As I mentioned the other day, I spent $1.98 on groceries this past week on a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa, bringing my January spending up to $85.10. That's $20.84 under budget, so I'll roll that excess over into February.
The meals for the week continued to use what we have on hand. Tasty but basic meals. Here's what we had for dinners this past week.
Friday
the week's various leftovers, combined with lentil-based minestrone soup
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| Saturday |
Saturday
scrambled eggs
pasta with tomato sauce
carrot sticks
cookies
Sunday
turkey, potato, onion, carrot hash
cookies
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| Monday |
Monday
meatloaf
brown rice
gravy made with meatloaf drippings, flour, paprika, oregano, salt, and leftover pizza sauce
canned green beans
orange wedges
chocolate-tofu silk
Tuesday (daughter cooked)
baked lentils (like baked beans, just with lentils, these were leftover from last week)
corn muffins (leftover from last week)
kale salad
pumpkin pie
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| Wednesday |
Wednesday (other daughter cooked)
hot dogs
boxed stuffing
canned green beans
canned corn
leftover pumpkin pie for anyone who wanted some
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| Thursday |
Thursday
corn and ham souffle
lentil sprout salad
roasted sweet potatoes
more leftover pumpkin pie
The daughter who cooked on Wednesday had a very tight schedule that day. I offered to swap nights with her, but she preferred to just get her night over with. When she has a busy day like this, she'll often ask me for some quick and easy dinner suggestions. I give her my best, easy and fast suggestions that use what we have on hand. While it's good to know how to throw meals together from scratch, I also think it's good to know how to improvise a quick and easy meal that hits all of the food groups, tastes great, and uses less expensive convenience foods.
On the non-food front, Thursday I swapped out the green bulbs in a strand of green and white adorning a bush next to the kitchen door with some red bulbs. That bush will be lit up in red and white for Valentine's Day.
Also on Thursday, my housecleaning chore for the day was to clean the baseboards in the kitchen, hall to the garage, laundry room, powder room, and entry hall. These are the walkways that get the most foot traffic and so the baseboards become quite dirty. Washing breathes new life into them. Our baseboards are painted white, so dust and dirt really show. A good cleaning makes them almost look like they've been repainted. Cleaning baseboards in high-traffic areas is one of the best bangs for a buck in cleaning tasks, in my opinion. They get so dirty -- so a good clean-up makes a difference to me.
Have a lovely weekend!
