WIS, WWA | Project: Avoid The Stores
What I Spent
I spent:
- $42 at Safeway
And that's it.
Mainly, I was trying to stay out of the stores because I hate the pre-Thanksgiving crowds! I'll do a trip this coming weekend instead, when everyone will be shopping at retail stores, not grocery stores.
What We Ate
Saturday
Zoe wasn't here, and I made myself some sauteed fish and also some sauteed broccoli.
Sunday
I made those ham and Swiss sandwiches Zoe likes so much, plus a green salad.
Monday
Zoe was at work doing a closing shift, and when I got home from work, I heated up some squash soup and made a grilled cheese sandwich to go with it.
Tuesday
I got home pretty late from work, and I just ate some cottage cheese with fruit and called it good.
Sometimes, I'm just too tired to do anything more!
Wednesday
It was an unusually warm day, so I grilled some burgers, and we ate those with a fruit salad and some potato chips.
Thursday
We don't like turkey, so I opted for roasted chicken instead.
But we do not ever skip honey-glazed rolls at my house.
Honestly, these are more important than whatever meat is served. 😉
My college girl ended up getting scheduled to work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving, so she couldn't make it here, but she DID make a batch of honey-glazed rolls to take to her friend's house.
I seem to have produced future generations of honey-glazed roll makers. 😉
Friday
I'm working a 12-hour shift today (good thing I'm not a Black Friday shopper!!). A friend of mine is working too, and she suggested we meet up after work for dinner. So that's my dinner plan. : )
Saturday: Baked sweet potato with a mushroom omelette and homemade garlic bread
Sunday: Skillet aubergine lasagne
Monday: Veggie stir-fry
Tuesday: Burritos
Wednesday: Chilli mac and cheese
Thursday: Thanksgiving isn't a thing in Denmark so I just had leftovers with more homemade garlic bread.
Friday: I'm thinking of getting a pizza and watching the new Stranger Things!
@Sophie in Denmark, I know you say you are just getting into cooking. But I would really like you to cater Saturday to Wed for me please. My stomach is growling and Sat. sounded so good. Then it all sounded good. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, favorite season, favorite food so I hadto stop thete. lol
@Sophie in Denmark, there, not exactly sure what a thete is
@AZ Lynn, Thank you, I'm very complimented! Send me a plane ticket and I'll be right there 😉
@Sophie in Denmark, Thumbs up. Will let you know when I declutter enough to fit you in. Arizona is fascinating.
Sunday: grilled chicken breasts, cheesy potatoes, corn and peanut butter cookies for dessert
Monday: chicken salads (with leftover chicken from Sunday)
Tuesday: beef soft tacos
Wednesday: Strombolis
Thursday: Thanksgiving foods
Friday: unknown as I might be alone if hubby heads to hunting camp
I mostly mailed it in this week (was over-extended and slightly under the weather) but did manage to continue using up the freezer’s contents. WWA:
Saturday - soup and bread from the freezer
Sunday - oven baked pork chops (from freezer), frozen corn, egg noodles with sour cream
Monday - leftovers
Tuesday- oven baked chicken strips and fries (both found in freezer), Caesar salad
Wednesday - beef bourginon and baguette from the freezer
Thursday- on-sale frozen pizza that was waiting to be used in a pinch
Friday - likely to be pan-fried ham (frozen left-over) and potatoes, sauerkraut
Wishing everyone a peaceful week ahead
We deliberately planned to be done shopping for Thanksgiving by Tuesday. DS#2 and I stopped after class on Monday afternoon to procure supplies. The store was packed with mostly older couples, the husband pushing the cart while the wife marched in front with a list. One older lady turned to me unprompted and said with a smile, "Have you ever seen so many _men_ shopping for groceries??" Then on Tuesday, a couple other people who were making dinner popped out to get just what they needed. I failed to keep track of what we spent, but DH had already gotten our 16 pound turkey a couple of weeks before for 49 cents a pound.
Saturday, Sunday: homemade pizzas, naturally.
Monday: Somehow I cannot remember Monday. I know we ate dinner! It was probably leftovers or something that DH made on Sunday to reheat, since most of us were gone at school or work that day.
Tuesday: DS#3 made beef taco fixings. I had the day off classes but I had a 100-question final exam for my nurse aide training course that was due at 8 am on Friday and I had no intention of trying to do it on Thanksgiving, so Tuesday it was.
Wednesday: DS#4 made pasta, a very satisfying light meal before the Main Event on Thursday.
Thanksgiving: Oven-bag-roasted turkey and homemade giblet gravy (DH), probably the best turkey ever. So moist. DS#3 made crock pot roasted sweet potatoes, DS#1 made mashed potatoes (he'll be the first to admit they were instant, but we like instant potatoes!), DS#3 made Thanksgiving slaw and heated up some corn, and DS#4 made the cranberry sauce with supervision, and my contributions were the crustless pumpkin pies and whipped cream. I also heated up store-bought rolls. Best meal ever. We have reached, I feel, an epoch in our family where everybody can pitch in and help make the big meal, so it doesn't feel like as much of a production.
Tonight: Leftovers, naturally. I deliberately made two pies so we'll have one tonight. And a double batch of cranberry sauce, because it goes so well with yogurt or oatmeal. DS#4 makes "jam sandwiches" with the sauce and rolls. 😉
@Karen A.,
I like instant mashed potatoes, too! 🙂 I love that your family all pitched in to make Thanksgiving dinner. My DH and I made ours.
@Liz B., It really makes the day special! Sounds like you had a lovely day cooking and feasting together. <3
I have not tracked what I spent this week but it was nothing crazy since I spent so much the week before.
Saturday - Steak, half a baked potato, creamed corn and salad.
Sunday - Burrito composed of taco fixings from earlier in the week. I also made 3 bean and cheese burritos with the leftover beans and froze them for work lunches/lazy dinners in the future.
Monday - Quiche Lorraine and green salad. I had this Tuesday & Wednesday as well but changed up what I put in the salad each night.
Thursday- The expected fare: turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, green bean almondine. We don't love pumpkin pie so I made a lemon & cranberry tart.
Friday - Thanksgiving leftovers. Obviously. 🙂
@Lorraine, that tart sounds delicious!
@MB in MN, it was delicious, but very tart - as to be expected with lemons and cranberries. In fact the cookbook called it Lemon and Cranberry Tart Tart. Its from The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum
We spent $197 this week, still too high but it included all the food for Thanksgiving dinner.
Saturday—We had lunch out, with my partner’s family, so just salad for dinner
Sunday—I made a chicken quinoa soup (I was excited to try using quinoa instead of rice or noodles, but unfortunately the soup was too bland for some reason) and a roll from the freezer
Monday—soup and toasted Dave’s bread
Tuesday—finally finished the soup, with another roll
Wednesday—chicken sausage in a Dave’s roll, with my favorite Tru pickles and apple slices with honey on the side (following Kristen’s example of fruit with dinner)
Thursday—we had the traditional meal and desserts
Friday—leftovers, which we have a lot of. We’ll freeze what’s left after today, but I don’t particularly like turkey, so using it up will be a challenge.
We were in New Orleans all week in an Airbnb house, in which I cooked most meals. Like so . . .
Saturday: Pork chops, andouille sausage, fried potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette, Blue Bell ice cream (yay!). The kitchen of our rental house was pretty well equipped, but none of the cookware was big enough for the quantities I have to cook. 🙂
Sunday: Crawfish, shrimp, mashed potatoes, salad, ice cream, Oreos. The crawfish was preparedm already cooked tail meat that I'm sure is typically used to make ettoufee or something similar, but I just heated it and made a sauce for it with what I had on hand, which was mustard, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and cream. I'm told it was delicious. I don't much care for seafood, so I was cooking blind there, as it were. The Oreos were peanut butter and birthday cake flavored ones, which I had never seen before. It was fun to try them, but they tasted very artificial to us and the consensus in our family was that original is best.
Monday: Chicken thighs that I put in a marinade before we left for the day and then just cooked on the stove, broiled alread-cooked potato chunks, salad, last of the ice cream.
Tuesday: This was the day I realized I had screwed up my Airbnb booking and had to scramble to get out of our first house and into another one. The cleaning crew at the first house gathered all our things in the garage until we could get there to pick them up, and they also saved almost all the food, yay! Most of the leftover meats--pork chops, andouille sausage, and chicken--plus some of the leftover potatoes had been in bowls belonging to the house, and I guess they threw those out, alas, but I got everything else. We brought it with us to our new rental house. We skipped lunch in the midst of the rush of moving houses, but one of the most famous po'boy (sandwich) shops in New Orleans happened to be just half a mile from our new house, so we went there before going to the house. We had a late lunch/early dinner of po'boys--two ham and cheese, two oyster, two shrimp--and then some of the leftovers became a second dinner later for those who were hungry.
Wednesday: I used all the leftovers and the rest of the bread I had to make eight sandwiches for our travel day: one crawfish (kept cold with an improvised cold pack of ice cubes in a bag in a little takeout container in the empty plastic salad container 🙂 ), two ham and cheese, and five peanut butter and jelly. These were all consumed throughout our thirteen hour travel day and by the time we got into the car for our three-hour drive home at the 5 p.m, I was down to granola bars and meat sticks, which were promptly consumed. I was loathe to stop to get more overpriced fast food, so instead, I went into the gas station when we stopped at the one near-ish to our house and got everyone beef and bean burritos from there. And then the kids had corn tortillas with melted cheese plus hot milk when we got home at 8 p.m.
Thursday: So glad to be at home and not trying to feed my ravenous horde on the go. I was not enthused about making a big holiday dinner the day after returning home, and also I need a couple of days to bake bread, cook squash, etc., so I made the executive decision to delay our Thanksgiving feast until Sunday. We had Salisbury steaks with onion and milk gravy, rice, and green peas or collard greens for dinner. Because we didn't eat any red meat on our trip and I wanted some. 🙂
Tonight: I'm baking bread today, so I think I'll make garlic bread with some of the dough and pull out . . . something to go with it. Maybe pork chops? I need to investigate the freezer. I also need to cook a squash for pie, so my husband and I can have that for our vegetable, and the kids can have carrot sticks as they are not fans of squash outside of pies.
@kristin @ going country, I now have the jingle for Blue Bell ice cream from when I was growing up in my head, "Blue Bell the best ice cream in the country" - thanks for that memory!
Happy Friday, everyone! We spent $42 at Target, after using $35 in gift cards.
- Popcorn and fruit (x2)
- Veggie bean soup
- Vegetarian reuben
- Restaurant lunch leftovers
- Thanksgiving appetizers and sides
- Pasta with broccoli and parmesan
Thanksgiving leftovers today. I started the morning with whipped cream and pumpkin spice in my coffee. Have a great weekend and bon appétit.
Love that you are getting together with a friend after work - sounds great. DH & I are going to try a long hike at the closest national park near us (I think), which is Pinnacles. I can check another national park off of my list, and we can get it some hiking prep for our New Zealand trip.
Friday - DS18 was back earlier than expected on a standby flight, so I ordered delivery pizza.
Saturday - DH & I went out on a date night, as both teens had to work. I had a burger
Sunday - I made tacos for the whole crew
Monday - Spaghetti & meatballs
Tuesday - chicken patty sandwiches
Wednesday - Salmon for DH & I had a taco salad
Thursday - we had steak, stuffing, mashed potatoes & green beans. No one is a fan of turkey
Friday - not sure. It think both teens work, so maybe we will have steak salad with the leftovers + we need to use some acorn squash
A friend made her fantastical enchiladas to feed us after my husband had surgery. We had plenty of food already, so we stashed them in the freezer and pulled them out for Thanksgiving dinner. Muy fantastico!
I spent $52 at Aldi last Friday.
I don't remember all my dinners, but last Saturday I made a sausage stuffed pepper because my mother offered me half a green pepper she had left from something else. I thought it would be a fun way to use it up, since I also had a little bit of sausage to use. It was easy and delicious.
On Sunday I made a rice bowl with the leftover rice, topped with a fried egg.
On Wednesday I had chicken nuggets and french fries for an easy dinner after a busy day.
Thursday, I had gluten free, dairy free mac and "cheese", roasted broccoli, chicken with cranberry sauce, and Hawaiian sweet rolls. I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins with a glaze on top for dessert. Tonight will be the aame, and probably tomorrow too.
Tonight will be the same, I mean.
I did not go to the stores, I get hives just thinking about the chaos, lines, parking my truck, ugh.
Sunday family dinner bbq ribs, mac & cheese, coleslaw, fruit salad and cheesy bread.
Mon veggie soup from the freezer, salad
Tues - pork lo mein
Wed - beef steak, salad
Thurs - feast, 45 hungry folks, I bought loaves of bread at the bread store and sent meat, cheese, sides, desserts home with all the kids.
Friday - I'm at work for 3 days. The nurses lounge is full of food and desserts.
Sunday - ?
Monday - turkey burgers on buns, salad and chips
Tuesday - Middle Eastern takeout after picking up my son at the airport, homemade cinnamon-chocolate chip mandel bread (Jewish version of biscotti)
Wednesday - baked salmon, baked potatoes, salad and more mandel bread
Thursday - Turkey with cranberry-orange sauce, smoky glazed sweet potato halves, macaroni and cheese, roasted green beans, Brussels sprouts with balsamic-maple glaze, mashed potatoes, homemade rosemary garlic rolls and store bought pies.
Friday - Shabbat dinner out.
WIS: $18.50 at the Regional Market, $20 at Trader Joe's, $65.50 at Wegmans, and $85 at Price Chopper. I needed to do some stocking up after last week's $0 WIS.
WIA: The week's highlight, of course, was Thanksgiving dinner at NDN1's CF's house (to which I took NDN1). As noted earlier, I took my kale, apple, and carrot salad (this is a Cooking Light magazine recipe; you can look it up)--and although you kale haters may not believe it, there wasn't too much left over!
The delights provided by CF and the other guests included the turkey itself, two kinds of stuffing, mashed and sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, two kinds of soups, yeast rolls, and four kinds of pies (including my new favorite pecan pie with half the usual sugar and Chinese five-spice powder).
And to my further delight, I was awarded "habeas corpus" on the turkey carcass and all the extra necks and wings that were used to make the gravy. (CF isn't as enthusiastic a soup stock maker as I am.) So I've got a stock with the carcass bubbling on the stove as I write.
@A. Marie, what are the ingredients for the kale salad?
I am curious about the pecan pie. Love pecans but I have never been found of the overly sweet filling. I make mini pecan tassies that are time consuming to make but a better balance of sweet to nut ratio.
@Janice, I can't find the original Cooking Light recipe for the salad online, but this one is pretty much it (https://www.naturalgrocers.com/recipe/kale-carrot-and-apple-salad-recipe).
And since I'm not the pie maker, I can't answer for the pie recipe. But try Googling "pecan pie with five spice powder" and see what happens.
@A. Marie, thank you! Using the dressing recipe may make kale more palatable for me. I want to like it for its nutritional value, but….it’s kale.
@A. Marie, love your clever word-play re the turkey carcass ?
I don't remember the order of the main meals this week. But I remember having:
1) Baked potato with cottage cheese.
2) Toasted ham and Monterey jack cheese on Aldi plain sour dough bread. I'd gotten a loaf of plain and one with everything bagel (which is my preferred) for the day the girls were here to clean to serve with cheeseburger soup. I had this sandwich again one night, but no chips. And finally after toast today, only a heel remains and I can start on my preferred loaf.
Interjection: I went to Aldi's early on Tuesday and it was a mad house. I was almost out of potatoes (not enough for Thursday). I wish that five pounds of potatoes didn't cost the same as ten. I needed a few other things and total was $37plus. I was amazed at the couples. But it was nearly always the wife pushing the cart and the men dragging behind.
3) Fixed a skillet scramble by frying bacon, pouring off part of the bacon grease, adding a 3 inch piece of andouille sausage sliced and cut in half, small potato sliced, some onion, some red pepper, a couple of cremini mushrooms. Then a couple of the very best farm fresh eggs, scrambled with a little fresh cream. Mixed that all around and added two handfuls of baby spinach until done to my liking. It was very good. And a piece of sourdough toast and slice of bacon. I had enough left over to take to work.
4) On Thursday, my niece came to have dinner with me. While the menu was not simple, it was the most low pressure nice dinner I've served. I still made things look nice although I used my everyday breakfast rose Corelle and everyday silverware. We had: Aldi's turkey breast roast with gravy, mashed potatoes, boxed Aldi's cornbread dressing zhuzshed up with a little breakfast sausage, celery and onions, fresh sage and rosemary. I deviled three of the pullet eggs that came with my fresh eggs and they were the cutest things served on little romaine leaves, red pepper strips, I split one of the three small butternut squashes and brushed the halves with butter, and after roasting awhile, drizzled honey on them and finished them. The squirrels planted them in a raised bed and I was very proud of them. I made fresh cranberry muffins as a nod to the cranberries, but had swapped the baking soda and baking powder by mistake. I was hoping the sour milk as opposed to fresh would help the problem, but between that and the sour cranberries we were both squinting our eyes. Fortunately I'd made only half the recipe (and still added the full amount of sugar). We had some purchased cheese cake for dessert after watching a movie. It was a nice time.
Today's main meal? probably leftovers. I did have a deviled egg smashed on the last of the plain sourdough toast this morning for breakfast.
I always read everyone's comments but have rarely commented, so l'm trying to be better about it!
I spent 3 days pressure canning various types of beans, plus a batch of beef stew. So guess what we ate a lot of ? Beans. Haha.
Before l started canning, l made a big pot of pinto and black beans to have on hand for quick meals. We had beans and rice with salad on the side, bean burritos, with cut up raw veggies on the side, and bean tacos with fruit on three separate days.
I had three pint jars of garbanzo beans not seal, so l made a big batch of hummus with them, and we had hummus with pita bread, veggies and fruit one night, plus extra for lunches and snacks.
My husband brought home a rotisserie chicken from Costco, so l made stock with the bones, a big batch of chicken, vegetable and rice soup, and kept aside half the chicken to use for sandwiches and chicken salad.
It was the first Thanksgiving we didn't have our daughter with us, as she was in Hawaii meeting her boyfriend's family, so instead of me sitting home and crying, Lol, we went camping at the beach and ate fish and chips for Thanksgiving. It was different, but we had a nice time. And our daughter is having a blast in Hawaii, so that makes us happy.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Friday: My husband made Rosemary Mushroom Chicken with a side of mashed potatoes and grilled Caesar salad as a thank you dinner for some friends. The husband of the couple made us some lovely shelves for our basement bar and installed them on Friday night. We paid him because he runs a small business, but a thank you dinner is always fun.
Saturday: We hosted my husband’s business partners and spouses. There was a request for my Jambalaya which I paired with cornbread, homemade pimento cheese spread, and mini mandarin cheesecakes.
Sunday: Aldi pizza
Monday: Golden Orzo Chicken and Corn Soup – my husband was feeling under the weather and requested brothy soup.
Tuesday: Three Cheese Zucchini Stuffed Lasagna Rolls – pulled from the freezer
Wednesday: Leftover Orzo Chicken Soup
Thursday: Thanksgiving – Pork tenderloin (we aren’t turkey fans), mashed potatoes, stuffing, sauteed green beans, roasted carrots, gravy! My in-laws brought the rolls, my parents brought the pies, and I forgot the cranberries in the fridge. We eat around 1pm so that everyone can drive home before the sun sets before 5pm. We made Costco’s cauliflower crust frozen pizza at 6pm since we sent everyone home with most of the leftovers.
We don't have Aldis where we live, we mostly shop at Trader Joe's, paper goods, cleaning supplies, and things like olive oil from Costco, and we get a twice monthly CSA. We fill in occasionally with a Safeway that is only a few blocks from our home.
Unfortunately, Safeway has become problematic. Their prices are high and their quality has really gone downhill. My husband bought a bag of "fresh" cranberries late last week under their store brand. When I reached my hand in the bag, a finger stuck through a rotten, moldy cranberry. There were many in the bag, along with many that had turned to raisins, and many white (not ripe) cranberries. I had to sort through the entire 1 lb bag before making cranberry sauce. This is not an isolated thing. The quality of their produce and meat has gone steadily downhill, but the prices have gone UP.
Whole Foods 365 brand is competitive with Safeway's prices, and the quality is always very good, plus they have sale items. And a local chain is upscale and pricey with excellent organic produce, but offers a 10% senior discount on Wednesdays, so we get some things there to fill in for the endless giant heads of cauliflower and cabbage our CSA always provides.
I don't like turkey either! We splurged on an organic, pasture-raised chicken of a pretty good size and had a lovely meal. Our CSA gives us HUGE carrots (my husband calls the "Chernobyl Carrots" even though they are organic) They are sweet as sugar, and taste like REAL carrots. I made a carrot souffle that was so sweet my kids swore it was sweet potatoes WITH marshmallows (nope although there was vanilla and added sugar--I only added half of the sugar called for in the recipe). One and 1/2 carrots weighed out at 1.5 POUNDS! Husband made a pumpkin pie but substituted half and half for sweetened condensed milk and forgot to add some sugar, so my kids ate the carrot souffle for dessert! LOL!!!
The rolls always look so amazing. I gave away my stand mixer due to space so I may need to find another way to knead them. I flew in from Hawaii to NY on a red eye on Wednesday morning and started gathering ingredients to make this soup which I googled https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/ginger-chicken-soup/. And it turned out to be delicious and a healthy way to get back to normal life. I packed it up for working Thursday Friday Monday and Tuesday. Sunday will be when my family does Thanksgiving. My hospital gave out $50 gift certificates which we could redeem at several online sites. I chose Amazon and treated myself to a few holiday scented candles which I have been wanting and was considering splurging for.
I used your "Basic Roll" recipe for Thanksgiving. My kids LOVE them!. They took the remaining rolls home. 🙂