Another day in town for me!

I feel like I've been... I don't know, wild, or something! I've gone to town twice this week, and I went once or twice last week! Amazing. ;) Mama and I cruised downtown Franklin today gathering decorating ideas. It was quite fun, but then, I love going to Franklin anytime just about! I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I'm really glad I'm not in charge of managing the family's fuel budget!

Anyway, all that said, I hope to be forgiven for not really knowing what's been going on around the house today.

Breakfast: Steel-cut oats

Lunch: Mama and I ate at Sapphire in the Factory at Franklin... at 2:45pm. Yeah, I'm not wanting dinner. At all. Needless to say, the French Dip sandwich I got was delicious, as were the "yam" (sweet potato, to translate for those of us who name the vegetable correctly) fries.

Dinner: TBD. I'm SO not hungry...

Reduce, Reuse, Re-fried Beans

Day 22, and all's well!

Breakfast: French toast made out of the left-over bread sticks from the day before yesterday, and eggs.

Thursdays are cookie days around here. I made Chocolate Crinkles today, and I'm pleased to announce that they're getting rave reviews despite the facts that they don't have butter in them and I chose to use up some of the whole wheat flour (soft white) we have on hand. I was particularly drawn to this recipe because it didn't use butter. I'm trying to conserve the butter we have, so that was a great plus!

Lunch: Macaroni and cheese! Gotta love something that starts with onions and garlic being sauteed in butter! There are some things that just need to be buttery, and sauteed onions is, in my opinion, one of those.

Dinner: Bacon, re-fried beans, and left-over macaroni. I made the re-fried beans from the Great Northern beans we had last Friday. Random assortment of edibles, yes, but one likes to use what one has on hand, you know.

Three week mark

Has it only been 3 weeks? For some reason it seems like it's been quite a bit longer than that...

Anyway, as I mentioned in the last post, we were in Nashville and Franklin for most of the day. While in town, we went by Cash and Carry. There I got nacho trays (or whatever they're called), restaurant black pepper, and garlic powder. That knocked off $26 from the grocery budget, bringing the total to $278.69.

Now on to today's menu:

Breakfast: Cream of wheat

Lunch: We celebrated my grandmother's birthday with her at Amerigo's.

Dinner: Again, we were still out and about. We more or less had Starbucks for dinner.

Trying out the new ground beef!

Breakfast: Toast... and whatever else we could round up. I think. Seems a long time ago.

Lunch: Left-overs. We've about cleaned out the fridge! Good thing we're heading to Nashville for lunch tomorrow!

Dinner: Spaghetti and bread sticks. The ground beef is flavorful, but not as good as when we did our own, I believe.

As I said, tomorrow we're off to Nashville!

Another day late...

Been busy lately, and haven't really wanted to blog. Still, here's a quick overview of yesterday's menu:

Breakfast: French toast and whatever else you want

Lunch: Tomato soup and grilled pimiento cheese

Dinner: Rib-eyes, mashed potatoes with caramelized onions, and green beans (Oh, it was SO good!)

Hopefully I'll get today's menu up later today.

Birthday Weekend!

Saturday was my younger(est?) brother Luke's and my grandmother's birthday celebrations (mine too actually, since my birthday was the week before). So the family gathered 'round for a delightful lunch and afternoon here at Belle Springs Farm. But here's the review:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want (if I'm remembering correctly... a lot has happened since then.)

Lunch: Hot wings and potato salad. Dessert was plain cheesecake (Cheesecake Factory brand, frozen, from Costco) topped with homemade white chocolate glaze/sauce and fresh raspberries and fresh raspberry sauce.

Dinner: Left-overs!

Sunday's menu:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want ... again. Yeah, I really need to work on that...

Lunch: Dirty rice (see Thursday's post), green beans (fixed Friday since Saturday was going to be so busy), and left-over cheesecake

Dinner/Fellowship: Left-over wings, hard salami, wheat thins, cream cheese, sweet-hot peppers (pickled)

"I never tire of eating beans, beans, beans!"

Yesterday's menu:

Breakfast: Get whatcha want... I think I had applesauce.

Lunch: Various and sundry left-overs

Dinner: Great northern beans and cornbread (a personal favorite)

Today we're celebrating birthdays with the extended family, so we're having more special meals!

BEEF!!!

We have some now!!! Like, 200lbs or so. And for a killer good price!!! The beef cost $192.18 to process. I have to confess that for that really awesome price, and the amount of meat we got, I'm almost tempted to say we'll never process our own beef again. However, I'd personally rather miss the fellowship and camaraderie we've always had at those times. Still, at a dollar or less a pound...

When Daddy went to pick up our beef, he also grabbed some bacon and sausage. That brought the total to $229.52. The grocery balance for this pay period, including the $34 from the last one, is now $304.69. As I said in the last post, we'll have some chickens to pay for, but after that, there shouldn't be too awfully many expenses... right? I hope!

Today in Review

Breakfast: Eggs with a homemade cheese sauce (now that we have cheese!) and a pound of that really good bacon from our processor.

Lunch: Tomato soup with fresh, homemade bread. I turned one of those ginormous cans of crushed tomatoes into potential tomato soup, pizza sauce, or meatless spaghetti sauce. I added sauteed onions, fresh garlic, dried oregano and basil, and salt and pepper and then immersion-blended it all together We ate some (with added milk and cheese, of course), and I froze the rest in 3 quart-sized freezer bags.

Dinner: Dirty rice with homemade bread. I tried to get rid of the rest of last week's loaf, but no one would eat it when there was fresh bread around! So, it also went in the freezer. It'll either get turned into bread crumbs or croutons, or it will be thrown out in a couple of years... Anyway! I made a very large batch of dirty rice, so what we didn't eat at dinner (which was quite a bit, since there were only 4 of us here) went into a crock pot for Sunday!

I also made a batch of chocolate chip cookies today. The Aldi's chocolate chips are decent, not great, but tolerable, but I don't care for the chocolate chip cookie recipe on the back of the bag. (My foodie side is showing itself again.)

Daddy made a Costco run for me today! He got 14 items for $107.62, and now we're ready to celebrate a few birthdays this weekend. ... Hopefully.

The balance I'm left with this payment period is now, I believe, $34.21. Well, at least we're positive, and hopefully in a couple of months this will be built up to more. I know that tomorrow we've got to pick up our beef (roughly $200 + whatever, if any, bacon we get from the same place), and sometime in the next week or so I think we've also got a chicken stock-up. Each of those will cut significantly into next month's grocery money, but after that we shouldn't have to buy meat for a while! It'll sure be nice to have a full freezer again!

Two Week Mark!

Mama and I left around 9:30 this morning. We hit Aldi's, Walmart, and Publix. We didn't get extremely good deals, but I am pleased with our accomplishments. Today's total is : $269.40 for 103 items.

We discovered that, of the three stores, Aldi's has the best price for cheeses. We also got eggs, chocolate chips, celery, carrots, and AA batteries there for decent to good prices. This week only Publix is running a special where you can buy one bag of Nestle chocolate chips and get one bag of Publix brand chocolate chips for free. That made the price of chocolate chips slightly better at Publix than the price at Aldi's.

We determined that Publix has the best price on mayonnaise (Sauer brand) and high-efficiency laundry detergent, but not much else. Walmart was the best and most convenient for most things.

There is still a Costco run to make before the end of the week, but there aren't too many items on that list. I'm hoping it won't be too cripplingly expensive.

All in all, I believe we've done very well. The list wasn't terrible, the prices were ... fair, and it's been a full month or more since we've done shopping like this. I certainly expected things to be far more difficult, long, and expensive.

We're still in the black!!! The current balance, I believe, is $141.83! AND I officially get "paid" again tomorrow (I think... or it may be Friday...)! AND we're going to pick up our beef on Saturday (along with some of the processor's delicious and inexpensive bacon, hopefully)!

While I'm here, here's today's menu review:

Breakfast: Old-fashioned oats w/ butter and brown sugar or rapadura

Lunch: Mama and I were in town, so we grabbed a box of granola bars. Those at home had ham and bean soup.

Dinner: Chicken pot pie, I believe.

Tuesday Review

Breakfast: Various and sundry left-overs (country ham, grits, etc.) with the option of doing your own eggs.

Lunch: Dinner for lunch! Country ham (that stuff has lasted us a lot longer than I thought it would!), mashed potatoes, and green beans.

Dinner: Creamy, poppy seed chicken casserole (I obviously don't remember the exact name...) with baked acorn squash and green peas.

Today, Mama and I are going to head out for the first "all out" grocery shopping we've done in possibly over a month. Surprisingly enough, the list doesn't really look all that bad. It's not the list I'm worried about though; it's that end total...

Overdue update

Just a quick one.
.
Sunday: Get whatcha want breakfast, roasts (w/ potatoes, carrots, and onion) and green beans and peach lazy man's pie for lunch, left-over pie for afternoon (planned on doing Sicilian ... pastries? or something like that, but it didn't work out).

Yesterday: I was in Franklin all day with some of my best friends, so I really have no idea what went on around home food-wise.

AND we're back!

Day 10!

Breakfast: Leftover country ham with cheesy, creamy grits and scrambled eggs

Lunch: Pizza followed by root beer floats

Dinner: Doughnuts/funnel cake (trial run for afternoon food for tomorrow - it was a success!), plus some roast (maybe?). Various members of the family are rather busy this evening, so it's kind of been grab what you want when you want it.

Again, nothing from the grocery budget! I'm pleased with how these 10 days have worked out so far. I'm giving myself what I hope is something of a "cushion of protection," saving a little something for celebrations and hospitality possibilities.

Review of Yesterday, Day 9

Again, I don't have much of an excuse for not posting this last night. I just didn't feel like it. I was tired at 10pm, and I was still suffering from caffeine withdrawal - day 3. Ugh. Here's hoping it doesn't show up again today!

Alrighty! The band members were off again yesterday, and Daddy was at work. That left me and Luke home alone. He did school; I posted here and on my personal blog (I guess this one's kind of a personal blog as well, but anyway.) and did various of other little things on the internet before making bread, cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry, and watching a movie. But all that's material for the other blog. This blog is for the food and budget things.

Breakfast: Biscuits with the leftover country ham + anything else you wanted and could find

Lunch: Fresh bread and butter

Dinner: Subway (Daddy was home at that point, and we were headed into Dickson to get materials for a project.)

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner - Day 8

We were out rather late last night, and I was exhausted. So, I decided to wait until this morning to type this up.

Breakfast: Cream of wheat

Lunch: Baked potatoes

Dinner: Country ham and whatever we could find at the Iron Pitchfork competition at the Franklin farmers' market

I fixed a ton of country ham yesterday evening, so we're having that for breakfast this morning. We'll probably have it for dinner tonight as well, but hopefully I'll fix some grits or something to go along with it.

Another day, another victory

We survived and didn't spend any grocery money, so I'm considering today quite the success.

Breakfast: Leftovers/whatever you can grab

Lunch: Leftover soup from last night

Dinner: Potato soup and grilled smoked sausage

The frequency of the term "leftovers" is becoming increasingly embarrassing. I really ought to work on transforming those leftovers into something new and interesting; I've just completely lacked inspiration lately. I did start making lists of our favorite breakfasts today, but I was working with a major headache and therefore didn't get a whole lot done. One step at a time, and as long as it resembles a step forward, I'm happy.

September 6, 2011

Today! Quick review (because we're watching Tim Hawkins, which, you've gotta admit, is way more fun than posting about menus and budgets):

Breakfast: Steel-cut oats (homemade butter, rapadura or brown sugar, milk)

Lunch: Potato salad (good thing, too! The potatoes are going soft...)

Dinner: Chicken fajita soup - or something like that. (We have peppers to use up.)

On the way home from work, Daddy picked up some groceries for us too:

• 3 dozen eggs

• 1lb of Monterey Jack

• Tortilla chips

That took $10. That makes the total $411.23. Now, I'm going to get back to Tim Hawkins. :)

Labor Day, Day 5

Nothing special meal-wise was done by us to celebrate Labor Day today. We just got to enjoy being all together as a family (happening less and less these days), and our living room got demolished. Yeah, pretty much:

For breakfast everyone grabbed whatever they could find and/or whatever they wanted. Noticeably the leftover pecan pie and fruit crisp were finished. Also all our homemade yogurt. We need more of that now...

For lunch, we had rice with the leftover meatballs from yesterday. We also had No-bakes. Love those things.

Dinner was early and at Sonic. We had to go to Dickson (well, when you begin a totally unplanned project on the scale of the one we started...), so we hit happy hour. While in Dickson we stopped by Chappell's in the hopes of finding some decent Labor Day sales on meat. Didn't find any, so we came away from Dickson without using any grocery money. Fine by me! All I'll do is repeat that I'm extremely glad I'm not having to do the fuel budget!

We'll probably want something else to eat as the evening progresses. I suspect that the No-bakes will be finished off. After that, it's the same ol' "get whatcha can." I'm hoping to get into a little bit of the menu planning routine before too long. So far I've been really terrible at that. However, the good thing about these "get whatcha can" meals is that the leftovers often get cleaned out!

Weekend Recap

After spending about $80 Friday, I'm very glad to say that we didn't spend any grocery money this weekend! I did forget to add $6 for 2 dozen eggs to Friday's list of acquisitions.

Yesterday Mama and the band members were gone again. Daddy, Luke, and I had pancakes for breakfast, whatever we could grab for lunch (peanut butter and crackers for them, yogurt for me), and for dinner we had a frozen dinner that Grammy Evelyn sent home with us. Pecan pie was for dessert.

Today being the Lord's Day, we prepared most of today's food yesterday. Breakfast, however, was get whatever you want - if you have time. For lunch, Daddy and I prepared meatballs, green beans, and a pecan pie. For fellowship, I fixed a fruit crisp... thing. I threw in a bunch of blueberries, added a can of peaches and a can of apples, mixed in a little sugar and cornstarch, and added some sort of oat topping. Yeah, I wasn't really sure what I was doing. Hopefully it'll turn out okay anyway.

Day 2, On the road again

Boy, am I ever thankful I'm not managing our family's fuel expenses as well as our grocery budget!!! I'd be extremely tempted to confiscate keys!

Anyway, Daddy and I went into Nashville this morning. We needed to do some things for my grandmother and use her high-speed internet, so we took that opportunity to procure the following items that were getting precariously low or were gone completely:

• Sugar (25lbs for $14.29)

• Cheddar cheese (2lbs for $6.39)

• Coffee beans (2lbs for $10.99)

• 1 bottle of wine ($7.99 + $.74 in tax)

• Paper towels ($14.89)

• Toilet Paper ($17.99)

• (Tax at Costco was $5.49)

We one-stop shopped at Costco, so we probably weren't as cost-efficient as we could have been. The grand total for today adds up to $78.77. 6 items for $78.77!!! Ouch. Thankfully Daddy and I ate dinner at their expense. Free samples are the best! Even if they don't always taste that awesome.

I have $421.23 left for the next... 2 weeks, I think. (I'm still not exactly sure how this payment thing's going to work out...)

And so it began...

The first day of the challenge was yesterday, and I was busy, busy, busy doing things pretty much not related to it. Which is why I didn't blog about it last night.

In the morning we had left-over cake for breakfast. I'm not complaining!

Everybody was away from home for lunch:

• Mama and I ate a rather good turkey, brie, and apple butter sandwich with smoothies at House Blend in Dickson. I highly recommend both the sandwich and the Chocolate-dipped Strawberry Smoothie to anyone thinking of stopping by House Blend.

• Claire, Kyle, and Luke were in Centerville, so they went to Sonic. They had 2 or 3 Sonic coupons though which enabled them to eat for half the price they would have otherwise.

• Daddy was at work, but he'd taken left-overs in for lunch. So, Daddy wins!

Since most of us were away from home for a good bit of the day, dinner was a challenge. My challenge-conquering, go-to food is chicken; thankfully we still had some. So, the dinner menu became the quick, easy, and fairly cheap Greek Avgolemono Chicken Soup. Love that soup! Not the most appetizing-looking soup, but it sure is good! It's even better if you've got a handful of wild rice to throw in with the regular rice.

That evening we ladies went to the most recent Weston A. Price Foundation event in our area (On the Centerville square at the store front of Beeyoutiful which is owned by some friends of ours). We watched the "Nourishing Our Children" presentation, and learned about the importance of a diverse, but very nutrient-dense diet. All in all, I came away not feeling nearly as bad about our family's diet as I thought I would. Good milk, butter, cheese, and yogurt make up a not insignificant portion of our diet, and we're hoping to reintroduce more whole grains in the form of homemade breads really soon. Processed foods don't make up a whole lot of our diet, and we're considering gradually eliminating/reducing some of what remains.

So, yesterday was busy, and I was too tired to write this up last night. I might do better today, though today is also looking like a busy day. I know, I know, what day isn't? Still, I've been busier this week than I have been in months!