Meal Plan....What's a Meal Plan?.....Leftovers, Using What You Have & Less Shopping

 *The one where I ramble on about meal planning changes and leftovers.*

This week has got me swimming in circles here in regards to meals.
Though I haven't been adhering to a regimented Meal Planning for a couple of months, I was still cooking off of a loose framework, using what I picked in the garden or found for a good price at the farmstand/market as a guide.  Basically I pair some protein in the freezer with the fresh veggie du jour.

In a few short years, it will be down to Hubs and I for meals here.  #1 son is back to college soon, Daughter leaves for college next fall and 3 yrs after that #2 son follows.

For now, Daughter has started a new job(but still working some at the old job too)so most nights she isn't home.   #2 son is still doing Band Camp this week, so he's been gone from 9am until 8pm through this Friday and he doesn't want to eat when he gets home.  So that leaves Hubs and I most nights to eat alone.

Something I struggle with is not preparing too much food, which leads to food waste.  I find it hard to get use to cooking for 2 or 3 people when I am so use to cooking for 5.   I've used this week to try to prepare myself for cooking less amounts of food and also a narrower range of foods for the week, since once the kids are out of the house, I won't need to prepare as much food for a meal.

Hubs and I, unlike the kids, are perfectly happy to eat the same meals over and over again during the course of a week.  This along with cooking less amounts should help cut down on food waste and food expenditures in the years to come.

Here's what I've served since Saturday evening.....

#2 son had a sleepover here Sat. so I made them pigs in blankets and chili(all from stockpile).  I had a BLT(stockpile bread & bacon and tomatoes from the garden) and Hubs & Daughter ate leftover Pork Enchiladas from last Friday.  I way over made on the pigs in a blanket so there are 6 left over along with a whole bowl of chili.

Sunday was pancakes and bacon for breakfast & Chinese take-out for 4 for dinner.  Usually we eat half of the Chinese food since it's just so much food, and save the other half for subsequent meals....so there is Chinese leftover.

Monday I had eggs for Breakfast.  Daughter and I had leftover Chinese for lunch.  Dinner for 3, was BBQ chicken thighs-I made a package of 5(freezer/stockpile sauce)and salad(garden).  There is 1 piece of chicken leftover.

Tuesday I had a BLT for lunch, Daughter had the last Pork Enchilada.  For Dinner I cooked up a package of freezer ground beef and made Stuffed Yellow Squash(like Stuffed Peppers but with Squash)since we had 4 squash sitting in the fridge from the garden...I used 3 and made 6 halves.  I made wild rice medley with it.  There are 2 halves of squash leftover as well as 2 servings of rice.

Wednesday I had a bagel for Breakfast.  Daughter had raw veggies and salad dressing dip for lunch. Hubs was out of town for dinner(he ate a hamburger on the road-billed to his job) &  Daughter had work and didn't eat so I took some leftover ground beef that didn't go into the Stuffed Squash dish, a jar of pasta sauce and whipped up 1/2 a box of rigatoni.  I ate a serving of that for lunch and then another serving for dinner too.  There is 1 serving left.

At this point the leftovers are.....

6 pigs in blanket
1 bowl chili
Hub's Chinese food
#2 son's Chinese food
1 BBQ chicken thigh
2 servings of stuffed squash and rice
1 serving of rigatoni w/meat sauce

Thursday I'll probably have another Bagel and then a BLT for lunch....fresh tomatoes here still so I could eat that every day and not tire of it.lol  For Dinner, Hubs and I will have leftovers...if I had to guess, Hubs will choose his Chinese food and I'd pick the stuffed squash & rice.  If one of us wants the chicken or rigatoni, I'll prepare a salad or a veggie mix from the freezer.  Daughter is working again so she'll eat at her job or eat her brother's leftover chinese food that's still in the fridge before she leaves.

Friday is the Band Picnic/Preview.  I need to make something to take but am still at a loss about what to make. If I thought the kids would eat sour cream cucumber salad, I'd make that as I have a plethora of cukes here.lol   I guess I'll make a pasta salad since I have pasta, peppers, onions, salad dressing, celery, carrots and I can put cukes in it too.  Or I can add tuna in too and turn it into fancy pants tuna salad. ;-)
I'll have whatever is still leftover for lunch(or another BLT!) and when #2 son comes home at noon he can eat the leftover chili and hot dogs.  We'll be eating at the picnic for dinner.  If Daughter doesn't go she's on her own and will make something for herself.

Saturday we'll see what is still here in terms of leftovers and either finish those up or see what we can feed to the dogs if no one wants that particular item.  In this way, we start off Sunday with no leftovers to be forgotten and go bad in the back of the fridge next week.
I also only had to "cook" 4 days(not counting making BLTs).

Through Wed. I've used for the week.....
2 packages of hot dogs
2 tubes of crescent rolls
2 cans of chili
1 package of pancake mix
1 package of bacon
3/4 loaf of bread
3 tomatoes
1/4 head of lettuce
5 chicken thighs
big bunch of leaf lettuce
3 yellow squash
1.5lb. ground beef
1 qt. of home canned tomatoes
1 onion
2 packages of rice mix
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1/2 box pasta
3 eggs
2 bagels
1/2 package of cream cheese
1/2 lb. grapes
2 cups of mandarin oranges
6 celery stalks
4 carrots
1 gallon of milk
some butter
some syrup
some mayo
some salad dressing

I've only spent $3.32 this week for a gallon of milk.
#2 son has taken $5 a day(for 3 days=$15) and assorted snacks/drinks from the stockpile to Band Camp for meals.  Tomorrow instead of $5 he gets a certificate I won for 4 free hot dogs to a local joint he can walk to from school and he'll share it with a buddy.  The buddy will buy their drinks and leave the tip.
The Chinese food came to $36 for 4 people plus leftovers.  The eating out comes out of the entertainment budget so I'm not figuring that amount in.

So far that means I've spent $18.32(with the $5 a day for #2 son)on 26 meals this week.  We will get at least another 6 meals/servings out of that amount of food.
Since the store sales suck this week I won't be stocking up on anything but I'll buy milk again for another $3.32, making my week's grocery shopping total $6.64 for milk and $15 for #2 son's Band lunches.

Next week, #1 son returns from working at camp for the summer and Band Camp is over so unless Daughter is working, we are back to 5 for dinners.  I think I'll do an actual Meal Plan for next week.

The following week, #1 son leaves for college, so we'll be down to 4 or 3 for dinner(depending on Daughter's schedule).
It's always changing around here lately.....

Sluggy

JUNE Food Stamp Challenge....Day Sixteen & Seventeen--Cramping My Style!

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

We have been cruising along on this food budget challenge for a couple of weeks now and it's been going well, except for 1 dining out roadblock on Day Thirteen I talked about HERE.

The last 2 days, the whole premise of only purchasing foods from stores that accept EBT and cooking every meal really began to cramp my style!

Wednesday I was feeling quite ill....nothing life threatening but sick enough that I wasn't able to throw together a made-from-scratch or even a semi-homemade dinner.  Yes, we had plenty of ingredients for making a meal in the house.
But that would require some one else here to go into the kitchen and cook. 
The teen doesn't cook.  He can make grilled cheese and reheat stuff in the microwave and have I mentioned that he hates leftovers?
The DH 'can' cook....a bit.....but he chooses not to, given an opportunity(like this one)to go into the kitchen and whip up dinner.  And he won't settle for a bowl of cold cereal or a peanut butter sandwich for dinner.

So we failed the challenge on Wednesday when DH hiked up to Subway and bought subs after I took to my bed.

In the past year, I have gone from a freezer packed with tv dinners and other preprocessed/packaged 'food' to a freezer packed with meats and veggies in their natural/raw state which I use to make the dinner magic.  There is not alot of foods here anymore that are shortcuts to making a meal(outside of dehydrated milk or potatoes, canned soup, boxed mac & cheese and some Jello).

In a situation like this one above, having a couple of tv dinners or a frozen pizza would have saved us from resorting to Subway.  The processed frozen food would have taken a bigger bite out of the food stamp budget for the month compared to only buying 'real' food with the food stamps, but in the end if a dinner emergency happened we could have eaten w/out resorting to less desirable fare if we had no cash available to spend on pre-made, hot, ready-to-eat food that is not covered by EBT/food stamps.

Seems to me that if you are on food stamps and you are the lone cook in your home, it might be wise to keep a couple of spare pre-made dinners in your freezer.  Even better though, would be to make ahead a double batch when you cook/make a meal and freeze half.  This way, if you are 'indisposed' and you have someone there who can at least turn on/turn off an oven or microwave, you can have them pop that homemade 'convenience food' meal and avoid spending your precious cash on fast food.  I usually have something I pre-made in the freezer to heat and eat but I got caught without one this time.

So on Wednesday we struck out to the tune of $15.75.  I need to think about how I am going to handle this in regards to my budget.  Perhaps I need to add the cost of this fail to my donation check to the food bank.
I figure I need to have a penalty here....

Which brings us to Thursday, which was a much better day for the Food Stamp Challenge at our house.
Dinner consisted of pulled pork sandwiches on rolls and coleslaw.
I had leftover boneless pork ribs, from the cookout when the relatives were visiting, that I had cooked as  'just in case we need more food for teens that dropped in at dinnertime' food.  We hadn't eaten them, so I shredded the meat, made up a small pot of our secret family North Carolina style barbecue sauce, threw in the meat and heated thoroughly.  Spooned the 'cue out onto the leftover crustini rolls I bought last week and topped each one with the pre-made coleslaw from the grocery store that DH picked up on the way home from work.

Ok, so this isn't the actual photo of my food, but it looked pretty close to this(sans the chips and pickle).

Food budget spending for this meal....coleslaw $1.69 , rolls already figured in last week $0, meat $2.38(bought last month on sale),  ingredients to make the sauce from the pantry $.40=$4.47.

On Thursday #2 son and I also ran some errands on the way to his guitar lesson.  I had wanted to hit up the Bakery Outlet but they don't take EBT, so I had to pay almost retail for some bread and bagels.  I found a BOGO sale on both at the local market so I have 2 bags of bagels and bread to the tune of $7.98.  
This just about killed me since I could have possibly gotten all this at the bread outlet for $4.00...if I wasn't limited to only stores that accept food stamps!

We also stopped by my favorite local discount/close-outs store that carries food items.  I had found this great little product there last month & picked up 1 bottle then......

It's a cold press EVOO that's grown, harvested, pressed and bottled in the USA(California)in a GLASS BOTTLE! and at the low price of $1.99 a bottle!
Ok, it might not be the best quality of Olive Oil but PA does not have much olive growing and olive pressing going on so this is a good deal here.
I had wanted to get a quantity of these for my stockpile after trying the 1 bottle I bought.....but I can't.
Because this close-out store does NOT accept EBT....so I have not been able to buy any food items there in June!

I am hoping there are some bottles left in the store come July.
If not, I've missed out on a food opportunity, just like anyone who lives around here and has to use EBT all the time to eat would have.
I tell ya, that sucks!
And it's starting to annoy the beejeezus outta me!!

 'Spending' for Day Sixteen and Seventeen...$12.45   * +penalty of $15.75 for the Subs*

Spent to Date....$155.21
June Food Budget Left....$255.51
Days of Challenge Left....13


Sluggy

Meal Plan Monday.....July 20th Edition Leftovers Galore, 3 From-Scratch Meals

This is an easy week for me, as far as the Meal Planning goes. Lots of leftovers from cooking Double Batches last week.

Here's what our family of 3 will be eating this week...

Monday-Leftover Pork BBQ, Leftover Boston Baked Beans, Leftover Cornbread
Tuesday-Leftover Alfredo Primavera over fresh Rigatoni noodles, Tossed Salad(from the garden)
Wednesday-BLT Sandwiches, Clam Chowder(from scratch)
Thursday-BBQ Chicken Pizza(from scratch), Spinach Salad(from the garden)
Friday-Leftover Buffet(whatever is still leftover at this point)
Saturday-Chinese dining out for lunch, Grilled Cheese Sandwiches for dinner
Sunday-Fried Foods dinner--Fish, French Fries, Hush Puppies, Zuchinni or Squash(from the garden)
Desserts-Rice Krispy Treats(leftover), some kind of Cookies or Cake Balls(if I get ambitious and the weather doesn't get too hot to run the oven), Watermelon, Peaches

As for last week's menu....I didn't make the Pizza or Clam Chowder from scratch so I apologize for the lack of Recipe Updates in my blog during the week. We got Take-Out Chinese one night and we just ate leftovers again the other night. I've put both the chowder and the pizza on this week's menu and will attempt recipe updates for Wed., Thurs. & Sun.'s meals during the week. Those 2 meals and the Fish Fry on Sunday are the only real cooking I'm doing this week. Thank goodness for leftovers!lol
Don't write to me complaining about the Fried Food dinner & how unhealthy frying food is. We don't eat fried hardly at all(a sacrilege to my southern soul), so this is a rare treat. ;-)

Ingredients not-on-hand yet are....celery, potatoes(for chowder), red onions(for pizza), tomato(for BLTs), potatoes again(for french fries). Hopefully I'll have some yellow squash &/or zukes ready to pick by Sunday for that night's dinner.
So the shopping list is-1 bunch celery,1 bag of potatoes, 1 red onion, 1 tomato & a watermelon. There aren't any great deals in the local grocery stores that I can see(or I can use)so I'm going to try to just go to the Farm Market this week for my food shopping. I should be able to do this for about $12.

#1 son(who is off working near Lake Erie this summer) got a few days off and decided with 2 friends from work to take a trip to NYC & the NJ shore. They will be stopping here either tonight or tomorrow night to sleep a night before heading back to western PA. I'll be feeding them so I'm not sure how this will affect my Meal Plan this week. I have other proteins in the freezer so I'm hoping I can whip them up something good without having to go buy a ton of other groceries.
I'll report in next week on what I managed to do.

With all that free time I'll have NOT COOKING I'll be packing up from Saturday's Yard Sale and going through things to take to Salvation Army.

Food Waste Report.....about 1 cup of cauliflower that got pushed to the back of the fridge and became a penicillin experiment.

Check out Organizing Junkie's Website Here to see what other Home Cooks are serving this week!

Sluggy

GREEN & THRIFTY THURSDAY...My Potluck Chili Recipe

As promised, here is my POTLUCK CHILI Recipe.
This 'Recipe' is also my GREEN & THRIFTY THURSDAY Post.
Do ya like the way I snuck that in?lol

If you have an onion, some garlic, spices, a can of some kind of tomato product and some leftover beans and/or meat, you can make chili.

I like to use up whatever protein I have hanging around in the fridge. That's what makes this thrifty.....using up leftovers. Less Food Waste is green too!
Try this with ground(or shredded!)chicken or turkey....or TVP too(for the vegeterians in your life).
Even if you don't cook, if you can chop an onion, you CAN make chili. Just let your own tastebuds be your guide.

Ok, there are the basics....
some kind of tomato product, onions, garlic & spices-cumin or cilantro, chili powder, paprika & cayenne.
The beans &/or meat can change. Use what you have or use what you like or use what you are trying to use up(leftovers).
If I want to make an 'expensive' chili or I have expensive steak or roast leftovers to use up, I'll put small chunks of that meat in.
If I have ground beef leftovers to use up(usually taco beef), I'll put that in. Feel free to mix in whatever meats you have, ground, chunked, shredded, etc.

If I have beans leftover or someone likes bean chili I'll put those in. If you are going to use beans just make sure you have canned beans on hand or if using dried beans, make sure you have soaked and boiled them beforehand to soften them before adding. I have learned the HARD way that once you add an acidic ingredient(like ketchup or any tomato based product)the beans in your chili will NOT soften anymore, no matter how long you cook them. Make sure your beans are as soft as you need them BEFORE adding them to a tomato based chili.

Here are the beginnings of POTLUCK CHILI.

1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
Meat(whatever kind you have)
Beans(kidney, pinto or whatever kind you have)
1 Tablespoon cilantro or cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder(optional)
1 Large Can of Crushed or Puree Tomatoes
1 teaspoon beef bouillion(optional)

Chop your onion & garlic.
Pour Olive Oil in saute pan.
Add chopped veggies and saute over medium heat until translucent.
When done, if you want meat, add your meat now to brown. Add as much as you like. 1lb. minimum but feel free to add more or less to taste
When meat is browned, add your spices:cilantro or cumin, chili powder, brown sugar, black pepper, salt, paprika, cayenne powder(if you want it hot)
Heat for 5 minutes.
Add your can of tomatoes.
If you want beans, add your beans now. 1-2 cans to start. Add more if you like beans or are making this vegetarian. Kidney &/or pinto beans are traditional chili add-ins, but you can use any type of bean you like. I like to partially mash(with a potato masher)my beans. The mashed beans help give the chili a creamier, thicker texture. It's the GLUE That holds the chili together, I say.

At this point taste your basic chili. If you like it sweeter, add a little ketchup, bbq sauce or chili sauce. If you like more heat, add tabasco or hot sauce. If you like more spice, add more pepper/cumin/cayenne. If you love garlic, add more of that in. If you like a more pornounced 'meat' taste, add some beef boullion or stock.
Just keep playing with the flavors until you find what YOU like!

Transfer into a crockpot at this point and just let it cook on low all day....or leave on the stove to simmer if you are home and can watch & stir the pot every once in awhile.
After at least 3-4 hours the flavors will have melded enough to serve.

Add shredded cheese, green onions &/or a dollop of sour cream on top of the chili.
Serve with warm cornbread, tortillas, biscuits or whatever bread-like food you prefer.

The picture?
Oh, those are the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I always forget to take pictures of my food before everyone eats it up. The Chili Pepper boys will have to do in lieu of POTLUCK CHILI photos. Some people think they are pretty HOT too. ;-))

Sluggy