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I thought we would be into the fresh food by now but we’re still waiting to spend a couple days in the maternity ward so limited produce in the fridge. Let’s see what we’ll be eating…
Monday: salad (1 head of lettuce to use up)
Tuesday: burgers & beans (need to make buns)
Wednesday: pizza (toppings TBD)
Thursday: bratwurst (will attempt hot dog style buns with the Tuesday baking)
Friday: stir fry
Saturday: tuna casserole
Sunday: buttermilk pancakes
Mix-ins, toppings and sides are really loose around here. What needs to be used, when do we get to the store and what fits within the timing of making dinner.
My brother was visiting and (I hope) enjoyed the fruits of my menu planning. He was surprised and impressed (I think) that we are having weekly home-made pizza. I love doing it because I know the husband loves having it. I’m still searching for the perfect crust but it’s a fun (and tasty) search.
But what I was getting at was that it has really helped me to have a couple of “tradition” days like Wednesday and Sunday (pizza and breakfast), so I can concentrate on only 5 other meals. I’m still not that imaginative with my menus, I’m taking it slow. Actually, I think I was more imaginative in the beginning of this process. As I’ve spent the last 4 weeks expecting a baby any day (as if I have any say in the matter) I’ve lost some of my momentum for thinking up tasty meals. I’m so lucky to have a husband who will eat just about anything. And say it’s wonderful.
Our budget was $80, we spent…
Sprouts Farmers Market – $42.66 (no savings 
I forgot my bags, so no credits there)
Trader Joe’s – $12.84
Vons – $17.54 (savings = $11.77)
Ralphs – $5.99 (savings = $0.90)
Costco – $35.73 (applesauce, butter, beer)
CVS – $11.90 (savings = $11.76)
A grand total of $126.88. Definitely over our budget but what you can’t see is the 3 month supply of applesauce and husband’s body soap, 3 month supply of beer and probably month long supply of butter depending on how much baking I do. So, considering Costco and CVS were bulk buys and not a weekly expense I’m okay with where we are at. Except for the issue of forgetting my bags at Sprouts. It’s a pretty rare problem ever since I opened up about it, but it definitely annoys me when it happens.
My mother-in-law has been visiting on the heels of my brother. (Both in hopes of helping with Toddler L during our days away, as if that has worked out for us – NOT.) When she was last in town I had a batch of Artisan Bread in the fridge and made some for dinner. Even with my beginner challenges it was such a success she has made it twice in the month since. I am thrilled to have introduced this great bread basic to a woman who is known for real baking on a regular basis and making bread whenever she has the whim. MIL says this is so easy she’s a true convert (at least for the great bread-with-meal loaves). If you haven’t checked out the book or the website/blog and tried it yourself you’re really missing out.
Don’t worry I say that as a slow convert myself. But really, yuuuummmmmmmmmmmm.
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’.
This weekend had all the makings of being perfect. I got a truly wonderful surprise on Saturday when a group of friends had a surprise baby shower for me. I don’t expect those kinds of things and I certainly didn’t expect this. I hadn’t even considered having a shower as we have so much from our first for the new baby to use.
Occasionally I have been given to some apprehension about having a baby in a year we decided to buy nothing new. But the few items we would not have been able to find used were just gifted to us (thanks again ladies!!) and I think we are pretty much set. We were given a gift card to a favorite kids consignment store as well as a renowned kids store – Crate and Barrel. (What?, that’s what the card said.) (I will admit though, my first thought [okay second thought, right after YEEESSSSS!], was how expensive everything was going to seem.)
The husband and Toddler L gave me a cake and a glorious bouquet of flowers from our neighborhood, independent florist. And after a strict reminder that I would appreciate NOT getting a store-bought card, husband went into the card drawer (we have many blank cards from pre-Compact days) and found something perfect.
Alas, the weekend did not carry through quite as beautifully and I haven’t been able to write or do all that I would have normally written or done.
I have no menu plan for the week. Right now, I’m leaving it as a fill in the blank. If you’d like, feel free to make suggestions. I have moderate cooking skills, basic staples and foods and no imagination at the moment.
Let’s see what we’ll be eating…
Sunday:
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
Saturday:
Perhaps we will simply have Mother’s Day cake every day.
Yes, I think we might.
As for the number of stores visited this week just to do our grocery shopping, YEE GADS. I know. But we walked to one and all others (minus one) were directly en route to other destinations. And with savings like what we saw at CVS (3 boxes of favorite cereal 88¢ each), Ralph’s (6 boxes Barilla pasta 99¢ each) and Walgreens (husband’s preferred deodorant 27¢) it’s hard to not make a quick pitstop sometimes.
Our budget was $80, we spent…
Sprouts Farmers Market – $27.91 (savings = $0.15)
Vons – $7.69 (savings = $4.80)
Ralphs – $5.94 (savings = $9.80)
Walgreens – $2.27 (savings = $2.50 + $2.00 credit | original cost $4.49+tax…final cost $0.27)
Target – $1.84 (savings = $4.49)
Cost Savers – $14.49
Trader Joe’s – $11.62
CVS – $2.64 (savings = $10.93)
Bakery Outlet – $4.18
Costco – $46.93
So, before Costco we spent $78.58 , still under budget. But Costco pushed us over. I’m still trying to figure out how to work the Costco trips into our budget. We didn’t really buy that much, just 5 items. But the savings made it worth while for sure. I probably would have spent about $16.00 for just a portion of these items if I had bought them this week at another store. Now I don’t have to buy them for at least a week or several months depending on the product.
I’m figuring about $30 extra spending due to the Costco trip. If I allow myself that much over budget for a monthly trip I can plan to work at keeping the remaining weeks as much under budget as possible. Typically, I’m pretty happy staying under budget, but this scenario would have me really working to keep it as low as possible. I don’t know how feasible this is but it’s the current thinking.
What do you think?
Do you warehouse? As I was considering the inherent value in this I found a post on the very subject over at Money Saving Mom. Apparently there is great debate over buying in bulk. Who knew?
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.
WHAT’S BEEN SAID