WIS, WWA | lotsa tortellini
What I Spent
The last two weeks of this 8-week class have been NUTS on the school front. Soooo, my meals have been pretty low-effort.
I spent:
- $20 at Five Guys (see Tuesday below)
- $95 at Sam's Club
- $12 at Safeway
- $30 on a Hungry Harvest box
So, $157 for me.
What We Ate
Saturday
I have zero record of what we ate for dinner.
But I do know that I ate a chickpea salad with chicken for lunch!
Sunday
Zoe was at work, and I made myself a skillet tortellini/chicken/tomato dish.
Monday
I don't remember where Zoe was, but I made a red pepper and tomato sauce to eat with some cheese tortellini.
Tuesday
After two exams (Monday and Tuesday) that went super well for me, I felt like celebrating. So Zoe and I went and got burgers at Five Guys for a treat.
Wednesday
I had a school event after my clinical day; Zoe ate a frozen pizza while I was gone and when I got home, I just ate a bowl of yogurt and fruit and granola before I crawled into bed. 😉
Thursday
Zoe was out with a friend, and I made myself a little pot of eyeballed creamy chicken tortellini soup, to use up the last of the rotisserie chicken plus the last of the tortellini. Of course, I used my homemade chicken broth as a base since I always have that in the freezer.
Friday
As I type this on Thursday night, my tired self has no idea. But hopefully by the time Friday night rolls around, I will have enjoyed a nice night of sleep and a day with no school stuff scheduled...and then I will have energy and motivation. 🙂
What did you have for dinner this week?
P.S. I updated yesterday's post after I got home from clinicals.
WIS: 72 @Aldi
WWA:
Fri: salad and focaccia.
Sat: salad, parsley and ground turkey meatloaf with leftover eggplant tomato sauce.
Sun: romaine and strawberry salad, mashed potatoes, leftover focaccia air fried.
Mon: kale and cucumber salad, homemade bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon.
Tue: leftover strawberry and romaine salad, leftover mashed potatoes, angel hair pasta carbonara with frozen broccoli mixed in.
Wed: pinto bean and cheddar cheese nachos with guacamole. No salad because I got home too late from grocery shopping to make one.
Thu: kale salad and pan fried leftover angel hair pasta topped with veggies marinated in mirin and a soy sauce hard boiled egg.
Tonight: more salad and focaccia.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
I'm starting to fall into a similar food routine as yours. I do plan and shop, but a lot of the time I end up veering off my plan. I have plenty of things in the freezer to cook, so my grocery bills have been lower. This week:
Monday - kitchen closed
Tuesday - Pasta with Italian Sausage, green beans
Wednesday - (freezer) Burger No Bun, O & P, (freezer) BBQ beans
Thursday - Greek Chicken Salad
Friday - leftover Pasta with Italian Sausage, green beans
Saturday and Sunday - kitchen closed (but these are work days and I have freezer meals)
*re tortellini: I get stuck sometimes on a similar food item and eat it a few ways until I finally, finally eat it up. Currently it's frozen meatballs...
WIS: $23 at Trader Joe's and $23 at Wegmans.
WIA: My best effort this week was a stir-fry. Dr. Bestest Neighbor brought over the last few green beans from his backyard veggie garden (well and prohibitively fenced in by DH back in the day). I incorporated the beans into a stir-fry with some Reduced for Quick Sale boneless pork; the usual onion and some of my own garlic; some cauliflower and a carrot I wanted to use up; and some greens from the garden (pigweed growing wild, and arugula from my Easy Washer tub). I discovered that arugula, added at the very last minute to a stir-fry, is dynamite.
Saturday: Brisket, fried potatoes, raw tomatoes, leftover chocolate pudding. The only reason we had leftover pudding is that my husband and eldest son were gone hunting.
Sunday: I had a whole Spanish omelet on hand, but one child who is not a fan. So I experimented with chunking it up and frying it in butter to make it crispy. That was popular, and a good thing to remember in future. We also had raw green beans. And I had a box of yellow cake mix my mother gave me that I used to make a layer cake with strawberry/rhubarb jam and whipped cream as frosting. I really made that to use up the cream. My husband keeps buying multiples of the real cream--the kind with no stabilizers--and we don't ever get through it before it starts to sour. I had a full quart and a half of cream to use up quickly. Hence the pudding and the cake. Happy children. 🙂
Monday: The day before I had cooked a big pot of chickpeas, as well as used a bag of lamb stew pieces and a shank to make broth and meat. Those combined with spices and yogurt made some saucy meat to put over rice. We also had cucumbers and leftover cake.
Tuesday: My husband brought home the marinated lamb chops I had sent hunting with him, so I cooked those. There weren't enough for everyone, so a couple of kids had the leftover lamb and chickpeas. I also made mashed potatoes and carrot sticks with ranch dip.
Wednesday: I had got a rotisserie chicken the day before at the store--I always do when I go to that store, because I start my very long drive home after lunch and I'm always really hungry, so I eat the drumsticks on my way home--so I used that meat, plus one smoked sausage that also came home from the hunting trip, plus peas, milk, and cream, to make a skillet of food to serve over either leftover rice or mashed potatoes.
Thursday: Pork loin chunks in milk gravy, rice cooked in the juices left from cooking a pork shoulder awhile ago, cucumbers with ranch dip, and an apple crisp with cream because someone gave me about a dozen elderly apples.
Tonight: I'll be at volleyball games with my small cheerleader in the late afternoon, which will lead to football games in the evening. I'll give her the choice of bringing her own money to buy dinner at the concession stand or I'll bring a tuna sandwich for her to eat between games. My husband will be home with the boys until he brings them up for the football games, so I'll leave something here for them to eat before they leave. I have a lot of leftover rice, so maybe a tuna/rice/cheese skillet of some sort.
@kristin@going country,
Pommes dauphinois with cream and cheese (and raw green beans?)
@kristin@going country, If you frequently have cream going sour, you could look for a recipe for sour cream chocolate cake. This was a staple for a period of time in my childhood when we bought raw milk from a farmer whose cows gave very rich milk. The sour cream took the place of other fat in the cake.
@kristin@going country, I’ll say it again- your menus make me so hungry!!
@kristin@going country,
I have a vision of you driving with a drumstick in each hand, throwing the bones out of the window as you drive. You are a badass!! 🙂
@Joanne in the U.K., Nah, one hand on the wheel at all times. Trying to be a badass by double-fisting chicken drumsticks while going 80 miles an hour in a vehicle sounds like a good way to crash. 🙂
@kristin@going country,
🙂 🙂 🙂
@kristin@going country, I’m late to the party, but your abundance of cream reminded me of something similar YEARS ago. My soon-to-be MIL would gift me a qt of cream each week. I was in college and would give it to my mom who used it in her coffee. Each weekend when I came home, I would use the remains of the cream to make a cake that used either sweet or sour cream. It was a recipe I found in my mom’s county extension cookbook.
Brownstone Front Cake
Mix dry…6 T cocoa
2 c. sugar
2 1/2 c. flour
2 t. baking soda
pinch of salt
Add …. 2 c. cream (sweet or sour)
4 eggs
Beat 4 to 5 minutes. Bake in a moderate oven (350) for an hour. 9X13 pan.
You can also just use 1 c cream with 2/3 c water and reduce the baking soda to 1 1/2 teaspoons.
It’s good with or without frosting. I’ve even made it with half & half when I had too much or the carton went bad quickly.
For my mom’s 70th birthday, she asked for this cake. It’d been years and I didn’t have her cookbook, but I found a recipe and was able to make it for her once more.
Maaaybe cottage pie tonight. Hm.
Last night, orange chicken, with marmalade, various Chinese sauces and Bell & Evans chicken nuggets (the only kind I will eat) over rice.
Wednesday, penne vodka and salad. Tuesday, zuppa toscana with more salad. Monday, erm, probably we ate something. Sheesh, what a boring week.
@Rose, Oh, right, it was chicken tagine with olives and preserved lemons, over couscous. It was reeeeeeally good.
Now I have a sudden craving for tortellini…
WIS: $58.06 at Sprouts for eggs, a ton of fruit (bananas, organic strawberries and a nice looking apple called “Rave” that didn’t taste anywhere near as good as it looked for the $1.25 price), lots of salad greens, Italian squash, little rose gold potatoes, organic “Lucky 7” multigrain sourdough bread, and a little box (okay, okay, TWO little boxes) of oatmeal/cranberry/walnut cookies that have an incredible amount of dietary fiber (trust me on this).
WIA: Teriyaki salmon with sauteed asparagus and roasted smashed potatoes; Japanese-style stir-fried zucchini on ramen noodles (because, duh, never-ending zucchini); the last of the leftover homemade Asian-PF Chang-style chicken filling for lettuce wraps; salad with sliced chicken a la Kristen’s Brinerade recipe.
@JDinNM, do you have a recipe you can share for the lettuce wrap filling?
@StaceyW, it has a very long list of ingredients (as most Asian food recipes tend to have) but there are a lot of recipes online if you search for PF Chang lettuce wraps. My favorite is damndelicious.net/2014/05/30/pf-changs-chicken-lettuce-wraps, but that's about the same as the one on delish and other sites.
@JDinNM, thank you!
@JDinNM,
I've had Rave apples before, and really liked them! Sorry you got a bad one.
@Liz B., It looked gorgeous! And a single apple weighed close to a pound! But I think it was picked a tad too soon -- didn't taste completely ripe. So I'll give them another chance!
@StaceyW, I love lettuce wraps. I would love the recipe also!
@Joy in NW iowa, See my reply to Joy -- there's a lot of recipes on the web.
@JDinNM, Meant my reply to Stacey!
@StaceyW, that’s my go-to as well. It’s true, lots of ingredients, but nothing exotic. Standard door-of-fridge items. AND it’s super easy!
Dinners this week were overly effortful--I was a little too excited to be working from home. Next week, lower effort.
Monday: Pasta with tomato sauce, sliced cucumbers, and roasted pumpkin.
Tuesday: Baked chicken katsu, cabbage slaw (trying to copy the Taylor Farms Asian Slaw; the package keeps getting smaller and smaller so I came up with a reasonably low-effort dupe.)
Wednesday: I tried a new recipe, kubbe, an Iraqi-Jewish dumpling in soup. I didn't love the recipe I used, but since it made a lot I froze the extra and will just eat them for my WFH lunches.
Thursday: Mr. B made foccacia with tomato sauce, and sliced cucmbers.
Friday: Mr. B will make us a hearty meal with salmon and other stuff. Yom Kippur starts at sundown.
This week has been a lighter week for me class wise--mostly because I worked ahead and got a big assignment done a week early.
WWS: $464 at Kroger (food only--I subtract out household stuff like toiletries and cleaners when I do buy them)
Saturday: DH was fasting and I biked with him to church that evening, while the boys had pizzas at home and watched Star Trek VI. I think I ate something when I got home, but can't remember what.
Sunday: Homemade pizzas--which became a theme all week
Monday: Chicken shawarma, and I have learned I don't have to marinate it over night, it's actually better with just a one hour marinade before putting it in the crockpot. Roasted cauliflower, rice, salad and homemade hummus on the side. Plus pizza stuff, for anyone who wanted those as well.
Tuesday: Ham and bean soup, mac and cheese for Selective Eater, leftover shawarma and...pizzas. We usually have a lot of pizza fixings left over and we make the most of them.
Wednesday: Taco night
Thursday: Burgers and corn on the cob, plus grapes
Friday: will be hamburger stew and probably mac and cheese for selective eater.
I sort of stuck to my menu, while not knowing if I could cook or open my refrigerator for a while.
I discovered I had a little "international dishes" cookbook I'd forgotten about, so I scheduled those recipes for this two weeks' menu.
I shopped last weekend, spending $206, due to getting an Azure order along with farm orders plus my regular shopping. I did some stocking up with Azure, so that was a larger bill than normal.
WIA:
I had cut a big bone out of a pork butt roast, leaving some of the meat on it. I took it out of the freezer and made pork and veggie soup out of it. In honor of Kristen 🙂 and to mimic the Italian recipe I was basing this on, I added a big splash of cream to it. So good.
I pressure cooked lamb shoulder with potatoes, mushrooms, onion and garlic, served with a side of spinach.
Togolese grilled chicken served with grilled onions, fresh tomatoes and grilled okra. Alas, the okra plants are now finished. Helene stripped the leaves and now we are having cooler weather, so goodbye, okra.
Mixed leftovers of above, before I put the rest in the freezer.
I tried a recipe for bean and cheese pupusas, and the recipe was not one I will repeat. The dough and filling were too salty and the filling and shaping process was too messy. I can reduce the salt, but not the mess. I had tomatoes and refrigerator pickles with this.
Hard boiled eggs, sweet plantain chips and cut up raw vegetables.
The bosses are grilling lunch today - burgers, hot dogs, with Sonny's mac n' cheese and baked beans, so tonight is likely to be a snack-type meal.
@JD, your mention of the Sonny's mac and cheese made me instantly nostalgic for Sonny's BBQ. DH and I ate very happily several times at various Sonny's locations during our various trips to FL. But when I went to the current Sonny's online menu, I was almost petrified not to see fried okra--until I thought to look under appetizers instead of side dishes. As my sainted mother used to say, "You might as well kill me as scare me half to death!"
Not food related but Fridays are the only time I usually comment, just wanted to say I checked out the first Maisie Dobbs book from the library after seeing it recommended here and am really enjoying it! Thanks to all those who recommend books here, I’ve built up quite a list.
Saturday - I was Glamping with friends and we went out to a fancy dinner this night!
Sunday - home from Glamping, we had a birthday lunch for my dad at my parents house with pizza and had some of the leftover pizza for dinner that night too.
Monday - shrimp scampi from Trader Joe’s (only 2/4 of us ate it which worked out since the portion was pretty small), egg noodles with butter and Parmesan, steamed carrots and broccoli, crescent rolls. For me, black beans and acorn squash with lime crema and salsa.
Tuesday - corn chowder, I found two pork ribs in a baggie in the freezer so I cut the meat off those for the soup, and then just put tons of veggies in it, including potatoes, zucchini, red onion, green onion, carrots, and plenty of corn. We also had leftover crescent rolls or corn muffins from the freezer.
Wednesday - salad night, chicken on my husbands salad, black bean quinoa burger chopped up on my salad, and bread chicken breast pieces with cut veggies for the kids.
Thursday - my son had requested pearl cous cous the day before so I made it this day. I also made Trader Joe’s orange chicken (normally would make rice to go with that but pearl cous cous worked well too) steamed green beans and carrots. For myself, I put two corn tortillas in the oven with the orange chicken until they were crispy like a tostada, then put great northern beans on top with avocado, lime crema and salsa.
Friday - probably just pasta, jarred sauce and meatballs from the freezer, it’s been a very busy work week for me so ready for an easy dinner and for a nice long weekend!
This week was a little unusual with more parties and dinners out than usual:
Saturday: Lemon basil pasta salad with grilled lime tofu (brought with me to a party where I also enjoyed a Caesar salad, veggie tray, cheese and crackers)
Sunday: Sweet potato and roasted chickpeas over rice (served at a friend's house)
Monday: Scalloped potatoes in a cream sauce, salmon, chickpeas, green beans
Tuesday: Linguini pasta with butternut, feta and arugula
Wednesday: Creamy veggie soup with homemade oat (quick) bread
Thursday: Irish pub food with a friend
Friday: Fresh ravioli is waiting in the fridge for an easy meal
WIS: Did not keep receipts, but it was approximately $140, which is the new norm since DH had to go on a gluten-free diet.
WWA: leftover roasted chicken with fresh fruit and vegetables. Hickory smoked ham with fresh produce, cheese, and GF flatbread. Chicken-quinoa-veggie bowls. Veggie burgers for me. Last night I made myself a homemade egg McMuffin minus the meat and it was yummy!
Autumn kicked in, so we had spuds/greens/meat stew several nights.
To compensatie for the carbs, yesterday I made just brineraded chicken (always a good choice) with ovenroasted cauliflower. The cauliflower was accompanied by a walnut/garlic/roasted pepper/cumin sauce. It turned out a bit more like a spread, not a sauce, but the taste of the sauce was delicious and we will put what was left on toast.
Tonight, the guys will cook soup and sandwiches.
Friday: (London) We had show tickets and didn’t want to deal with crowds in the restaurants near the theater, so we picked up sandwiches and a salad from Pret A Manger which we ate in our flat along with the drinks, fruit, and crisps we picked up from Aldi earlier in the week.
Saturday: (London) We didn’t trust that there would actually be dinner provided on the train from Manchester to London, since the promised breakfast never arrived on the way to Manchester in the morning, so we grabbed train station fast food. My husband and I shared a pasty, my son picked up Burger King. We did end up getting BBQ sandwiches and bags of pretzels on the train as well.
Sunday: (London) My husband had been eyeing a ramen shop down the street from our flat all week. There was always a line to get in and it had incredible reviews. We decided we would wait as long as it took to get in (which was only five minutes) and we had the best ramen I have ever had!
Monday: Aldi pizza at home paired with fresh fruit and veggies.
Tuesday: Italian Wedding Soup and crusty bread – I used collard greens in place of escarole since it came in our CSA box and it was delicious.
Wednesday: Cod with shallot pan sauce, salad, garlic bread.
Thursday: Hoisin Burgers, Sesame Green Beans, brown rice, quickled cucumbers
@Geneva, ooh, a London trip? What part of London was your flat in?
DH and I, on our trips to London, always used to crash with friends who were teaching at the local university's London center--which was first in Notting Hill and then in Camden Town, so I know both those areas pretty well. (I'm probably one of the few people who watch the Notting Hill movie not for Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts, but for the Notting Hill location shots. The "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" sequence, in which Grant walks down the Portobello Rd. market through the changing seasons, makes me gooey with nostalgia.)
@A. Marie, we were in Islington, just on the border with Shoreditch. It was nice, quiet, and a perfect location to get to all the spots we wanted to go to each day.
We spent a nice morning in Notting Hill just so we could visit Portobello Road! My husband and I both grew up watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks so we had to see "where the riches of ages are stowed" - it was fantastic!
WIS = $178 (one trip to Costco, two trips to Trader Joes & one trip to the local grocery store)
-DH & I had a date night at a lovely Greek restaurant near our house. I brought the leftover risotto home & had that for two additional lunches. It was delicious.
-We had grilled chicken & rice leftovers another night
-DH grilled burgers, & we had that x2
-I was home alone for dinner, so I had the trusty dinner of cheese & crackers + popcorn
-We had pasta & meatballs for another dinner
As for tonight, I'll be at the airport, so I will probably eat something at the lounge before we take off. I have to fast before a medical appointment, so I can't eat ahead of time at home.
Hooray for Five Guys! Celebrate successes!
107 grocery pickup. 13 local middle eastern store for GREAT hummus, EVEN BETTER pita bread and a specialty vinegar.
Sunday and Monday: grilled chicken. Rice. Corn. Apple crisp
Tuesday: frozen pizza and salad
Wed and Thurs: chicken and rice soup ( using up odds n ends. Broth from freezer ). Pita and hummus.
Friday: burgers in the grill. Air fryer french fries. Lettuce salad. Ice cream sundaes.
We still have some hummus. Grape tomatoes. And red peppers left so probably going to make some kind of Greek inspired skillet for Sat.
Praying for the South!
Two celebratory dinners for us this week. WWA:
Saturday - too tired to cook, so we scrounged around in the fridge
Sunday - homemade lasagna and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for daughter’s birthday dinner
Monday - leftovers
Tuesday - pork skewers, pan “grilled” naan, horiatiki salad
Wednesday - “Feast for Two” takeout (lobster, shrimp, steak, ribs, sides), wine, bourbon cake to celebrate our anniversary
Thursday- shrimp tacos
Friday - planning to make black bean quesadillas to go with the bit of left over shrimp
Wishing everyone a wonderful (Thanksgiving here in Canada) weekend
@kj, Happy Anniversary! That sounds like a "feast" indeed!
I spent $59.50 between Lowe’s Foods and Food Lion…$10 was in cereal because it was on sale at Food Lion for $1.99. We don’t eat much cereal, but DH likes to take it on mornings he travels as a breakfast he can eat whenever.
We ate:
Saturday: A bbq buffet local restaurant we had never tried before that was GREAT. We will definitely be going back to it. We had lunch so supper we just had a salad and a piece of toast.
Sunday: roasted pork loin/roasted potatoes/collards
Monday: (best thing all week) Garlic butter fried rice with sticky pork loin bites. I used the leftover pork loin cut into small pieces…coated with sauce made from bbq sauce/soy sauce/garlic and ginger…baked in a foil packet til tender then opened the packet and broiled to give it some stickiness and color. Added to Marion’s kitchen Japanese garlic butter fried rice. That rice is not healthy, but it is great! It’s much better than the fried rice I usually make that has more soy. We had some broccoli with this to make us feel better about ourselves.
Tuesday: Baked Greek chicken, salad, small pita
Wednesday: butter chicken spiced grilled chicken, cut into strips after grilling and served on warm naan with onions and sauce. Salad on the side.
Thursday: Shrimp and pasta
Friday: Kids are coming for a movie night so I’m thinking chili/hotdogs/cheese plate
WIS: $0
WWA:
Sunday Family Dinner in honor of daughter's hike, bike & kayake
trip to Santorini (bike), Kefalonia (kayak) & Rhodes & Symi (hike)
GF Spanakopita, Souvlaki, Tzatziki, Horiatiki (marinated olives, cucumbers, tomatoes and cannellinis), Stifado (Beef Stew), Kitharaki shrimp with orzo in spicy tomato sauce,
(Sokolatopita) Chocolate Cake & Cheesecake w/GF Baklava topping
M - Made fresh pita for leftover Stifado drizzled w/Tzatziki
T - Grilled burgers no bun, kale chips BBQ flavored & apple salad
W - Chef's salad
Th - Taco Salad
F - frozen enchiladas, green salad
S - work day grilled pork steaks, potato salad & 3 bean salad
Picked the wine grapes to make vinegar - we made 5 gallons
Since it was in the middle of the night: Thankful to enjoy the aurora borealis and comet show last night. It was so bright! Have a great weekend! Go Sports!
Saturday - on Friday, better half boiled cheese/spinach tortelloni (from dairy case) as well as enhancing jar spaghetti sauce with finely diced Italian sausage and mushrooms. Baked in a casserole dish with extra cheese on top. It was quite tasty.
Sunday - dine out Mexican
Monday - leftover Mexican, tortelloni, and left over (home made) pizza from the freezer
Tuesday - burnt ends and boiled then baked with onions potatoes
Wednesday - anniversary dine out. I had steak (not the best, not the worst), better half had salmon. Both meals came with Yukon mashed potatoes (which were really good) and green beans
Thursday - grilled burgers and a can of some type of beans enhanced with leftover potatoes/Mexican/wild rice (which we evidently had one day that I can't remember) . Again, quite tasty but likely never be created again due to the leftovers combo
Friday - better half baked cod, boiled baked potatoes and carrots, I ate leftover steak pan fried with boiled potatoes and red peppers. Leftover green beans sauteed with bacon and home grown garlic for both of us.
As Kristen often says, grocery spending can have high and low weeks. This was definitely a low one for us as I spent $45 at Market Basket and $47 at Stop & Shop for a total of $92.
Monday - chicken fajitas
Tuesday - two of us were at an event that served dinner; the rest had breakfast for dinner
Wednesday - spaghetti & meatballs, cut veggies
Thursday - pork loin roast, fingerling potatoes, green/wax beans, biscuits
Friday - homemade pizza
Yum, your chicken soup with the cream added in always looks so delicious! And with tortellini too?!! SO awesome. I'm gonna have to make some soon.