Where do these weekends go?  I have such big plans and then before I even know it, it’s Monday morning.  I’m really trying to get some of the great posts I have planned written and up.  At least I think they’ll be great.  I guess you’ll just have to wait and decide for yourself.  I will have Friday’s hint fully realized shortly, after all, it’s obviously a tie to Father’s Day coming up.  (sorry just thought of that one as I was writing and couldn’t delete it!)

Before we get there though, I know you are all dying to know what the menu is for the week.  Let’s see what we’ll be eating…

Monday:  beans and cornbread (in true calimama fashion I don’t follow this recipe exactly but it’s pretty darn close, and easy, and good…)

Tuesday:  tacos

Wednesday:  pizza

Thursday:  WOHO (wife on her own)

Friday:  cheeseburger stuffed potatoes, salad

Saturday:  london broil, veg TBD

Sunday:  buttermilk pancakes (every week the pancakes seem to get bumped, but I’m determined to keep trying)

Once I finally got the whole pizza stone issue resolved I was anxious to test my skills.  The final decision (with me as judge and jury of course), my skills need a great deal of refinement.  But the pizza I made last week was really quite good.  So good in fact, before we even finished eating I had decided to make it a weekly tradition of dough wrangling.  The kneading part was a little bit of a challenge (okay, yes, I might have mentioned to the husband that we weren’t having pizza that night much less any other while I was fighting with it doing it), but once I got things under control it all went quite smoothly.

I’m a huge fan of plain, cheese pizza but this homemade thing has me thinking about toppings I would never try in a restaurant.  Unfortunately, my childhood favorite of ham and pineapple (I don’t know why but this is very popular in Canada) will not be a staple as the husband doesn’t like ham.  Ahh well, I like the pineapple part best anyway.  I can work with that.

What are some of your favorite pizza combos?

Each week I look for ways to stay within our budget.  Sometimes I even consider re-evaluating what that budget is or what it covers.  I think I think too much.  I’m not leaving nearly enough time for day dreaming about living in the French countryside or how I would spend a million dollars.  I mean isn’t that what you do with your mental free time?

I’m going to take another look at this budget issue but for now I’m keeping it as is.  Our budget was $80, we spent…

Sprouts Farmers Market – $29.83 (savings = $0.15)

Ralphs – $34.40 (savings = $41.59…seriously?!)

Trader Joe’s – $19.30 (savings = $4.04)

Bakery Outlet – $9.87 (savings = $4.18)

A grand total of $93.40.  Over budget, but considering I saved over half as much as I spent I feel pretty good about it.  The bakery was for three bags of flour and we got two boxes of English Muffins free.  I can’t believe how much flour I’m going through and the outlet has the best price for times like this when I’m not catching a sale.  And as the husband has an English Muffin pretty much every single day with breakfast the freebies were a major bonus.

With my new flour I did make English Muffin bread which turned out excellently (according to the English Muffin expert), so I hope to be making that more and buying muffins less.

If anyone who actually knew me read this blog they would be convinced aliens had taken over my body.  Cooking, staying home with a kid all day, baking bread?  What happened to the girl with the plan?  The daily double latte?  The high heels and manicures?

Mr. Dylan, you were right.  The times, they are a-changin’.

Posted in Cooking, Menu Planning, Saving Money, Shopping, Simple Living Tagged: Cooking, Menu Planning, pizza, Ralphs, Saving Money, Shopping, Simple Living, Sprouts Farmers Market, Target ]]> http://compactbydesign.com/2009/06/15/monday-menus-and-more-11/feed/ 3 Leigh @ compactbydesign from-the-kitchen1 felix http://compactbydesign.com/2009/06/10/764/ http://compactbydesign.com/2009/06/10/764/#comments Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:05:42 +0000 Leigh @ compactbydesign http://compactbydesign.com/?p=764 ]]> I’m not a fan of online shopping.  I know it’s a great way to get deals, but it’s also a great way for me to get really frustrated.

Two days ago I was really frustrated.  Luckily, yesterday, karma was on my side and my world spun right again.  Tonight’s dinner is pizza.  Or at least I thought it was going to be, then I thought it might not be, now I think it’s back on.  I’m really quite excited by the idea because the husband (okay, yes, and I) loves pizza and to be able to make it at home seemed like a real treat.

(Karma?  Pizza?  What in the world does this have to do with online shopping?  Wait, I’m getting there.)

Last week I started my eBay search for a used pizza stone.  Good gracious, almost immediately I found one.  And the bidding time was almost up.  And it seemed really quite cheap.  So I jumped in.  I was going to get my pizza stone and still be out of the house in time to do all my errands.  After a brief bidding war the stone was mine.  I was feeling pretty good because even with shipping I paid less than what a stone would have cost me at Crate and Barrel.  (The only store I could buy new from as I had a gift card.  My rules, remember?)  In fact, I had just bought a pizza stone and peel with my gift card and was going to head right back to return the stone now that I’d found a Compact solution to my pizza problems.

Long story longer, my newly acquired, used, stone arrived.

Unfortunately it was not at all what I thought I was getting.  It was as advertised.  (Not like the time I ordered a used book from Amazon and got the correct title by the wrong author.)  It just wasn’t what I wanted.

I got caught up in the bidding excitement and overpaid for an item that I hadn’t done enough research on to be buying without supervision.

Local thrift store to the rescue.

The large, perfectly flat, pizza stone in the above picture was purchased for $5 (with stand) at a favorite thrifty up the street.  The much smaller, lipped, baking stone was overpaid for and required shipping.  (Sorry, it’s too embarrassing to tell you what I did end up paying.)

Can you see why I was less than thrilled with my initial score purchase?  As the seller did not specifically list this as a pizza stone, merely described it as perfect for baking and making pizza, I cannot fault her.  So for now I will hang on to it.  To remind me of the cost of acting in haste.

Yet somehow, I’ll still be making pizza tonight.  A nice, big pizza.

I really think we’re having pizza tonight because of a decision I made yesterday morning before even going to the thrift store.  I decided to tackle another creative endeavor.  When I let the creative juices flow I am usually in such a great mood.  How could the day not go well from there on?

Here are the wooden bead bracelets I made for the husband and myself.  (Typically husband won’t touch anything jewelry related.  He won’t even wear a watch.  Good thing his wedding ring is such a symbol of love and devotion – no restriction there.)

Wood = Earth.  It’s amazing the sense of calm afforded by connecting with the elements of nature.  I almost feel ready to take on childbirth.  Well, maybe not quite yet, I have to re-arrange the nursery one more time.

I’m not sure how it’s Monday already.  Or how I am so unprepared for this post.  Just when I was getting to the height of my organization game we really got off course with travel.  First it was Portland, which meant two weeks with half-capped menu plans, not to mention what it did to my weekly shopping.

Now, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.  Don’t get me wrong, I love when we make our lives interesting and do cool stuff.  But I don’t know which end is up with the shopping and food supply.  Not to mention our eating out budget.  Yikes.  I think we’re eating in until the second child turns 10.  He’s not born yet but it could take that long to catch up.  Or at least it feels like that right now.

So to kick off this week’s home cooking let’s see what we’ll be eating…

Monday:  salad w/ grilled chicken (this is George Foreman style grilling, I’m just not up to having a charcoal grill on the balcony of our apartment)

Tuesday:  no menu (I am out of the house and the husband has to fend for himself)

Wednesday:  chicken in soda & oj, peas, mashed potatoes (even though it’s a favorite I don’t have a recipe for this, I make it up as I go.  If it turns out well maybe I’ll list some pointers in the non-recipe section that I don’t have)

Thursday:  egg noodles with spinach & sausage (what is this?  I have no idea but I have these ingredients to use)

Friday:  stuffed salmon, stewed tomatoes

Saturday:  no menu (we are headed to the Angel’s game so probably bratwurst or giant hot dogs)

Okay, so we’re already looking at a night not eating at home.  I could suggest we not eat that night, but I don’t think it would go over well with the family.

As for the food budget last week, we were off to a good start but then I sent the husband out for a couple of items clearly marked on the shopping list.  That was my first mistake.  Apparently, frozen pizza, when on sale, is in the budget even if it’s not on the list.  Then, in some catatonic state I also wasn’t around for his shopping sprees at Ralph’s and Walgreens.  What was I thinking?  So I blame him for going over our budget.  And as a lesson (to him or me I’m not sure), he will be eating said frozen pizza on Tuesday I’m sure.

Our budget was $80, we spent…

Sprouts Farmers Market – $49.01 ($3 of which I get back when I return the cinnamon I didn’t need after all)

Vons – $15.59

Ralphs – $18.96

Walgreens – $29.98

At $30.54 over budget I have learned my lesson.  Granted, husband now has enough hair care product to last at least 4 months and 3 packages of english muffins in the freezer.  Now we just need to work on budget vs. sale items.

In other news, I saw this tip about cooking ground beef before freezing and thought it had some merit.  Enough to post it here.  I think I’d still need to keep some for actual hamburgers, it would be kind of hard to stick all those little pieces back together but other than that I liked the idea.

Do you have any quick tips that make cooking easier?  Especially when you don’t get off the computer until it’s after the time you had planned to have dinner on the table anyway?

Excuse me, I have to go make dinner.

Who?  What?  Why?  Well, I’ll tell you.  I have challenged my family to live one year without buying anything new.  No, that doesn’t mean we can’t go shopping.  It just means we aren’t adding to the overloaded consumer market.  It’s called The Compact.  Yes, I know it’s an age old concept of using flea markets, thrift stores and growing your own but this particular fountainhead is the brainstorm of a group of friends in San Francisco that decided to take recycling to the next level.  I had heard about their resolution several times but I was recently reminded of it and it just seemed to resonate as the right time to take the test for myself.  My family’s just along for the ride.  They think they agreed but it would have happened anyway.  Don’t tell them I said that.

So if that’s not enough I can give you a little more why I guess.  Let me think.  Why?  I love a challenge.  I think it’s a good idea to step back and look at how much stuff we buy and why.  I want to see if there are any good thrift stores in my area.  I want to change the world.  Okay, that was just to see if you were still paying attention.  I only want to change my impact on the world.  Baby steps.  Literally.  My baby has no idea what he’s in for.  Good thing he’s too young to want everything he sees just yet.  And as a bonus I will have that many fewer trips to Target with an over-tired, hungry, cranky child.  I am a little bummed about a year with no trips to Ikea though.  Actually I wonder how I will make it.  But I guess that’s just another why.

What can we buy?  The basics include food, health and safety.  So we still get to eat.  And that includes eating out.  Which is good because I need real pizza.  We also get to buy new underwear.  And socks.  Those are “health” purchases.  If you don’t agree don’t tell me.  It works for me.  My head spins trying to figure out everything that can be categorized as health and safety.

If you wonder about my sanity you’re not alone.  But I don’t care.  My family knows and they love me anyway.  If you want to see where this ride takes us feel free to check in on the progress here.  And wish me luck!