My Frugal Kitchen ~ Cooking From Scratch ~ What We Ate This Week

                                  

My Frugal Week

We let our Instacart subscription run out at the end of last year, and rather than pay the exorbitant fees of $8.99 service fee plus $6.99 long distance fee plus a good tip for the shopper/driver, we will just make do with what's here until I can go to the grocery store again. 

While we were housebound this week, I finished up the inventory of food in our pantry and freezer since adding food from Dad's pantry to ours. We have 61 pounds of dried beans! I'm not sure how long that many beans will last, but it's probably more than one years worth. I'm thinking of all the money saving ways we can use them this year to save money on food. The possibilities are endless. 

On Wednesday I busied myself in the kitchen since we were still housebound by cold and ice, and I did multiple tasks to keep busy. 

I made BBQ Sauce and Homemade Ranch Dressing. I took my powdered sugar canister out of the cabinet, emptied it, scrubbed it clean, and put the new bag I bought last month inside of it. I wanted to clean the older 10X sugar out, because we don't use it much and it was a few years old.

In the winter time here is when my salt gets moisture in it and doesn't shake out very well, so I used rice to absorb the moisture one day, and the next day sifted the rice out, only leaving a few kernels behind to keep this under control. 

We've been drinking so much herbal tea to keep warm, so I went thru my tea bags and hot chocolate and got all those organized together. 

On Thursday I peeled and roasted a butternut squash and made a meat sauce for lasagne. I put the meat sauce into meal size containers and froze that for a later date. 

If you run out of aluminum foil, you can use items you already have in your kitchen instead. For example, we've been using a large cookie sheet to cover our 9x13 glass baking dish and it works well for this. I also used my largest glass lid to cover a pizza the other day to keep it warm until we could eat it. 

We ran out of almond milk this week and I had inventoried my nuts the other day and realized we had 14 pounds of dried almonds combined with what Dad also had. So I soaked some of them overnight and made almond milk with them on Friday. 

Afterwards, I dried the wet almond pulp in the oven and will make crackers with the dried pulp. This is a great alternative to store bought almond milk since the almonds were all given to us for free. Now I will keep some soaking in my fridge for when I run out of almond milk.

Recipe of the Week

Slow-Cooker Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients:

2 pounds butternut squash, peeled and cubed (about 6 cups)

1 large apple, peeled and chopped

½ cup chopped onion

1 teaspoon salt

⅛ teaspoon pepper

32 ounces chicken broth

½ cup heavy whipping cream

Directions:

Spray 5 quart slow cooker with cooking spray. 

Add all ingredients except whipping cream.

Cover and cook on High for 4 to 5 hours.

Using an immersion blender, blend until smooth. 

Stir in whipping cream.

Cover and cook on High for about 5 minutes until heated through.

Photo of the Week

What’s for Breakfast

Pizza Eggs (Bailey's Favorite Eggs), Yogurt, Oatmeal, Leftover Pizza. Beverages included multiple cups of Herbal Tea (I used my tea bags more than once to save money) and Hot Chocolate to stay warm, also freshly squeezed orange and grapefruit juice for the vitamin C.

What’s for Dinner

Monday & Tuesday ~ Meatloaf, Soup Beans, Pickled Beets, Glazed Carrots, and Sliced Oranges. I used two pounds of ground beef to make the meatloaf, which is enough for more than two meals and lunch. 

When I was inventorying my canned goods on Sunday, I accidently dropped a jar of spaghetti sauce on the floor and the lid popped, so I stored it in the fridge. Rather than use ketchup in my meatloaf, I used the spaghetti sauce and it turned out well. I try my best to avoid food waste even with an accidental jar mishap. 

The soup beans were left from Sunday night dinner. I soaked two cups of dry beans overnight and then cooked them in the Instant Pot the next day. It makes enough for dinner for two nights and some for lunch one day too. 

We ate all the pickled beets I made, but I saved the pickling juice and just added another can of beets sans the juice to make more pickled beets. It saved me money not to have to use more vinegar and sugar. 

Wednesday ~ BBQ Chicken Drumsticks, Butter Beans, Celery Sticks with Ranch, Pickled Beets, Orange Slices. I made my own BBQ Sauce and Homemade Ranch Dressing. 

Thursday & Friday ~ Tuesday evening I put four cups of dried pinto beans on to soak for dinners the next three nights. On Wednesday, I cooked the beans in my Instant Pot and I also put a pound of hamburger in the refrigerator to thaw overnight. 

This first night I made Bean & Cheese Enchiladas, and served them with Corn and Orange Slice, which I also served on Friday night. 

Friday ~ The second night I used more of the beans to make Chili. I also peeled and roasted a butternut squash to make soup.  

Saturday ~ Cracker Barrel ~ I had an errand to run, so got out of the house for the first time this week. Bailey and I decided to use the Cracker Barrel gift card from Dad. She had the Maple Bacon Chicken with Hash Brown Tator Tots and Apples while I had the Sunday Chicken with carrots and broccoli. All served with buttermilk biscuits. 

Sunday ~ Breakfast for Dinner ~ Sausage, Fluffy Baked Omelet, Sausage Gravy, and Sliced Oranges. I will use the Swaggerty's sausage we bought recently for $1.58. I'll use half to make four sausage patties and the rest to make the sausage gravy. Eggs were 18 cents each and I used the free to us almond milk, so no cost there. Flour was 25¢ worth for a total of $2.91. The sliced oranges added $1.00 to the cost. 

What’s been on the menu in your home this past week?

Belinda

Homemaker at Heart

Mortgage & Debt Free~ Living within our Means ~My Linktree
~ She looketh well to the ways of her household ~Proverbs 31:27