Here's something new for my household's grocery shopping -- we bought 30 pounds of beef from a rancher with a small-scale operation. This was something I'd been wanting to do for a decade. Now was the right time.
I wasn't sure how much freezer space 30 pounds would take up, so I didn't want to buy any more than that at this time. I'll buy more when we use all of this.
This beef was a lot more expensive per pound than grocery store beef, but it is much more flavorful, and I know that the animals are well-cared for, and the quality is higher (ground beef is 85/15, the stew meat had just enough fat on it to make it tender without needing to drain the meat after searing). So, our meals for this last week begin with the first of our beef purchase.
beef, tomatoes, garlic and macaroni
apple wedges
Saturday (again no photo)
scrambled eggs
rice
tomato-cucumber salad
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| Sunday |
Sunday
beef stew, using our garden potatoes, carrots, celery, garlic, green beans, and herbs, plus beef
cornbread for the rest of the family
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| Monday |
Monday
baked beans
sautéed garden veggies
apple wedges
cabbage and cucumber slaw
plum cake (for the rest of the family)
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| Tuesday |
Tuesday
roasted chicken, gravy
mashed potatoes or slice of bread
cabbage, cucumber, tomato salad
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| Wednesday |
Wednesday
leftover chicken in bbq sauce
white corn grits
apples and plums
tomato, cucumber, basil, garlic salad
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| Thursday -- I was super hungry and barely remembered to take a pic |
Thursday
chicken soup, using leftover chicken, garden celery, carrots, green beans, herbs, and a store onion
fresh-baked French bread
Lots of good produce from the garden this week to go with 1 whole chicken and 2 pounds of beef. I've been digging the carrots for meals as I need them. So far, the first 2 pots have good-sized carrots. I don't expect the other 4 pots to have equally-large carrots, as those were planted and thinned just a little later.
Breakfasts included toasted homemade bread, jam and peanut butter, oatmeal, no-bake peanut butter-oatmeal cookies (my daughter thinks of these as breakfast cookies), eggs, coffeecake, cornbread and syrup, tomatoes, plums, apples, orange juice, and some commercial cereal and pork sausage. For lunches, we used some of the leftover roasted chicken in sandwiches, plus apples, plums, tomatoes, cabbage, and salad greens for produce.
So, that's what we ate this week. What was on your menu?
