Dinner (and cost) - 3/16/09

Hello!! Well, dinner at our house tonight is all about using up some of the odds and ends in the fridge. Since my "extras" include spaghetti sauce, cottage cheese, and salad fixin's, tonight's dinner will be: spaghetti pie, garlic bread and salad.
(Recipe for spaghetti pie at: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Spaghetti-Pie-4; I used jarred spaghetti sauce instead of making as they suggested, I also used regular cottage cheese and mozzerella cheese instead of the low-fat versions as that is what I had on hand)

Meal cost:
Speghetti pie:
spaghetti: $1.00
ground beef: $1.00
spaghetti sauce: $1.00
cottage cheese: $0.50
sour cream: $0.00 (free due to coupon; used this as I didn't have enough cottage cheese)
shredded cheese: $1.00
eggs: $0.25

garlic bread:
hot dog buns: $0.50 (manager special; makes great and cheap garlic bread under the broiler)
cheese: $0.50
margerine and garlic powder: $0.20

Salad:
romaine and iceburg lettuce: $1.25
cheese: $0.50
croutons: $0.30
dressing: $0.50

TOTAL COST: $8.49

We usually don't eat this much salad, but I thought I was getting a deal on the romaine lettuce at Target only to realize after the fact that I forgot to use my coupon - oops!!! Now that I have it I refuse to let it go to waste!!!

UPDATE: Dinner was AWESOME!!! Cool thing was that there is enough leftover for lunch on Wednesday! So, while the cost of dinner tonight was high, it will also serve as a whole other meal!!! WOOHOO!!!

$5 Dinners Bargain Meal of the Week

You may have heard of the blog $5 Dinners (http://www.5dollardinners.com/) where they feature meals that cost less than $5 to make. Well, they have added another element to their blog by enlisting bloggers from around the country to come up with meals (with recipes) for $5 or less using the items that are on sale at grocery stores that week. Visit this site (http://www.5dollardinners.com/2007/07/bargain-meal-of-week.html) and scan down to the blog listing for your store(s) of choice.

This is a really awesome idea and may give some new ideas on how to make economical/frugal meals with what is currently on sale!!

Many Blessings and Happy Savings,Amy

Frugal dinners!!!

I just had to share with you a few of our frugal meals lately!! I am working very hard to prepare meals from what is in our pantry rather than spend more money at the grocery store when we already have more than plenty! So, here is what we have been eating:

Last Wednesday:
pork chops - 1.5 lbs. $3.50
New potatoes and green beans
in a rosemary butter sauce
(Green Giant Steamers) $0.00
Rice and gravy (for picky kiddo) $0.50
TOTAL $4.00
(I had a coupon for the pork chops as well as for the Steamers which made them FREE!!!)
(ALSO, I made dinner by browning the pork chops and then adding the contents of the Steamers bag to the top of the pork chops. As the butter chunks melted they cooked with the pork chops; it was super yummy!! I will definitely do that again!!)

Last Thursday:
chicken thighs in the crockpot w/seasoning - 2.5 lbs. $2.50
Cheesy broccoli rice (Green Giant Steamers) - 2 bags $0.00
corn (Green Giant Steamers) $0.00
Rice and gravy (for picky kiddo) $0.50
Stuffing mix $0.70
TOTAL $3.70
(I had coupons for the Steamers which made them FREE, and I bought the stuffing mixes when they were on sale at Thanksgiving and used a coupon. I may have also had a coupon for the chicken which would have made this meal even more frugal but I cannot say for sure, so I will go with what I know the price was on the package.)

Tonight:
Baked chicken alfredo
chicken - approx. 1 lb. $2.00
penne - 1/2 lb. $0.50
alfredo sauce $0.00
mozzerella cheese $0.50
Broccoli w/cheese (Green Giant Steamers) $0.00
Garlic cheese bread
hot dog buns $0.50
4-cheese blend $0.50
TOTAL $4.00
(I purchased the chicken through Angel Food Ministries a while back and needed to use it up before it got freezer burned. I had a catalina coupon for the alfredo sauce which made it FREE, and I used coupons on the pasta, cheese, buns and broccoli.)

Monday night we had a beef roast with mashed potatoes and gravy, buttermilk biscuits, corn, and rice. I am not sure what I paid for the roast or the potatoes so I cannot price this meal out, but it does split into 2 meals as I will use my leftovers for a shepherd's pie to put in the freezer for dinner another night.

I have been teased by many for hoarding Steamers coupons, but through them I was able to purchase LOTS of FREE veggies!!!

Blessings!

Menu Plan Monday - wk of 1/19/09

Dinner week of 1/19/09:
Mon: creamy italian chicken w/egg noodles and foccicia bread
Tues: pork chops w/scalloped potatoes
Wed: meat loaf w/garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and french bread
Thurs: stuffed chicken breasts w/augratin potatoes and mixed veggies
Fri: (not sure yet; something kid friendly as dad will be at the fire station)
Sat: cream cheese chicken enchiladas w/mexican rice
Sun: (not sure yet; has to be an easy meal after evening choir practice)


Links:
* Mon: http://www.recipezaar.com/Crock-Pot-Creamy-Italian-Chicken-19859 (I marinate my chicken in italian dressing overnight before making this as it really enhances the flavor; I also omit the mushrooms just because I rarely have them in the house.)
* Tues: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Scalloped-Potatoes-and-Pork-Chops
* Wed: no real recipe; garlic mashed potatoes are the Ore-Ida ones from the bag, regular green bean casserole, and Pillsbury french bread from the refrig. section of grocery store (all of these items were purchased with coupons while on sale, so the cost is minimal)
* Thursday: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Stuffed-Chicken-with-Scalloped-Potatoes/Detail.aspx (I substituted au gratin potatoes for the scalloped potatoes)
* Friday: dunno yet - LOL~
* Saturday: http://www.box.net/shared/9k863668fs
* Sunday: again, dunno yet~

Great thing is that all the ingredients for these meals are in our kitchen already so I don't have to do any additional grocery shopping - WOOHOO!!!

There are LOTS of other weekly menus posted to inspire you at http://orgjunkie.com/

I hope that you, too, are inspired to plan your meals for the week.
Many blessings and happy "eats"!!

Thanksgiving Leftovers all used up!!

This post is a couple days late, but I still wanted to report in that I have successfully used up ALL of my Thanksgiving leftovers!! I am really striving to be a good steward of what we have and that especially means leftovers (which often tend to get lost in the fridge and turn into an unplanned science experiment - LOL!). We ate some of the leftovers just warmed up - but that usually happens the first day or so... it's the rest that I needed to be creative with. Well, on 12/1 I posted how we made turkey and noodles with some of what we had remaining from dinner.

What we had remaining was some turkey, stuffing, corn, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes. Here is how we used the rest....

** on 12/2 we had "Gobble Up Good Turkey Casserole" (from www.menus4moms.com) which used up nearly all remaining turkey as well as all of the stuffing. Here's the recipe (I noted my changes in parenthesis after the item):

Gobble Good Turkey Casserole
1 can cream of mushroom soup (used 2 cans as I did not have cream of celery at home)
1 can cream of celery soup (did not use, see above)
1 package onion soup mix (did not have any, but added some onion powder and black pepper)
1 cup rice (long grain, not minute rice)
1 1/2 cups milk
2-3 cups leftover turkey
(I topped mine with the leftover stuffing and hubby LOVED it - I highly recommend this!)

Combine all ingredients in a large casserole dish. Bake covered 30-45 minutes at 350°F or until bubbly. (Mine took a solid hour, add more time if you use brown rice.) I then served it with the remaining green bean casserole and corn.


** on 12/3 I made Mashed Potato soup which I morphed from several recipes I found online. Here's how I made mine:

Amy's Mashed Potato Soup
2 cups of chicken stock (I used 2 chicken bouillon cubes and 2 cups of water)
2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
onion powder to taste
celery salt to taste (next time I will probably finely chop some celery and carrots)
crumbled bacon
shredded cheese

Heat broth then add mashed potatoes. It will be thin at first, so turn down the heat to medium and let it thicken. If it gets too thick or if you want it creamier or richer, you could add some milk or sour cream. Top with some crumbled bacon and shredded cheese.


All that remained was some turkey and some stock; both of these are now in the freezer until I want turkey and noodles again.

So, I successfully managed to use up ALL my leftovers and with minimal additional cost. Here's what I figure:
* the turkey and noodles cost approx. $1.50 ($1.00 for the half bag of noodles and $.50 for carrots and seasonings);
* the turkey casserole cost approx. $2.00 ($.50 for rice, $1 for cream soup, and $.50 for milk and seasonings); and
* the soup cost approx. $1.60 (pennies for the bullion cubes and seasonings, $.50 for cheese, and $1 for bacon).

For neither of these am I adding the cost of the leftovers as they were free in my mind as they would have probably been thrown away in previous years. $5.10 for 3 meals is pretty good in my opinion!!!

Thanks for continuing to join me on my adventure to be a good steward.

10 lbs of ground beef - how I used it...

Yesterday I mentioned that I had a 10-lb log of ground beef from Sam's that I would be using to make ahead some meals, Here's what we made:

18 - 4 oz. burger patties
2 meatloafs
3 meals worth of salisbury steaks

It was a great cooking day!!

Turkey and noodles - it was like manna from heaven!

Just had to share... I am working very hard to be a good steward of what we have so I am examining everything to be sure that it is being used to the greatest potential. Well, I will admit that I normally throw away my turkey carcass; I despise cutting/pulling the meat off the bones! I had already cut off the meat I would want for sandwiches but knew a lot of meat was left. I debated cooking the carcass down but really wasn't in the mood for turkey soup. After praying about it, I was blessed with the idea of turkey and noodles. So I cooked the carcass down and was blessed with nearly 3 quarts of wonderful broth and 4 cups of meat. I then used these for a wonderful batch of turkey and noodles - YUMMY!! What a wonderful blessing - just like manna from heaven!! I cannot begin to tell you how much I enjoyed that meal!


For those who might be curious to know how I cooked down my turkey or made the turkey and noodles, here you go:

I cooked down turkey carcass by putting it in my big stockpot and covering it with water. I then added a couple stalks of celery just cut in half, two handfuls of mini carrots, a third of an onion, and then some poultry seasoning and black pepper. After it was at a slow boil, I put the lid on the pan, reduced the heat to medium and let it cook for approx. 2 hours. Once cooled down, I strained the stock from the solids (bones, meat, and veggies). I then put the stock in pitchers in the fridge. Finally, I then pulled the meat from the remaining solids and stored it in the fridge as well; the remaining solids were put in the trash.

For the turkey and noodles (a small batch), I put 5 cups of the yummy turkey broth and approx. 1/2 cup of sliced carrots into a pan and heated it to boiling. I then added half of 12 oz. package of Reames egg noodles (from the freezer section in the grocery store) and 1 cup of chopped turkey and covered it and let it cook until the noodles were done (25-30 minutes). Lastly, I mixed a tablespoon of cornstarch with a 1/4 cup of water, then slowly added that to the pan of broth and noodles just to thicken it up a bit. Then we dished it up and enjoyed our blessing!! YUM!!!

YUMMY Meatballs

One of the things I like to do as part of my meal planning is to buy ground beef in bulk and make several meals to be stored in the freezer until needed. One of my favorites is meatballs:

Freezer Stash Meatballs
Makes 48 meatballs; 8 servings

3 pounds lean ground beef
1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
3 eggs
6 tablespoons minced onion
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. In a large bowl, mix beef, crumbs, eggs, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Shape into 11/2-inch meatballs. (A miniature ice cream scoop makes fast work of shaping.)
3. Arrange in two 10-by-15-inch jelly roll pans. Bake in preheated oven until meat is browned, with no trace of pink and juices run clear, 10 to 13 minutes.
4. Drain, let cool to room temperature, divide into thirds and freeze each portion in vapor-moisture proof containers.

For ideas on what to use these in, see the whole "plan" at: http://www.menus4moms.com/bulk/beef_plan.php

My 2 favorite ways to use the meatballs is:
* in meatball subs - combine meatballs with some spaghetti sauce and then serve them in buns with mozzerella cheese
* as Swedish meatballs - combine meatballs with a can of cream of mushroom soup and a can (or jar) of brown gravy and heat through; serve over egg noodles


I have a 10-lb. log of ground beef in the fridge, I will try to post tomorrow about how I will use that.

See more great recipes at: http://grocerycartchallenge.blogspot.com

Blessings!!