Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the Tail End of May

Friday (cost about -- $1.80)
pinto bean and vegetable soup (this was a delicious soup -- I made it early in the day and one daughter and I had it for our lunch, then the whole family had it for dinner. I used saved fat from Wednesday's meatloaf, as well as liquid from rinsing out the meatloaf pan. The flavor of the soup was wonderful. I added cooked pinto beans from the freezer, canned tomatoes, carrots, onion, chili powder, garlic powder, and garden Swiss chard.)
fresh-baked French bread
bread pudding made from the last of the failed batch of muffins earlier in the week, topped with homemade vanilla frozen yogurt

Saturday (cost about -- $1.35)
scrambled eggs with Swiss chard, canned tomatoes, and onions
carrot sticks
hash browned potatoes

Sunday cook-out (cost about -- $1.20)
hot dogs in homemade buns
cole slaw
s'mores

Monday (cost about -- $1.65)
pasta primavera (vegetables and herbs, tossed with cooked pasta, and topped with mozzarella)
focaccia
strawberry-rhubarb sauce

Tuesday (cost about -- $1.70)
bean and vegetable soup (made with ham stock and ham fat, so it had the aroma and flavor of smokey meat)
fresh-baked bread and butter
homemade vanilla frozen yogurt, topped with homemade cocoa mix

Wednesday (cost about -- $2.65)
spaghetti with meat sauce (using 1 pound of the super-discounted ground beef from a couple of months ago to make 6 adult servings --2 of which are for the freezer)
peas
vanilla frozen yogurt topped with homemade jam

Thursday (cost -- free)
We went to a design exhibit for a family friend. There were enough snacks to fill us all up, so no dinner was needed.

It was a busy week, translating into some very simple and last-minute dinners.

We used 1 pound of ground beef and 6 ounces of hot dogs for meat for the entire week.We also used about 1 cup of mozzarella cheese, which is as expensive as meat for us. We had eggs for dinner on 1 night and beans as the primary protein source on 2 nights.

I have to confess something (shhh, my family doesn't know this). I cheated a bit on the flavor of the strawberry-rhubarb sauce on Monday. I did add some frozen strawberries, but not much. To boost the flavor, I added strawberry Kool-aid powder. And yes, it was deliciously strawberry-y.

Breakfasts this week were steel cut oatmeal, homemade granola, homemade donuts, toast, butter, peanut butter, jam, yogurt, and milk. Lunches seemed to feature a lot of lentil sprouts and ramen soup and sometimes lentils in ramen soup. We also had leftover homemade soup, peanut butter sandwiches, eggs, carrots, rhubarb, yogurt, raisins, juice, and milk.

This is the last day of May. Consequently, my fridge is looking a bit bare. June's shopping is just around the corner, though, so that old Mother Hubbard look will soon vanish.

What was on your menu this past week? Do you have any go-to meals that you can whip up from scratch in 20 minutes or so? I expect this next week I'll be making extremely simple meals, as I finish up the preparations for my daughter's graduation shindig.

Have a great weekend!

Four Fortuitous Things Boosting My Buying Power for June

Don't you just love it when the things that you had wanted to buy anyway go on sale? Or when you think that you're all out of a particular needed ingredient, but then you find a stash of it tucked away? In one week, my grocery buying power got a big enough boost to allow me to buy more than double of one item for June. Here's what happened to make this possible:

• I had put marshmallows on my list for June, and then this weekend I found a whole bag tucked away in the garage freezer. When we thought we might have a mouse in the house, everything that was in a bag or other soft packaging in the pantry went into the fridge or the freezer. Apparently, a bag of marshmallows was amongst those items. We can use these for s'mores in June. Savings -- 96 cents
• My daughter made sugar cookies for the Sunday school class that she teaches a couple of weeks ago. After baking a bunch of them, she decided to freeze the rest of the dough. This weekend, she suggested that we use homemade sugar cookies (using this frozen dough) in place of graham crackers for June's s'mores. That'll work! Savings -- $1.68
• I had budgeted 49 cents per pound for a watermelon for June, with a maximum of $4.90. Over the weekend, Albertson's had watermelons on sale for 29 cents per pound. Even though it isn't June yet, I went ahead and bought 1 large watermelon. I spent $4.14 for that one. We won't cut into the melon until June begins. According to eatbydate.com, whole, uncut watermelons will keep for 7 to 10 days on the counter or 2 to 3 weeks in the refrigerator. At 29 cents per pound, our watermelon will be one of our primary fruits for the first half of June. Bonus -- I'll save the rind to make more pickles, following the recipe in this post. Savings on the melon -- 76 cents.
• When I first made my June shopping list, the 10-lb bag of yellow onions was selling for $4.84 at Cash & Carry and the 25-lb bag was about $7.50. I checked their website again this week, and the 10-lb bag is now $4.19 and the 25-lb bag is now $7.00. The previous 3 money-saving events/choices saved me $3.40. That savings will allow me to buy the 25-lb bag of yellow onions, spending $2.16 more than the budgeted $4.84 for onions. Plus, I will still have $1.24 leftover! I'll try not to spend it all in one place.

The 10-lb bag of onions would have lasted about 2 months in our house. Buying the 25-lb bag means that I can delay buying more onions until sometime in the fall, freeing up a couple of dollars of grocery money for other foods this summer. And my price for onions dropped from 40 cents per pound to 28 cents per pound. Now that's a bargain!