Saving Money in My Frugal Kitchen ~ Week #2 December 2025

Welcome to Frugal Workshop where every Monday I share the simple strategies used to save money over the past week, along with the meals that made it to our dinner table. You'll find practical tips on how we saved money on food hopefully to inspire your own meal planning using the foods you have in your own pantry

My Frugal Week

Continuing with my plan of using the "lurkers" in my pantry, this week I purposefully used up the individual bowls of soup I had in the freezer for my lunches. This freed up some valuable freezer space. I also used up a small can of green chilies from the freezer, three small containers of salsa, and some frozen baby carrots.

My goal is to use up those items that we have rather than buying additional food. I have several packages of specialty lentils, quinoa, etc. that I’ll be incorporating into our meals this month. 

We went grocery shopping for the month on Wednesday. We went to UGO, Kroger, and Ingles. We found several markdowns we were able to purchase. Ingles had their brand of cream cheese on sale for $1.23, so I bought enough to use for the Christmas dishes I plan on making. 

One item I’ll be making is hash brown casserole. I was able to find the 32 ounce bags of O’Brien hash browns at UGO for 99 cents. They sell for $3.42 at Walmart, so that was a good deal. 

On Saturday I went to Food City because they had their 32 ounce bags of shredded cheese for $5.00 with a limit of four. I bought mozzerella as I have plenty of cheddar on hand. I also picked up some apples on markdown. 

On Saturday afternoon I worked on several tasks to organize in the kitchen and not waste any food. I took the chicken I’d cooked from Gordon’s and froze it for a future meal, bagged up six bags of chopped celery for the freezer, stored the free bagels we got this week in the freezer, pulled some stuff like seeds from the freezer to make room for the extra food. 

Both above the refrigerator freezers are full right now, so I won’t have to do any grocery shopping for the rest of the month. Next year we want to purchase a deep freezer to be able to take as advantage of the good sales we find. We found more turkey sausage on sale on Saturday but only bought six as that is all I could fit in the freezer. 

Recipe of the Week

Chicken Santa Fe

Ingredients:

1 (15 ounce) can corn, drained

1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained and rins

1 & 1/2 pounds chicken breasts (24 ounces)

1 cup salsa

1 (8 ounce) block cream cheese

Directions:

Drain corn and place it in bottom of the crock pot.

Drain and rinse black beans and add to corn.

Add 1/2 cup salsa on top of the corn.

Mix well.

Place chicken breasts on top.

Pour another 1/2 cup of salsa over chicken.

Cover and cook on high for 2 & 1/2 to 3 hours.

When chicken is done, take out of the crock pot and cut into pieces or shred.

Cube cream cheese and add chicken and cream cheese to the crock pot.

Allow cream cheese to melt.

Stir well and serve.

 

What’s for Dinner

Monday ~ Chicken Tacos, Corn, Black Beans, Red Onions, Tomatoes, Black Olives, Jalapeños, and Chipotle Sauce. 

Using a rotisserie chicken from the freezer, I pulled all the meat off the bones and chopped it up to make taco meat. I added green chilis (a small previously opened can from the freezer), three small containers of salsa, onions, taco seasoning, and salt and pepper.

We used free lettuce and tomatoes from the Mennonites to top them along with cheddar cheese (Kroger sale), black olives (Gordon’s), red onions, chipotle sauce, and jalapeños. Choice of hard or soft shells, flour or corn. Sides were corn and black beans.

Tuesday ~ BBQ Porkchops, Green Beans with Onions, Steamed Carrots. 

I put the pork chops in the crockpot with bbq sauce in the morning, so they were falling off the bone tender by dinner time. 

Wednesday ~ Chicken Tenders with Chipotle Sauce. 

This was a busy day of thrifting and grocery shopping, and we actually ate diner in the car on the way home. We picked up the hot chicken tenders at Kroger. It was already late when we finally made it to Kroger at 7 p.m., but it turned out well for us as the store wasn’t crowded and we found several markdowns. 

Thursday ~ Chicken Santa Fe, Corn on the Cob, and Carrots. 

This is an old tried and true recipe I made back in the 1990s and saw in my recipe box this week, so I decided to make it again. 

Friday ~ Pizza Cheese Rollups

We had been in and out of the house all day, so dinner was some pizza cheese roll ups I made earlier in the day and we ate in the car on the way to another errand we had to run. 

Saturday ~ Soup & Salad

We had Chicken Fajita Soup for dinner. 

Chicken Fajita Soup

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 cup chopped yellow onion 

1 cup chopped red bell pepper 

1 cup chopped yellow bell pepper

1½ tablespoons minced garlic 

2½ teaspoons chili powder

1½ teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

½ teaspoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon salt

4 cups chicken broth

2 (14.5-ounce) cans fire-roasted diced tomatoes, undrained

1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed

2 tablespoons lime juice

2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken

3 tablespoons sour cream

6 tablespoons tortilla strips, optional

Directions:

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large pot over medium heat. 

Add 1 cup each onion, red bell pepper and yellow bell pepper.

Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. 

Add garlic, chili powder, cumin, paprika, oregano and salt. 

Continue cooking, stirring constantly, until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes.

Stir in 4 cups broth, tomatoes, black beans, and lime juice.

Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. 

Stir in 2 cups shredded chicken; simmer, undisturbed, for 5 minutes.

Ladle the soup into 6 bowls. 

Divide sour cream and tortilla strips among the bowls before serving.

Sunday ~ Egg Roll in a Bowl with Turkey Sausage and Rotisserie Chicken. 

This was an experiment as I’d bought two rotisserie chickens on markdown at Kroger. I pulled the meat off the bones and used some in the soup on Saturday and some in the salad for anyone who wanted that. 

Then on Sunday I decided to use up the last of it for egg roll in a bowl. I included toasted sesame oil, marked down bag of coleslaw, onions, peppers, soy sauce, and fresh grated ginger and garlic. It was delicious. 

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

Belinda

Homemaker at Heart

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

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