Friday
leftover rice topped with garden snow peas and peanut butter/soy sauce sauce
corn on the cob (Sprout's sale 20 cents/cob- we use 1/2 cob per person)
deviled eggs (remember those eggs bought at 55 cents dozen?)
watermelon (Fred Meyer, for 21 cents/lb)
Saturday
baked chicken leg quarters (bought at Walmart in 10-lb bag)
rice and lentils
corn on the cob
Sunday
hot dogs in homemade buns
corn on the cob
green salad with garden lettuce, chard, and strawberries, tossed with vinaigrette
Monday
egg, cheese, and waffle sandwiches
cherries from our tree
bananas
Tuesday
cabbage, onions, and hotdogs over
brown rice
Wednesday
coconut curried lentils (got a deal on coconut milk with a coupon -- 45 cents/half-gallon)
homemade plum chutney
millet pilaf
cucumber, plain yogurt, garlic, and mint salad
Thursday -- 4th of July Holiday
barbecued chicken leg quarters
pan rolls
canned corn tossed with browned green pepper and onion dices, plus seasonings (canned corn from clearance rack -- dented can, 35 cents each)
creamy rhubarb gelatin salad
tossed salad of garden greens and Parmesan shavings (leftover from reception) in homemade Italian dressing
blueberry pie (frozen blueberries from last summer in a scratch crust)
watermelon infused water (lots and lots of small slices of watermelon in a large pitcher of tap water, infused for 36 hours)
soda brought by son and DIL
As this was a holiday week, I spent a good share of my time cooking. Keeping up with daily meals while preparing for a couple of holiday meals is a difficult task, as you all know. one thing that I did to make this a little easier for myself was to concentrate the bulk of my "holiday" cooking on one day. On that day, I made the daily dinner before lunch, so that I could have some of dinner for my lunch. Then I cooked for the rest of the afternoon and into evening, baking a 2-week supply of bread, a pie, marinating the chicken, preparing for a picnic, chopping veggies and rhubarb, harvesting and cleaning greens, making dressing, making jello -- you get the picture, I'm sure. I was so exhausted when that was done, but glad to know that the holiday meals would be easier to pull together in the moment.
We had not just the dinner on the 4th of July, but we also took a picnic to the zoo for the day. One daughter had to work on the 4th (at the zoo), so we brought a picnic there and had lunch with her while she took her break. As an employee at the zoo, my daughter was able to get discounted tickets for the other 3 of us. It was still a kind of expensive day for our budget, but worth being able to share the holiday as a family. I did try to make the picnic lunch simpler, but still within our budget. For the picnic, we brought cheese, crackers, and breadsticks (leftover and stashed from the reception), cut-up watermelon, deviled eggs, candy-coated pretzel wands, chocolates (from reception), and canned soda (leftover from Easter, brought by son and DIL). The picnic was quite frugal, in that I didn't buy a single extra thing. Whenever we have a party or celebration and I buy goodies, the leftovers get stashed to use for another special occasion. My family is used to and accepts this, knowing that the goodies will show up and make another event special.
I'm most proud that we ate within our budget for the entire week. While at the zoo, I was very tempted to buy myself a cup of coffee, but I resisted and had water from the drinking fountain instead. The dinner was fantastic. My daughters did the grilling and even did so without charcoal briquettes. They pre-baked the chicken in the oven, then used the sticks and small branches from the cherry tree that I pruned in the spring, in place of briquettes to finish the cooking, add wood smoke flavor and grilled texture to the chicken skin and meat. I cooked the used marinade on the stove to kill bacteria and thicken it to a sauce, then my daughters used this to baste the chicken as it grilled.
And now, we have enough leftovers that I don't have to cook tonight! Yay!
I hope that your week went well, that you had good weather, and you experienced moments of joy!
