WIS, WWA | Oh no, no pancakes!
What I Spent
You guys, as I was putting this post together, I realized this is the second week in a row with no blueberry pancake dinners. WHAT HAS BECOME OF ME???
I spent:
- $22 at Safeway
- $13 at Aldi
So....$35.
Two weeks ago, I spent $6.
Last week, I spent $192.
And this week, I spent $35.
Since I ate down the fridge so well this week, I will probably have a higher report again next Friday; I seem to be on an every-other-week pattern.
Also, for the record: I spent $0 at the hospital cafeteria. 😉
What We Ate
Saturday
Zoe was at work, I cannot remember what I ate, and I didn't take a photo. I'm kind of wondering if I had something like a smoothie. Or a peanut butter sandwich.
The world will never know.
Sunday
A very random plate, the result of a fridge clean-out effort!
If you need to use up a bunch of carrots easily, I really have to recommend roasted carrots. I could not easily get through several pounds of raw carrots on my own, but I can down a powerful amount of roasted carrots!
I originally used this recipe, but I'm less fussy about the method now; I skip the foil entirely, and mix the carrots, butter, salt, and pepper right on the baking sheet.
Monday
After work, I grilled some chicken drumsticks and ate those with the last of the mashed potatoes, plus some sauteed green beans.
Tuesday
We had spinach salad topped with homemade chicken fingers (because I had some panko bread crumbs that were getting close to expiration!)
Wednesday
Baked mac and cheese plus sauteed green beans:
Thursday
Zoe and I had:
- cheese quesadillas
- pico de gallo
- guacamole
- fruit salad
Friday
I did a very good job of using up the produce in my fridge this week, to the point where the pickings are pretty slim.
I know I still have some green beans left, though. And some spinach. So, I will probably build a meal that uses both of those.
Saturday: We mostly munched in the afternoon at a pool party, but those who needed some extra food after we got home had hot dogs and mac and cheese.
Sunday: Pizza and breadsticks
Monday: Burgers, baked beans, mango, and fries
Tuesday: We ate dinner at a training event
Wednesday: Slow cooker king ranch chicken and a bowl full of tiny grapes. Shout out to my 7yo for taking them all off the vines. It was a full bag and there were SO many grapes because they were so little!
Thursday: Orzo with sausage and broccoli plus carrots and dip
Friday: We're eating dinner at a friend's house tonight. She's making deep-dish pizza and I'm taking fruit and/or veggies. I need to go to the store today!
@Ruth T,
An easy way to get grapes off the vine is ( after washing) place them on a hand towel and then fold the other half of the towel on top of them and rub the towel back and forth. It gets the majority of the grapes off. Sort of reminds me of drying a baby!
@Julie, I've never heard of that method before! Thank you! We will have to try it.
I got your blueberry pancakes covered this week.
WIS about a hundred @Aldi
WWA:
Fri: focaccia, salad and California veg.
Sat: toad in the hole (the version with sausages in mashed potatoes), salad and sliced tomatoes.
Sun: breakfast for dinner: scrambled eggs, air fried potato slices, blueberry pancakes, broccoli, edamame, tomato slices and orange juice.
Mon: salad, stir fried tofu and veggies in a jarred tikka masala sauce over rice noodles.
Tue: rice cake pizzas topped with tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and avocado slices. Mini ice cream cone treats for dessert.
Wed: salad, sliced tomatoes, mixed veggies, jasmine rice and chicken skewers.
Thu: pasta carbonara (and I was too tired to add a veggie. Teacher set up week is exhausting.)
Fri: focaccia and some sort of veg, hopefully.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
@Becca, how do you make your version of 'toad in the hole'? It sounds yummy! The version I know of is with the egg and the bread, which my family refers to as 'egg on the porch'.
@Price Chopper shopper, I call those Window Eggs!
@Price Chopper shopper,
As usual around these parts, it was my husband who made it. Basically he pan fried the sausages first in a cast iron pan (he used breakfast sausages but you could use other kinds). Then he took the sausages out and pan fried the mashed potatoes (they were leftover) just to get them warmed and a little bit browned. Then he poked the sausages into the mashed potatoes so they were just peeking out and covered everything with shredded Parmesan cheese. He broiled it until the cheese was melted and browned. The end. It was a fairly quick dinner. Also, it’s so fun to hear everyone else’s names for food.
Saturday and Sunday: I was in Stockholm so I went out for pizza twice, which I'm not mad about 😉
Monday: I ate a questionable sandwich for lunch and didn't feel like eating a meal, so had peanut butter on toast.
Tuesday: I still felt a bit icky so I had a pizza base (from the shop) topped with fried aubergine, onion, mushroom and hummus.
Wednesday: Mashed sweet potato with a veggie burger and spinach and tomatoes on the side.
Thursday: Pasta with spinach, cream cheese, mushroom and garlic.
Friday: I'm thinking burritos. Tomorrow I'm going to my friend's house and her husband is going to cook us vegetarian lasagne 😀
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Sunday I took my mom to an orchestra concert she was gifted tickets to- the people had grilled chicken, roasted potatoes, frozen veggies and creamy chicken and rice packet. I had made a homemade carrot cake
Monday I tossed a HUGE pork butt into the crock pot and we had shredded pork with bbq sauce, homemade mac and cheese and fresh fruit
Tuesday a local chicken joint does a $6.00 special so we went there.
Wednesday- Leftover pork for those at home cause mom had to work
Thursday- I made ground ground chicken using the PF Changs lettuce wrap sauce packet- added in grated garlic, a leftover baggie of grated carrot from earlier in the week, leftover corn in the fridge and served it with white rice and chinese crunchy noodles. watermelon on the side.
Friday- no clue! lol
WIS: Ooof. A spendy week, mainly because of unusual socializing (JASNA BFF's visit and the Triple Birthday Celebration). $16 at the local food coop, $6 at Ollie's, $37 at the India Bazaar and its attached restaurant, about $40 at Wegmans, and $20 at the Thai restaurant where we had the TBC lunch.
WIA: I had a delicious chicken and rice dish whose name I forget at the Thai restaurant, and the lunch buffet at the Indian restaurant. At home, BFF and I kept it pretty simple (chicken drumsticks, chicken burgers, ratatouille, sweet corn, etc.). I made myself another in my continuing series of pork stir-fries after BFF left (she doesn't eat pork or red meat).
Every week, I think that having pancakes for dinner sounds amazing (thanks to Kristen's reminders!). However, I batch cook oatmeal pancakes for my husband to eat for breakfast 6 X a week. Though he obviously love pancakes, I imagine, he'd prefer not to have them 2 x in one day. I'll have to be more strategic and make pancakes for dinner the 1 day he doesn't have them for breakfast.
This week:
1. Baked cod, rice, salad
2. Chili with chips and salad
3. Chicken stuffed zucchini boats
4. Chicken parmesan, pasta, salad
5. Salad with leftover bulgogi
6. Roasted eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes and carrots
7. Tonight, we're going to Qdoba for dinner->This is by far my favorite place to eat out and I'm not ashamed of it. I am, however, embarrassed that the staff recognizes us.
We need a pancake intervention for you, Kristen. Maybe make a big baked pancake and keep it in the fridge for easy meals? 😉
This was a week of experiments in the kitchen, most of which were very good!
Saturday/Sunday: homemade pizzas (because I'm dairy- and wheat-free, I usually make myself a batch of a dairy free cheese dip and have that with veggie and tortilla chips instead)
Monday: I made pasta for a crowd: wheat pasta for the kids, chickpea pasta for DH and myself, and homemade spaghetti sauce. Plus a salad bar. Well received.
Tuesday: DS#2 made chicken drumsticks and cut up a cantaloupe and used up some potatoes by making garlic potatoes in the crockpot.
Wednesday: DH had the day home from work and experimented, making a chickpea-flour veggie frittata with avocado sauce. I liked it; most of the boys liked it, especially the avocado sauce. 😉
Thursday: DS#3 branched out from "taco night" by making a vegetarian enchilada casserole. He made two pans, one with cheese, one without, and they were excellent. I'm going to suggest next time he makes them to not even bother with rice as a side dish or anything like that, just fruit or veggies.
Tonight: DS#1 is making beef stew, and DS#4 will make a big pot of Annie's mac and cheese.
Happy Friday, everyone!
Kristen, I'm with you on roasted carrots. We cut them into coins before roasting and can eat a whole tray in a couple days. For snacks, I pop a few cold ones in my mouth and they satisfy both a savory and sweet tooth.
We spent $30 @ Aldi and ate:
- French toast with blueberries and pecans
- Pasta with a sauce of yellow peppers and sun-dried tomatoes (thank you to Geneva for this idea!)
- Salad with cauliflower, radishes, beans, raisins, walnuts, cottage cheese and simple vinaigrette
- Nachos with cheese, kidney beans, tomatoes, avocadoes, sour cream and salsa
- Pasta with broccoli, walnuts, butter and Parmesan cheese
- Potluck dinner on a pontoon
- Pasta with plant-based meatballs in marinara sauce made with herbs from our garden
We were pretty exhausted this week.
Monday: Chicken Milanese by way of Hungary (meaning, lots of paprika was added.)
Tuesday: I was sick and we got pizza.
Wednesday: My mom took me and my daughter out for pasta with my cousin.
Thursday: Masala Fish, a recipe from the daycare. With rice and salad.
Friday: Mr. B is cooking, usually salmon, veggies, and challah.
We had a good and productive week focusing on frugal home repairs/renewals. WWA:
Saturday- spaghettini with shrimp
Sunday - DH made his BBQ Asian-fusion pizza
Monday - leftovers
Tuesday - lamb koftes with tzatziki, middle-eastern spicy potatoes, steamed broccoli rabe
Wednesday - pork schnitzel, perogies, sliced cucumber
Thursday - sandwiches
Friday - am thinking it will be fried chicken, oven fries, and coleslaw
Wishing everyone some happiness for the week ahead
Saturday: Pizzas--one cheese, one pepperoni and pickled onion--with ranch dip, apple crisp with cream
Sunday: Ground beef and bean burritos, cucumbers, Bonnie Butter layer cake with strawberry jam in the middle and whipped cream as the frosting
Monday: I cooked two whole packages of the fancy free-range chicken breasts I found on deep discount. My husband had a mild freak-out at the table, insisting they tasted like bleach or chemicals and no one should eat them. They tasted okay to the rest of us--except the one child who said they were oversalted, which I will admit to--but we still left the chicken and just ate the cornbread and tomato salad.And some ice cream. The next day, however, my husband realized he had used his nasal spray for allergies shortly before dinner, and that was what was making it taste bad. Good thing I hadn't thrown away the chicken. We had a LOT of leftover chicken.
Tuesday: I had added too much milk to the cornbread, so it was very soft and no one wanted seconds. I used it this night and made it more palatable by crumbling it up and frying it in lard (crispy!), and then adding the rest of the burrito meat and some leftover shredded cheese. I also made a couple of cheese quesadillas. We had radishes as a grudging vegetable, and I had made giant oatmeal-raisin cookies, so everyone had one of those, as well.
Wednesday: Some people had the chicken, plus rice I had made. Some had the leftover burrito meat/cornbread with the rice. Everyone had tomatoes.
Thursday: Barbecue meatballs, mashed potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, Dutch apple pie with whipped cream. This is the first time I had made a Dutch apple pie. It has a regular pie crust on the bottom and a kind of streusel on the top. Since my family is evenly split between those who prefers regular pie and those who prefers crisps, I thought this would be a good compromise. I really liked it, although the apples I was using needed to be cooked some before even cooking the pie for an hour. They were still too firm. Good to know if I made it again with this variety of apples, which is likely since I frozen several gallon bags of these apple slices.
Tonight: This is the first time I've considered it, and my first thought was that I have a lot of rice left. Also chicken. Also my friend brought me some eggs yesterday, so I have plenty. These things all add up to fried rice in my head. And that's how I menu plan. 🙂
@kristin @ going country, Also, on topic for you: I just now saw someone who said they put their pancake batter in a casserole dish and baked it instead of frying individual pancakes. The resulting thing was . . . cake. It probably tasted good, but that makes it so different from what I consider a pancake that it's a whole new dish. Although, I make pancakes very thin and crispy, so maybe if you're used to puffy pancakes, it would be more similar. Anyway, if that sounds good to you, you could prepare this ahead and just cut off a piece anytime you wanted for your dinner. 🙂
Yes, I like them crispy like you make them! So I eat them STRAIGHT off the pan, before they get soft.
I never, ever order pancakes in restaurants because they're always flabby by the time they hit the table. I need them hot, hot, hot, and crispy. I'm a picky pancake eater!
@kristin @ going country, I've made sheet pan pancakes and that's good because it's all ready at once.
@kristin @ going country,
When feeding a large group, I mix a double batch, pour into a buttered jelly roll pan and bake. They are crispy on the bottom. They also make great breakfast roll ups for on the go food.
No pancakes for HOW long? Is the world ending?
WIS: Nothing at the stores, but I had an order for about $65 from a local ranch.
WIA:
Pork chops with carrots, green peas and homemade cranberry sauce one time, with cauliflower and sliced cucumbers a second time, and with cranberry sauce, baked potato and (sigh) kale a third time. I force myself to buy and eat kale for some diversity in my greens, about 2 or 3 times a year. I always find it unpleasantly chewy and so-so tasting, no matter how I prepare it.
A skillet scramble with ground goat, mushrooms, onions, green peas and cubed sweet potato.
Goat burger (bunless) with the rest of the goat meat, jicama sticks with ranch dressing, maduros and some chopped beet "sort of a salad."
Salmon Swimming in a Green Sea. Or in other words, salmon patties served on a bed of raw, shredded longevity spinach with chopped green bell pepper and lightly cooked frozen green peas. Scuppernong grapes from my vines for dessert.
@JD, With you on the kale. I don't grow it because I don't like it, even though it requires practically no care for a lot of vegetal matter. Collard greens are slightly better, although I wouldn't have grown those either this year if my husband hadn't brought home some seedlings.
@JD, Ever since I got listeria from raw kale (completely my fault--I had let it sit in the fridge too long and forgot to wash it!), I haven't trusted kale. I remember when it was a salad bar garnish used to cover up the ice between the containers! And then somebody decided it was a "super food" (no such thing!) and started marketing it. There are many other greens to consume, IMO. 😉 I do like kale chips, though.
I only spent $9.29 on loss leaders at Raley's this week. I am on track to meet my goal of only spending $100 at the grocery store in August in an effort to work through the pantry and freezer overstock.
But I can't really call this a win because I spent$75.50 on lunches and coffees out! Since a big chunk of my socializing revolves around eating out, I do try to make room in the budget for it. But this was definitely overboard for one week. And eating out so much is obviously not going to help me work through the pantry.
Anyway . . .
Saturday/Sunday - I cooked up the last bit of ground beef from the freezer and made tacos.
Monday - Snacky stuff - cheese, multigrain chips, part of an apple, peanuts. I don't know what else.
Tuesday - Creamed tuna on toast and cauliflower from the freezer for the pantry challenge win!
Wednesday - leftover honey chicken and rice from my lunch at PF Changs, and more cauliflower from the freezer.
Thursday - Homemade bean and cheese burrito, also from the freezer, and sliced fresh tomatoes from a friend's garden.
Friday - I am thinking of taking advantage of those good tomatoes and making a BLT. This will also help eat up bread and bacon that have been lingering in the freezer.
Your Thursday dinner soumds especially delicious! I love fruit salad, but it rarely seems worthwhile to make it for just me.
What I spent: $39 at Kroger, though $11 of that was for cat litter. Just a few things to fill in and get me through the rest of the month, as I'm still eating down the freezer.
What I ate:
Friday, oven fries smothered with tomato sauce and vegan cheese.
I had planned to make mini pizzas on tortillas, but the tortillas were moldy. I still really wanted pizza, and this was the closest I could get on short notice without spending money.
Saturday, gf pasta with broccoli, cut up bologna, and margarine
Sunday, gf pasta with Ranch Style beans and vegan cheese
Monday, polenta with beans and vegan cheese
Tuesday, rice and beans
Wednesday, leftover seasoned rice with scrambled eggs and spinach added
Thursday, rice and beans on corn tortillas
Tonight I'll make a pasta dish with broccoli.
WIS: $21.93 at my little Neighborhood Walmart. BUT $10.86 of that was for some AAA and 2032 batteries. $4.80 was for six (6!) packages of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies (3 cookies per package) that the bakery had marked down from $1.48 to 80 cents (“saving” $4.08) even though it was several days before the sell by date. Maybe I’m the only one who likes them. I promptly put them in the freezer to avoid temptation. We’ll see how THAT goes…. So $11.07 for groceries. I guess I should put “groceries” in quotation marks because only $6.77 of that was for “real” groceries (like cherry tomatoes and scallions) instead of cookies.
Gosh, this exercise gets more and more complicated every week.
And $40.00 even (how often does THAT happen?!) at Sprouts for produce (salad stuff, bananas, red pears) and Black Forest ham, roast beef, and chicken. Oh, and a box of 12 oatmeal cranberry walnut cookies. 11 of them made it to the freezer. I ate the other one for breakfast. HEY! It’s too hot to cook. Even just eggs. I’ve been living on Multigrain Cheerios and bananas. And oatmeal, cranberries and walnuts are ALL health foods. Harrumph.
So depending on your criteria I either spent (A) $61.93 for everything including batteries, (B) $51.07 for everything excluding batteries, or (C) $36.98 for everything excluding batteries and cookies (which I remind you are in the freezer, which is like a safe deposit box, but for cookies).
Further Deponent sayeth not.
I'm going to go backwards on what meals I remember this week.
Last night I took shishito peppers, a small tomato, and bratwurst to work. Dessert was a couple of those luscious lime sandwich cookies from Aldi.
Wednesday night: An air fryer meal of bratwurst, shishito peppers, roasted potato wedges, whole cremini mushrooms and some onion.
Tuesday: A sliced banana with vanilla ice cream and hazelnut spread. Earlier in the day, I had leftover pizza from Monday night.
Monday night: I ordered Dominoes. My favorite (medium) thin crust pizza, garlic parmesan sauce, onions and bacon. Barbecue bacon chicken and cinnamon twists that I did not eat but saved for breakfasts. The pizza and chicken I've noshed on for lunch during the days. I know this sounds calorie laden, but I only ate about four square pieces of the pizza, and a fourth of the chicken for supper.
Sunday night: $3 Roast beef dinner from work which included mashed potatoes and brown gravy, green beans, and though I ate the dessert, I have no idea what it was. Kind of a cake pop filling with whipped topping.
Saturday night: I took deli ham, Swiss cheese, club crackers and a tomato to work.
Tonight is anybody's guess.
We’ve been working to reduce meals out. Other than a stop for a post-soccer game snack, we haven’t eaten out for almost two weeks. The girls had played in painfully hot conditions, so I feel zero guilt for getting those slushies!
Most of my cooking this week was based on not using the oven in the hot weather. The AC is working hard enough:
- I can’t remember exactly what we ate, but I got a good deal on burgers so my husband grilled hamburgers twice.
- To continue with the burger theme, we also had salmon burgers (on the stovetop this time).
- Last night, we had what my kids call “tofu chicken”, which is basically chicken cut into pieces and cooked the same way I cook tofu.
- We also had lots of rice and whatever veggies I could get from the garden before our resident possum and squirrels stole them!
Friday: Jollof Rice with Chicken – I was in a noncooking mood so I pulled leftovers from the freezer (thank you past me!)
Saturday: Mushroom and Bok Choy Stir Fry over a 50/50 rice quinoa mix
Sunday: Woodfired Pizzas – we invited my parents over to be the first guests to enjoy the pizza oven
Monday: Stuffed Bell Peppers
Tuesday: I came home with a migraine so my husband picked up Thai on the way home
Wednesday: My son had an open house for school over dinnertime, so my ex offered to take my son and I out for dinner after the open house (we always attend these events together). I had a Reuben sandwich, and we chatted about our son’s goals for the upcoming school year
Thursday: A Frankenstein pasta sauce of eggplant, sundried tomatoes, and Boursin cheese
CSA veggies used: mushrooms, bok choy, green bell peppers, cucumbers, eggplant
56 spent Aldi.
We had a lot of veggie stir fries and egg/veggie fried rice. I used smoked turkey kielbasa to stir fries ( just a bit) to give it a meat flavor.
Used up free to me : onions green onions green beans peas herbs and Swiss chard. I added store bought thinly sliced carrots.
Rice or mashed potatoes were our sides. One night we added air fried aldi egg rolls. The ones that are in the refrigerated section.
I spent $86 if I remember correctly. The totals were faithfully recorded in my budget book but not in my brain! There was a quick trip to Aldi for bread, cheese, spices and chocolate, and short, bargain-focused trips to two local grocery stores and Dollar Tree.
We ate leftover sweet chili chicken, spicy beans and rice, berry smoothies, tomato-cheese-pickle sandwiches, and meatloaf with baked potatoes and sweet corn. Tonight is ham, cheese, fruit and crackers.
I spent $70
We ate:
Saturday was a long day working in the yard. We ate a sandwich, got a shower, and rested in front of the tv.
Sunday: burgers, tater tots, salads
Monday: chicken garlic honey noodles. This was a new recipe and is good to have something fast. I made the chicken the day before... I added noodles, sauce, and broccoli.
Tuesday: birria (I can the sauce in batches, so I just have to add it to the meat/tortilla), rice and refried beans from the freezer
Wednesday: leftovers
Thursday: smoked bbq from the freezer over baked potatoes with asparagus
Friday: we are having French bread pizza. I don’t make that much, but it will be good for using up leftover bbq meat and birria meat...everyone can just add what they like to theirs.
Sunday: cheeseburger bomb, parsley potatoes, peas
Monday: honey bbq bacon chicken skewers, chicken flavored noodles, garlicky green beans
Tuesday: weiner wings & fries
Wednesday: sausage stuffed zucchini boats, cottage cheese, pickles
Thursday: baked pork chop/potato dish, cinnamon apple sauce, cottage cheese
Friday: fair food
@Gina, gotta ask, what are weiner wings?
@Marlena,
Boil hot dogs. Once boiled, butter one slice of sandwich bread and put buttered surface down on a cookie sheet. Lay hot dog cross-wise on bread and cover with a half piece of American cheese. then secure opposite sides with toothpicks to the hot dog. bake in oven until bread is crispy and cheese is melted. So yummy!
@Gina, Thanks!
Completely unrelated to food -- do you wear a step counter or carry your phone all day and it records your steps? I'm curious about your average step count during a 12 hour shift at the hospital.
My Withings watch counts it for me! Usually I walk about 5 miles which would be somewhere around 10,000 steps.
However, the steps are not what make a shift so exhausting; five miles isn't that much. It's the general being on your feet for so long because even when you aren't walking, you are rarely sitting. So I always feel like the step count doesn't quite explain how tired you are after 12 hours!
@Kristen, Yes, I agree. Standing is very hard on my lower back. I'd much rather be moving than standing. I was just curious about the steps. I need to start wearing my smart watch again.
@Tammy, My phone always undercounts my steps so I've asked for a Garmin for my birthday.
Low spend when I don't make it to the farmers market.
WIS: Milk delivery-$21; Wegmans-$4 Total-$25
WWA: Sat & Sun- can't remember
Mon- Spaghetti & zucchini noodles with Italian sausage meat sauce and a side salad
Tues- Leftover spaghetti
Wed- garlic parm chicken tenders, sweet potato fries, corn
Thurs- bourbon steak tips, corn, pasta salad
Fri- sundried tomato & asiago chicken sausage, likely with pasta and whatever veg we can scrounge up from the fridge
I spent $57 at Kroger, $43 at Edwards Cash saver and (OMG) $215 at Sam's Club. (mostly on steaks and stock up of breakfast foods for hungry hubby)
– Sunday – grilled strip steak, green salad, baked sweet potatoes.
– Monday – fried shrimp, home made coleslaw, boxed au gratin potatoes.
– Tuesday – chili Mac Mac, sweet sour green beans.
– Wednesday – went out to a BBQ place with a few relatives.
– Thursday – leftover Chili Mac and green beans
– Friday – packaged spinach/feta baked salmon from Kroger, leftover coleslaw, boxed stuffing mix.