Five Things Friday

  1. This has been one of the busiest weeks this year!  Monday was Zach’s ballgame, Tuesday a long dentist appointment, Wednesday- church, Thursday- Hair cuts and Braxton ballgame.  Today we are trying to get ahead on some outside chores as it is suppose to rain in the morning!
  2. The weather has decided to try again. It was 45* on Wednesday and 73* yesterday. I am hopeful that we stay at least in the sixties for highs from here on out.
  3. We have eaten out twice this week, Monday I picked up roast beef sandwiches and Tuesday we ate at Cracker Barrel. Wednesday- we ate $5 meals from Cracker Barrel so that really is three days of meal out!
  4. This evening, I knew we needed to use up most of the produce and I wanted to try and get some breakfast meals in the freezers. For dinner, we had breakfast bowls with onions, green peppers, sausage, tomatoes, hash browns and homemade gravy. I used the remaining mixture to make 16 breakfast burritos and then cooked some potatoes and made 16 “add a egg bowls as well.”
  5. We are in the single digits until our Disney trip!

Saving on Saturday

So, an interesting fact is that I have not done a “Saving on Saturday” since December 10th!  That is 11 weeks!

Today we focused on food!  Not wasting and making the best possible use of the space and food we have.

To start the day, I found a container of “French Toast” mixture in the freezer.  I combined it with half a loaf French bread purchased at Walmart yesterday.   I knew that I needed to clean out both the refrigerators today as well. I did have to throw out a couple of serving of chocolate pudding and Almond milk that expired in October 2022.  I did find several containers of taco dip from “Junk Food Sunday”.  In order for this not to go bad, I decided to make some elbow pasta and combine with some canned beef, to make a taco pasta.  I will count this as a win!

We have decided to can up some ground beef for convivence and to free up space in the freezers.   We currently have 23 pints of canned beef and 1 half pint of beef.   I also made 14 bacon cheddar burgers and froze those for our Disney Trip.

When I put it on paper it does not look like a lot but I am exhausted so I know it was work!

5 Things Friday

  1. This has been a very long stressful week!  Matt’s surgery was on Tuesday and with me having a half a day workday on Thursday, I have remained confused and exhausted all week. Wednesday we attended a student’s vs staff basketball game at Zach’s school. Thursday, I delivered a meal to a friend. I am looking forward to a slower weekend.
  2. The meal plan was totally derailed however I am happy to report that we have not gone out to eat during this stressful week. Today, I stopped at a bakery and purchased several pieces of cake instead.  We have been using up left-overs and eating at home!
  3. It is time to start thinking and planning for our garden this summer. In fact, we already have some lettuce growing and have planted green peppers. No green peppers have sprouted but I am hoping this was not a waste of time. We plan to start tomatoes from seed on Monday.  I have decided not to plant sweet potatoes this year. We have been cooking up and packaging the remaining ones from the garden. Currently we have 11 pounds packaged up with another 4 or 5 pounds that need to be cooked and packaged.  This is more than enough to last us another year.  Now to decide what to plant instead!
  4. I do have plans for outside tomorrow. Matt’s building for his beetle needs two more pieces of tin placed on top. I need to trim the rose bushes, plant the strawberry plants and raspberry canes that arrived in the mail today. These are both replacements for items I purchased last spring that did not survive.
  5. The chickens are laying! We are currently receiving 4 eggs on a daily basis. On Wednesday, I made a huge breakfast bowl. After dinner I was able to package up 10 additional burritos that we can enjoy in the weeks to come!

Successful Sunday

Sunday are usually a less stressful day around here. Today was less stressful but I am so happy with all we were able to get accomplished that I wanted to share.

We did the usual of course, church and lunch out! Then we came home and I got an hour nap which was much needed!
This afternoon, Matt worked on getting some plants started in our living room. I live in zone 7b, which means we have long summers but still not long enough to grow a ton of peppers. So this year, we are trying something different. We have sown approximately 35 pepper seeds in our living room. I am not currently planning to purchase any seeds this year so I am hoping that we get at least 15 pepper plants to grow!   I did purchase a grow mat to keep under the seeds until they germinate.  Matt also planted a batch of lettuce seeds.  If we get to eat some leaves I will be happy if not we have only wasted time.
We ended up purchasing a Costco chicken yesterday an ate for dinner. Last night I pulled off all the meat and threw the skin and bones in the crockpot. They finished 18 plus hours this morning before we left for church.  This afternoon I was able to can up 9 pints of chicken booth and used the remaining bit for dinner and for a chicken pot pie later this week. I used the remaining meat from the chicken along with several bowls of vegetable soup I found in the freezer to make a chicken pot pie. I will add a topping for dinner on Wednesday this week.
Matt was able to fry up 6 pounds of ground beef on the Blackstone. I used a pound for green pepper soup, a pound for a taco casserole I am going to try this week and the remaining 4 turned into my chili.  I ended up canning 5 pints of chill with one left out to use for Junk Food Sunday.
This week gets slightly more busy with baseball workouts starting but we no longer have swim in the morning.

Monday Menu Planning

Week 3 of the Pantry Challenge and I have two exciting things to share. First my children have decided to stalk my blog to figure out what we are eating!  Second we don’t have any night events this week!  And finally, we have managed a three day weekend with only our scheduled meal out!  We will be using up left-over sides for most meals this week.

Breakfast- Saturday- bacon, sausage, eggs and toast, Sunday-left-overs Monday- pancakes and sausage, Tuesday Wednesday and Friday- find it oatmeal, omelets cereal and milk, French toast sticks, bagels, breakfast burritos and pancakes. Thursday- homemade bagels or baked oatmeal.

Lunch- Saturday-Everything pigs in blanket and cucumbers Sunday-Panda Panda, Monday- Quesadilla and Mexican street corn, Tuesday Beef liver and onions, Wednesday- sandwich or roll up, Thursday- taco soup Friday- out to eat

Dinner- Saturday-Beef ribs, baked beans, 7-layer salad green beans and corn bread.  Sunday- Potato Sausage Soup from Freezer, Monday-Broiled Fish, and green beans Tuesday- Shake and Bake Pork Chops   Wednesday- Hamburger Helper, Thursday- Kielbasa and Rice Friday-Grilled chicken and pasta salad.

 

5 Things Friday- Pantry Challenge Update

  1.  One of the things that I had given myself prior to the pantry challenge was that if 2L Diet Cokes went on sale for under $1 I would plan to stock up.  If you have been around here for any length of time you know this is my drink of choice. Late Friday night I received a text from my Mom that Food Lion was having a one-day sale on coke products.  After a swim meet, we (Matt, Lily, Zach and I) went into Food Lion and each purchased the limit of 10. Matt actually purchased Dr. Pepper, so I have “only” 30 Diet Cokes.  This puts our grocery total up to $50.46.
  2. One of the reasons, I have heard several people use for participating in the Pantry Challenge is to discover where you have holes in your pantry.  The very first hole was toothpaste.  That is now on my Amazon subscribe and save list. Yes, I am paying for toothpaste for the first time in almost 10 years but hopefully we will not run out again. The awesome thing about subscribe and save is once I get stocked up I can cancel and restart if needed or simply skip for 6 months. The second items that we discovered needed to be on subscribe and save was liquid soap. The good news is that we had enough credits on Amazon that this was a no cost item!
  3. A pleasant and fugal surprise this week was discovering 9 eggs in our chicken coop. We decided to enjoy these on the day they were discovered. This meant we switched up our menu plan for the week and had breakfast for dinner!
  4. My master list of repeat dinners has grown to nine!  The goal is that after we have eaten a meal if everyone enjoys, we can add it to our master list, and these can become items/meals we repeat at least once per month.
  5. I went grocery shopping in the freezers today. We are doing excellent with eating and re-arranging. Zach is a little concerned, but I think we are doing well!  Second biggest accomplishment of the day/. No Amazon deliveries scheduled until the 28th!

Saving on Saturday

A constant theme for my blog has always been the rising cost of food!  I have managed to keep our average monthly spending on groceries to around $500 to $700 for many years even with two babies in diapers.  But wow this year, things are going crazy.   We purchased a whole cow, and the garden has set a record but that has not been enough to control the spending.  All five of us eat breakfast, lunch and dinner from our supplies most days. Lily is home and can use water or something here but everyone else takes drinks to work and school.  We made a trip to Costco at the first of October to purchase mainly drinks. I grabbed a package of bath tissue because well because. I spent a total of $448 for this trip. I am in total shock! So again, I am trying to focus on reducing/ maintaining the cost of food!

We have actually been working on emptying our freezers since September and I can finally see a difference. We can now arrange the vegetable freezer so that things are not falling out and we have most of the meat in the chest freezer. As I was grabbing beef broth, I realized we were almost out.  I did not have room for the bones when I ordered the cow and we don’t have any steaks with bones. I did find multiple packs of short ribs.  The plan is to make the short ribs today and then use the bones for broth to can tomorrow.    I can’t remember if I post that we ended up cleaning out the hall clothes of towels and sheets and made it a food storage cabinet mainly for canning!

We had at least two nights this week with the temperature below freezing, so last Saturday, I pulled all the green tomatoes inside and feed the vines to the chickens.  I ended up dicing up several that had ripened to use in our stuff green pepper soup planned for Sunday. And stewed the remained that were ripe for Taco pasta on Tuesday!  Using it before it goes to waste or chicken feed in this case.

We have a set of lights that is currently not working in the kitchen/ dining room. Matt has been spending time trying to locate the problem.  It is a time-consuming task but at $100 an hour for an electrician, it is definitely a money saving endeavor.

Saving On Saturday

Today was a very rainy and dreary day.  The perfect time to catch up on some meal preparation and food preservation.

  • Matt and I took 2 packages of cube steak from our previous cow purchase, breaded and deep fried them. They will be used for steak biscuits for breakfast for the next 6 months or so.
  • I went ahead and meal prepped for the week. Stuffed green peppers, grilled chicken and bacon cheddar burgers are all ready to go.
  • Sorted through and combined items in the freezers in the house as well as the chest freezer. The plan is to purchase as little as possible over the next 8 months and use the food we have in our freezers and pantry.
  • Soaked and cooked a bag of black beans that Matt can use in his chill. (We have 2 cans of beans so this should last awhile.
  • Packaged up gravy from breakfast into can size bags for use with breakfast pizza. I purchased a single can of gravy to use and it was $2.09…. our breakfast left-overs saved us $5.

We debated but decided against turning off the a/c. The humidity is still really high, and it feels sticky outside.  I will continue to watch the weather and as soon as we are below 80 degrees consistently, we will open the windows.

The kids all caught up on laundry, which means less stress for me.

Remember it is the small things that add up!

Menu Planning on Tuesday!

The focus this week and for most of the month of August will be no food waste!  I am working hard to find ways to use what we have and are growing but also to save a little each day for the future.

One explanation- we have been getting breakfast at Biscuit King on Saturday morning which allows us to get outside and get a couple hours of work in prior to it getting unbearably hot.

Breakfast- Saturday- Biscuit King   Sunday- Sausage and eggs on the Blackstone as we did not have electricity.  Monday- Smoothies Tuesday- Homemade Everything bagels   Wednesday- Breakfast burritos Thursday- find it in the freezer, which includes muffins, French toast sticks, bagels, breakfast burritos and pancakes. Friday- Banana muffins

Lunch- Saturday-BLTs Sunday-Greggs   Monday- Leftovers   Tuesday- Summer lunch which included squash, zucchini, cantaloupe and strawberries.  Wednesday- Eat out as we will be back to school shopping.  Thursday- Leftovers or sandwiches, Friday-salad.

Dinner- Saturday-Cheddar Bacon Burgers. Sunday- Roast Beef sliders Monday- Spaghetti with homemade sauce.  Tuesday Chicken Pot pie   Wednesday- Insta pot hamburger helper.  Thursday- Pasta salad Friday-Steaks and baked potatoes.

Holiday Plans

This holiday (4th of July) weekend, we have been focusing on some project around the house.  First was installing a bike rake on the trailer.  We also ended up replacing some of the trailer wiring and working on a couple of the bikes. Next was finishing up the kitchen floor, we ended up removing the top layer that has been in place for 2 years. The ultimate goal is the replace this floor but first we need to have a bathroom floor replaced and we also need to decide what we want to replace the floor with.  The other big project will be to finish up the chicken coop area.

While most of this has not been frugal it is needed. We have been able to cook and eat at home for all meals except one and all have been under $5 each.

Saturday breakfast– pancakes
Saturday Lunch– Steak um sandwich- pack of steak-um was $4.97 from Aldi, used a green pepper and onion already here. Zach and I ate on hot dog buns that needed to be used, Matt and Lily used hamburger buns that needed to be used.
Saturday Dinner– I made scallop potatoes and ham. The ham is from the freezer so completely free.
Sunday Lunch- We has squash from the garden, I added onion and a pack of stew beef (purchased on clearance last year) that needed to be used this week.  We also cooked rice. We will sauté another squash on the Blackstone and have a second meal from these.
Sunday Dinner- BLT sandwiches, we have our fresh tomatoes from the garden again lettuce from another meal that needed to be used.
Monday Breakfast- Sausage patties (purchased for $2.34 on clearance) and eggs on bread. We also have an excess of bread this week.

The current plan is for Monday lunch and dinner to be from the refrigerator to use up left-overs. We could also have tomato sandwich or chicken salad or pimento cheese sandwiches as well.

Here to finishing up some projects!