WIS, WWA | Oh right, it's December
What I Spent
I haven't done one single bit of Christmas decorating, so I keep forgetting it even IS December!
I spent:
- $56 at Aldi
- $15 at Safeway
- $20 at Panera
- $30 on a Hungry Harvest box, which Chiquita enjoyed once I emptied it:
That all adds up to $121.
What We Ate
Saturday
Zoe was at work, so I made myself a "winging it" one-person dish with sweet potatoes, sausage, cilantro, and jalapenos.
Sunday
Something similar to Saturday, but with some butternut squash soup.
I think I'm good on vitamin A for the moment!
Monday
Zoe was at work, so I bought a rotisserie chicken and ate some of that for dinner along with some veggies.
Tuesday
I had my last pediatric evening clinical, and I ate my packed dinner there (which was the Aldi copycat chickpea salad with rotisserie chicken added to it.)
Wednesday
I worked a 12-hour shift at my regular job (a day shift this time), and when I got home I made myself a chicken quesadilla with the rest of the rotisserie chicken.
Thursday
I spent my afternoon taking my ATI test and then doing my remediation bullet points (we have to write three correct pieces of information relating to each test question that we get wrong).
When I looked up, it was 6:30, and I had no dinner going. So Zoe and I went to Panera. 🙂
Friday
I haven't decided yet, but...I have a pretty empty day, and I'm not even too pressed about studying for my final (I probably only need to get a 24% to pass and something like a 65% to keep my A).
So, given my light schedule, I should definitely be able to get my butt in gear and make something for dinner!
WIS; 49 buckeroos @Aldi.
WWA:
Fri: Thanksgiving leftovers at my mother-in-law's house. We ate kind of early, and then went to s Christmas themed petting zoo and light display. It was very cold, so when we got home we warmed up leftover pie for dessert.
Sat: we drove home this night and my husband wanted more of his childhood pizza, so we ordered more before we left.
Sun: salad topped with leftover guacamole, the last of the thanksgiving leftovers.
Mon: salad topped with leftover guacamole, chicken fried rice.
Tue: salad and hotdogs on brioche buns.
Wed: salad topped with a bit of leftover chicken fried rice and crepes made by my kids who are learning to cook.
Thu: salmon and veggie rice bowls.
Tonight: guess who's back? Focach is back...
Have a great weekend, everyone!
@Becca,
Also, I love how colorful that chick pea salad is. I might have to try it.
@Becca,
Yay for the return of The Foccach!! 🙂
And speaking of childhood pizza....we live about a 30-ish minute drive away from where my DH grew up. He grew up eating pizza from an old-school, family-owned pizzeria called Chester's (if you've grown up or lived near Hamilton, Ohio, you might know what I'm talking about). I have to admit, it's some of the best pizza I've ever had...not fancy, not gourmet, but good old school pizza, no skimping on the cheese or toppings. Worth the drive.
@Liz B., I remember Chester’s! (Cincinnatian here).
My grocery bill has been hovering around $100 every couple of weeks, but always includes non food items. Since I'm only feeding me, that seems fair. This week:
Monday - kitchen closed
Tuesday - Tilapia Piccata, mixed greens, mashed potato (this was amazing)
Wednesday - Pulled Pork on a baked sweet potato, with sauteed peppers and onions
Thursday - (all Trader Joes) Teriyaki Chicken with fried rice and several dumplings - made enough for three meals, so I froze two
Friday - A box of Stovetop, a package of gravy made with turkey stock, leftover shredded turkey, and some sweet green peas in a bowl. Again, made three of these and froze them for future me.
Saturday and Sunday - kitchen closed, but I will eat the aforementioned freezer meals at work, some fruit, and a bowl of cereal when I get home!
**It struck me that next Christmas will look so different for you. I'm excited to see what you do!**
Yes! I will probably be working on my BSN then, but that will be all online and I do not expect it to be as rigorous as what I'm doing now. So perhaps I will have a bit more headspace for Christmas. 🙂
Sunday and Monday we had tilapia with fried rice and some very good carrots. Tuesday and Wednesday I made a pasta bake with lots of veggies and topped with probably an excessive amount of cheese. Thursday is our regular pizza night and tonight my husband is making orange chicken, one of my favorite recipes.
It was a replenish the pantry week at the grocery store which meant I spent $163 but I'm good for staples for well into the new year.
Saturday: pizza with my husband’s brother and sister in law for a game night to round out the Thanksgiving festivities!
Sunday: my yoga studio had a potluck holiday party. Yoga people know good food! Also has anyone ever heard potlucks called “carry-ins”? I had never heard that term until moving here!
Monday: vegan skyline-style chili
Tuesday: uhhh.. more pizza haha! A friend treated us for helping with his car.
Wednesday: an early small dinner of vegan skyline-style chili, and then we ate some food at a local brewery for a trivia date night! We got 2nd place!
Thursday: more leftover chili!
Friday: hmmm. We have some fish we could make with cauliflower… I need a break from chili and pizza LOL.
@Andrea G / Midwest Andrea,
I have heard the term "carry in" used instead of "carry out", meaning food ordered and picked up from a restaurant and brought home to eat. I've never heard it used in place of "potluck". Interesting!
Lol about skyline-style chili....my DH's favorite! but not vegan. ha.
@Andrea G / Midwest Andrea,
"Carry in" is a common term in our neck of the woods, especially when it is to work.
@Andrea G / Midwest Andrea,
In our local it is called a Pitch In. Everyone brings a dish to pitch in toward the meal.
@Chrissy,
Come to think of it, I've heard it used to refer to a "potluck" at work, too.
Dinner's this week:
1. Turkey pot pie
2. Turkey quiche (now the leftover turkey is gone!)
3. Shepard's pie (now the lefover mashed potatoes are gone!)
4. Pasta with marinara meat sauce for the family and I ate a BLT
5. Grilled chicken, rice with cheese, pesto and tomatoes topping it all
6. Shrimp & broccoli + rice
7. TBD probably soup + salad or sandwiches, but pizza sounds lovely too!
This week flew by. WWA:
Saturday - fabulous shrimp tacos
Sunday - homemade lasagna, baguette
Monday - leftovers
Tuesday - sandwiches
Wednesday - sausage and tortellini soup from the freezer, sourdough bread
Thursday - pork schnitzel, pierogies
Friday - doing our pre-Christmas Costco run tonight, so will get something from there (currently feeling like a rotisserie chicken might hit the spot but that may change)
Wishing everyone a happy weekend
WIS: $87, divided between Aldi and Food Lion.
WWA: Leftover roast chicken. Italian meatloaf. Chicken-potato-veggie soup. Some fresh produce, cheese and nuts. Tomato soup and grilled cheese. Casserole from the freezer for me.
Saturday: Creamy duck soup made with our Thanksgiving duck carcass, garlic bread I had made a couple of days before when I was baking bread and had extra dough, and peanut butter cookies.
Sunday: Pork loin chops served with the Thanksgiving duck gravy, plus stuffing, corn, and cranberry sauce. The only downside to having duck instead of turkey is that it doesn't make a lot of leftovers. For our Sunday dessert, I melted chocolate chips and coconut oil in little bowls for each child for a personal fondue, and they got to choose between marshmallows, graham crackers, or peanut butter cookies to dip in it.
Monday: We were all over the place. Two kids had mashed hardboiled eggs with butter and toast for dinner, one of pork chops and a potato I microwaved and fried with the pork for him (plus some grape tomatoes), I had the other pork chops fried with pickled carrot ribbons, and when my husband and youngest son returned from their (successful, yay!) elk hunt, they had some of the duck soup and toast with jam.
Tuesday: Roasted chicken thighs and drumsticks, baked potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette. If you're wondering why we didn't have any of the elk, it's because meat is much better when it ages for awhile in cool conditions. Because elk are so big and so far from the vehicle on the hunts my husband takes, he has to bone out the meat and pack it out in a pack. This means it can't actually be hung up, like we do with a sheep, but must be iced in a cooler to age. It will age this way for at least a few days before we cut it up.
Wednesday: My husband had brought home a pound of the ground beef he had bought to cook on their hunt/camp, and it needed to be used right away. I had actually cooked it the day before, making it into a burrito filling with beans, so I made toasted burritos with flour tortillas when I got home from work. I also cut up the other big carrot I had dug out of the garden last week into carrot sticks. So much better than a store carrot. I wish carrots grew better for me. Alas, the harsh wind and sun kill most of them off when they first germinate. Only the strong survive here. 🙂
Thursday: I used the leftover chicken to make a curry, which also had split peas in it. We had rice, of course, and I finally made my favorite green tomato chutney this year, which is so good on curry.
Tonight: We're cutting up the elk, so probably elk steaks, leftover rice, and a green salad. Unless I can't face actually cooking the elk after handling it all day (it takes a very long time to fully process all the meat that comes off an elk), in which case, probably eggs. These have the advantage of being very quick to make, which is important on a butchering day when I am very tired by dinnertime. I myself usually don't want to eat any sort of meat after a butchering day, so I'll have a salad with the hardboiled eggs I have on hand regardless of what I make for everyone else.
@kristin @ going country, you always make cooking fun!
What is creamy duck soup like? Is it like a cream of chicken soup?
@Kristen, It was just a standard soup, like chicken soup, to which I added heavy cream. It was also slightly thickened because I added the rest of the gravy to it, so I guess it was kind of like a "cream of" soup.
@kristin @ going country, Duck Soup?? Hail, Freedonia! (Extra old-person points for the first senior citizen out there to get this joke.)
And I'm always glad to read about how your family does elk and other big game. There's an awful lot of free protein walking around out there, as I remind myself every time the Eastern white-tails come strolling through my yard.
@A. Marie,
Marx Brothers!
@JD, you are the winner!
@A. Marie, My first boyfriend’s last name was Moe. Yes, boyfriend number two was Curley. My family was sure number three would be Larry. Not to be.
@A. Marie, Sorry that as the Three Stooges. Groucho, Chico, and Harpo never showed up either.
@Leslie,
On the other hand, who would want to date someone named Groucho? 🙂
@JD,
The first thing I thought when I saw that @kristin @ going country had made duck soup! Lol!
@kristin @ going country, how do you handle the greasy nature of the duck? After attending a very formal Chinese wedding event and many of us having major issues with the greasiness of the duck that was one of the many servings, we have never been able to add duck to our menus. Since we were not alone with this challenge we have assumed this would be something we would need to know more\\about with home prep.
Thanks for any advice you might have
@BRENDA, The method I used--courtesy of my mother-in-law--was to cook it at a low heat, uncovered, for a few hours. Her method also calls for pricking the skin all over dozens of times with the tip of a knife (just the skin, not the flesh), and flipping it over every hour and pricking it every time it's flipped. This renders out most of the fat, so the meat really wasn't very greasy. You can also cook it on a rack in the pan, to keep it out of the rendered fat. However, my husband actually loves the fat and asked me not to cook it as long as my MiL does, to keep more of the fat in the skin. If it was actually cooked for four hours at 300 degrees, the skin would get very crispy indeed.
@A. Marie, The Marx Brothers but I am not *quite* a senior I'll have you know.
I’ve been eating out lately, has anyone noticed how most of food service staff is occupied by take out orders? Is take-out the norm now? Also in grocery stores there are so many employees filling orders and the line of cars outside picking up orders is huge. Recently I wanted to buy something in Walmart and the employee told me that to get the discount I’d have to order online and if I wanted to pick it up at the store that store was already processing over 400 online orders so it might take a while(this was in a small town) Are consumers being pushed out of stores to get the better deal online? I’m curious where all this is headed. I’ve noticed customer service is disappearing too. Are people impossible to deal with so it’s being eliminated. And I’m new to the every product is locked behind glass doors which makes shopping hard. I guess theft is high.
@Tiana, my daughter a career woman with two children under the age of 4, routinely orders her groceries online at two different stores and also often picks up from Target. It saves her a lot of time and because she does her grocery shopping the same days every week, the same person delivers to her car. It's seamless.
For me, two states away from her, it's another story. I order online at Target because the shelves in the closest store are not well stocked so if I order online, I know the item is available. Walmart is on my naughty list because the last two times I had pick up orders, it was a 20-minute wait inside the car to get my purchases.
I'm always surprised by the number of take out orders at restaurants too.
@Tiana, the take out and pick up craze/fad/habit began with The Plague. I guess once people got used to the convenience, they stuck with it. Alas, it keeps isolation going in society.
Locked products became the norm in California when our very short-sighted legislature passed a very stupid law that anything under $950 would not be prosecuted and was just a misdemeanor. Not sure what they were thinking, becaue it resulted in people taking exactly $950 worth, and returning for another round. Many stores closed as a result. In the past election, the people voted to revoke that foolishness, but it remains to be seen if Sacramento will honor the people's wishes on this.
@Book Club Elaine, that’s interesting, thanks!
@Central Calif. Artist Jana, Covid!
I didn’t know about that law, thanks!
@Tiana,
I will say, I started doing grocery pick up during Covid, and stuck with it afterwards for the convenience and time savings. I also had a bad knee (which ultimately led to a total knee replacement), which made grocery shopping in person difficult (I can do it now if I choose to, what with my bionic knee and all). It's a mixed blessing; sometimes, my order is filled at a local Kroger warehouse, and I get notified of multiple items as "unavailable"...yet, my local store has these items, and I end up going in the store to get them. On the other hand, I don't have to lift heavy bags and cartons into and out of my cart, and then into and out of my car when at home.
@Central Calif. Artist Jana,
Wow, that law sounds....bizarre. Did no one anticipate this would happen (ie., stealing just up to the $950 limit)?
@Liz B., hey thanks! A group of us were talking about the future of food and made me curious.
@Tiana,
You're welcome! I wish I could have been a part of that conversation. I love talking about food....all aspects of it. 🙂
@Liz B., "bizarre" is the only semi-nice word I can think of for that law. The short-sightedness of it is truly astonishing. California is a special kind of stupid, which is why I always geographically identify with CENTRAL California. We are the state's flyover segment; no one knows about us, no one (important in state politics) cares, but we feed the world!
What I spent: $38 at Aldi
What I ate:
Friday - mashed potato bowl with diced bell peppers and a fried egg on top; pumpkin pie for dessert
Saturday - turkey, mashed potatoes and broccoli with cheese sauce, beans with Vienna sausage
Sunday - creamy turkey mac and cheese, hot cocoa with mini marshmallows
Monday - hot dogs and mashed potatoes (I was out of french fries). Pie for dessert.
Tuesday - The plan was to make pasta, but I was feeling very tired and a little down, and when dinner time came around, all I wanted was cake. I made a chocolate mug cake and that was dinner.
Wednesday - pasta with sauce and a cut up hot dog and a slice of dairy free cheese substitute melted on top, hot cocoa with mini marshmallows
Thursday - made tortilla pizzas in the microwave, and had sliced strawberries with Greek style yogurt for dessert
WIS: $12 at Wegmans and $30 at Price Chopper.
WIA: My highlight for the week was another round of sausages and veggies with honey mustard, except that I used beets and sweet potatoes this time instead of Brussels sprouts, and tried substituting maple syrup for the honey (it was OK, but the honey is better). However, I shared some of this with the Bestest Neighbors when they finally fell in off the Thruway from being snowed in at their Lake Erie cottage over Thanksgiving weekend. They put a sunny-side-up egg on top of each serving and pronounced the results delicious.
And I'm about to make a soup with the stock I made yesterday from the two turkey backs I got at Price Chopper, as soon as I decide what today's Soup Kitchen offering is going to be. As usual, I plan to share with the BNs and my NDN.
An egg on top makes anything a meal, I say!
Soup Kitchen update: I'm making a turkey barley soup with this recipe (https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/230904/hearty-barley-turkey-soup/), minus the turkey meat, since I already ate all that. But I threw in extra mushrooms to compensate.
WIS: Right around $143 for two weeks of food. I spent more than that on the dogs - I bought their fancy-pants grain-free, chicken-free kibble, some chicken-free bites that I stuff their Kong toys with, and several pounds of raw beef farm-made kibble topper. So almost $155 for them, but their food purchases last a lot longer (thank heavens!) than mine will. Oh, yes, the birds needed more seed plus I got a seed cylinder in an "All that fits in our bag" 25% off sale, so $43 for them. It will last even longer than the dogs' food.
My free rescue dog sure end up costing me money, since she is sensitive to chicken, but the dogs are both worth it. The birds are cheap entertainment, so I justify their cost, too.
WIA: A skillet meal made of ground pork, shredded cabbage, sliced carrots, chopped onions and mushrooms with plenty of garlic and spices. This made lunches, too.
A chunky grass-fed chuck-eye steak that I seared well in my grill pan then put in the oven to finish to medium rare, with roasted broccoli and cut up little gold potatoes roasted in a drizzle of butter. I had this twice.
Early in the week, leftover turkey with a mix of root vegetables roasted in the oven and some freshly made whole berry cranberry sauce, because the leftover sauce from Thanksgiving went home with the daughter who has four kids who love cranberry sauce. I had this twice, too.
The food at the event my daughter and I went to, which was cups of shrimp jambalaya over rice and a charcuterie cup - each cup had skewers of cheese, salami, pickles, olives and grapes, with a slice of smoked cheese, flatbread pieces, and a scattering of mixed tree nuts, blueberries and grapes, with a wrapped chocolate truffle. For dessert, a dainty cup of apple or blueberry pie with whipped cream. And there was wine.
Ooh, what fancy event food! Sounds lovely.
@Kristen,
There was also raw oysters and cold boiled peel n' eat shrimp, but I don't care for raw oysters and I felt too cold to eat the iced-down shrimp, since the event was outside. Plenty of people partook, though!
@Kristen, Especially "and there was wine"....
Haha, that part wouldn't tempt me because I dislike the taste of alcohol. But little snacks and appetizers and such? Sign me up!
@JD, I'd totally have been out there with the oysters and the shrimp. Not to mention all the other goodies you describe.
@Kristen,
I'll drink your wine. No questions asked. 😉
@JD, free/rescue pets tend to be not inexpensive. A conservative outlay (includes blood work) for the two strays we took in is $1K. The one requires a medication which now costs $50 per bottle more than it did 2 years ago. He's the best cat we've ever had and I'm glad he showed up at a house who could afford him. At the current cost, his medication is around $500 a year.
@JD, I've heard it said, and I have experienced, "No such thing as a free pet."
This was a real meat-heavy week--we found a new kosher butcher and got very excited! I also didn't cook as much this week, which was a lovely break.
Monday: Pasta with tomato sauce with zucchini.
Tuesday: Mr. B made steak, baked potatoes, and a lettuce salad.
Wednesday: My brother came over for a visit, and we ordered in Thai food. Delicious but expensive. I made baked katsu and sliced cucumber for the toddler.
Thursday: Mr. B made beef stew and we had frozen fries on the side. My daugther refused to try the stew (she loved it last year, but forgot I guess) so she just ate French fries, and then had a large snack with lots of fruit before bed.
'
Friday: I'm going to pull for leftover beef stew, rice, and maybe a pan of roasted root vegetables or squash to round out the meal. And challah, of course.
Friday: Cuban Quesadillas – leftover Thanksgiving pork and pantry items.
Saturday: Cottage Pie – leftover Thanksgiving mashed potatoes, gravy, and veggies plus pantry items.
Sunday: Sheet Pan Sausage and Veggies (great veggie drawer clean-out meal), Farro with parm as a side.
Monday: Chicken and Yellow Rice, naan, Halal Cart White Sauce, roasted cauliflower.
Tuesday: Unstuffed Pepper Bowls.
Wednesday: Trader Joe’s Orange Chicken, brown rice, green beans – my husband was at a work function and isn’t a fan of Orange Chicken but my son asks for it all the time. I keep it in the freezer for nights like this!
Thursday: Turkey Pot Pie Noodles.
I also made a big batch of Chicken Wild Rice Soup to have for lunches since most of our meal didn’t leave leftovers.
198 at Sam’s. We stock up on salmon and meat for the month.
Sunday and Monday: Turkey noodle soup with sourdough toast
Tuesday: homemade granola parfait bar ( many choices!) and hot tea
Wednesday: chicken strips and roasted sweet potatoes
Thursday: taco salad with generic corn chips
Today: leftover taco salads with a side of leftover roasted sweet potatoes
Very busy weekend with many out of the house holiday festivities.
I have frozen pizza and frozen taquitos in the freezer. We shall not eat out (WILL TRY!).
WIS: $68.80 at my little Neighborhood Walmart and then $29.68 at Sprouts where I stopped in because I knew they would have the Delicata squash that I hadn’t been able to find elsewhere, and I also found fresh Brussels sprouts on sale and a big package of ground beef marked down from $8.49/lb to $5.52/lb (the lowest I’ve seen it anywhere lately) for a savings of about $5, and a 1.425 pound Angus grass-fed beef London Broil marked down from $13.49/lb to $7.89/lb for a savings of another $7. But egg prices seem to be rising yet again.
WIA: Tempura battered shrimp with an Asian slaw and Jasmine rice; the NY Times sausage, baby red potato and Brussels sprouts sheet pan recipe A. Marie tipped us to (thank you, A. Marie!); roasted Delicata squash stuffed with wild rice and sausage (highly recommend); teriyaki salmon fillets with Kristen’s Sauteed Green Beans with Garlic Herb Butter (thank you, Kristen!). Pears and apples for dessert.
Sunday: hubby worked so I was in my own… I made a clean out the fridge salad. It was delish!
Monday; air fried chicken patties, French fries, pickles
Tuesday: hamburger gravy o er mashed potatoes, corn
Wednesday: pork chop & chicken cubes marinated and air fried, chicken fried rice, garlicky green beans
Thursday: hubby had a small Stromboli and we both shared a frozen pizza
Tonight: muffin tin turkey meat loaves, buttered noodles, mixed veggies
Your food pics always look so colorful and appetizing, especially that colorful bowl at the top of your post!
Still in recovery mode here, so no grocery shopping this week.
Saturday: Meal train- roasted chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes and salad.
Sunday: Meal train- white chicken chili and all the stuff to go with.
Monday: leftovers from Saturday and Sunday
Tuesday: Meal train- Shepherd’s pie, fruit and brownies
Wednesday: leftovers from Tuesday
Thursday: Meal train- baked spaghetti, salad and dessert
Friday: probably more leftovers, next Meal train meal is tomorrow
So thankful for friends who signed up to provide these meals!
@Addy,
What a lovely variety of meals your Meal Train friends brought to you! Whoever created the Meal Train idea is a genius.
I have 4 dozen eggs and a Sam's club size of cottage cheese to eat down this week. Things got away from me over the holiday and I forgot about five hard boiled eggs I eventually decided to toss.
So meals all week have been the same:
Breakfast: scrambled eggs and pumpkin bread with dates and walnuts
Lunch: persimmons ( we picked about 40 pounds) and fairlife protein milk
Dinner: Homemade black bean soup ( a whole food mix from Anderson House) with wholly guacamole on top ( .10 a piece at grocery Outlet).
Oh yeah - sprinkling my fabulous roasted pecans on everything
I am just about ready to got shopping. Today I am going down to pick tangerines and more pecans. free food. Hubby is great about eating anything I serve and we are both trying to lose weight.
@Mary Ann,
Have you ever scrambled your eggs with cottage cheese instead of milk? This makes the fluffiest, richest eggs ever.
@Bee,
Great idea!!!!!!!
Oh gosh, I always try to think back on what we ate, but sometimes it's a real struggle!
-DH & I had a date night one night
-DH grilled burgers one night & we had leftover burgers another night
-We had grilled chicken from the freezer yesterday, along with roasted acorn squash & salads
-We finished off the Thanksgiving leftovers another night
-I know that one night I had a protein smoothie before DS17's evening soccer game, and that served as dinner for me.
-DH wasn't feeling well one night, so I think I had popcorn for dinner.
As for tonight, I think we will finish the leftover chicken & have that along with ravioli & some edamame. Or, perhaps spring rolls & edamame & chicken.
Isn't it wild how hard it is to remember??
Cute Chiquita! We got our cat yesterday. We'll probably rename him, so no name yet.
1. Today my husband is smoking a second turkey ($1.19/lb) so we'll probably have that with leftover mashed potatoes or something. Then save a bunch of it in the freezer, along with broth.
2. Lentil/sausage shepherd's pie
3. Pasta & sausage
4. Lentil soup
5. 2 frozen pizzas from the discount store (I bought cheese pizza and added toppings I already had).
6. Baked potatoes and baked sweet potatoes.
@Katy @ Practical Walk, congrats on picking up the new kitty, and let us know his name when you decide on it. (I know that name decisions take time.)
$437 at Kroger, for all meals at home. Not bad. We also stop and get stuff for the Little Free Pantries around town, but I don't count that in our grocery food budget, that's donations.
Saturday/Sunday: Pizzas, as always. I also have been roasting some crispy tofu for myself, since I want to get more soy into my diet, and I stopped buying the fake vegan cheeses, so what I usually have on pizza night is a couple of corn tortillas, crisped with some homemade vegan Parmesan, and a side of roasted tofu and veggies.
Monday: DH cooked a bunch of tuna burgers on Sunday (he likes to take them for lunches as well) and I made a pot of tomato soup to go with them.
Tuesday: Chicken drumsticks, a little batch of crockpot shawarma, salad, and rice.
Wednesday: Burgers and baked potato bar, plus lots of leftovers to choose from.
Thursday: Hamburger stew, mac and cheese for the Selective Eater.
Tonight is "Mexican Nite" which really means somebody cooks a bunch of ground beef, a batch of rice, and we heat some refried beans and if you're feeling daring, you put salsa on whatever you want.
@Karen A.,
I love tuna and tomato soup together!
Also, how do you make schwartz in the crockpot?
@Gretchen, When I prepare the chicken thighs to marinate (I use half olive oil/half lemon juice, a bunch of spices (turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, paprika, garlic and onion powder, black pepper) and 2 teaspoons of kosher salt per 4 pounds chicken), I trim all the fat off and cut it up into bite-size pieces, then marinate for about an hour. Put it in the crockpot without draining, on High for 4-5 hours. You can drain it at this point and crisp it up in the oven or on the stovetop, but my guys like it juicy and they ladle it over rice, usually. I have made as much as 9 pounds in the crockpot but am always anxious about the chicken cooking through well. After being vegetarian for decades cooking meat gives me anxiety!
I have a friend who makes it in the air fryer and likes it that way better--I have neither an air fryer nor the space for one!
WIS: $0
WWA: Sunday end of work week, no family dinner. Ate a scrambled egg on toast when I arrived home to the farm @ 10 pm.
Monday: Minestrone soup & homemade gf hawaiian rolls
Tuesday: Salad and minestrone soup + rolls
Wednesday: Taco Salad & protein gf molasses ginger cookies
Thursday: Another taco salad, cookies
Friday: pork stir fry, fried rice and more cookies
Saturday: work day 1 1/2 - 2 hr commute 1 way, 12 hour shift. I will pack 1 salad, 1 breakfast sandwich and more cookies and an apple. Mom will have stir fry leftovers w/niece.
Sunday family dinner: Spaghetti w/meatballs dinner: green salad, roasted broccoli, Birthday cake for the December birthdays.
Maybe it's the time of year (wake up in the dark, gets dark early) but I am ready to retire. If I could I would be a travelling nurse to a warmer part of the U.S. this time of year!
I will set up my quilting station to keep my heart happy during the dark and cold months ahead. Bring on the audio books & podcasts!
The caption of the ‘Chiquita on the edge of the box’ photo had me cracking up!
As usual, no clue to what the better half spent.
Saturday - not sure but I may have eaten turkey.
Sunday - dine out Mexican
Monday - grilled burgers
Tuesday - grilled chicken and rice
Wednesday - a concoction of rice (not from Tuesday), beans, hamburger, chili seasoning with a cheese quesadilla. The concoction was quite tasty.
Thursday - hot dogs and jackets
Friday - better half made himself a pizza, I ate leftover turkey (from the freezer) with mashed potatoes and gravy.
Turkey for lunch on Saturday too!