Hi all! I'm loving this thread. I think I'm going to jump in here with you guys. Over the holidays I got away from menu planning and sticking to a budget. Now, my pantry is overflowing with stuff that needs to be used up. I took inventory of my pantry, fridge, and freezer. I did not inventory the kids' snack cabinet or my baking pantry. I kind of know off the top of my head what is in those already.
We are a family of four. My kids are 4 & 2. My four year old will eat just about everything but my two year old is in her "I don't want it" phase. Lol!
To start the week, I threw away a few items from the fridge & freezer that had expired. Then I made a ham and potato soup to use up leftovers. Used up some ground beef from the freezer and had cheeseburgers one night and then made the leftovers into cheeseburger pasta (homemade hamburger helper). Tonight we'll be having shrimp tacos (shrimp from freezer & tortillas from pantry). I also made a batch of pumpkin protein bars to use up a can of pumpkin from the pantry.
I'll try to keep a more detailed list of what I'm making/we're eating to keep track.
My kids are 4 and 2 as well, but they are opposite. My 2 year old will eat anything you give her (except black olives and malt o meal) and my 4 year old finds everything "disgusting to eat." I feel your pain
Sounds like you are having a great start to cleaning out the pantry!
$93 for a week this time. Not my best but not too bad either. Included tp. $100 if you count our RO water from the water store. $10 was my brother's soda he sent cash for. And a few snack foods. Rest is dinners mostly a few lunch options for weekends and I do a lot of leftovers for my lunches. He budgets his own work lunches. I'm the only one that eats breakfast. I have to eat something with my meds. I may make oatmeal and get back into that. I do rolled oats with flax and chia and sweeten it with honey and a little brown sugar and cinnamon.
I made a list of sale meats(our 93% lean was 6.98 for two pounds...YES we splurge on this if possible over the less lean and very greasy stuff) (Oh and whole chicken 99cents/lb and 2.99/lb on roasts) and then decided the menu plan based on that. This was 7 full different dinner meals we don't often use leftovers as dinner again in the week so I need to learn to freeze some things so we can try them again later because biggest thing is nobody wants the same thing. But this week I had planned two meals at least off the whole chicken I bought. First will just be roasted with baked potato, baked beans and cucumber salad. Then I'll crock pot the carcass and make broth to make homemade chicken noodle soup later next week. I'm attempting freshly made noodles. Never done it but I do want to learn more scratch cooking on those type things. I like scratch cooking in general anyway. I do my enchiladas all scratch(the sauce) but I can't get the thickness of tortillas down so I usually buy store bought ones. I should practice and try again soon though.
I didn't have a lot already on hand so this budget isn't all that bad. One of these years we will get a deep freezer and try getting meats for the month(or bi weekly until we fill it up) from a local farm and then just get produce, dairy(what little we consume). I'd love to make my own breads but more so pasta is what use more. I keep wondering what the equipment for indoor gardening would be. Probably cheaper to put up a fence around back and try some raised bed garden outside maybe less traffic through yard would help keep kids out of it and allow something to grow out there.
I think I commented to somebody else a few days ago, but there are certain things that are 100% worth paying extra for. We are in the boat of paying more for less greasy ground meat as well.
Great job on figuring out a meal plan that utilizes your chicken twice! I think it's one of the most versatile meats to reuse in a whole new dinner.
From scratch enchilads, YUM!
Oh and I can relate to those of you with pickier eaters. My daughter is quite picky in some ways and others I have it easy. She will eat any vegetable except brussel sprouts and celery unless it has peanut butter. It's meats she gets picky about. She won't eat mashed potatoes. WEIRD because most kids love them. She's picky on breads too.
At least she's getting plenty of veggies
In the warmer months we grow veggies, herbs, and berries. I'm looking into getting some dwarf apple or citrus trees. We started with growing everything in containers. I didn't want to dig up a portion of our yard and then lose interest/have it not work out. We still do containers but we expanded and added a few beds last spring.
If you want to try growing in containers, I've had great success with tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, spinach, strawberries, bell peppers, zucchini/summer squash, green beans, peas, and cucumbers.
We did our first (container) garden last year. We had great success with tomatoes, summer squash, bell peppers, jalapenos, romaine and basil. Every single cucumber came out incredibly bitter
Any tips?
I think we are gonna go the container route again this year while we work on "perfecting" things. Hoping to add cilantro, strawberries, zucchini, green beans, carrots and peas this time around.
This thread inspired me to clean out my freezer and pantry. I have so much stuff in both yet I keep buying more every week. My DH is away for 1.5 weeks so I made a meal plan based on what we already have and I only need a few things from the grocery store so I am guessing I will spend about $20 at the grocery store vs. the $150 I normally spend. I just bought some Disney gift cards for our May trip so it will be nice to offset the cost of those!
I'm so glad you were inspired to clean things out!!!
Good luck on the meal plan while your husband is away. Make sure to share some of your creations with us!
Yes, I just got up from the freezer with a list of meats and veggies. How did I forget that there were perogies down there? When DH asked today, what do you need from No Frills, he didn't even flinch when I said nothing. Fruits and veggies will be all I need for most of the month. Even our milk and my yogurt is covered. 
I bet it feels so freeing to have such a short list of groceries needed!!
I did a container before and I'm fine growing that way but I got a nice start on cucumbers when my daughter was 4-5 and wanted to grow some stuff like they did at her school. When I moved container outside it didn't last a week before kids had smashed them.
This makes me so sad. And angry for you.
That's awful - I don't blame you for being hesitant to try again - as not only would you end up without the food but also down the cost of setting up the garden
Another successful dinner in our house tonight. We were planning on hotdogs but I didn't get to the shop to get the hotdogs or the rolls - we have a local shop that would have been open but I don't like their rolls. So I switched nights tomorrow we were having quiche so we did that tonight and used up some small one/off veg in the fridge. I had been googling for quiche ideas and then incorporated it.
Shortcrust pastry - found in the freezer and still in date! yeah its been there a while.
Potato, broccoli (used the last little bit), corn (used the one ear left in the fridge and cut the kernels off), bacon (from the freezer), onion and mozzarella cheese (still left from when we made parmegiana a few nights ago). I also had a small salad with mine lettuce, tomato and last of the avocado in the fridge. Kids just had bigger pieces of the quiche which really was probably a bit more like a frittata as we had so many ingredients in it.
When I say we made I have also been successful with having my DS15 do most of the dinner preparation for the past week with my instruction and guidance to work on his independence skills and get him ready for a part-time job lol. We just have to work on his speed now that he is starting to get the idea of a few things.
I used to menu plan for a week to two weeks but did it inefficiently - I would just decide what I wanted and ask kids what they wanted and shop for it. This meant that most of the time there was not a great deal of overlap of ingredients and I would end up with a garbage can full of wasted food - but no more and I'm feeling pretty good about it
Great job on switching things around so that you still ate things from home! That quiche/frittata sounds great
Wow, that's awful. I'm sorry that the school kids keep destroying your garden. Is there any way you could put the containers in a garage or patio area closer to the house so they won't be able to get to them?
Yesterday's meals:
Breakfast- Grits & coffee for me, cereal & juice for DH, strawberry waffles with sausage, cuties, & mlk for the kids
Lunch- PBJ sandwiches, chips, & apples for everyone (we all drink water throughout the day)
Dinner- Italian wedding soup & grlled cheese sandwiches for everyone. The kids got mlk to drink.
Dessert- we each had a small brownie as a reward for finally getting all of our Christmas decorations put away. Lol
Today's meals:
Breakfast- grapenuts & coffee for me, cereal & coffee for DH, strawberry waffles & milk for the kids
Lunch- probably pbj's again
Dinner- Hoppin John (black eyed peas, rice, & bacon), broccoli (I'm all out of greens to put in the Hoppin John), and biscuits.
Way to go on eating 6 meals from food in your house!
I still haven't taken down our Christmas decorations. I like the brownie incentive. I'm making fudge this afternoon, maybe I should refuse to let anybody (including myself!) have a piece until we get it done
Yesterday we had sausage stuff as we call it. Well my friends dad named it another 4 letter s word. lol Its just smoked sausage, potatoes(my friend used au gratin boxed but I like fresh better even though it takes more prep time) and broccoli. I fry my potatoes in coconut oil or butter first then add the sausage and steamed broccoli after those are browned up.
Tonight is our first meal from the whole chicken. Just roasting it. My brother will likely make a sandwich. I'll eat some breast meat as its cut off and maybe a wing with my baked potato and cucumber & onion salad(one item I had on hand). Debating on if I want to steam up some carrots too or not but will probably heat the baked beans(the can is big enough for two meals for us). I probably won't do carrots as it will be too close to tomorrows Cherry Pepsi pot roast. Leftover pot roast and ground beef will be seasoned again for tacos Tuesday. Wednesday probably homemade chicken noodle soup and Thursday will be either hamburgers or maid rite(as our hometown quad cities area call it, started that name in Iowa though) with baked potato wedges and baked beans.
Cherry Pepsi pot roast sounds yummy. What's in it?
so I'm pretty happy. Now here's hoping we stay on track! Trying the zucchini boats with some rosemary quinoa tomorrow night.
