Long Weekend

It has been a long weekend and of course a long Monday!! I want to start posting more on my cooking experiences I have had over the past 2 weeks.

My husband and I have been keeping to our $100 a week grocery budget and making meals at home. The other day I cooked up some chocolate banana bread and baked up a huge batch! So I took 3 of the 4 loafs I made and wrapped them tight for the freezer. Great to pull out one day if we are running low on sweets.
I also made 2 homemade pizzas that are just completely delicious! So for the past week we have been eating in, eating homemade goodies, and definitely feel the difference when we go out to eat. I have found it has been hard for me to eat out recently knowing that the food prepared for me was in a "fast" manor with processed foods and stuff that is just not good for me.

So before I just let my rambling go on and on, here is an example of my last shopping trip. I'm going to break it down on what I got and just how many meals could be made out of it! I know that some of you may have more or less of a family and it can be adjusted to meet your needs.

I spent $73 at Albertson's this past Thursday and here is what I got.
3 lbs of hamburger meat, 2 packages of pork ribs, 2 things of flour tortillas, fresh cilantro, apples, oranges, broccoli, lunch meat, milk(not pictured) 2 loaves of bread(not pictured) veg. oil, a bag of bananas that were ripe(whole bag at .99!!) cheese, flour, 2 2lb spaghetti noodles, 4 jars for spaghetti sauce, 2 packages of tyson grilled chicken, re fried beans, ranch style beans, and some stuff to make salsa with.
Now with all of my ingredients listed here is how many meals can be made out of this:

Half the hamburger meat,
(Meal #1)1 half can be used for bean and beef burritos.
(Meal #2) The second half for spaghetti, throw some garlic bread slices in the oven(from one of your loaves of bread) and you have a meal.
(Meal #3)Take the grilled chicken strips and you can cook chicken quesadillas with one package of tortillas.
(Meal #4)The broccoli is for broccoli cheese soup one night and rolls (not pictured)
(Meal #5) Take the pork ribs and put them into separate freezer bags, add some seasonings, worchestire sauce, baby carrots, and whatever else and you have an easy marinated crock pot meal.
(Meal #6) Have a breakfast for dinner! Whip up some home made baking mix and make some yummy pancakes and egss!
You can also whip up a big batch of banana bread for the freezer for snacking or my mom has used it for breakfast at times. The sliced cheese and carton of eggs I got this week went for the breakfast sandwiches I make for my husband. I already had another thing of english muffins in the freezer from last weeks trip so I made up a batch of those.
Spaghettios for the kids(they love them) Jelly sandwiches, also if you have any chicken salad on hand, you can make chicken salad sandwiches one day for lunch..
Also I got some flour and semi sweet chocolate chips to make up a double batch of cookies. I bake some now and then freeze the rest so I can take a few out at a time to pop in the oven for quick snacks!
My girls love apples and oranges so those will add to the snack list for them this week as well!

Of course some things I already had on hand. The baby carrots, the sauce and spices, flour sugar and baking things for the baking stuff. But this gives you an idea of just how many meals I can get out of $73.
Apple juice, diapers, toiletry items, paper towels toilet paper all come out of my walmart budget if i'm not couponing for it that week.. Whatever the sale ad has up I check it to see what budget I pull those things out on. So I would say $100 gets us our food, baby needs, and paper products(when we run low on stock) a week. I am feeding a family of 6 right now. My parents do buy there own snacks and meat if they cook one night but the point of my explanation is to show you that having a small budget can stretch out a  lot of meals!!

All of the meat I bought was on sale!! If you can in the morning, my Alberstons has already marked down meat for quick sale. There is nothing wrong with the meat, its just getting close to its use or freeze by date!

Look for more blogs soon on my homemade baking mix, baking day line ups, and grocery trips and meal plans for the week!