Budgeting, meat, and a (sort of) pantry challenge

Tomorrow is June. A new month, another chance for me to get serious about sticking to our budget and tracking our expenses. It needs to be done. Hubby has a layoff on the horizon - we don't know when, but sometime in the next year, year and a half. Which means we need to sock away as much as we can, while we still can. Mainly, this means that I need to quit buying so darn many groceries, because we do pretty well in all the other areas!

I used to track our budget from my first paycheck of the month, rather than the first day of the month. Now that my paychecks don't matter so much, I'm going to go by the calendar. It's all put together and ready to go, I just have to do it.

Like I said, grocery shopping is my biggest weakness. I can easily plunk down $150 a week for groceries, and that's basically for the two of us. Needless to say, we have a very well stocked kitchen, but we also waste a lot of food because I lose stuff and don't remember that it's there. Well, that has to change. I need to keep better track. Thursday I'm cleaning out the freezer, and all the old meat that was never repackaged (I should *always* repackage my meat!) is going in the garbage (Friday is garbage day). And then, we start over.

But first, a pantry challenge of sorts. Today while I was grocery shopping, I found a bunch of clearance meats, with a sell-by date of tomorrow. I didn't go completely crazy, though I wanted to! I did, however, get six meals worth of ground beef, three meals worth of pork chops, and a very nice looking round steak. This, of course, represents even more meals, when you consider leftovers.

So, for the month of June, we're living on this, plus another bag of chicken tenderloins (we eat a lot of chicken tenderloins because they cook so fast), plus whatever else is in the freezer. My challenge will be to combine these with things that we have in the pantry (and there's a lot to work with there!). So, I'll just be making meals with what we have on hand.

This means that my grocery budget for the month will be spent on perishables - dairy products, fresh produce, and bread, mainly. The rest of the budget I can use for sale and coupon items. Hopefully this will help with the rotation - getting rid of some older food while making room for some more inexpensive purchases. We'll see how it goes!

Menu Plan Monday

I'm sitting here with a kitchen full of food and no inspiration about what to make with it! Grr... We've reached that juncture in the weather where it's too hot for a lot of the make-ahead things we're used to (stews and casseroles and such), and yet there's no time to cook in the evenings, so what do we eat???

At any rate, here's the plan for this week, I think!

Monday: Chicken fajitas
Tuesday: dinner out - we have to be across town at rush hour to sign our wills, no way we'll make it home for dinner!
Wednesday: shredded pork sandwiches
Thursday: chicken sausage casserole
Friday: grilled chicken and potatoes (I have the day off - four day weekend - woo hoo!).

Visit orgjunkie.com for a ton of great menu ideas!

This week's menu

Not bad, figuring out my menu when the week's half over!

Let's see...

Monday: we had an Italian chicken concoction (chicken, diced tomatoes with roasted garlic, Italian seasoning, and Italian cheese blend) that I threw together in the crock pot, with baked potatoes and steamed cauliflower.

Tuesday: Potstickers and green beans

Today: honey mustard pork tenderloin, rice, some kind of veggie

Thursday: leftovers smorgasboard

Friday: shepherd's pie (made with leftover roast beef)

Oh, and I don't plan weekend menus because I never know what they will bring!

Lunch tote giveaway

Erin over at $5 dinners is giving away a designer lunch tote from Spring Los Angeles! I have one - these things are so cute and so well insulated!

Go here - http://www.5dollardinners.com/designer-lunch-tote-giveaway to enter...

This week's menu

Well, well, well. I think it's high time I got back to blogging again! Things have been, well, a little hectic lately, and all my blogging time has been spent on Caitlyn's blog, instead of mine. After all, I did cease to exist on December 9, and someone named "Caitlyn's Mommy" took my place in the world, LOL!

I've been back at work two months now. Hubby works from 5:00 to 1:30, and I work 2:00 to 6:00, which means that I'm making dinner about 10:00 every morning so we can eat it about 7:00 every night. The good news is that we're far too frazzled to eat out, so we're saving a ton on food! Now, if I can just curb my compulsive grocery shopping habit...

Anyway, each week I make up a weeknight dinner menu. Sometimes I stick to the days, sometimes things get rearranged a bit but most weeks, we stick to it. Here's this week's:

Monday: Leftover pizza (we had Papa Murphy's tonight)
Tuesday: Tacos (happy Cinco de Mayo!)
Wednesday: Shepherd's Pie (utilizing the leftover roast beef from last week)
Thursday: Chicken Ziti
Friday: Pizza-stuffed meatloaf

Hubby's not going to be very happy - I'm trying out two new recipes this week - the chicken ziti and the meatloaf. He's a little gunshy about new recipes ever since the creamed salmon fiasco of 2002, which I will never live down...

Schedule

It's long been my hope that, once I'm only working half time (and, of course, now that I'm home full time), I'll actually be able to stay on top of the housework. Naturally it's much more tempting to sit on my butt in front of the TV all day, what with all the excellent crime drama I've been recording (gotta love TNT for having Cold Case, Without a Trace, AND Crossing Jordan all on on a mostly daily basis!). But, alas, I need to be an adult (not to mention that, at two months old, Caitlyn's already becoming quite the TV junkie, and that needs to stop!).

So I've been pondering what a daily schedule would look like for me, between baby care, self care, hubby care, house care, and, well, watching TV (oh, and keeping up wiht email Facebook, and Myspace). That's a lot to pack into a 24 hour day! Here's the basic gist of it so far:

4:00 or 5:00 a.m. - get up with Caitlyn. Feed, burp, pump, and feed me.
5:30 a.m. - back to bed with Caitlyn.
8:30 a.m. - up again. Feed, burp, pump, and hang out with Caitlyn till naptime.
10:00 - naptime. While she sleeps, I take a shower, start laundry, empty dishwasher, eat, and (once I go back to work) do dinner prep.
Noon - wake up Caitlyn. Feed, burp, pump, etc.

This is where things get fuzzy. Right now, if she wants another nap, she gets one, and I get to do some housework. If she's ok, then we can go run errands. I start dinner about 4:00 or so and make hubby's lunch for the next day at the same time.

Once I go back to work, this is when we'll be leaving to meet hubby and make the kid swap. Then I'll go on to work, and I won't get home till 6:30. Then it's dinner, feed Caitlyn, put her to bed, and have a little one on one time with my hubby before he goes to bed way too early (since he'll be starting work at 5:00 a.m. once I go back). Then it's off to bed to start it all over again.

Honestly, once I go back to work, I'm not sure when errands will get done, when housework will get done, or whether I'll actually be able to pull off a dinner that hubby can just "toss in the oven" every day. It's going to take a lot of planning and creativity, that's for sure!

Every day, I wish more and more that I could just stay home and take care of my little family. We thought for a while that might be a possibility, but until the economy settles down and hubby's job is more secure, that's just a pipe dream. Sigh...

baked potato and cauliflower soup for one

Made this for lunch the other day. Good stuff! It would be good with cheese added, too - I was going to and forgot.

1/2 c. chopped cauliflower
water
1 medium baked potato, diced
1/2 T. butter
1 cup milk (I used half milk and half fat free half and half for a richer taste)
salt and pepper to taste
pinch celery seed
1 tsp. dried minced onion
1/4 tsp. garlic powder

In a medium saucepan, steam the cauliflower in a bit of water until tender. Add the remaining ingredients, stirring to combine, and cook until heated through. Eat as is or process in a blender (or with a stick blender) to make it thicker.

three cheese scalloped potatoes and ham

I finally made scalloped potatoes and ham that wasn't runny! Yay! This made enough for hubby and me, with a tiny bit leftover.

1/4 cup butter
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/4 cup flour
3 cups milk
1 t. salt
1/2 t. black pepper
1/2 t. dry mustard
1 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, sliced
1 oz. swiss cheese, sliced
1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
2 cups chopped ham
2 medium potatoes (peeled if desired), thinly sliced

In a medium skillet, melt the butter. Add the onions and garlic and saute until onions are translucent. Stir in the milk. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until thickened. Stir in salt, pepper, and dry mustard, then add the cheese and stir until melted.

Put a little bit of the sauce in the bottom of a casserole dish, and then add a layer of sliced potatoes. Sprinkle a layer of ham on top of the potatoes, then add another layer of sauce. Repeat layers until all ingredients are used, ending with sauce on top.

Cover and bake at 350 for one hour. Remove cover and bake for an additional 20 - 30 minutes, until potatoes are cooked through.

getting back into the swing of things...

Ok, ok, so I fell off the face of the earth for a while. I think it's to be expected. But, I'm slowly getting my bearings and getting back into the swing of things (now, if I could just get my kid to sleep on a normal schedule, we'd be good).

Over the past couple of weeks, I've started to settle into my new role as housewife (yes, I'm still going back to work in, gulp, six short weeks, but only half time so I'll be doing more, er, something around the house). Well, if you know me, you know that food is about the closest thing I have to a passion in life (well, besides Caitlyn), so I decided to get back into my routine by tackling some menu planning. Most days, I now have time to cook a real meal for dinner, which is great. There's nothing I detest more than coming home from work and being too tired to cook.

But now, I can make dinner an all-day affair - chop stuff after one feeding, saute stuff after another, and on it goes. Ok, it's not really THAT bad, but I do have more time to spend on these things!

Last week, we had:

manicotti (two meals - if I'm going to all the trouble to make it, I make a ton!)
salsa verde casserole
stuffed peppers

and, we ate out a few times (have to get it out of our system before I take an income cut, LOL!).

Here's what's on tap for this week (not necessarily in this order):

hamburgers and oven fries
scalloped potatoes and ham
chili and cornbread
creamed tuna on biscuits
teriyaki chicken
baked ziti
tamale pie

Of course, chances are we'll eat out at least once, so we won't eat ALL of these things this week, but we have it if we want it.

So now, I have the meal planning back on track, and I've managed to conquer the laundry (including the cloth diapers, which are, in fact, as easy as disposables - no pins!), and now I just have to work some housework into the mix. Ugh... :-)

Best blog ever, and Happy New Year!

Everyone HAS to visit cakewrecks. Have I mentioned this before? I have yet to read a post on this blog without laughing out loud, and yes, on occasion, tears have come into my eyes.

Oh, and happy new year! I hope everyone had a safe a fun New Year's Eve. We skipped our annual trek to my sister-in-law's because hubby is sick. He went to bed at 10:30, and Caitlyn and I rang in the new year over a bottle of milk. Actually, I didn't even pick up on the fact that it was midnight until I heard the fireworks going off in the street. Yeah, I'm observant like that, LOL!