Friday, picnic for girls and I (very easy)
PB sandwiches on homemade bread (40 cents)
Macaroni salad, with canned tomatoes, parsley, olives, vinaigrette (40 cents)
Apples, from garden
Bananas (45 cents)
--total cost $1.25
Saturday (very easy)
Italian chicken sausages ($2.49), with
Chopped canned tomatoes, and liquid plus seasonings (15 cents)
Brown rice (20 cents)
Kale and Cabbage from the garden, sauteed in fat from sausages
Fruit cups of nectarine and apple (60 cents)
--total cost $3.44
Sunday (very easy)
Egg fried rice with garden shallots, cabbage and kale (90 cents)
Baked apples with butter, cinnamon, brown sugar and pecans (75 cents)
--total cost $1.65
Monday (so so)
Meatloaf, topped with chopped canned tomatoes ($2.15)
Garden purple and white potatoes, rosemary and garlic (free)
Garden yellow crookneck squash, sauteed in reserved chicken fat (free)
Apple and nectarine wedges (apple from our trees) (40 cents)
Brown rice for anyone still hungry (25 cents)
--total cost $2.80
Tuesday (easy)
Black beans and rice, with chopped, canned tomatoes, garden green peppers and cheddar ($1.50)
Garden green beans (free)
Apple wedges (free)
Tossed salad of garden lettuce, yellow peppers, pickled beets, cabbage in a homemade vinaigrette (10 cents)
Scratch vanilla-confetti cupcakes with vanilla icing (45 cents)
--total cost $2.05
Wednesday -- dinner at a church event, no cost
Thursday (easy)
Black bean, rice and cheese burritos in homemade flour tortillas (70 cents)
Tossed salad of lettuce and garden carrots in vinaigrette (5 cents)
Fresh peaches (75 cents)
Blackberry cobbler (50 cents)
--total cost $2.00
I was totaling the cost of our dinners this past week to use as a tool for planning meals in the future. I'm trying to balance ease of making dinner with low cost. Some dinners just cost a lot more, yet are quick to make. And some dinners cost very little, but are labor intensive. But there are a handful of meals that are both cheap and quick 'n easy. Those are the meals I'm trying to ferret out. I'm putting together a basic menu plan for weeks with little time and tight budget, for my own use.
I ranked my dinners as "very easy", "easy", "so so", "time intensive", and I would have "extra time intensive", but I rarely put together weeknight dinners in that category. Those dinners would fall on major holidays, like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. And this week, I didn't even make a time intensive dinner (something like meatballs would fall under "time intensive", for me).
I had 3 "very easy" dinners this week. The PB sandwich picnic dinner, the egg-fried rice, and the Italian chicken sausage dinner. Of those 3, the PB sandwich picnic and the egg-fried rice were both under $2.00. I could tweak each individual menu and make some of them easier or less expensive. And I'll work on that in coming weeks. I think it's important to have a couple of super easy, but still cheap meals in your back pocket, for those hectic days.
So, how did your week go? Any super easy, but cheap meals this past week that you'd like to share with us?
Have a great weekend! And if you have a holiday this weekend, enjoy your long weekend!
