This Was Our Menu For The Week 04/12/20 - 4/18/20

No pizza order last week!  We did get takeout twice, though.  My goal for this week is no takeout or delivery.  We’ll see how it goes.  We picked up a fairly large grocery order from Wal-Mart on Friday evening, so I  have no excuse not to cook, and I definitely want to make sure the produce doesn’t go bad.

Sunday: It was pretty chilly here, and very rainy and stormy, so soup seemed like a good choice.  I made my version of Olive Garden’s Pasta e Fagioli soup, and it was delicious.  I also made a loaf of Italian Herb bread in the bread machine.

I made a buttermilk pie for dessert on Sunday that we enjoyed through most of the week.  I know it’s not pretty, but it’s so good.

Monday: Cheese Enchiladas.  I used this recipe, but halved it.  We also had refried beans with our enchiladas.

Tuesday: This was when the takeout started.  I had Thai food, which I love, but Nick is less crazy about.  Nick had Arby’s, which I refuse to eat.

Wednesday: We had burgers and milkshakes from the McDonald’s drive-thru.

Thursday: Cheese Tetrazzini.  It’s not the prettiest dish, but it was so good.

Friday: Taco salad.  We were actually able to get lettuce on the grocery order, which was a nice change from the last few.

Saturday: Nick made pancakes for breakfast.  I love pancakes, but mine are absolutely terrible.  Nick’s are really good, and these were even better than usual.  There is no picture of the pancakes because I was too busy devouring them.  We had leftovers (taco salad and cheese tetrazzini) for lunch and dinner.

Breakfast was mostly cereal, with one day of egg sandwiches, and one day of this Dutch Apple Pancake, which I did an experiment on.  I read recently that oat milk works the best in baking if you’re not using regular dairy milk.  I wanted to test it out, but I wanted to do it on something fairly low stakes.   We were out of milk by Friday morning, so I gave the oat milk a try in the Dutch Apple Pancake.  We’d had it before, so knew how it was supposed to taste, and it wouldn’t waste a lot of ingredients if it was bad.  It was fine.  Neither one of us could tell any difference.  I feel fairly confident now in using oat milk in baked goods if we’re out of regular dairy milk.  That should help limit our grocery trips/orders a little more.

I think I may have finally figured out a system for getting produce right now.  I’m trying to only do grocery orders every two weeks, or even a little longer if we can manage it.  That makes it a little tricky with things like fresh produce and milk.  The oat milk experiment mostly solved the milk problem, so that just leaves the produce problem.

There doesn’t seem to be any particular pattern with what’s available as far as produce, so I’m learning to be a little more flexible.  I put a variety of produce on the grocery order, knowing we wouldn’t get all of it.  We were able to get lettuce, spinach, yellow squash, zucchini, onions, strawberries, asparagus, a couple of tomatoes, cilantro, cauliflower, carrots, celery, and a very tiny head of broccoli.  We weren’t able to get cucumbers, parsley,  butternut squash, raspberries, green beans, or any shredded broccoli or coleslaw mixes.

My plan is to use the things with the shortest shelf life first, then move on to the things that will last a little longer, and then to probably use some frozen veggies the last few days before our next grocery order.

So what about you?  Have you changed the way you shop for groceries?  What produce have you been able to get, or not been able to get?   Have you tried any successful substitutions?

Thrifty Thursday - The Chicken Tikka Masala Substitution Edition

On Saturday I decided to make Chicken Tikka Masala for dinner, and I made a substitution that I’m calling a win on multiple fronts.

We’re doing a Pantry Challenge this month, so we’re making a real effort to use what we have on hand, stay out of the grocery stores as much as possible, and spend a lot less money on groceries this month.  I decided on Chicken Tikka Masala for dinner because we had chicken breasts in the freezer, cream in the fridge that was fast approaching its use by date, and some fresh ginger that really needed to be used.  It also sounded perfect for dinner on a cold and windy night.

It was so cold here on Saturday!  We had been in the mid fifties on Friday.  It had rained all day, but it was at least warmer than it had been.  On Saturday we were back down to the low twenties, and had crazy high winds.  Going out to the grocery store, or anywhere for that matter, wasn’t much temptation.  I had absolutely no interest in changing out of my nice warm pajamas, or leaving the house.

The only problem was that the recipe I was using called for a serrano chili, which we didn’t have.  The recipe also called for canned tomatoes, which we have an abundance of.  Harris Teeter put their brand of canned tomatoes on sale for 37 cents a while back.  That’s cheaper than Aldi, and the cheapest I’ve ever seen canned tomatoes.  Most of our favorite recipes seem to be tomato based, so I thought it was a good idea to stock up.  As usual when there’s a great sale on groceries, I went overboard in my effort to stock up.  We have a lot of canned tomatoes!  And that’s just one of the many, many reasons why we’re doing a Pantry Challenge this month.

 Since I really, really didn’t want to go out, I decided to substitute canned tomatoes with chilies for the serrano chili and canned tomatoes.  I’m very happy to report that it worked out perfectly, and that the Chicken Tikka Masala was delicious.

I was thrilled:

1.  Not to have to go out in the cold.  That was honestly the best part of my successful substitution.

2.  That we stayed on track with the Pantry Challenge.  I most likely would have ended up buying more than a single serrano chili if I had gone to get one. 

3.  That I have a new substitution that I know works.  It’s much faster and easier to open a can of tomatoes with chilies than it is to deal with coring and chopping a chili.  That’s good to know for busy days when I need to get dinner ready in a hurry, and want to make things as easy as possible.

So what about you?  Have you made any recipe substitutions to use what you have on hand lately?   Is the cold weather enough to make you do whatever you can to stay home? 

Thrifty Thursday - The Kale Substitution Edition

One of the easiest ways to save money is to simply not buy things.  It seems like a no-brainer, really, but it can be hard at times.  We live close to a few different grocery stores, and I love grocery shopping.  That’s a good thing when it comes to shopping the sales, but not always a good thing when it comes to not buying things we don’t really need.  It’s so easy just to make a quick trip to the store for that one thing, and of course that always turns into buying several things.

We’re growing kale in our garden for the first time this year, and it is thriving.  I think it must be about the easiest food to grow because we have been inundated with kale.  I’m not complaining, but I really didn’t expect so much kale.  At this point I’m pretty much considering all of the kale that gets picked to be free.  I feel like we’ve already more than recouped our investment of seeds and soil.  I’ve also been trying to find new ways to use kale.

Last weekend I decided to make Spinach Alfredo for dinner.  I don’t follow an exact recipe; it’s usually something I make when I realize we have milk and/or cream that needs to be used up.  We didn’t have spinach, so I decided to substitute kale for the spinach.  I tore the kale into very small pieces, and then cooked everything exactly the way I would have with spinach.

It was delicious!  Kale Alfredo doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as Spinach Alfredo, but I thought it was every bit as good.  Nick said he prefers it with the kale.  It’s definitely going to be a repeat for us since we have an almost unlimited supply of kale right now, and even when the garden is finished for the year, kale is typically cheaper in the stores than spinach.

I know it’s a really, really small thing, but I see it as a step in the right direction.

So what about you?  Have you made any thrifty recipe substitutions lately?  Would you try Kale Alfredo?