Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for Memorial Week

Friday
homemade pepperoni pizza, chopped vegetable and fruit salad (carrots, radish greens, apple, raisins, peanuts in a sweet and creamy dressing, brownies from the freezer

Around Wednesday of every week, I start looking forward to pizza Friday. It's my favorite meal of the week. And I think homemade pizza is the best pizza. 

Saturday
refried beans, cheese, and homemade salsa, homemade tortillas, carrot sticks

The beans were cooked from dried. I cook a large pot full of pinto beans every few weeks, then store them in quart containers in the freezer until needed. Homemade refried beans are super easy to make once the beans are cooked. At their simplest -- cooked beans in a pot, some water, chili powder, salt, and garlic powder, then mashed with a potato masher until smooth.

Sorry no photo of Sunday's dinner. It was rehydrated TVP in a tomato paste marinara over cooked spaghetti noodles, plus steamed carrots.

Sunday
TVP spaghetti, steamed carrots

Monday (Memorial Day)
grilled burgers on homemade buns with garden lettuce, lentil-barley salad with (food save) past-its-prime celery that I rejuvenated in chilled water overnight, chive blossoms, herbs, and radish greens, and vanilla-rhubarb sauce (I add a bit of vanilla flavoring to rhubarb sauce at the very end of cooking. It seems to offset the acidity of the rhubarb.)

I baked a large batch of hamburger buns the day before, dividing into packages of 6 (when son and daughter-in-law are here) or 4 buns (just daughters, husband and I) each. Hamburger and hotdog buns are easy to make and oh-so-good. I wrapped them while still warm and they stayed super moist until the next day's dinner.  I make lentil-barley salad a few times in summer. It's a nice, cool way to serve beans and grains on a hot day. The dressing is some variation of a vinaigrette, sometimes with mustard added, or sometimes even a creamy vinaigrette (with mayo). Any fresh herbs from the garden add some zip. In this salad, I added chive blossoms, garden parsley, and thyme.

Tuesday
open-faced hot chicken sandwiches (chicken in gravy from freezer over freshly baked bread), frozen corn that had previously been canned, green bean casserole 

Comfort food for a week of weariness. It's a tough time for my family right now.

Wednesday
cranberry-chicken salad (using 99 cent/lb chicken thighs) on a bed of nasturtium leaves, lettuce, chive blossoms, parsley, lentil sprouts, with crackers and carrot sticks

The chicken thighs were roasted, then meat picked off the bones. We saved the chicken fat for cooking later and tossed the bones and skin into the crockpot to make stock. The next day, I was able to pick about 2 tablespoons of additional meat from the bones, with which I made myself a nice little chicken salad for my lunch.

Thursday
refried bean, TVP and cheese burritos (food save --I had to rehydrate the tortillas with damp paper towels in between each tortilla in a stack in a bag, then microwave for about 15 seconds), apple wedges, honey-mustard carrots

We had these 4 flour tortillas lingering in the fridge for weeks. Fortunately, none of them got moldy. As said, I rejuvenated them with moisture and heat. They turned out great and made terrific burritos. And bonus -- one less thing in the fridge that could spoil or mold in future days/weeks. The hone-mustard sauce for carrots, is just that, a bit of honey and a bit of mustard. one mustard bottle was about empty, so I rinsed it with water and used that in the sauce. I also add a knob of butter and sprinkle of salt. Yum! My favorite way to eat cooked carrots.

I am making the most of what I can get from the garden right now. This week, I was able to use radish greens, lettuce, chive blossoms, parsley, thyme, rhubarb, and nasturtium leaves.

I made my last batch of waffles over the weekend. While the waffle iron was cooking, it began sparking in the back, then blew the fuse. I unplugged it from the outlet, then noticed the cord was barely hanging onto the waffle iron. The sparking left a scorched pot on the counter. (I was able to clean that off.) I've had that waffle iron for 30 years. It provided a lot of good service. My husband said it could possibly be repaired. So I won't throw it out just yet. This isn't the kind of repair my husband could do. But if I find someone who does this sort of thing, I'll see about getting it repaired. In the meantime, it's pancakes for us.

I hope you all had a great week and area looking forward to a lovely weekend. What was on your menu this past week? Any food saves recently?

Shopping and Gas This Week -- Last of May/Beginning of June

I grocery shopped in person at Fred Meyer (Kroger affiliate) this week. It had been 2 weeks since I last bought milk and we were, as I predicted, completely out of drinking milk at this point. I still had some slightly sour milk in the freezer, which I used. I made a small batch of biscuits one evening and some waffles over the weekend with this sour milk. My family still had plenty of homemade yogurt and cheese to get their dairy fix, though. I do have some powdered milk in the pantry. But I consider this to be true emergency milk. Running out of milk for two or three days doesn't constitute an emergency, IMO. 

So, I needed milk. I bought 1 gallon of whole milk for making another batch of yogurt and 3 gallons of 2% milk for my milk-lovers. The last time I shopped, I bought 2 gallons of 2%. This is my compromise while the price of milk feels high -- one shopping I'll buy 2 gallons and the next I'll buy 3 gallons. Milk, by the way, was $3.09 per gallon last week. I went online just now and milk has been marked up to $3.39/gallon. Thank goodness we don't drink organic milk. Name brand organic milk was $8/gallon at a store near me.

I found the "new" clearance section in Fred Meyer. Very little food items in that section. But I did find a deal on tissues (89 cents/box of 144 ct -- I bought 6 boxes, next winter's supply) and a box of foil that had been damaged for 99 cents. I slowly perused every aisle that I thought might have clearance items. In the packaged deli section I found 4 1-lb chubs of pork sausage marked down to 99 cents each. I bought all four. So, I'll tell you something about the sausage. When we were traveling to and from Arizona, one of the items that wee all really enjoyed from the included breakfasts was the sausage. In the car, we had talked about me buying some sausage for occasional breakfasts. Once home, I priced out the least expensive pork sausage. Cash & Carry Chef'Store had 6-lb rolls for $2.71/lb. Walmart carries the same brand in 1-lb rolls for $2.88/lb. I didn't get top buying the sausage, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find four 1-lb rolls on clearance at Fred Meyer for 99 cents/lb! 

In the meat department I found some 24 oz marinated pork tenderloins for $3.99. I only bought one of those, even though there were several. I'm not a huge pork fan (unless it's ham, bacon, or sausage), so this one will be enough for us. I'll may use it on Father's Day. As just a regular sale item, I bought 1 large family pack of bone-in chicken thighs at 99 cents/lb. Once I got the package home I divided it into 3 meal packets. And I also bought 2 bunches of bananas at 49 cents/lb. In total I spent $27.03. I had other non-food items on my list. One daughter needed some disposable cups for a sub teaching project and I needed another bag of potting soil for starting more radish seeds under lights indoors. My indoor radishes seem to grow better than outdoor ones. Even though I have a garden growing outdoors, I'll be growing the radishes indoors this summer.

It looked like there was still plenty of food in the store, but it did look like there was less of everything, fewer packages, items moved to the front of the shelf with no back-up stock behind those items, fewer choices in brand and style of many items. The produce department does not look bountiful, although there is still produce there. The tofu section was still down to just a couple of cartons. It's been almost a year now that tofu seems to be in short supply. Such an odd item to have low inventory. They were pretty low in inventory of infant formula, as well. On their website, you can still order most formula brands, but there are limits. On Walmart's website, they have more formula in stock in the store than Fred Meyer, it appears. But again there are low limits to how much one can buy.

In addition to shopping at Fred Meyer, I placed another online order for chocolate chips and cocoa powder through Walmart.com. (Yes, I did a little panic shopping.) I was pleased with how well the chocolate chips shipped the last time. They packed them in a foam-lined box with ice packs. The ice packs were completely melted by the time I received the box, but they still felt a little cool. More importantly, the bags of chocolate chips felt like the chips maintained their shapes and didn't melt into a large blob. So I bought another 6-package lot of chocolate chips and a few more cans of cocoa powder. I believe we have about how much chocolate and cocoa powder that I'd normally have going into the fall and holiday baking and candy-making season.

The least expensive unleaded gas is hovering between $5.30 and $5.50/gallon in my little town. One town over I can find gas for $5.09/gallon at a couple of stations. 

Inflation, inflation, inflation. I do feel we're being squeezed from every direction. Our homeowners' insurance comes due in July. It too went up quite a bit. But, we have our garden. I know we will be provided for, and abundantly so.

How was the shopping in your area this past week?