WIS, WWA | hello, Sam's Club
I haven't made a Sam's Club run in ages. But I needed to bring a very large fruit salad to work for a coworker's going-away party, so I popped in and spent a fair bit of money!
(Obviously, I bought more than just fruit. Ha.)
What I Spent
I spent:
- $155 at Sam's Club
- $70 at Aldi
- $30 on a Hungry Harvest box
So, a whopping $255!
Needless to say, I do not anticipate a repeat of this next week. 😉
What We Ate
Saturday
Lisey called and mentioned she was stopping at Panera, and then Zoe and I were like, "Oooh, what a good idea." So I dug up one of my gift cards, and we got some Panera.
Mine was the strawberry poppyseed chicken salad (27 grams of protein!). And our meal cost me nothing out of pocket. 🙂
Sunday
I had some strawberries and some heavy cream that needed to be used, so I made waffles with berries and whipped cream.
Monday
I randomly remembered the Parmesan-crusted chicken I used to make, so I made that, and we ate it on a green salad.
Tuesday
I had a work shift, so I ate leftover chicken + a salad at work, and then I just had a fruit and yogurt bowl when I got home.
Wednesday
I made some chicken lo mein so that I could use leftovers for work lunches, and we also had some Aldi potstickers.
Thursday
It's National Nurses Week, and my hospital hosts a dinner for nurses every year. I obviously have never gone before (I was a tech last year!), but my work buddy Brittany and I both RSVPed and went together. 😉
Friday
It's a work day for me; I had egg bites for breakfast, I'm eating chicken lo mein for lunch, and I'll probably have a bowl of cereal for dinner.
Chiquita is hoping to be the cat who gets the cream!
This week's eats:
Saturday: Spinach and ricotta pasta parcels and garlic bread
Sunday: Potato and spinach frittata with garlic bread
Monday: Burritos with mixed veg, black beans, brown rice and sauce
Tuesday: Chilli mac and cheese
Wednesday: Leftovers
Thursday: Aubergine, mushrooms, onion and garlic with a basil and chilli sauce over spaghetti
Tonight: I'm going out after work so I don't know yet!
Ate a lot of chicken on salad this week and anything with cheese in a tortilla.
Happy Nurse's Appreciation and hope your provided meal was good!
This always strikes me as odd (copied from a search): Teacher Appreciation Week will be from Monday, May 4 to Friday, May 8. Nurses Appreciation Week will be from Wednesday, May 6 to Tuesday, May 12.
Feels like these two hugely important roles in our society could at least each get their own week. Complicated for the days to be offset like that, too (for businesses trying to offer perks or discounts, for example).
Thank you from all the nurses.
There is a history behind the timing of Nurses Week. May 6th is National Nurses Week in the US. May 12th is International Nurses Day (the birthday of Florence Nightingale.)
Oh, that makes sense. Thank you! Keep up the great work.
Are you sure you weren't a bird in a previous life? I'm more like a Labrador Retriever. I could at least 4 days worth of your meals in a day. Our household food budget is NOT frugal.
Kristen, your fruit salad is a beautiful work of art!!!
Baked chicken on tossed salad is one of our favorite meals. We had that two nights this week.
As well, we love roasted vegetables with any kind of meat. So we had that with chicken two other nights for dinner. I had found chicken thighs at a discounted price so I just decided to do all our meals with chicken this week.
However, tonight we’ll be doing a Mother’s Day meal with our daughter, our son, our daughter-in-law and our grandson. This will be at a restaurant we’ve never been to before so I have no idea what we’ll all choose to eat. Looking forward to a fun family gathering! Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there!
Well, it has been a week. So much of a week that we made the collective decision that it is completely okay to have pasta every night for dinner. Turns out if I cook enough one night, in general there's enough leftovers for the next night (sometimes adding more cooked ground beef, a little more sauce). Luckily I have a family that will happily eat the same thing every night for dinner, especially if it's pasta! For DS#4 I add in a smoothie for more protein, as he doesn't eat ground beef. It's been a huge relief not to think about what to make for dinner! We will most likely do pizzas on the weekend, of course, but I think DH is fasting so there's fewer people eating those.
I've read about potstickers in the comments before, but I am not sure what they are? Baked potatoes?
Since it is just the two of us now, we eat way less carbs than before. It is just too much hassle to cook 3 potatoes, or one portion of rice or noodles. Salads and greens in abundance however and more legumes than earlier!
As emptynesters we are also decluttering and every week we have "stuff" that I want to see leave the house. We pass on to friends or family whenever possible, drop at the thrift shop, list for sale or for free pickup. However I sometimes wonder what to donate and what to sell. Some expensive study books for example, I just want to find a good "home" for. And the shelves at the thrift store are filled with mugs and pots and pans - doesn't freecycle make more sense? However I do not want to go on FB - done with that. I am wondering what the decision tree looks like for other people?
There's only one of me but I don't have any trouble with carbs 😉
I often see people leaving free piles of stuff outside their homes; would that work for things you simply want to declutter?
I live in a cul de sac, and the odds are that things would remain on the curb for so long that they would end up becoming trash. Also I would need to keep an eye out for rain, and territorial dogs and felines. Not very relaxed.
My sibling in Amsterdam lives quite close to a number of "free libraries" that include cabinets for dry foods, shampoos and glassware etc. They generally shop and drop there when they go for a walk. But where I live there are none close by.
From my understanding, pot stickers are a bit like gyoza or Chinese dumplings that are fried in a pan to get crisp on the outside and soft & smoochy on the inside.
https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-gyoza-and-potstickers-tips-from-the-kitchn-215959
For household goods like kitchen supplies, is there a woman's shelter or an organization that helps teens aging out of foster care in your area? The local clergy in our area also have an informal needs list for furniture and household appliances.
I’ve had luck donating unused clothing and household goods to a thrift store in town that supports our refugee community, as well as a free store run by a church in our neighborhood. A lot of nonprofits and/or women’s shelters can also use our extras. It takes more research on the front end but I’m happy our extras can work for folx in need.
Saturday: My parents and my sister and her boyfriend came for the weekend to help celebrate my daughter's First Communion, so I was feeding ten people. I made taco meat with ground beef and a LOT of corn tortillas. I still had some of my husband's giant batch of delicious refried beans in the freezer, so I took those out as well. All the toppings, and everyone made their own soft tacos.
Sunday: My daughter's request for her celebratory meal was ham, scalloped potatoes, corn, and coconut cake. We decided on this together because I had explained that whatever she picked had to be good for a crowd. So not, say, tuna patties, which is one of her favorite things but would not work so well for a buffet for 12 people (we had two other guests besides family). To that, I added sauteed cabbage and carrots (just because I had a cabbage that needed to be used up), a green salad, and chocolate pudding to use the five egg yolks I was left with after separating out the egg whites for the cake.
Monday: We spent the rest of the week eating the leftovers from the weekend's giant dinners. This night was just leftover ham, scalloped potatoes, corn, cake, and pudding.
Tuesday: Cinco de Mayo, and I had lots of leftover taco meat, beans, and some flour tortillas my sister had left. So we had burritos. I didn't have tequila or lime for frozen margaritas--our typical Cinco de Mayo tradition--but I made a blender drink with grapefruit vodka and fresh-squeezed orange juice with ice that was appropriately celebratory. I put out chips and salsa for the kids and we all danced around to cumbia music before dinner.
Wednesday: I made some rice and then combined that with more leftover taco meat, spices, cheese, and sour cream.
Thursday: My daughter had a sore throat (after a very mild winter with almost no sickness, the last three weeks have featured a variety of viruses that keep on coming), so I used the leftover scalloped potatoes, ham, and already-cooked onions from the freezer to make a pureed potato soup. We all had that, plus garlic bread, and then I also made rhubarb pudding while the oven was on to bake bread.
Tonight: We have a lot of potato soup left. Since I just baked bread yesterday, I think I'll make grilled cheese sandwiches to go with it. Maybe with tuna in them to make tuna melts. We'll see.
Hi Kristin, I found your blog. Is there a way to search there that I’m not seeing? I’m looking for a good refried beans (and Mexican rice) recipe and wondered if you had posted your husband’s. TIA
Hi! There is a search bar in the top left corner, at least I can see one, but I don't have a recipe for refried beans. I did describe how I make them, plus my husband's additions, in the comments of a previous post.
https://www.blogger.com/comment/fullpage/post/6506305897742962637/5451833646633451394
WWA, WWS $112.49
Sunday: roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed green beans. Chocolate crackle cookies for dessert
Monday: grilled chicken, squash, leftover mashed potatoes & gravy, pickles
Tuesday: pulled pork nachos
Wednesday: chili, cornbread muffins
Thursday: chicken parmesan, garlic breadsticks
Friday: tonight will be mini pizzas from freezer & salad
I feel your pain on the Sam's trip. I made a similar buy just yesterday. But everything I got we needed. My buy included several expensive steaks for Sunday steak-in meals (@$15.47 a lb), but it's still cheaper than eating steak out and something we have done for 30+ years. I love the quality of Sam's meats.
Sam's does have the same price on chicken all the time ($1.28 lb for thighs, 98 cents lb for legs, better than I can do anywhere else, so I stocked up on those along with other things.
So here's what I spent and what we ate:
It was a stock-up week. I spent $68 at Walmart; $22 at Aldi; $28 at Edwards Food Giant; and $181 at Sam’s. So yikes – $299.
Sat – crockpot meatballs in sauce with mushrooms and onions over noodles, cucumber kimchee made by a friend.
S – grilled strip steaks, onion potatoes, carrot/raisin/pineapple salad.
M – leftover meatballs and noodles, green salad.
T – packaged frozen seasoned salmon ( that was really good!), leftover onion potatoes, carrot/raisin/pineapple salad and cucumber kimchi.
W – baked, breaded pork chops, sweet and sour green beans, Aldi 90-second Caribbean rice and dinner rolls.
Th – hot dogs, tater tots, a packaged Southwestern salad from Sam's.
F – we will probably have crockpot steak and broccoli over ramen noodles and egg rolls.
Have a great weekend!
I'll have to check out those potstickers at Aldi!
WIS: $15 Target, $46 Aldi
WIA:
Saturday: chicken shawarma sandwich, hummus (from Pita Inn)
Sunday: same, leftovers
Monday: granola with raisins and walnuts, apple
Tuesday: chicken teriyaki stir fry (from freezer)
Wednesday: white chocolate macadamia energy bar, apple
Thursday: olive-walnut-cream cheese sandwich, strawberries
Tonight: who knows? I'll be staying at a friend's house, going to a wedding tomorrow.
Friday: Refrigerator Clean Out Salad – a cross between a Greek salad and a Kale Italian salad. I took the best of both from what was available in the veggie drawer, along with some leftover chicken and threw it all together.
Saturday: My husband brought home pizza – there is a fun pizza place near his office so he is bringing home one specialty pizza a month for us to try.
Sunday: Smoked ribs, red cabbage slaw, and cheesy potatoes
Monday: Pickle brined chicken tenders, broccoli rice au gratin, leftover slaw
Tuesday: Carnitas bowls for the boys, leftover chicken tenders for me after my watercolor class
Wednesday: Sullied Josephs (sloppy joes), tater tots, green beans
Thursday: Husband had a work dinner, my son had the leftover carnitas bowls, I ate odds and ends in the fridge (girl dinner!)
Happy Friday, everyone! We spent $130 at Target.
- Roasted butternut squash, carrots and potatoes
- Farmhouse salad (takeout gift) - spring mix, beets, carrots, portabellas, asparagus, bleu cheese crumbles, candied pecans, fried pickled red onions, and balsamic glaze
- Mashed potatoes and broccoli
- Vegetarian Reuben sandwich
- Veggie hoagie (takeout gift)
- Salad - mixed greens, chickpeas, radishes, cottage cheese, homemade croutons and Kristen's cilantro sauce (thinned out with some buttermilk)
- Cottage cheese and peaches (after a bigger lunch)
WIS: about $75, divided between Food Lion, Ollie's Outlet and Dollar Tree.
WWA: For DH, leftover chili; salami sandwiches with grapes, carrot sticks, veggie chips and trail mix; and hoisin pork and veggies. For myself, tuna salad (twice) with crackers and cantaloupe, and protein smoothies made with frozen strawberries. Peanut butter toast on the side. (Lunch is my big meal of the day.)
Here's what we've been eating:
-Friday last week - I was with my BFF & DS19 in Boulder, and we had pizza & salad
-Saturday - went to a winery/cider place before our flight & had a salad & appetizers
-Sunday - I made ground beef tacos
-Monday - DH grilled burgers, which we had with all the fixings (potato salad, watermelon, chips, etc) as DS19 had a bunch of friend over
-Tuesday - I was at a work event, and had chicken + veggies
-Wednesday - leftover tacos
Thursday - leftover burgers
Tonight - I'm going out to dinner with friends.
I hope we will get the first good strawberries around here soon. Right now they come from Spain and the Netherlands and are pretty bland.
This week we had:
Saturday: Wraps with Korean BBQ tempeh, lettuce, tomatoes etc.
Sunday: Potatoes and a salad
Monday: Ricotta tortellini alfredo with green peas
Tuesday: German Abendbrot (assortment of bread, cheese, vegetarian salami, sliced cucumber and bell pepper)
Wednesday: We had our wedding anniversary and went to our favorite Indian place. We had Alu Gobi and Palak Paneer. The children ate homemade semolina pudding with apple-mango puree for dinner
Thursday: My DH made pizza. No cooking for me (but I prepared the marinara sauce)
Friday: The children asked for gnocchi, so we will eat them with leftover marinara sauce
Saturday - We’d had takeout the night before for a school fundraiser and then we’d taken my mom out to lunch for an early Mother’s Day so decided not to do our usual takeout Saturday for dinner. The kids had shrimp and veggie dumplings from the freezer, I had a Buddha bowl that was already prepped in the fridge.
Sunday - I had my 8 year old make a baked ziti (with my supervision).
He can do most of the steps himself, he does need help carrying hot heavy things (like draining the pasta, pouring the sauce into the tray) He did a good job and of course ate more of it because he’d prepared it. My goal is for both kids to know how to cook, I usually don’t have time to teach them on weekdays so trying to set aside weekend time.
Monday - KFC bowls, deconstructed and vegetarian for some. My husband had a regular one: mashed potatoes, topped with diced breaded chicken, corn and gravy. My daughter had mashed potatoes with gravy and corn, and a meatless chicken patty, my son had a meatless chicken patty with some orzo and corn. I had green goddess soup, and a bagel topped with a bean spread I’d made and sliced tomato. It was not as much work as it sounds, we do have varying levels of animal product consumption in our house right now though which can be a challenge.
Tuesday - My late work night, my mom fed the kids, I had curried cauliflower soup and another bagel with bean spread and tomato (I found a bag of bagels in the freezer so working my way through them)
Wednesday - Kids had refried bean burritos, Spanish rice and corn. I had black bean dip spread on two corn tortillas that if crisped in the oven to make into tostadas, topped with sliced avocado and mango salsa.
Thursday - More freezer dumplings for the kids, they love them right now! I had another soup and bagel combo, this time with carrot ginger soup. My freezer is well stocked with frozen individual servings of various soups.
Friday - defrosted some coconut rice I had previously made, I’m going to make fried rice with it, with Bok choy, broccoli and a bag of frozen mixed veg.
As usual in spring, I have absolutely nothing inspiring to report from my kitchen. I continue to eat on a grab-it-and-go basis between gardening and other chores. But here's a report of a food-related discovery at NDN1's house yesterday that inspired me, at least:
I continue to spend about 60-90 minutes each day at NDN1's, sorting out old financial records to be shredded, other items to be recycled, and trash to be discarded. (We're going to have to call in a junk removal service at some point, but in the meantime, I'm doing what I can.) But I found something Thursday afternoon that really made my day: a hard copy of a poem I wrote back in February 2003 called "An Ode to Kale." (The poetic style owes more to Henry Gibson on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In than anyone else, but DH, my friends, and I thought it was rather clever at the time.) I lost the file for this when I was changing computers back in the late oughts, and I hadn't saved a hard copy--so when I found this copy I'd given to NDN1, I was absolutely over the moon (and between laughter and tears). In this long cleanout slog, it's good that there are occasional rewards like this one. "All hale to kale, that hearty vittle!"
That's a gorgeous fresh fruit bowl! I'm sure your co-worker appreciated the special meal and recognition for her going away.
Happy Nurses Week and thank you to you and all the nurses who are there for us in some of the worst days of our lives!
Saturday: Friend's house for dinner
Sunday: Garlic pasta, sweet potatoes, and strawberries, probably
Monday: Taquitos & Enchiladas, guac and dragonfruit?
Tuesday: Spaghetti with fruit and veggies, though I don't remember which ones...
Wednesday: Miso Black Cod, mac n' cheese, cucumbers, carrots, and apples
Thursday: Grilled Cheese, French fries, bell peppers, hummus, and berries
Friday: Homemade pizza, probably
Not the most nutritious week but everyone was fed and I did feel satisfaction baking our own bread, making homemade mayo, cooking dried beans for the taquitos and enchiladas and chickpeas to make hummus.
Chiquita is the best
any kind of green salad covered with caeser dressing
artichoke
chicken, refried beans, green peas
We've been all over the place for the last week, but everyone was fed!
Saturday - It was the final show for my daughter's play and a lot of the cast went to Culver's for dinner between the matinee and evening show. I dropped her off there and grabbed a quick bite for myself at home plus quick run through Starbucks for some caffeine before taking her back to the theater. I know the rest of the family ate something, but I don't remember what.
Sunday - Brats and hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and a veggie
Monday - The two that went to track packed sandwiches. I had tortellini and salad with the other two before we went to baseball.
Tuesday - Everyone was home for dinner! Garlic parmesan chicken, broccoli and cauliflower with cheese, and sweet potatoes.
Wednesday - Three of us went to a track meet with a cooler full of fruit, veggies, sandwiches, and snacks. The two that were home before baseball had beef stew.
Thursday - We did a combo birthday/Mother's Day dinner for my MIL. We made pork chops, potatoes, asparagus, salad, cookie cake, and ice cream.
Friday - We're all packing dinner to take to baseball tonight. I got day-old Jimmy John's bread for subs and we will have fruit, veggies, energy bites, and chips as well. Trying to avoid getting dinner at the food trucks that will be there tonight!
This week's eats:
Sat: pork chops on the bbq, roasted veggies
Sun: fried rice with leftover pork chop, rice from the freezer
Mon: french toast,fruit
Tues: burgers on the bbq,salad
Wed: leftover burger,fried eggs, toast
Thurs: chili from the freezer
Fri:Spaghetti with sauce from the freezer
Your parmesan crusted chicken recipe has been a family favorite here for years and years! 💕
I love how you use leftovers for your lunches. I typically make a chicken or sausage penne pasta dish (as one example) and freeze them in small snap lock containers so I can always grab something.
So nice to be somewhat prepared for lunches everyday. A coworker of mine is a last minute lunch maker-one day she was out of food and came with a can of corn!😆
Haha, I respect her commitment to not eating out but I have to admit that if my only option was a can of corn, I would crack and go to the cafeteria!
Meals this past week or so included:
Lemon pepper fish with roasted cauliflower and mashed potatoes. The girls made wraps with the leftover fish for lunch.
Ravioli from Costco - it was a huge disappointment. it was a carbonara style. We are it twice, but won't buy it again.
Burgers with salad.
Hard shell tacos using vegetarian shreds, mixed with peppers and onions. The shreds came with a chipotle sauce. Absolutely amazing. We ate the leftovers with rice the next day.
Pasta again, ( I had frozen it in January). The sauce had beef, pepperoni and sausage in it.
We went out for Chinese last night. There's a ton of leftovers, so that will be lunch today.
Tonight will be soup and salad.
Grocery money- I'm guessing 200.00