Week 12 Grocery Notes: It’s been a long week, we’ve been working like dogs trying to get some yard work done, clear some land out back and get the garden ready for planting. I haven’t had time to check out the grocery guide this week, nor have I bothered to go grocery shopping. It appears that this week we’ll be dining from the stockpiles in the freezer and pantry. I guess you could call it, “The Pantry Challenge” week.
I picked up a gallon of milk, a head of lettuce, an avocado and a rutabaga (which, to my knowledge, I’ve never tried before).
Total amount spent out of pocket on groceries this week: $5.97 . Luckily the freezer is stocked with meat and frozen veggies steamers from previous weeks. We still have a full bunch of romaine lettuce from last week, as well as cabbage, a mango, a couple apples, mushrooms, a couple lemons, etc. Sometimes when you find great deals on produce, it lasts a bit longer than you thought it would!
March 21st thru March 27th
Monday March 21st:
* Breakfast: Onion Bagels & Cheese
* Lunch : Salad w/ Hard Boiled Egg Slices
* Dinner:Grilled Chicken Breast with Avocado Mango Salsa
Tuesday March 22nd:
* Breakfast: Egg McMuffin
* Lunch : Egg Salad Wraps
* Dinner:BBQ Pork Spareribs, Steamed Green Beans, Rosemary & Garlic Roasted Potatoes (using ribs from week #1!)
Wednesday March 23rd:
* Breakfast: Banana Nut Muffins*
* Lunch : veggie & Cheese Omelet, toast
* Dinner:Chicken Parmesan, salad, garlic Bread
Thursday March 24th
* Breakfast: Hot Cereal (Oatmeal with Cinnamon/raisins)
* Lunch : Chicken Wraps
* Dinner:Pan-Fried Catfish Nuggets, Italian Marinated Summer Squash
Friday March 25th:
* Breakfast: Muffins or poached eggs on toast
* Lunch : Chili (These are individual portion sizes from Frozen “leftovers”) & Corn Muffins
* Dinner:Loaded Pizza (Homemade)
Saturday March 26th
* Breakfast: Bob Evans Gingered Buttermilk Breakfast Cake
* Lunch : BLT’s
* Dinner:Honey Chipotle Chicken, Salad
Sunday March 27th: Race Day!
* Breakfast: Blueberry Pancakes
* Lunch : Leftovers- (Pizza, Honey Chipotle Chicken, Egg Salad), etc. Every once in awhile you gotta just munch leftovers. It happens.
* Dinner:Mega Meatball Sub
Various Snacks & Dessert Items:* Apple Crisp
* Pineapple Upside Down Cake
* Chocolate Cake w/ Peanut Butter Frosting
* Deviled eggs
* Hard Boiled Eggs
* Honey Crunch Granola Bars
* Microwave Popcorn (homemade)
*Homemade Chips & Vidalia Onion Dip
Drinks included: * Iced Tea or herbal teas
* Coffee
* Lemonade
* Copycat Gatorade
A few things I’d like to share: One of my favorite money saving tips- buy fruits that freeze well when they are slightly over-ripe (& thereby dirt cheap!). I purchased Over-ripe Bananas for .09 per pound from a local grocery store back in Mid-December. I pureed the Banana’s added 1/2 tsp citric acid per cup of banana and packaged it into vacuum seal bags in amount of 1 1/2 c. per bag (perfect for my favorite banana bread recipe). The citric acid prevents the fruit from darkening/discoloring. This works wonderfully for lots of fruit and makes it considerably easier to have fruit on hand for muffins or dessert recipes, additions to pancake batter, etc.
We use tortillas as wraps for lunch all the time. Tortillas are extremely cheap to make, can be made ahead of time and frozen and make lunch on the run super fast. If you don’t like making tortilla’s, no problem- they are often on sale at Aldi’s for .99, just stock up when you find a deal.
Lovin the breakfast cake! It smells great while baking!