Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the Last Bit of January

Last day of January -- wow! Did the month fly by or what?!

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

Saturday

Saturday
scrambled eggs
pasta with tomato sauce
carrot sticks
cookies

Sunday
turkey, potato, onion, carrot hash
cookies

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

Wednesday

Wednesday (other daughter cooked)
hot dogs
boxed stuffing
canned green beans
canned corn
leftover pumpkin pie for anyone who wanted some

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!

Doing Spring Cleaning in Winter

Winter seems to be a better season than spring for me to do a major cleaning. In winter, I'm not working in the garden, creating holiday stuff, shopping, cooking, and baking in a frenzy, or vacationing. Everyone in the house is back on their regular schedules, so I'm not as busy with them, either. 

I am still a pretty busy person, however. So, I tackle the "winter cleaning" in small chunks. Each day, I take on a new task or work on a different area of the house. While I don't get that great "doesn't the house just sparkle" moment with cleaning in bits and pieces, by Easter I have cleared out the cobwebs and cleaned up all of the little messes and stains so my home is pleasing.

Yesterday, I tackled one small section of the kitchen, wiping down the appliances, cupboard doors, and counters, editing out unnecessary stuff, and touching up nicks in the paint on the door and drawer fronts.

a small scratch that also had a stain next to it

We have several tiny nicks in the surface of our painted cabinets. Nicks in light-colored paint appear like small dark marks. 

I mixed a tiny bit of each paint until it looked about right

I used some acrylic craft paint and a craft paint brush to dab on a tiny amount of paint and camouflage these little nicks.

The scratch is much less noticeable, I think. Other nicks look much improved, too.

I'm very happy with how well this worked. While these things may seem insignificant, I like to take care of them as I find them. That way, the jobs don't pile up and seem overwhelming. Plus, it just makes me feel better about my house when I think it looks nice.


note: yesterday's cleaning was a bigger job than I take on most days. The day before, my cleaning task was to wipe down all of the light switches in the house with rubbing alcohol, and the day before that was to clean the washing machine. So don't get the idea that I spend lots of time cleaning every day.