Monday Meal Planning

Here we are facing a new week...what's for dinner?

Monday: Tortellini (didn't get to have it last week as we were invited over to a friend's for dinner)

Tuesday: BBQ Chicken Corn Bread Bake

Wednesday: Chicken Spaghetti

Thursday: Tortilla Chip Casserole

Friday: Some kind of pizza (possibly chicken fajita?)

Saturday: Country Pork Ribs with Mashed Potatoes

Sunday: Chicken Tetrazzini

I'm actually ALL DONE with my shopping for the week! I took hubs out to the grocery store yesterday to buy some lunch (they were doing a fundraiser for the American Heart Association) and we went ahead and got our shopping done while we were there. Can I just tell you how nice it is to have an extra set of hands with a 7 month old in the grocery store?!

For those of you who are looking for some GREAT DEALS this week, I have two words...

Harris. Teeter.

We saved $23.00 yesterday! They've got a great deal on Ken's Salad Dressing (buy 2, get 3 free--we go through ranch dressing in this household like it won't exist tomorrow so it was a wonderful buy for us), their manager's special on chicken breasts is incredible, and they have bacon on BOGO so I got a few and froze them since I use a lot of bacon as accents in my recipes.

Meatless Meal: Cheese Enchiladas

To fit within our budget constraints, sometimes I have to make a meal sans meat. This is tricky when you have someone who L-O-V-E-S meat in the family and has a hard time filling up on something without it. This did the trick, though. Hubby loved the meal and had some leftover on his plate in the end. Mission accomplished.

Ingredients:

4 corn tortillas (.70)

1/2 cup of cheddar cheese (.94)

1 8oz can of enchilada sauce (1.10)

1/4 white onion (.30)

2 ears of corn (1.00)

**Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Step 1: Heat sauce and brown onions (in separate saucepans).

Step 2: Fill your tortillas with cheese (and onions if you like them--I did half and half as hubby doesn't like onions, but I do).

Step 2: Roll your tortillas and place in baking dish.
Step 3: Cut the corn off of your cobs and then fry them for about 5 mins until they turn a bit brown.
Step 4: Throw your sauce on the tortillas, throw the fried corn on top of that and top it with the cheddar cheese. Stick it in the oven for 30 mins and voila!

Ready to serve.
Meal total: $4.04

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Tips

Frugal Friday Tip #2: Buy Local

If we can, we buy from local farmers. We have several little fruit/veggie stands and several farmer's markets on the weekends to choose from. I find it saves money, tastes better and helps out the local talent. Doesn't get much better than that!

I go once a week and get enough produce for us for the week plus enough to make enough babyfood for the week. This last round I spent $9.68 and had we bought all of our items in the store, it would have cost over $16.00, so we saved about $6.00--not too shabby. Also, would you check out the size of the sweet potato I found?! The big one I got at a fruit/veggie stand and the small one was the biggest one I found at our local grocery store. The big one made enough babyfood for 2 weeks.

What's your Frugal Friday tip? Link up in our comments section!

Homemade Pizza Friday: Pepperoni Pizza and Cheese Bread

So, I went ahead and made the double batch of homemade pizza dough and used a bit of it to make some cheese bread this time around!

Ingredients (for pizza and bread):

homemade pizza dough -- double batch (.60)

8oz can of tomato sauce (.25)

3/4 cup of moz. cheese (1.20)

1/4 cup of cheddar cheese (.60)

1/2 pack of pepperoni (1.00)

2 Tbs of olive oil (.05)

**Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Step 1: Take dough out of breadmaker and split it (for the bread you want about 1/4 of the dough). Spread out the smaller batch onto a baking sheet and cover it in olive oil. Pour 1/4 of moz. cheese on it and 1/4 cup of cheddar cheese onto it.
Step 2: Roll out your pizza dough. Spread the can of tomato sauce on it and then place pepperonis on top of the sauce. Throw the remaining moz. cheese onto it. Stick the pizza, along with the cheese bread into the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Step 3: When cheese is slightly browned and bubbling, pull the creations out of the oven, cut up and serve!

Meal total: $3.70

Chicken In Red Sauce

Didn't really have a clever name for this one. What you see is what you get, I guess.

Ingredients:

1 8oz can of diced tomatoes (.57)

1 4oz can of tomato sauce (.25)

1 tbs Italian seasoning (.10)

1 tbs of garlic salt (.05)

1 tbs of olive oil (.10)

4 chicken thighs (1.60)

1/2 package of angel hair pasta (.75)

2 ears of corn (1.00)

1/4 cup of cheese (.45)

**Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

**This recipe takes about an hr so this is not the meal to make when you're starving.

Step 1: Mix diced tomatoes, olive oil, tomato sauce, Italian seasoning and garlic salt together in a small mixing bowl. Place chicken in a baking dish and cover with sauce.

Step 2: Place in the oven and set your timer for 50 minutes. When it hits 50 minutes, pull chicken out, cover with cheese and put it back in the oven for 10 mins. While this is cooking, throw your corn into some boiling water for 30 minutes and cook your pasta according to box directions.

Step 3: Take it out and you're ready to serve!
Enjoy!
Total cost of meal: $4.77

Beef and Broccoli

So, I was going to do a stir fry for dinner but when it came down to it, I didn't get the snap peas I wanted for it because they were too much $ so I just wasn't in the mood for stir fry without them. So, I whipped this together hoping it would resemble some sort of beef and broccoli we'd had in the past, and to our surprise (and delight), it did!

Ingredients:

1/2 lb of beef strips for stir fry (2.25)

1/4 onion cut up into pieces (.10)

1/4 broccoli head (.40)

1 can cream of mushroom (.54)

2 tbs soy sauce (.10)

1 tbs sugar (.03)

1/2 cup water (free)

2 tbs olive oil (.05)

1 cup of brown rice (.50)

*Cook your one cup of rice while doing the rest of this. I use a rice cooker but you can easily cook it on the stove top. 1 cup of rice, 2 cups of water, let it sit on medium heat on the stovetop until rice has soaked in all of the water. Easy as pie!

Step 1:

Heat 1 tbs of olive oil and brown your meat and onions in it.

Step 2:

Toss in the broccoli and stir for a couple of minutes.
Step 3:

Add the rest of your wet ingredients (cream of mush, soy sauce, olive oil, sugar, water) and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.
Step 4: Serve on top of rice. Enjoy!
Total cost of meal: $3.97

Monday Meal Planning

Ok, here's our plan for the week:

M: Beef and Broccoli

T: Chicken w/ tomato marinara sauce on spaghetti

W: Enchiladas

Th: shells w/ homemade white sauce

F: Pepperoni Pizza (have leftover pepperonis from last week and want to get them used so as to not waste them)

Sat: Sweet and sour pork

Sun: Honey Lime Chicken

Check back for the recipes throughout the week!

(Do you have a Monday Meal Planning post? Put the link to it in the comments so we can see, too!)