Menu Plan Monday

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day! Thanks for coming by and be sure to enter my Mahatma Rice Give-away HERE! There will be 3 winners chosen on 2/20!

I was out in my yard, the weather was beautiful around here yesterday so I thought I would get a bit of a jump start on some of those weeds that are ALREADY coming up in my Herb Garden and a BEE tried to get me! What the??? It's the middle of February! It's just so weird, last year we were literally buried under 60 inches of snow and this year, there are weeds and bees....

Anyway, since it looks like garden season is early this year some of my chores this week will be related to getting my garden spots ready (as the weather allows) and I think I might plant some lettuce and see what happens. It will be the first time I have ever planted something in February. If this keeps up, I am going to plant some Watermelon this year - another first since our growing season is usually too short for it. I am getting excited!

Here is what we are going to eat this week:

Breakfast will be Cereal, Orange slices and Toast. On Saturday and Sunday I try to make a big traditional breakfast (since my husband has the weekend off now) of Fried Eggs, Sausage or Bacon (sometimes both), Fried Potatoes and Pancakes or Toast.

Lunches will be Trout Salad (like Tuna but with Trout), Hot Dogs and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches for us at home, DH will get left overs for work.

Dinner Menu - Most of the main dishes are still being made from items out of the Pantry and Freezers.

Monday - Vacuum, dust, sort huge basket of clean socks and put away.
Tacos (making enough for 2 nights)
All the fixings

Tuesday - Mop, clean windows.
Smoked Sausage
Baked Beans
Corn bread muffins
Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Wednesday - Change beddings, wash.
Macaroni Taco Bake (from Org Junkies menu last week)
Green Salad
Cottage Cheese

Thursday - whatever is left around the house that needs to be done.
Pizza (of course!)
Snack Buffet
Green Salad (yes, again)

Friday - Clean off desk!
Baked Trout (the boys are fishing again so we need to start eating up what is already in the freezer)
Brown Rice Pilaf
Baked Squash

Saturday - Work and School laundry
Hamburgers w/all the fixings
More roasted Sweet Potatoes (use em or lose em)
Left over Baked Beans

Sunday - Get garbage out...try to get clothes put away - Im really bad about this part of the laundry process :(
Roasted Chicken (making 2 - we are having Chicken Enchiladas next week)
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Fresh Veg (what ever is on sale this week)

See more menus and recipes at the always awesome MPM event, hosted by Laura, the Organization Junkie!

Pantry shots

When we were de-frosting the freezer we also re-organized and took an inventory of our pantry to prepare for the Eat from the Pantry Challenge. Here are some photos, as you can see, is not a real pantry but a large set of shelves in the corner of my utility room. Our house was built in 1955 and apparently no one stored food in their kitchens back in those days because there is no place to store anything in it.

Here is how we have it organized:

Top shelf -
Dry Beans
Rice
Mac-n-cheese cups
Wacky Mac
Baking (flour, cornmeal, sugar, cake mixes, frosting etc.)
Peanut Butter and Jam


2nd shelf -
Pasta
Pasta mixes
Rice mixes
Canned/Jarred Tomatoes
Soup and Broth
Canned/Pouched Meats
Condiments
Stuffing mixes

3rd shelf -
Cereal/Breakfast items
Crackers/snackie stuff
Hamburger Helper
Canned Veg
Canned Beans
Seasoning packets
Onions

4th shelf -
Beverages
Oil
Some extra kitchen pots and pans

Bottom shelf -
more pots and pans, extra Kitchen appliances.

Menu Plan Monday: Eat from the Pantry Challenge week 2

Many thanks to I am an organizing junkie for hosting the MPM event and to Money Saving Mom and Life as Mom for hosting the Eat from the Pantry Challenge.

We are in week 2 of the challenge and it has been going pretty well, if you don't count the budget wrecking trip to Costco on Saturday. Jeez!

And, last week's organization project got bagged. My parents are kind of in the middle of a remodeling project in their apartment, and the utility room is torn up, so instead of organizing the Christmas Decorations and wrappings, I got my office organized and cleaned up instead. To be honest, it really needed it quite badly, it had been several months since it had been done or done well. I am please to share that I am sitting at a clean desk (hey, its actually made out of wood!) while composing this post :) No bets on how long it will last though.

This week's organization project: Get my coupon binder back together!!

Additional goals for this week: Start planning Colby's bed room re-do and thinking about next year's garden.

Breakfasts this week will be cereal, eggs, toast.

Lunches this week will be left overs (if any), soups and sandwiches.

Sunday Recap from last week:
Hamburger Helper, Salad, Garlic toast - didn't happen. After Friday's from the Pantry Dinner, we didn't feel like doing another noodley kind of supper. Instead, we did an Appetizer night in front of the TV. We almost never eat away from the table, so it was a bit of a treat.

Shopping list to complete dinner menu:
ham hock
salad greens

Dinner menu and chore list for this week:

Monday - vacuum and dust
Enchiladas from the freezer
Cottage Cheese
Corn

Tuesday - windows and mirrors
Split Pea Soup
Toast

Wednesday - mop
Tacos with Indian Fry Bread and Taco fixings
make enough for 2 nights

Thursday - sort dirty clothes
Baked Chicken Thighs
Butternut Squash Ravioli

Friday - wash household laundry (towels, sheets...hope the dryer is fixed by then)
Taco Pie
Salad

Saturday - wash work and school clothes
Breakfast for Dinner featuring Sour Dough Pancakes, Yummy!

Sunday - get garbage out, put away clean clothes
Foil Wrapped Steak Dinner - New! Perfect pantry recipe :)

$30.00 a week - maybe...not?

Don't look at my dirty utility room. Normally, I take photos in the kitchen but all the heavy stuff had already been taken down to the pantry and it was just easier to take the other stuff down then to bring the heavy stuff up.

I had to do some shopping today, we were getting really low on things that we cannot live with out, and I realized after checking out the sale papers better that I was not going to be able to get all that I needed at the grocery store.

That created a problem: a few of the items we needed were not on sale at any of the grocery stores this week and/or I did not have any coupons for them. Solution: Costco. It's Saturday and I hate going to Costco on Saturdays. Sucked it up and went to Costco anyway.

At Costco we purchased:

1.25 Gallons of Canola Oil @ $7.99
#10 bottle of Ketchup @ $4.25
48 oz. Folgers Coffee @ $7.99
1000 feet of Tin Foil@ $20.99 (ouch!!)
3000 feet of Plastic Wrap @ $11.99

Tax = $2.87 for a total of $56.08.

This doesn't sync with the $30.00 per week budget, and I am not sure about counting paper products anyway, but I decided that I would because the Oil, Tin Foil and Plastic Wrap will actually last us for the rest of the year.

Here is how I am reconciling with spending that much money:

Based on 52 weeks,

The Oil works out to .14 cents per week
The Tin Foil works out to .40 cents per week
The Plastic Wrap works out to .23 cents per week.

Hopefully, the Coffee will last for 2 weeks but that might be pushing it. If it does, it works out to $4.00 per week.

And, if I'm really lucky, the Ketchup will last 6 weeks, and that is really really pushing it since in this house, it's not a condiment, it's a side dish. That makes it .71 cents per week.

So, from this particularly twisted perspective, we actually only spent $5.48 out of the weekly budget.

Moving on, Albertsons.

We did 2 transactions but I am going to put it all together just to make the math easier...for me...

2 packages of Yo-plus yogurt @ $1.49 each = $2.98
6 boxes of Rice-a-Roni @ $1.00 each = $6.00
4 cans of Cream of Mushroom soup @ .50 cents each = $2.00
2o lbs. of Potatoes (I was wrong about thinking I had purchased 10 lbs. at Winco last Saturday, it was actually only 5 lbs) @ .99 cents each = $1.98
Daisy Sour Cream @ $2.69
10 lbs. of Sugar @ $4.39

Subtotal = $20.04

Minus:
$1.00/3 Rice-a-Roni x 2 (1/3 RP, exp. 4/30) = $2.00
$1.00/1 Yo-plus x 2(1/3 GM insert, exp. 2/27) = $2.00
.50 cents/1 Daisy Sour Cream (12/13 SS, exp. 1/31) = .50 cents
Albertsons Doublers x 5 = $4.50

Coupon subtotal = $9.00

Total for both orders = $11.04

Again, I am living with this because I know that we will not be eating up 20 lbs. of Potatoes in the next week. We will eat around 5 lbs., making the cost of the Potatoes this week .49 cents. The Potatoes will last for 4 weeks.

We certainly won't be eating 6 boxes of Rice-a-Roni this week, probably not even once a week, so they have the potential of last 6 weeks or longer, making them .32 cents per week after the coupons and doubler. Maybe not even that considering we actually got an overage of $1.02 on the yogurt, that pays for 3 boxes right there. So, its more like we paid .16 cents per week.

The soup will last at least 4 weeks, making it .50 cents per week.

The sugar should last 4 months, making it .27 cents per week.

Since we were paid to grab the yogurt, I am not going to count that in this week's budget.

The Sour cream will probably be used up this week, but after coupons and with doubler, it was $1.69.

Looking at it this way, we spent $3.11 at Albertsons from this week's budget.

And, I guess if you look at it this way, we only spent $8.59 of this week's budget. Right?

I know, I am really really reaching hard here to justify spending over $70.00...

It's not eating from the Pantry that's the challenge; IT'S COOKING FROM IT!

That's right...now, I knew last Sunday when I was planning the menu for this week that there were going to be days that we had to get creative.

Today was one of those days. This is what I had to work with:

1 lb. of ground beef, in the form of patties that my husband had been given by a sales rep.

1/2 lb. of Tri-tip that we found in the freezer that had to be used or tossed, it was dated way back to April 09.

A bag of egg noodles.

And after that, I didn't know what was going to happen. So, my mom and I were talking this morning about what was going to be for dinner and she went into the office and found this cookbook.


It's old, published in 1961. I couldn't remember where I picked it up at. Back track for a second here, I am a cookbook whore. I have a big box full of them that I have picked up at Thrift Stores and Yard sales for the last 20 years. I only recently boxed them because I started using Cooks.com, it is so much easier to search for recipes on this site then to dig through a million books looking for one.

So, she started reading it and found a recipe called Burger-Noodle Bake. Perfect!

Here is the recipe:

1 lb. Ground Beef
1/2 lb. Ground Pork
2/3 c. finely chopped onion
2 cans of condensed Tomato Soup
3 oz. cream cheese, cut into cubes
2 TBLS sugar
2-3 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tsp. salt

8 oz. wide noodles

Topping:
1/2 cup corn flake crumbs
1 TBLS butter, melted.
Mix and set aside.

BTW, that boy that keeps showing up in my photos was not part of the ingredient list. He's just the resident camera ham.

I didn't have any ground pork, so I just used the hamburger patties (crumbled) and the Tri-tip that I ground up in the food processor. I didn't have any cream cheese, so I used some Mascarpone (Italian Cream Cheese)that was left over from the Holidays. And, I didn't have any corn flake crumbs, so I used regular old bread crumbs. I also reduced to sugar to 1 TBLS since the Mascarpone is a bit sweeter then regular cream cheese anyway.

Here is how it goes together:

Combine the meats and brown in a skillet, drain off the fat. Add the onion and cook till tender. Add soup, cheese, sugar and salt. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, cook the noodles in boiling water until tender, drain and combine with sauce. Put the mixture in a greased casserole dish. Top with the crumb mixture, bake for 20 minutes or until hot at 350 degrees.

Here is the result. It wasn't that bad. It was actually quite good. We had it with baked Acorn squash and green salad. There is enough left over that we can toss some shredded cheese on it and re-fashion it for tomorrow. I think...this might actually be the original Hamburger Helper! What I really liked about this recipe is that it had a lot of wiggle room. It was still tasty even though we didn't have the exact ingredients called for, and as far as I am concerned that makes it a Pantry Winner!!

So, since I am on this Pantry kick, I thought I would share another winner I devised this week.

While inventorying, I found a bag of Peanut Butter Cookie Mix I got when I did my Fred Meyer Give Away last summer. Couldn't let that get wasted. I added some Party Peanuts (purchased at Walgreens a couple weeks ago for .99 cents) and some chopped up little Nestle Crunch Bars left over from Halloween.

Then, I rolled out walnut size cookies and froze them for later use. I don't need 3 dozen cookies just sitting around here waiting to get stuck to my butt.

If I do say so myself, they turned out pretty good too :) I am the first person to admit that I can't don't won't bake, so I actually did impress myself.

If anyone was wondering, here is what that freaky Raisin Cream - aka - Rat turd Pie looks like. My dad loves it though, my poor mom has made 2 already this week, as well as 2 Pumpkin Pies and 1 Apple Pie. The man loves his pie, and I'm sure the ladies down at the Franz store are missing him!

Eat from the Pantry Challenge, week 1 update

Last Friday, January 1st, we started participating in the Eat from your Pantry Challange co-hosted by Money Saving Mom and Life as Mom . We had inventoried our Pantry and our freezers as well. We have 3 freezers in this house.

This is freezer #1, in the main kitchen (we also have 2 kitchens in this house). It really doesn't have a lot of room in it as it is the skinny side of the side by side fridge.

I like to keep the convenience foods in it, like the frozen pizzas, toaster strudels etc., as well as items that I know I will be using in the next few days for meals.


This is the "main" freezer and is used primarily just for meat. It was due for a good cleaning out and we lucked out with the weather. It was cold enough outside to empty it, inventory it and store the food in a cooler for a couple days while the freezer was defrosting.

The top shelf is beef, the 2nd shelf is pork, the 3rd shelf is fish and sausage, and the bottom shelf is poultry.


The last freezer is in the second kitchen and used for produce, bread, dairy and those containers are full of Maryann's Baked Beans (I still haven't gotten around to asking her if I could share the recipe - these are the best Baked Beans on the planet!) And there is also a couple containers of Chicken Chili, which is also an easy and cheap pantry dinner.

It was good going through the freezers to see what all was there. I had lost track of it for a while and it really needed to be done, and was essential to being able to commit to this challenge as well. I am quite confident that we are going to make it through a good chunk of this month, if not the whole thing.

We are also on track with the $30.00 budget this week. We only need to get some milk today and thankfully it is on sale at Yokes today for $1.88 a gallon. That will put us at $24.65 spent this week and gives us an additional $5.35 for next week, which is good because we are perilously low on Ketchup, Oil, Sugar and Coffee. We could probably go with out the Oil and Sugar but there will be hell to pay around here if we run out of Ketchup and Coffee :(

Menu Plan Monday: Week 1 of the Eat from your Pantry Challenge!

Happy 2010!!

Many thanks to the Orgjunkie for hosting the MPM event. This week is also the first week that we are participating in the January 2010 Eat from the Pantry Challenge hosted by Money Saving Mom as well.

I don't know if it is because it is a new year or because we have been having some un-usually warm weather around here. It has been over 40 degrees on some days, which is considerably different then last year at this time when we had over 5 feet of snow on the ground! But, if feels like spring time and I feel like getting stuff organized. I know I am not the only one, I have been talking to friends and neighbors that are saying the same thing. It's weird....so in addition to planning this week's menu, I have also scheduled out some chores and projects that I want to get done as well.

This week's Organization goal: Sort out Christmas decorations and wrappings, put away.

Additional Goal: Cook 2 meals in the crock pot this week.

Breakfasts this week will be cereal, eggs, toast, bacon/sausage.

Lunches this week will be extra leftovers, soups and sandwiches. Colby has lunch at preschool Monday - Thursday.

Snacks and treats this week are this weird Raisin Cream Pie that Mom made for Dad to keep him out of the Franz bread outlet, and Rice crispy treats for Colby. We also have alot of cheese, sausage and crackers left over from the holidays to finish.

Sunday Recap from last week:
Crockpot Rotisserie roasted Chicken
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes, Gravy
Update: It was delicious!

Monday - Vacuum and dust
Baked Spaghetti with meatballs (they are left over from the New Year's Eve Appetizer night)
Green Salad
Garlic Muffins (new recipe found surfing the MPM event from last week!)

Tuesday - Clean the oven
Chicken Stew (made from Sunday's leftovers)

Wednesday - Polish appliances, mop
Leftovers

Thursday - Grocery shopping
Pork Sirloin Chops (in the crockpot)
Baked Potatoes
Green Salad or Green Beans

Friday - Household laundry
Beef Noodle Bake (Pantry dish, will try to post a recipe when I come up with one)
Baked Squash

Saturday - Wash work and school clothes
Leftovers

Sunday - Clean out fridge, get garbage out
Hamburger Helper
Corn
Garlic toast

Go check out I am an organizing Junkie for recipes, menu plans and dinner ideas from around the world. I like looking at the ones from the U.K. - Some of the ingredient combinations are....interesting.

January 2010 Eat from the Pantry Challenge

Money Saving Mom is hosting an "Eat from your pantry Challenge" during the month of January and my mom and I decided to participate. Its perfect timing for us as the freezers are full and the pantry is exploding with so much stuff that if we don't start eating it down it is going to go bad and that would simply be criminal. I didn't work so hard to get so much for so little money just to throw it away!

We have 2 primary goals in this challenge:

#1 - Stay out of the grocery stores as much as possible, purchasing only what is required fresh, i.e., milk, eggs, cheese and produce.

#2 - Spend no more then $30.00 per week on those fresh items.

Now, if we do happen upon an outstanding deal for something that we know for a fact will be used in future months, we will go ahead and purchase it for future use, but from January 1 through January 31, all of our meals made at home will be made with what is primarily already in the house. It's out with the old!!

Considering what all we do have, I don't foresee this being a problem. At least not for my mom and I, but my dad is carrying on a luv affair with the Franz Bread Outlet store right now - it's those dang Cyrus O'Learys pies for $3.99 on Saturday! As a peace gesture toward my father, we will be baking his pies and precious Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. Not that I really care to bake that much, but we have everything that is needed and my mom does make a very tasty pie crust.

My husband has been known to sneak meat home from work. It will be a lot harder for him to get away with it this month because I just inventoried the freezers and I know EXACTLY what is in them so he won't be able to tell me that those extra steaks have been there for a few weeks. Yeah - he's done that...and I believed him!

There are no set rules for participating in this challenge, in fact, you are encouraged to do what ever works best for you and your family and you can do it for as little as 1 week or the whole month. We are shooting for the whole month :)

Many thanks to the Money Saving Mom for hosting the challenge and providing the inspiration needed to get the freezer and pantry cleaned out!