nod to vegetables.
Tonight: I have a LOT of eggs on hand thanks to our own chickens and my friend's enthusiastic flock, so I think I'll make a Spanish tortilla tonight for our meatless Friday. I don't think my husband will be back from his town trip before we eat, so the kids will probably have frozen peas. Which I am also almost out of, now that I think about it. Oh! A brilliant thought! I think I can get away with chopping some blanched and frozen beet greens fine and putting that in the tortilla. My kids aren't huge fans of piles of greens, but don't really notice them if I incorporate them in this way. Good plan.
@kristin @ going country,
So apparently, despite my own ignorance...today I learned that it snows where you live. I always assumed it was super hot there. It's always interesting to learn things aren't as you thought they were.
Additionally, Jesse Tyler Ferguson is from there. I did an on-line cooking thing he did during the pandemic for his cookbook launch, where we cooked along w/ him. The recipes were for pickle tacos (so good) and those biscochito cookies (his were more like a bar). I absolutely loved them. I really like anise though so he had me immediately when I saw the recipe. I think I might have to make some this weekend. Anyway, it was fun reading and learning about the cookies and now "meeting" someone that knows what they are when I talk about them lol
@kristin @ going country,
I am always in awe of your WWA, and your efforts to use up those excess commodity foods. I feel like my hubby and I are constantly running to the grocery store for items we forgot (lack of planning on both of our parts). I know you don't have that option, but I applaud your efforts to feed your family, and your food descriptions ("rooster rice", "bull enchiladas" :-)).
@Jaime, Almost no one knows anything about New Mexico, which is just how those of us who live here like it. 🙂 I live in northeast New Mexico, at a fairly high elevation, and we definitely get snow. Our mail lady--sadly, since deceased--used to make and give us bizcochitos for Christmas and my kids would always dip them in hot chocolate. So good.
@Liz B., Thanks! I actually find it a fun challenge to use what I have or what I'm given. It's like "Chopped" every day. 🙂
I sorta feel like that about furnishing my rental with stuff from the abandoned house! A fun challenge.
@kristin @ going country, My favorite home alone meal is chopped up tomatoes and mayo, scooped into my mouth by kettle cooked potato chips. One of our gas station mystery shops gives me free chips and they come in only small sizes. I get two for free and am glad they do not sell the large sizes because I would vacuum down a giant bag instead of just a small one. The shops are about once every six weeks, so this indulgence is not weekly...I wish it were.
@Jaime, I believe Ferguson moved to Albuquerque as a child. Albuquerque is a whole different world from where Kristin lives. But it does snow in Albuquerque, where the elevation ranges from a low of about 4900 feet above sea level in the Valley along the Rio Grande, to a high of about 6700 feet in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, where there is still snow from a recent storm. I suspect Kristin is at an elevation above 7000 feet (perhaps well above). Wheeler Peak, in Northern New Mexico, has an elevation of 13,161 feet. Lots of mountain ranges and therefore ski resorts in Northern New Mexico, including Santa Fe, Taos, Angel Fire, etc. It's a beautiful state, but since it's the 5th largest of our 50 states (behind Alaska, Texas, California and Montana), there's a lot of climate difference south to north and east to west. And it's sparsely populated; we have counties that are as large as the State of Connecticut but only have a few thousand people living in them.
And that's our geography lesson for the day. Class dismissed!
@kristin @ going country,
I imagine that they would be good with hot chocolate.
@kristin @ going country, There was an article in the New York Times awhile ago lamenting the loss of dark night skies for star gazing. I almost posted a comment saying "Gosh! You guys should come to New Mexico!" but I stopped myself just in time.
@JDinNM,
Thank you for the geography lesson. It sounds like there are some beautiful scenic views. I would like to visit every state so I'll make it there some day...it just might take awhile due to the distance.
@Jaime, It's a big country for sure!
The weather is all kinds of crazy - but hooray for the BBQ! I spent $54 on this week's menus at my house:
Monday - Chicken Fajita Quesadillas with onion and red pepper, avocado and sour cream
Tuesday - Stuffed Bell Peppers, honey carrots
Wednesday - Leftovers from Sunday, which was meatloaf, baked potatoes, and collard greens
Thursday - Curry Chicken Thighs, rice, broccoli, and carrots
Friday - Taco Salads with avocado, tomatoes, fritos
Saturday - kitchen closed - going to continue working on yards
Sunday - (Rudy's) Brisket Sammie, chips {Mark's memorial one year ago today, so we are eating a favorite thing of his}
I'm so glad Spring is here! Happy Weekend,
https://cannaryfamily.blogspot.com/
@gina, sending warm thoughts your way as you remember your husband Mark!
@gina, I filled up hearing that it has already been a year. Thinking of you with love.
Yesterday at recess I literally had kids in snow pants and kids in shorts. No one knows what's going on with the weather haha
Sunday: Okonomiyaki to use up some old cabbage with Sriracha mayo
Monday: Pizza salad with marinated cannellini beans and homemade croutons
Tuesday: Italian crockpot chicken
Wednesday: Preschooler's choice, which meant mac and cheese and hotdogs. We introduced kumquats alongside the orange slices, and she tried one!
Thursday: Roasted sweet potatoes with a rotisserie chicken, all with our favorite "green sauce" (it's a Peruvian sauce that you make in the blender, super easy and tasty!)
Friday/Saturday: Leftovers
@Natalie J, same here about recess. It’s getting into the 30s and I’m seeing a lot more flip-flops despite the 30” of packed snow on the ground. my kids are still wearing gear, but I guess not everyone is at recess
I spent 76 dollars Kroger pick up. 22 dollars at Aldi
Monday. Leftover ham veg soup with saltines and Swiss cheese
Tuesday. Leftover baked spaghetti. Cucumber Greek salad.
Wednesday. Work dinner. Pizza was provided.
Thursday. FULL GERMAN DINNER. love it. Family not so much. Brats in air fryer. Sautéed cabbage, potatoes and onions. Delish used up cabbage leftover from veggie soup and two random red potatoes.
Friday. Our version of takeout. LENT Frozen cheese pizza and bagged salad.
Tomorrow I am making pesto shrimp pasta ( frozen pesto from garden. Only three containers left) and air fryer asparagus.
We spent...oof, $437. I am telling myself that a) we had to get toilet paper, cleaners, and ant traps, but I know that b) it's partly because I am putting more fresh veg and produce on the list, as I'm trying to keep to a plant-based before dinner eating plan and trying to curb my junk food habits. But I'm not buying expensive things like fake meats or fake cheese, so there's that. It's an investment in my health, right?
Anyway. Dinners.
Saturday and Sunday: homemade pizzas, as always.
Monday: grocery store deli chicken, chips and raw veggies.
Tuesday: burgers and fries--I had a bunless burger and a microwaved sweet potato, plus broccoli. So we have a lot of fries left over, and I wonder who will eat them. 😉
Wednesday: lasagna, two pans, one beef, one cheese. Always a hit, and I enjoy making it.
Thursday: taco bar
Friday (tonight) DH will make his famous tuna burgers.
@Karen A.,
Have you checked out Mark Bittman's Vegan Before 6? There is a book and a cookbook I believe. We did it a while back 7-10 years ago for about 6 months/year.
Vegan isn't really my thing as I love cheese too much which is why we tried "part time" vegan. We ended up stopping because I decided it was easier to focus on just eating less meat and not really worry about when we eat it. I like breakfast meats too much too.
Anyway, all that to say...a bunch of the recipes from the books were good. It might help you with your meatless meals before dinner.
@Karen A.,
You are not wrong. The heathy food is more expensive. I tell myself it's ultimately cheaper than having to spend on medical care stemming from an unhealthy (but cheaper) diet.
@Jaime, Yes, I've read that! I was vegan for a decade, but not a very healthy one...I loved bread too much! I had to adopt a more omnivorous diet due to some health issues, but I really like vegan dishes so I've gone to a simpler plan. Oats at breakfast, a salad with baked tofu or beans at lunch, and whatever I like from our dinner at night. I'm trying to follow more of a whole foods plan, no added sugars, salt or oil, for most meals.
WIS: $70 on people food at Food Lion. I also bought pet food and paper towels, but don't count those in the food budget.
WWA: Homemade pizza, followed by spicy pineapple chicken. Unfortunately, the chicken was too spicy and gave us upset digestion. For the rest of the week, we ate fresh produce, a liitle extra sharp cheese, homemade bread, olives, oranges, and nuts.
A lot of takeout for us this week, a good lesson in some things just being out of our control!
Saturday - our regular takeout day, we had takeout sushi
Sunday - after fighting a cold all week and thinking it was over, I suddenly felt much worse this day and developed a very painful sore throat. My husband picked up clam chowder from a soup and sandwich place since swallowing had become painful
Monday - Cajun fried rice (kids picked all the shrimp out to eat and didn’t eat the rest of it but still counting that as a victory)
Tuesday - lemon pepper chicken, steamed broccoli, mashed potatoes, biscuits from a biscuit mix someone gave me as a Christmas gift
Wednesday - power outage and every cooking appliance we own (even our outdoor grill!) is electric so I picked up Taco Bell from a neighboring town (since our whole town was without power) on my way home from work. I guess we could have done sandwiches or brought out our propane camping stove but it was turning into one of those weeks so took the easy route.
Thursday - defrosted enchilada filling from the freezer so was able to quickly assemble enchiladas. I remember this batch was a little spicy so kids wouldn’t eat it. I also made rice a roni, frozen corn, and cut up some plain tortilla, cheese and avocado for them to eat.
Friday - well I was up every 2 hours with my two year old last night, she seems to be sick yet again with something causing a lot of congestion, making it difficult for her to sleep. So after a sleepy day spent at work, I will likely use one of my easy meals: frozen ravioli with jarred sauce
@LB, Yikes! "One of those weeks"? That's putting it mildly. I'm amazed you're still standing. Are you still standing?
@LB, Sometimes you just need something to be easy!!
We still have a lot of snow blocking access to our grill but we did see a wee bit of snow melt start yesterday. My work has intense times where dinner is, at best, an afterthought. This week started out that way. Such is life. WWA:
Saturday- ?
Sunday - ?
Monday - leftover Chinese takeout from Friday
Tuesday- A & W hamburgers, onion rings
Wednesday - homemade borscht from the freezer, toasted rye bread
Thursday - slow cooker Chili, toasted rye bread
Friday - planning on stir-fried chicken and veggies on rice
Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend
I had to do a long commute twice this week for meetings, so it was not a great meal planning week. I almost threw in the towel & got takeout, but somehow we managed not to. Barely.
We had:
-Grilled chicken, fried rice & garlic bread
-Tacos x2
-Fried rice & baked chicken
-Chicken curry x2
We are having pot stickers & wings (+ salad, which we have with every dinner) tonight.
Grilled chicken sounds so good. I think I will try to start grilling, but we have a charcoal grill, not gas. Charcoal takes more work and time, to me.
No shopping last week. I ate a little off-menu again this week:
Last of the pork chops with honey beets and green peas.
Last of the goat haunch with sautéed broccoli and cauliflower.
Lebanon bologna pieces on top of carrot-celery salad and cassava "potato" chips.
A small beef sirloin with sweet potatoes and roasted mushrooms. I had the rest of the sirloin and vegetables as a lunch.
Tuna salad with carrot, apple, celery and onion; with olives and fruit on the side. I had this twice.
A plate full of zucchini noodles with pesto and nutritional yeast.
Today is grocery shopping day, so we'll see how much damage I do there.
@JD, Charcoal does take more time, but I think the food tastes better than on a gas grill. (I have and use both, depending on time and inclination.)
@JD, Is that Lebanon bologna as from PA? My grandmother used to bring this to us for a treat whenever she flew to visit us. I haven't had it in years, but I can almost taste it now. Yum!
We had an eventful week where we all got sick, one by one. Nevertheless, everyone was fed.
Monday: We had a sausage and potato sheet pan, with shredded carrot salad on the side.
Tuesday: Mr. B was sick, so toddler and I had scrambled eggs.
Wednesday: I was sick, so Mr. B made pasta with tomato sauce. I wanted to make pesto because our basil plant was fading, but it was infested with some little white bugs (ew) who laid eggs on the leaves (ewwwwww!) so I threw it out and we had tomato sauce. We also had cucumber salad.
Thursday: I made beef stew. I used some chicken broth from the freezer and frozen tomato paste.* Actually, frozen celery, too! We can't get through a whole bunch of celery before it goes bad, so I started freezing it chopped.
Friday: I'm working an evening shift, so I'll get some takeout and Mr. B and toddler will leftover stew.
*Frugal hack for tomato paste: The cans always have way more than I need for a single recipe. I freeze it flat in a sandwich bag, and just break off pieces as needed. The texture becomes like fruit leather when frozen.
@Meira@meirathebear, I finally learned the tomato paste trick a few weeks ago! Once the can is opened for the sake of a single tablespoon, the rest goes bad in the refrigerator. I spoon it out in tablespoons on a baking sheet, put it in the freezer, then put the individual scoops in a freezer bag so I can take it out 1 tablespoon at a time. Works like a charm.
@JDinNM, that's great! Little pucks of tomato paste! It's a low cost item, but the waste of it bothers me; I'm glad it's so freezer-friendly.
@Meira@meirathebear, I finally just started buying tomato paste in tubes. You use what you want and leave it in the fridge in the tube until the next time. It lasts a really long time. I got tired of having lumps of tomato paste in the freezer but then never being able to find those lumps when I needed them...
@Lindsey, I keep looking for the tubes but never find them. Just those little tin cans. So have to resort to self help and, yes, have to remember what's in the freezer.
That chicken looks so good, Kristen! I got a piece of coal to smoke things on my stovetop (I cook my kebabs or whatever, and then add a tiny bowl to the pan with the coal, and drizzle hot oil or ghee on it and quickly close the lid to get that smoke flavour.)
I am planning on walking the camino de santiago in mid may and have been walking a lot - which means I sometimes can't plan for dinners as well.
Monday - A friends birthday dinner at a Sichuanese place. Ate cumin lamb, a whole sichuanese spicy oil fish, shrimp dumplings, and wontons.
Tuesday - My birthday! Had dinner at an amazing thai place near my apartment. I moved to this neighborhood because of it. Papaya salad, glass noodle salad, pad kee mao, moo ping, and this red curry based noodle soup.
Wednesday - bengali prawn curry, cucumber salad, and matta rice
Thursday - roti, beet thoran, dal, salad
Friday - I have to use up some coconut milk and will make thai green curry with tofu.
Have a great rest of the day, everyone!
@Samosa, Happy Birthday! And that will be quite the pilgrimage in May.
@JDinNM, Thank you!! Yes - I am excited and most days very nervous. Today is a nerves day.
WIS: $242 @ Kroger and $304 @ Sam's. This week we were out of everything and ooof inflation.
WWA:
Saturday: Leftovers since I made Spaghetti on Friday night
Sunday: BBQ chicken thighs in the crockpot, corn, green beans from our garden last year, and mashed potatoes - homemade dutch oven yeast bread
Monday: Leftovers
Tuesday: I roasted a turkey that I purchased last November and we ate that along with a roasted vegetable salad with orzo (my new favorite salad...so, so good)
Wednesday: I turned the leftover turkey into an enchilada casserole of sorts with pinto beans and cheese; peach cobbler for dessert
Thursday: Turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes, leftover green beans, peas and dutch oven yeast bread
Friday: my plan was to have leftover meatloaf but that failed since they gobbled it all up! Plan B...clean out the fridge night so that the random leftovers aren't wasted 🙂
Happy Weekend everyone!
Last night: Indian takeout.
Wednesday: Pierre Franey's hamburger casserole, which was meh.
Tuesday: Steak, mushrooms, sauteed brussels sprouts
Monday: Cottage pie with cheese and leeks and sausage meat instead of hamburger, which was branded "weird" by my son.
Sunday: we probably ate something.
It was a meh week, except for the Indian takeout.
Tonight, probably hot dogs and tomorrow, cassoulet.
WIS: Fed Chairman Jerome Powell reached out to me with a personal plea to do my best to offset Becca’s extravagance in our never-ending quest to fight inflation, so I only spent about $39 for lemons, chives, bananas, some really nice looking already trimmed asparagus (so only paid for the good parts), spinach, green tea, brown rice, jasmine rice, eggs, 2 ginormous onion bagels that I sliced in half and then each half in thirds (so 12 slices for open face sandwiches), and some parchment and wax paper. The rice and eggs accounted for almost half of the $39, but the rice will last for ages.
WIA: Busy work week so a couple of nights were just sandwiches (egg/ham/cheese on English muffin; London broil, provolone, and mustard on a slice of onion bagel) and – thankfully! – the last of the salmon linguine from the week before; beef tacos with refried beans; and tempura shrimp with lemon jasmine rice and a shredded broccoli/carrot/cabbage slaw with “Skinny Girl” Asian Sesame Ginger dressing (that is NOT my picture on the Skinny Girl label).
Chairman Powell, there should be more than enough stuff in freezer, pantry and refrigerator to get through the rest of this month and beyond. And pretty soon it will be warm enough to plant the herbs and spinach and chard, etc. outdoors, and the Village’s twice a week Farmers’ Market will get into full swing. Hate to make a trip to a grocery store just for not-really-fresh produce when I can walk into the yard and pick it, or give my $ to our farmers and not the grocery store chains.
Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!
@JDinNM, Chairman Powell should be excited that so far I have restrained myself about a dress I really want. I have a number of expensive upcoming restaurant meals to pay for, though, so the rest of you folks will have to buckle down on beans and rice. (As will I!) My birthday, Easter, my son's confirmation and then Mother's Day.
Hey Kristen, how about a post about Mother's Day some time? Every year--I mean every year--it's been about either my own mother or my former mother in law. And I'm about to be 58. This was always my choice, because when younger I figured my time would come, and now with my mother in a nursing home, a trip out to restaurant with her kids is a very big deal, and I still do the whole flowers/gifts thing which gets to be super expensive. But sometimes I wonder: when is it my turn to be pampered and feted? How do other readers deal with it?
@Rose, I am in my 30’s and my kids are very young (4 and 2) but I have always reserved the actual day of Mother’s Day for myself since becoming a mother. It helps that both kids were born very close to Mother’s Day (so I wasn’t expected to do anything since I’d just given birth) and then the pandemic also limited the requirement to celebrate in person for a couple years so at this point the expectation is set.
I do usually plan something the weekend or day before with my own mom. And my husband is responsible for his own mom so I don’t worry about that.
What a chicken - tactic week! And three cheers for having that grill again. So awesome!!
We had a fairly simple week.
Sunday: We had grilled chicken. I saw a good price so I bought several packages and we grilled it all. I served it on Sunday with rice pilaf and veggies and then leftovers were lunches for everyone.
Monday: Lettuce wraps with ground turkey. Edamame.
Tuesday: Mexican bowls...rice, beans, avocado, cheese and other toppings. A few people added the last of the grilled chicken to their bowls.
Wednesday: Meatball subs, using a container of the frozen meatballs and sauce that I made in large quantity and froze back in early Feb and I made the sub rolls. Oddly, they got misshapen in the oven, which has never happened to me before, but they still were very tasty rolls. I don't know what happened.
Thursday: It was my husband's birthday and we got take out tacos and I "made" an ice cream cake.
Friday (tonight): Both teens will be at a birthday party. Maybe we will get sandwiches?
Saturday: My mom cooked us dinner after we split and stacked another load of firewood. It was a good deal for both of us. 😉
Sunday: My birthday meal! We had steak, green beans (I requested fresh green beans cooked in bacon grease - so good!!!), potatoes, and shells and cheese. Pumpkin pie and whipped cream for dessert!
Monday: One-Pot Ham and Veggie Pasta (from allrecipes) with pineapple and grapes.
Tuesday: My husband ate at a meeting at church. I had a salad. My kids had nuggets, grapes, and leftover shells and cheese.
Wednesday: Leftover pizza that my husband brought home from his meeting. There were 3 different kinds of pizza in the box (2 of which I never make), so that was fun!
Thursday: Steak fajitas and chips with black bean hummus. I got the black bean hummus on Flashfood and it was SO GOOD that I want to get more.
Friday: Meatloaf, broccoli with cheese, and corn casserole. I had the meatloaf mixture already made, so I just had to pull it out of the freezer. My kids won't be excited about the meatloaf, but they'll be very excited about the corn casserole.
What do you brine your chicken in? Granted we only have a grill pan, no grill, but we only really season w/ salt and pepper. We do have a stove top smoker though...hrmmmm
WIS: Farmer's Market-$61; Neighborhood-$11; The Star-$37; Butcher shop-$68; Milk Delivery-$25; Fish Delivery-$24 Total-$226
WWA:
Sat- Take-out Vietnamese-beef vermicelli, shrimp shumai, gyoza
Sun- I always seem to forget Sunday
Mon- braised oxtail and grits
Tues- spinach & cream cheese stuffed pork chop, cacio e pepe & garlic bread on the side
Wed- Leftover oxtail and grits, corn on the side
Thurs- tomato sausage, zucchini, pasta dish with garlic bread on the side
Fri- Just 3 more meatless Fridays left-Ocean Perch is the fish this week. We have never had it but saw a recipe for Ocean Perch Po' Boys so might give that a try...or fish & chips