Cheap & Cheerful Meals for Early June

Friday
homemade pepperoni pizza, rhubarb-vanilla sauce, cream of sorrel soup

Saturday
pancakes, sausage, carrots sticks

Sunday
refried beans, homemade tortillas, garden green-lentil sprout salad

Monday
meatloaf and gravy, crockpot polenta, roasted turnips, sautéed turnip greens/onions/garlic, rhubarb-koolaid jello, freezer brownies

Tuesday
rice & lentils with leftover turnip greens and 4 oz sausage (I used chives and garlic greens from the garden in place of store-bought bulb onions and garlic), leftover jello, leafy green garden salad with oil/vinegar dressing, brownies

Wednesday
ham, lentil, vegetable soup, cinnamon-raisin scones

Thursday
tuna salad on nasturtium leaves. carrot sticks, toasted homemade bread, rhubarb custard pie, chocolate chip cookies

This the rhubarb and Koolaid jello salad from earlier in the week. About a month ago, my daughter made a pitcher of an orange colored Koolaid that she said tasted like citric acid, so she didn't want to drink it. (She's the only one who drinks the Koolaid.) She paid for the Koolaid packet, but she used my sugar. I didn't want this to be wasted, so I told her I'd make something with the Koolaid. What I did was I stewed chopped rhubarb in some of the Koolaid, added a bit more sugar until it tasted right. I pureed the stewed rhubarb with an immersion blender, then set it with plain gelatin. Everyone loved it.

curried lentils with peanuts and homemade plum chutney -- made a great lunch for us on Thursday

Lunches
garden green/lentil sprout salads with oil/vinegar dressing, grape leaf-rice-lentil-dill weed soup, homemade hummus and crackers, curried lentils with homemade plum chutney, leftovers

Breakfast
toast, homemade yogurt, homemade instant oatmeal (I made a new batch this week)
I have this theory that we use less milk on cooked cereals like oatmeal than we do on dry cereals like Cheerios. My idea is there are so many places the milk can "go" in a bowl of Cheerios. Whereas in a bowl of cooked cereal, the milk can only sit on top. Anyway, just trying to stretch our use of milk a tad. In addition, cooked oatmeal is a whole lot cheaper than boxed dry cereal.

this is a rhubarb custard pie with a crumb topping   recipe in this link

Desserts and Baked Goods

homemade cinnamon rolls, rhubarb-Koolaid jello, scratch brownies, scratch chocolate chip cookies, homemade rhubarb pie, a 3 loaf batch of French bread dough baked in loaf pans

My family agreed, the best meal of the week was Monday's dinner. These were the first turnips of the season. I oven-roasted the roots and sautéed the greens. Turnip greens are a bit bitter, yet we enjoy them, especially with a salty meal like meatloaf and gravy. I did the polenta in the crockpot, as Kris had mentioned she does. And I used regular cornmeal. In the past, I've always used polenta cornmeal. I'm glad to now know that regular cornmeal will work in polenta, too.

We're shifting our eating to more and more garden produce while at the same time trying to use up the last of the produce from summer 2021. So many yummy foods to make, so little tummy space.

That's what was on our menu. What was on yours?

Shopping and Gas the First Week of June: Toilet Paper Inflation, Ack!

I didn't shop for food this week, but I did put in an order for bathroom tissue. I'm sure you've noticed the price on even this necessity is going up and up. What I used to buy at Walmart for $9.02 just 2 years ago is now selling for $11.24. That's a shocking 25% increase in price! So I began hunting around for a better deal on TP. I found shipping-only Kroger brand (I was buying Great Value brand) priced at $10.79, when price adjusted for the same amount as in the Walmart package. I ordered the limit and added 2 more items that I could get through Fred Meyer for less than my other stores, so I could get free shipping. So my inflation rate on the bathroom tissue will be 19%. It's sad that I'm considering this "good."

In our one-car household, we share the cost of gas by alternating who fills the tank. Because my daughters drive more than my husband and I combined, we've divided up the responsibility by three (daughter 1, daughter 2, husband/I combined). Just 2 years ago, our agreed upon amount was $30 per turn. A year ago August, we increased that to $40 per turn. Just this week, we upped that amount to $50 per turn. Mind you, this does NOT fill the tank. 2 years ago, $50 would overflow our car's fuel tank. We now get about 2/3 of a tank. It was a daughter's turn to pay for gas. Gas is zooming toward $6 a gallon in my area. It's $5.79 at the 7-11 in my town and $5.89 at the Chevron and Shell! Costco has been my benchmark for cheap gas (although we don't have membership so don't buy our gas there). This week, Costco's lowest octane unleaded is $5.19/gallon, up 30 cents/gallon in the last 2 weeks. To allow for the inflation on gas, we are trying to drive less, but also cutting back in other areas of spending. Interesting -- gas is cheaper inside the Seattle city limits than it is here, about 20 miles north, and then cheaper if I drive another 20 miles north of us.