Menu Plan Monday - Week of February 26, 2017

My Valentine's Day flowers from my dear husband.  There was enough for two vases!

Anyone else amazed that March is arriving this week?   I know I am.  So far 2017 has been a year of long, long days and super short weeks.  I'm hoping things slide into a rhythm soon and we can hop out of what feels very much like survival mode.  Not my favorite way to spend my days certainly, but I guess that happens sometimes.

We did a stock up on chicken this last week - our regular grocery store had whole chickens for 88-cents/pound.  We bought a few.  Roasted chicken is such an easy dinner and we always use the carcass and leftover meat so it's a great deal for us!  John also found ham on sale for $1.49/pound at the grocery store near his church so he bought one.  Over all, we spent $62 and change on groceries this last week but we had been a bit below our weekly budget for a couple of weeks and we're planning on doing a pantry challenge during Lent now so that should work out just fine. 

Speaking of Lent, we're Lutheran so we don't abstain from meat on Fridays but we do observe Lent and we decided a pantry challenge would be just the thing this year.  Not only is it a good idea to use up what we have, but we also have a parishioner who is spending this summer doing medical missionary work in Malawi.  We'd like to give generously to her mission, so that will be where the money we "save" will go.

We will also be eating more vegetarian meals this coming month.  We have a lot of veggies in our freezer to use up and several other things (barley, quinoa, etc.) that would be good to use.  I like to have the deep freezer basically empty when summer comes around.  That means we've eaten the vegetables from last year and we have room for the new harvest.  I know that many like to keep canned and frozen vegetables for a long time but I think the taste is better within that first year.  I also find that it means that overall we waste less food too.

This week we're eating a fairly large amount of eggs (we got a good deal on them this week), zucchini, tomato sauce, green beans, and potatoes.  The green beans, zucchini, and tomato sauce are in the freezer and the potatoes are in the pantry (another good deal from last week).

Here's what we're eating this week:

Sunday, February 26:
   Breakfast: Toast and Strawberry-Banana Smoothies
   Lunch: Leftovers
   Snack: Popcorn
   Dinner: Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Breakfast Potatoes, Strawberries

Monday, February 27:
    Breakfast: Cold Cereal
    Lunch: Spinach Salad with Leftover Chicken, Walnuts and Strawberries
    Snack: String Cheese
    Dinner: Hamburger Gravy with onions and mushrooms, Rice, Apple-Strawberry-Cantaloupe Salad

Tuesday, February 28, Shrove Tuesday:
     Breakfast: King Cake
     Lunch: Leftover Hamburger Gravy
     Snack: No Bake Energy Bites
     Dinner: Zucchini-Potato Pancakes, Baked Eggs, Sliced Apples

Wednesday, March 1, Ash Wednesday:
    Breakfast: King Cake
    Lunch: Leftover Pancakes with Raspberry Jam
    Snack: String Cheese
    Dinner: At Church (Lent = Soup Suppers at Church on Wednesdays)

Thursday, March 2, My Dad's 85th Birthday!
    Breakfast: Oatmeal with Dates and Walnuts
    Lunch: Rice Bowl with Egg and Spinach
    Snack: No Bake Energy Bites
    Dinner: Vegetable Barley Soup, Biscuits, Sliced Apples

Friday, March 3:
    Breakfast: Eggs, Breakfast Potatoes
    Lunch: Leftover Vegetable Barley Soup
    Snack: String Cheese
    Dinner: Tomato Sauce with Veggies and Pasta, Garlic Bread, Spinach Salad

Saturday, March 4:
     Brunch: Baked Eggs with Potatoes and Spinach
     Snack: Homemade Pretzels
     Dinner: Homemade Pizza and Breadsticks
     Dessert: Sugar Cookies

What are you eating this week? 

Popular posts from this blog

Frugal Friday - The End of 2016

Image
Another spectacular sunrise - we were so very spoiled by these this year!  I enjoyed every one of them! Nothing like completely forgetting I had a blog for month, right?  I didn't forget about everyone - I promise.   December ended up being ridiculously busy and very spare moment was spent with family and friends and on grading, as the term ended not that long ago.    My parents were visiting for 3 weeks (they returned home to sunny and slightly warmer Texas yesterday) and the children had their Sunday school program, their school Christmas program, and a school fun-day to end the term and John had 3 funerals and two graveside burials.  Then there's always the rush of Christmas and all the services that comes with being a Pastor's family.  I am very, very ready for a quiet start to the new year! I have some New Year's posts already planned and partially written, so look for those next week.  In the meantime, here are som...
Read more

Menu Plan Monday - Week of January 17, 2021

Image
Peas from my garden last summer.  We are cold and snowy with a lot of ice right now!  Not my favorite weather.  So, to cheer myself up I am starting to plan my garden for next summer!  I am hoping that I will be able to grow at least enough tomatoes and cutting flowers for both my parents (who are moving 1 1/2 blocks away from us in about 2 months - hurray!) and our house as well.   I am so grateful that we have 1/5 acre lot for our home that we can grow vegetables flowers and (currently) a single tree.  It makes me so happy and provides some very fresh produce for our family.  I love the physical act of gardening, both flowers and vegetables, and I love the taste of vegetables fresh from the garden.  A win-win in my book for sure! The name of the game this week is to eat up as much of the fresh stuff as we can so it's easy to move the refrigerator downstairs for our remodel.  They start knocking out walls and cutting holes in the outsid...
Read more

Menu Plan Monday and a Little Shopping

Image
Our CSA boxes have looked pretty much like this the last two weeks - though in varying amounts and this last week we got green onions too.  Here we have in the front row: Broccoli, raspberries, green & purple beans, and peas.  Back Row: Lettuce, cucumbers, cauliflower, a mutant cross between a zucchini and a patty pan squash, green and purple kohlrabi and a clove of garlic.  We'll see what we get this week!  I blanched and froze the peas since we have a ton of those and we can't seem to eat through them fast enough.  I have a whole head of cabbage leftover from a few weeks ago in the crisper drawer too.  Two weeks ago we got 5lbs of cherries - they're all gone now (I was hoping to freeze some) having been eaten by my parents and my children!  I can't eat cherries so I was okay with that! I went to the store this weekend with a gift card and spend $22 on milk, peaches, apples, carrots (those aren't ready yet in the garden) and some fr...
Read more