Food Budget Update

It's time for a food budget update! I haven't decided how I am going to do this, so just play along while I figure it out.

You may remember that I decided to cut our food budget down by a smidge, to match the amount of money we would have available to us for food purchases if my family were on food stamps.

Week one: I went grocery shopping on Wednesday and left town on Friday. Before I left we ate Easy Cheesy Chili Chicken, and taco salad for dinner and leftovers or quesadillas for lunch.

I left the boys and Marty with a refrigerator full of food - taco meat, grilled marinated chicken breasts, a bunch of crockpot Cajun chicken (not good enough to share the recipe) and 12 lbs of chicken thighs and legs that Marty was supposed to make chicken adobo with, but instead they just roasted it. Sides for them was either brown rice, salad or frozen green beans. There was also a bunch of apples for snacks.

When I got home, we ate leftovers until they were gone and then we had quesadillas and a pepper, onion, garlic and grilled chicken concoction I made to use up the rest of the green peppers for dinner. Lunch was leftovers and our first meal of the cow we bought. Yum!

My food for my trip came out of my trip budget. I also spent a little over $20 at Penzey's that came out of my trip budget, but I feel like I should mention it. At Penzey's I bought some vanilla beans, so when I got home we bought a small, cheap bottle of vodka ($3.10 with tax - nothing but the best for us!) that I just paid for with the cash I had leftover from my trip. The vanilla/vodka mix is currently working its magic in the pantry, and I will keep you updated.

Week two:
Wednesday: Swiss Steak - We did not thicken it, so ours was a little less thick than the recipe called for. It was still good.

(A bad picture of a good meal)

Thursday: Parmesan herb crusted chicken legs (Or heroin wigs, as the recipe was originally called) and cole slaw - Yum and yum! This was probably the easiest dinner I have made in a while. The thought of "breading" each individual wing combined with the price of wings was mind numbing, so I used chicken legs.

Friday: Pizza. We tried two different pizza crust recipes - one that was pretty ok and one that was really good. I had my pizza with a salad with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, strawberries and blueberries.

Saturday: Roast Beef with mustard sauce. Steamed green beans and cole slaw or a salad. 

(Notice the yellow fat? That's pure grass fed beef, baby!)

Sunday: George Stella’s Meat Lasagna  and a salad - This is so, so good. Kinda messy looking, but so worth it.

Monday: Filipino Adobo Chicken  I used thighs in place of legs and served it with brown rice (for the boys), and salad. Not the most flattering picture, but trust me, it was good.

Tuesday: Paula Deen's taco soup Kind of. I used this recipe as a base, but changed a few things. I used my go-to taco seasoning recipe instead of a packet of seasoning, left out the olives, used just regular diced tomatoes and a can of rotel and was planning to only add beans and corn to the boys version, but ended up dumping them in to the whole thing. So, you know, nothing like the original. :-p

 And there you have it. What we ate for two weeks, with a food budget of $310, a freezer full of beef and three hungry teenagers/men.