Payday...

...is tomorrow. That means grocery shopping. Which also means that I need to come up with my meal plan today, so I know what to buy tomorrow. I've had a few people ask me how I go about my meal planning and grocery shopping to not just have a bunch of random stuff in the house that never gets eaten. So here's my game plan...

Step 1 - See if there are things from the last plan, that didn't get eaten. And what leftover ingredients I have that I can incorporate into my new plan.

Step 2 - I have a list of the meals I make and with very few exceptions, they all leave enough leftovers for Arron and I to eat lunch the next day. Depending on what my schedule looks like for the next two weeks determines how many time consuming meals I put on the list versus how many quickie meals I choose.

Step 3 - Just start jotting down the meals I want to make. I have found that trying to plan specific meals for specific days just doesn't work. Inevitably, whatever is planned for that night won't sound appetizing in the least bit.

This pay period, I need 16 dinners and 16 lunches. So here we go. Oh and I cheat at least one night a week with a planned pizza night. But we just stick to frozen pizzas instead of going out. In a pinch though, Little Ceazars is only $5 for a medium cheese or sausage or pepperoni pizza. So if you're on your way home from work and just can't get excited about cooking ANYTHING, it's okay to cheat. Just grab a bag of salad too and then you feel less guilty about the pizza. ;)

1. Unstuffed Peppers
2. Enchiladas
3. Chicken Fried Rice with Eggrolls
4. Chicken and Rice Soup
5. Steak and Twice Baked Potatoes
6. Homemade Mac n Cheese w/ham (I'll also buy a ham steak and brown it, cut it into strips and add it to the mac n cheese.
7. Pizza night!
8. Spaghetti
9. Sloppy Joes
10. Pork Chops w/ garlic mashed potatoes
11. Chili
12. Pizza night!
13. Easy Beef Stroganoff
14. Cheeseburger Pie
15. Tater Tot Hotdish
16. Chicken and Rice Hotdish

viola! I now have my menu. Next step is for me to create a grocery list of every ingredient I'll need for these recipes (except spices, since I likely have all of them on hand) Then I take it to the kitchen and cross out anything I already have on hand. This step is crucial it makes sure that I don't buy more of something that I don't need. It helps reduce wasteful spending and helps keep my cupboards from being cluttered with things I don't use.

Now, I'd be kidding myself if I said that I stick only to meals on the meal plan. I certainly deviate from time to time. But there are a few things I do, to make sure those skipped meals can just roll over to the next plan, even more than that though, it helps me save money.

I buy my meat in bulk. Not always at costco though. Fred Meyer often sells their "family packs" for cheaper by the pound, than the normal size packs. I have a food saver, and if you don't, I recommend you invest in one. Even a used one from Amazon, a basic one goes for about $60. Which I know, when you don't have an extra $60, is a lot of money. But maybe get with a friend or family member and buy one together. This helps you to be able to store your ground meats flatter in your freezer, and keep everything fresh longer. It really does pay for itself pretty quickly.

My average grocery bill for all 4 of us for about 2 weeks is $150. I do keep fishsticks and tater tots on hand. Along with Kraft Mac N Cheese. But this is one way that I have really reigned in our spending on groceries. Not to mention the amount of food ending up in the garbage can.

Anywho, hope this helps somebody save a few pennies or a little bit of stress over their kitchen and their groceries. :D

MmMmMm....Southwest Style

So tonight I made a Southwest Chicken Soup, that was gluten and dairy free and totally tasty! I also tested out my newly acquired food processor and made my own salsa. The kind they serve at Mexican restaurants, which is my FAVORITE. Pico certainly has it's place in this world, but Arron's got that down to a science. I'm posting both of the recipes on TastyRecipes.com where my user name is YummyBurger. They are currently in the review process, but should be viewable in the next day or two. I'll post up the links soon.

5/24 Okay! Links are up, so here they are!

Restaurant Style Salsa
Southwest Chicken Soup

Fortunate

Lately I've found myself spending a lot of time in reflection. Even if it's just a few minutes here and there, and I really do have to consider myself fortunate. Has life gone the way I had planned over the past few years? Absolutely not. Would I change it for anything? Absolutely not. Life isn't always easy, and it doesn't always do what we want it to. But it's hard to ignore that things do seem to happen for a reason. Arron and I were considering moving half way across the country to Minnesota, but I just couldn't seem to get a call back on a hospital job, and there were NO internal openings for him to be able to transfer his job. So we looked at Portland...same thing...no luck. Then we find out that the girls will be coming to live with us because their mom made some less than desirable decisions. So we decide that Arron should go back to school and we should move to Olympia to be closer to my family. Unfortunately, a job closer to home just hasn't happened for me. Until now. I've interviewed at St Joe's in Tacoma and the manager has told me that I'm her selection for the position, now I'm just waiting for HR to do all their HR things and call me with an actual offer and a rate of pay.

My sister, as many of you know, has Celiac disease. To those who don't know what that is, it is a complete intolerance of gluten. Which is found in wheat, barley, rye and other similar grains. So no bread or pasta or beer or processed foods. "Modified Food Starch" is a sneaky way of saying "I also probably contain gluten" so the only way to know on those foods, is to contact the manufacturer. But even if it's processed in the same facility as foods that contain gluten, you can almost be certain that it's been cross contaminated, and ultimately, will make her sick. It seemed to me that after...what...I guess a few years now...of being gluten free (GF) she had finally gotten used to it. She had figured out how to make meals she could still enjoy, but it involved LOTS of salad to keep it simple. I could tell that she hadn't lost hope for good bread, but she certainly hadn't found it yet. I was keeping my eyes and ears peeled for any possible options that might be good.

I remember that after she first got diagnosed she had to go to New York for work for like a week. I decided that I was going to make lasagna for her to have the night she got home. So I went to Top Foods and grabbed a box of Tinkyada pasta and thought...well, it's worth a shot...and maybe with all the other flavors, she won't notice the weird brown rice pasta...so I made the lasagna. And it was awesome! And she loved it! The thought I'd put into making something she thought was a no-no. The way I made sure the sauce and everything was (as I call it) "Manda-friendly". Well just recently she's been told there is a whole new host of foods that she may be intolerant to. So, for the next 8 weeks, no dairy, no egg yolks, no red meat, no dark green leafy veggies, no alcohol, no caffeine, low fat, and LOTS of soluble fiber. Which doesn't sound like the end of the world, until you remember no gluten either. So...it's rice, chicken, turkey, potatoes, and umm...steamed veggies.

I found the the Gluten Free Goddess and she's been a God-send. Karina is the writer of the blog and she too is GF, dairy free and egg free. She actually has more allergies, but since she was diagnosed with those later, many of her recipes contain things she now knows are no-no's. I made her vanilla cupcakes for my sister's birthday last weekend and they were pretty good. Totally different for a "normal" gluten-laden cupcake, but tasty. So I've been expirementing with things like Vegan Mayo, alternative flours, rice pasta and others, to find tasty, healthy options for both my little family, and my sister. I made a tuna pasta salad last weekend too that was Manda-safe and still good. I'm going to try and chicken corn chowder this weekend. I'll let you know how it comes out. As I experiment, I'll post anything that turns out edible here. :)