Cheap & Cheerful Meals for Father's Day Week

Friday
pepperoni pizza, tomato-basil soup (canned tomato paste, frozen basil from last summer, garlic, chicken stock), steamed broccoli and turnip stem pieces (saved from the turnips I harvested earlier in the week)

As usual -- your homemade pizza dinner for Friday. I love pizza and look forward to this dinner every week.

Saturday
scratch refried beans, homemade tortillas, carrot sticks, garden green salad

Sunday (Father's Day BBQ)
barbecued burgers on homemade buns from the freezer with lettuce from the garden, homemade dill pickles and onion slices, steamed broccoli in cheese sauce, potato chips and dip, canned pineapple chunks and banana slices, ice cream sundaes

My daughters prepared the Father's Day meal. This was as much a gift to me as to my husband. For dessert, they made a fudge sauce and a caramel sauce to go on vanilla ice cream and the leftover chocolate brownie ice cream from April birthdays. 

Monday
chicken pot pie, leftover bananas and pineapple, toasted burger bun, green fig pickle slices

Tuesday
sausage patties, lentils, rice and gravy, sautéed turnip greens, oven-roasted turnip chunks

Wednesday
tuna casserole using the last of the cheese sauce from Sunday as a binder, garden greens and lentil sprout salad, chocolate chip cookies

Thursday
leftover tuna casserole, Swiss chard frittata, carrot sticks

Baking this week -- I baked 3 loaves of bread, some chocolate chip cookies, and a batch of corn muffins. I also made another jar of instant brown sugar and cinnamon oatmeal for family members to make a bowl of oatmeal at a time. I've been working in the garden every day and have had little time for baking this week.

My friend with the fridge problems received her new fridge and freezer on Saturday (2 days late, they had to reschedule). She came and picked up her freezer items and returned the picnic cooler. I went shopping and bought another gallon of whole milk for making yogurt and did just that on Tuesday. Breakfasts included homemade yogurt once again.

Mid-week, I made soup for lunch that lasted 2 days, using leftover cooked lentils, sautéed turnip greens, chicken broth, garlic and some Parmesan cheese. It was delicious and appreciated by my family members to have something easy for their lunches. I also made 2 batches of rhubarb sauce and 1 bath of spiced fig-applesauce. We are low on fresh fruit and our strawberries are still not ready. Adding fruit sauces to the bananas, raisins, and canned pineapple makes our fruit selection more interesting. We also opened one of the packages of uncured hotdogs (bought on clearance) to use in lunches and ate leftovers or peanut butter sandwiches.

From the garden this week, we harvested lemon balm, rhubarb, turnips, Swiss chard, beet greens from thinning, lettuce, nasturtium leaves, radish leaves, and chives. The weather finally warmed up this week after weeks of chilly rain. I'm hoping the garden takes off with the warmer weather.

These were the meals we ate this week. What was on your menu?

Shopping and Gas This Week: A Few Bargains at the Store

Nothing to do with shopping and gas this week. Just one of the joys in my life. This is one of the salad baskets that I planted in spring. However, I haven't picked from this one in a month. You want to know why? There are a couple of birds nesting in this basket! I am trying to leave them alone in their space. As the weather dries out, I may have to water the basket a bit. So far, it's been very rainy, so no need to water.

Shopping

I finally went grocery shopping. I went to Fred Meyer, in part because I needed potting soil, hair dye, and an incandescent lightbulb for reading (easier on my eyes than LED or CFL), but also for milk and bananas. Hair dye was a buy 5, save $1 off each. So I bought 5 boxes, enough to last many months. They were nearly sold out of potting soil at this Fred Meyer. I bought what I need to get through the summer and hopefully early fall (growing veggies indoors under lights in fall and winter).

In the food half of the store, I found half-gallons of skim milk marked down to 99 cent each. I bought 8 half-gallons, enough for the next 4 weeks. The sell-by date is the 23rd of June, so I'll be freezing most of this milk. I also bought 1 gallon of whole milk for making yogurt ($3.29). In the shelf-stable clearance section, I found a single, dented can of mushrooms for 49 cents. There was really nothing else of interest in this clearance area this day. In the packaged deli section, I found 14-oz packages of uncured hotdogs marked down to 99 cents. I bought 8 of these packages. I froze 7 of them. Bananas have gone up in price from 49 cents/lb to 59 cents/lb. That's still a pretty good bargain for fresh fruit, so I bought 2 bunches. In total, I spent $22.22 on food. I also picked up some items for Father's Day dinner. However, my two daughters paid me back for those items, as they cooked Father's Day dinner as their gift to their dad. 

Gas this week

Driving home I saw diesel for $6.19/gallon. That's pretty shocking. I remember a time when diesel was always cheaper than unleaded.

It was my other daughter's turn to pay for gas this time around. She shopped around a little. The station directly across the street from the pharmacy where she was picking up a prescription had unleaded for $5.44/gallon. The closest Costco has gas at $5.16 today, down 17 cents from the $5.33 price last week. The high price in my area is $5.99/gallon at the local Shell. The neighborhood 7-11 that I've followed for the last few weeks had lowest octane unleaded at $5.83/gallon this morning, no change from last week.