JUNE Food Stamp Challenge....Days Eight & Nine

 This post is part of the June Food Stamp Challenge located over HERE.


Again I am having to show ya'll a photo of leftovers.....sigh.....get it together Sluggy for pete's sake!lol

This was dinner on Tuesday...Day Eight.  The only reason we had leftovers is because #2 son had an Orthodontist appointment that afternoon and his teeth didn't feel like eating that evening so he had soup and applesauce instead.

If you guessed that this is Spaghetti and Meatballs you are only partially correct.  It's actually faux meatballs or meatless balls.  They sure look like meatballs and with the sauce on them they sure taste like meatballs(albeit less dense than my homemade meatballs).....but they have no meat.
They do have dairy in them however.....alot of dairy!
(cheese, egg and a dash of milk)
The recipe is posted on my bloggy friend Annie Jones's blog HERE.
I can attest that these are VERY GOOD.  The teens didn't know they were meatless until I told them.  I did double the batch and making my usual sized meatballs, the mixture made 20 meatballs total.  Everyone got a serving of 4 meatless balls with their pasta and sauce.
I think next time I'll tweak this recipe by chopping or grinding up some rolled oats and adding that to the mix as well as coating them with the rolled oats.

Making the traditional Spaghetti and Meatballs sans meat is one way to bring the cost down when you serve this meal.  Meat products are by far as a group the most expensive items in a food budget.  If you are living on Food Stamps you need to be frugal with your purchases if your EBT is going to last the entire month.
The cost of this meal for the ingredients I haven't bought during my June food shopping came to $4.00(counting #2 son's food).
(I served a salad along with the Pasta just so you know we did have veggies too.)

Wednesday's dinner plan was a disaster.
I had planned on serving the Turkey that night....but the Turkey had other plans of it's own.
I still wasn't thawed. ugh
So I went to the next night's plan which was Sloppy Joes and pulled a package of Ground Beef out of the freezer.
And that refused to thaw in time.
Plus I had planned on making rolls today for tomorrow's Sloppy Joes but the rainy humid day was NOT conducive for baking today.

So 2 hours before dinner I pulled out a tupperware container of leftover BBQ Pulled Pork, popped it into a glass bowl and set it on defrost in the microwave since I didn't have much time left.
After 2 rounds of nuking, I discovered that my BBQ Pork was NOT BBQ Pork.....it was leftover homemade Chili!!
Hey, frozen into a solid block they looked the same, ok?lol

So we changed the plan again.  Now we were having chili and burritos with a side of corn.
But I had no burritos.
This meant a quickly thrown together plan for a trip to the grocery store.
There were some things I wanted to pick up at Weis this week on sale that I had coupons for, so that's where I went....

1 x 1/2 Gallon Skim Milk=$1.59--we were almost out of milk
4 x Sargento Shredded Cheese on sale $2=$8.00
2 x Hanover frozen Broccoli on sale $1.69=$3.38
1 x frozen Burritos=$3.99
SubTotal....$16.96

Coupons Used
4 x $.75/1 Sargento Reduced Sodium Cheese ManuQ(doubled to $1)=$4.00
1 x BOGO Hanover Vegetables=$2.19**
1 x $7 OYNO Catalina from last week's shopping=$7.00
Coupon Total....$13.19

**The Veggie coupon when scanned took off the maximum value allowed on the item($2.19) even though the item was only $1.69.  The cashier asked the front end manager if that was ok and he said yes, so I received an extra .50¢ discount on my order I wasn't expecting.

$16.96-$13.19=$3.77 Spent Out of Pocket
A savings of 84% over regular retail.

Other items on hand not bought in June we used on the Burrito Meal came to $.80.
Total of additional spending on food in June for the last 2 days....$8.57

Spent to Date....$102.87
June Food Budget Left....$307.85

Sluggy