Monday, January 29, 2024

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

 

"In the house of the wise are stores of choice food..."
~ Proverbs 21:20a

My Frugal Week

Bailey and I stopped in at Mckay Used Books the other day while out running errands. My Dad had a love for Native American Indians and he had a huge book collection on the topic. He told us last summer to take his books and trade them at McKays, so we've been doing that slowly. 

On this day we ended up with $44 in trade credit and I used around $17 of the credit to purchase eleven new to me books with nine of them being cookbooks, which I love to read. As you can imagine, my cookbook shelf is really full right now. 

Tip of the Week

From the Little House Living website,
*Note, for a recipe calling for Cream of Chicken soup you can easily substitute 1 cup cream + 1 cup chicken stock + 1 tablespoon cornstarch + 1 teaspoon salt. Simmer that mixture together for a few minutes on the stove until it thickens. 
What’s for Lunch & Dinner



Monday
 ~ We had a rough day at the attorney's office, so we decided to use our last gift card from Dad and went to Olive Garden for an early dinner. I had the Cheese Ravioli ($6.99) with Italian Sausage while Bailey had the Chicken and Shrimp Carbonara($20.99), and we both had salad and breadsticks. 

I was a little surprised at the menu prices and noticed they have made their menu smaller and the dishes cost more, which seems to be a theme with restaurants in these days of higher cost of goods and wages. It's one of the reasons we do not eat out very often. 

On a side note, they charged us $16.99 for my lunch, so I called them to let them know we were there at lunch time. They happily refunded our card for the difference. 

Tuesday ~ Cheeseburgers & Fries, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles.

Wednesday ~ Boston Butt Pork Roast, Macaroni and Cheese, Green Beans with Onions. I used one of the cans of Campbell's French Onion soup that we brought over from Dad's pantry. I cooked the roast in that and it was one of the best roasts we have ever had. I will definitely be using this soup in the future.


Thursday
 ~ I had a bag of Progresso Minestrone soup that was gifted to us from somewhere, so I put that in the crockpot along with some chicken broth early in the day for lunches. For dinner I took a package of Cajun Sausages out of the freezer and served that with mashed potatoes, and green beans with onions from Wednesday. #nofoodwaste #useitup

Friday ~ I was bone tired from cleaning downstairs, so I came in and made some Little Cheese Smokies from the freezer and opened up a can of corn and called it good. 

Saturday ~  Sausage ($1.58), Stir Fried Cabbage with Onions & Ginger, Green Beans with Onions.  We ate every last drop of the cabbage. It was delicious. LOL

Sunday ~ Seasoned Chicken Breast, Carrots, Broccoli, and Cauliflower Vegetables, and Salad. Chicken was bought on markdown at Food City. 

What’s on the Menu for This Coming Week

Ham & Beans
Salmon Patties
Pulled Pork
Chicken Enchiladas
Soup Beans, Greens, Cornbread

These are the items we have on hand that I can use to make meals this week. Be sure to come back next week to see what sides we serve with these main dishes.

We are serving at least one meatless meals this week to save money on meat.

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


10 comments:

  1. Your meals sound tasty. Glad you got some refund back on the card. I, like you had fried cabbage one day and ate every drop. One of my favorite things to eat!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, we love cabbage, and I have three more small heads to use up this week. Yay!

      Delete
  2. Your meals sound so good!!
    I bought a pork butt roast on sale at Kroger for .99/lb, and I may try making it with that soup. Usually I just turn it into pork bbq or carnitas, but the soup sounds so good. I think I may copy your ideas for this week, and fix some bean soup and salmon patties too.
    Glad you were able to get a refund on the gift card. Sending hugs to you as your settle your Dad's estate.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Kathy. That soup was amazing! I thought I didn't like French Onion soup because the one time I had it it was STRONG! LOL The Campbell's soup isn't strong, but vey flavorful. We will definitely be using it again, especially since Dad had 4 cans. :)
      Also, that is the first time I made s Boston Butt roast and we liked it so much that I will buy it when it's on sale, finding it for 99 cents was a great deal.

      Thanks so much, settling his estate is going to take a while, and I appreciate your good thoughts. :)

      Delete
  3. I have no luck making enchiladas. I envy you being able to make them.

    Glad you got reimbursed for the meal. That was a really big difference in price.

    God bless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jackie. It was a big price, at least enough for another meal. Someday we will get together and make enchiladas. :)

      Delete
  4. I made a Korean beef dish in the crockpot tonight using roast, and it wasn't my favorite for sure. I was pretty sad because the roast was pricey! It made one dinner, and at least another more, but I'll need to make tweaks for the second round. I find that I don't do as well with large cuts of meat.

    Glad you got the refund for your lunch!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, that is a disappointment when an expensive cut of meat doesn’t turn out to our liking. I hope your tweets will make it better.

      Delete
  5. I must say the last time we were in the States we had the soup and salad at the Olive Garden for our lunch and it was lovely. I am taking some of the cookbooks to the charity shop, as I am getting over run with books. Thanks for the cheats version of cream of chicken soup!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're welcome, Gil. Yes, their soup and salad is really nice. I know not everyone thinks they are authentic Italian, but we like it. :)

      Delete

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