Cheap & Cheerful Meals for New Year's Week

I haven't posted on our meals for several weeks. It's been a very busy month. Life is getting back to normal for us. Are you back to regular routines, too?

I didn't take photos for several days in the middle of the week. You'll just have to use your imagination.

Friday
homemade pepperoni pizza

mashed acorn squash mixed with pureed pumpkin

orange wedges

Saturday (New Year's Eve)

frozen egg rolls
frozen sesame chicken (with peppers and broccoli added by me)
sesame and vegetable noodles
steamed rice
tangerines
pumpkin-spice cake

We watched The Bells of St. Mary's starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. You may know this, in It's a Wonderful Life, there's a scene where the cinema marquee in Bedford Falls displays the title of The Bells of St. Mary's. We watch It's a Wonderful Life every year and have noticed the marquee. So this year we decided to finally watch The Bells of St. Mary's. We all really enjoyed the movie. 

Dinner was easy by design -- to give me an easy meal on a holiday evening.

Sunday
roasted brined whole chicken and gravy
scratch dinner rolls
frozen peas
watermelon pickles
leftover cake
sparkling water

Saturday afternoon I cleaned the chicken and made a brine with water, salt, sugar, and garlic powder. I brined the chicken for about 24 hours. About an hour before roasting on Sunday, I pulled the chicken out of the brine and drained it, then put it in the oven to roast. The resulting chicken was tender, juicy, and flavorful. My two daughters made the rolls from one of my mom's recipes. They did a fantastic job, and we've been enjoying the rolls all week.

Monday
leftover chicken and gravy
leftover dinner rolls
more frozen peas
more watermelon pickles
last of the cake

Monday's dinner was a complete repeat of Sunday's, reheating leftovers. Again an easy meal for me to prepare.

Tuesday
leftover chicken in last of the gravy over brown rice
canned green beans

One of my daughters put together dinner tonight. She worked as a sub this day, so I suggested a super easy meal for her. 

Wednesday
chicken enchiladas, using leftover chicken from Sunday 
avocado slices
apple wedges and peanut butter

My other daughter made dinner this night. I had suggested she make chicken nachos, but she wanted to learn something new and asked about enchiladas. The enchiladas were delicious. The recipe for the sauce comes from Belinda at Frugal Workshop. In the comments section, Belinda provides her recipe for the sauce in answer to my question. I told my daughter to make 1/4 recipe for the enchiladas for our family of four.

Thursday
chicken, vegetable and noodle soup
leftover dinner rolls
tangerines

And . . . the last of that whole chicken that I roasted on Sunday. We got 5 meals and an extra couple of quarts of stock (now in the freezer). To the chicken meat in stock, I added broken spaghetti noodles and frozen veggies from my garden (celery, carrot leaves, spinach, chives).

We're back to Friday, and we'll do either pizza or lasagna tonight and hopefully watch a movie.

I hope you all had a great week. What was on your menu this past week? Have you been working through holiday leftovers, too? Wishing you a wonderful weekend!