It's been a good week

Though I am falling into old habits. I can't resist buying food when it's on sale AND I know I will use it. I'm restocking my freezer and today alone I bought a huge pork loin, 2 packages of pork chops and a big jumbo pack of pork sausage. Good thing we like pork!! Did I mention that yesterday I bought 2 packages of ground pork? EEK.

But how do I stop myself? Yes, all of it will be eaten of course. Especially with winter and colder weather coming. In fact, the loin will be used tomorrow and the ground will be used in a meal next week. The chops on Monday. But how do I resist stocking up on so much?

Does anyone do a scheduled eat from the pantry week? I came across some references to this over the last week and thought it was interesting. But scary too.

Anyway, we've done well eating leftovers and sticking to the meal plan.

I am borrowing a friend's waffle maker this weekend to make our own and freeze them. Has to be cheaper than buying them every week right? I'll be looking for waffle recipes, if anyone would like to suggest any.

A Hearty Fall Meal Plan

We have our meal plan for the week in place and have done all shopping needed. Came in at a nice price too! Under 100, always a win in my book.

The Little One had his typical Waffle for breakfast and then branched out into some greek yogurt. For weeks he rejected it, now he's back to it. Ahh toddlers. I ate some leftover chicken and rive burrito thing that The Husband had made for dinner last night. Yep, dinner for breakfast. What, you got a problem with that? Salad for lunch for Me and the Little One at some of it.

Dinner tonight is grilled Chicken Cesear Salad with toasted garlic bread.

Of course, none of this uses pantry staples. Oops. Yeah..Um, see. need to get back into that.

It's hard to try to rebuild the pantry and freezer though. I worry about spending the money, but then worry the kitchen doesn't have enough food. Hold onto the money or the food. It's hard sometimes.

Edit:
A friend dropped off three bags of apples. Anyone want to share some favorite apple recipes? Sweet or savory is fine.

Also, I suppose I should tell you the meal plan, huh? You know, what with the title of the post and all.

Monday: Grilled Chicken Cesar Salad
Tuesday: Irish Beef Stew with Guinness
Wednesday: Leftovers
Thursday: Shep Pie
Friday: Pork Loin stuffed with adobo chilis with beans and rice
Saturday: Leftovers

Oops and welcome back

Fell off the wagon there a bit didn't I? Ahh well..back on.

With things crazy round here due to The Husband being home we're re examining our food budget again. We are making two dinners each night now. We took the friend up on their offer to cook them dinner each night and it seems to be working well. We're working out kinks, like making things more flavorful/spicy for them than we have. We erred on the side of less figuring making something too spicy can render it inedible. Now we know.

We're working on a meal plan for the coming week, based upon sales and what's in the pantry. Pork Loins are on sale and there is a rice and beans recipe that I have been eager to try. Plus that will use up some beans in the pantry. I need to work on a list of what we have again and then create this week's meal plan. I also have a feeling Shep Pie will be on the menu. The weather is turning cooler and I'm eager for hearty meals!

Thank you to those who have kept reading. And thank you to Becca for nudging me gently to get back to this.

Day 8 (on day 9)

Kind of a weird day yesterday. We took the friend up on the offer to make them food and they pay for some of our groceries. Win all around!! I got to go grocery shopping yesterday! This was very exciting. Momma is a happy woman. :) I have eggs and cheese and oh goodness lots of fresh veg in my fridge again. *sigh*

So, meals for yesterday. The Little One is all about the waffles for breakfast so we kept that up. I wonder what he's going to do when we switch to the bagels? Lunch was PB&J and he chowed that but then ignored dinner completely. The Husband and I had Philly Cheesesteak Sloppy Joes. They were..okay. They would need a good amount of recipe doctoring to make again and I don't know that they would be worth it. Eh..live and learn, right?

Day 7

We're down to 1 egg. Just sayin'. *sigh*

Breakfast for me was a couple of eggs, salsa and a smidge of cheese. Coffee of course. The Little One is fighting something so he basically nursed and didn't eat a whole lot all day. Couple crackers, some strawberries from a friend at playgroup, a bite of a PB&J. No dinner..flat out refused. My poor boy. :(

The Husband and I are having the Eye of Round Steak and a Filet Mignon he found buried in the freezer under the 4 chickens. Oh and some baked potatoes of some kind. We nixed the Dinnertime Playdate due to what we thought would be bad weather but turned out not to be. Eh..can't win right?

This is freaking me out now...

This is my fridge tonight. I opened it a little while ago and there was an empty shelf. A completely empty shelf. This is not okay with me and makes my heart race a bit. While I assume some people think this looks like a perfectly fine fridge, full of food, blah blah..I see all that space that needs to be filled with food. Especially on the door...do you see all those unused shelves on the bottom??? BTW, I cleaned the fridge shelves under the guise of cleaning but really it was to rearrange all the food so each shelf had things on it.

Eh nevermind..there should be two pictures here but I can't get them edited properly. Maybe another day. You know..when it's even more empty and I'm losing my mind.



Anyway, here is what is left.


Protein:
Pork carnitas
3 meat roasts
4 whole chickens
chicken legs (2 bags, maybe 5-6 per bag)
chicken thighs (1 bag, maybe 5-6 per bag)
1 lb ground buffalo
1 lb ground pork
2 2 breasts size frozen chicken breasts
1 1 lb ground beef
2 pork spare ribs
bottom round steak, thin sliced, maybe .80 lb
short ribs (tiny serving)
eye round steak (tiny serving)
ham (like you'd get for Easter but not spiral sliced)

2.5 bags frozen peas
2 single sliced frozen zucchini
2 frozen bananas
1 package frozen plain bagel
1 package blueberry waffles (about 6 left?)
1 lb breakfast sausage
1 loaf whole wheat bread (frozen) (some slices gone now)
frozen blueberries
raisin bread (frozen)
2 bags strawberries (frozen)
frozen spinach (flash frozen to be individual leaves)

pantry:
basmati rice
elbow mac
organic beef stock
couscous
newmans alfredo garlic sauce
salsa (2 jars)
5 jars spag sauce
random few bites left boxes of pasta (probably 6-8 of these, all different)
mini farfafelle
orzo
manicotti (6 shells left)
hellmans 2
Newmans balsamic vinaigrette
peanuts
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 cans diced tomatoes
4 cans rotel
3 cans black beans
1 can cannelloni beans
small jar of pesto
1 tube tomato paste (now opened)
2 cans baked beans
1 can corn
3 cans green beans
3 cans peas
corn tortillas
flour tortillas
dirty rice mix
white rice
2 chicken noodle premix stuff (lipton side stuff)
chicken rice pre mix
2 bags of black beans
1 bag navy beans
1 bag black eyed peas
jiffy corn muffin mix
peanut butter


fridge:
strawberry jelly
peach jelly
1 lb butter
fresh cherry tomatoes were roasted to save from going bad
celery
lettuce
onions
cheese (cheddar, mont jack, provolone, moz, parm) This is getting very low
fresh cheese tortellini
carrots
5 eggs
BBQ sauce

Day 6

Today was a good day round these parts. I had breakfast of 2 eggs with a smidge of cheese and some salsa for breakfast while The Little One had some yogurt. The Husband stuck to coffee. PB& J on wheat bread with strawberry jam for lunch for The Little One. The Husband had the last of the leftover spicy beans. I ate some candy corn. *shame* Yeah I had pure sugar for lunch. Oh well. Does it count that I drank a boat ton of water with that?

Dinner was the hot dogs and baked beans.

It'll be PB&J for dinner tomorrow night so I need to come up with something more interesting for lunch tomorrow!