What We Ate This Week

If you followed along last year’s Grocery Budget Challenge, you’ll know that my grocery spending ranged from $425 – $500 throughout the year.

While I would love to stick with the $500 budget–it makes life a little easier–I really need to tighten the belt this year to help us hit our debt payoff goals.

Selfishly, the reason for this weekly posting is because I tend to stick to a grocery budget when I know I’m going to write about it. And for that, I say thank you! As readers, you are keeping me on task.

Because I don’t like to post over the weekend, this series will most likely run on Friday mornings and I’ll share with you the meals that we ate for that week. I will also be linking any recipes and other tips and strategies that I used during the week to help me stay within our grocery budget.

This week’s Dinners:

Monday, 1/5: I cooked a whole chicken in the crock pot.

This is a great weeknight alternative when you don’t have time to roast a chicken–my preferred method. It usually takes 7-8 hours to cook, but I got tied up and never made it home until 12 hours after starting the crock pot. The chicken was fine and there was a lot of stock in the crock pot. So I strained the stock and separated any fat and saved the stock for later in the week.

I served the chicken with wild rice, homemade sugar-free applesauce, and corn that my mother and I blanched and froze back in August.

Tuesday, 1/6: Chicken & Black Bean Enchiladas with leftover chicken from Monday night.

Wednesday, 1/7: Chicken Noodle Soup with leftover chicken and the stock from Monday night.

I served with cornbread muffins, and apple slices. I make a double batch of cornbread muffins and keep in the freezer. I’m one of those people who needs some type of bread with soup and it’s nice to be able to grab something already prepared. I use the recipe on the bag of corn meal.

Thursday, 1/8: Pulled pork sandwiches, roasted potatoes, and steamed broccoli.

I made the pulled pork in the crock pot with a 3 lb pork shoulder, a jar of Heinz Homestyle Bistro Au Jus Gravy, and a packet of Good Seasons Zesty Italian mix. Cook the pork for 6-7 hours or until cooked through and then shred. Mix the shredded pork back in with the gravy. A friend made this for dinner when I was visiting and it is quite tasty.

Friday, 1/9: Leftovers

Breakfasts & Lunches

We ate Breakfast Burritos all week. And lunches included leftovers for myself. For the kids’ lunches, I packed ravioli, apples, oranges, yogurt sticks & pretzels. When the kids request pasta for lunch, I buy frozen ravioli or tortellini and cook in the mornings, add some sauce and place in their thermos’.

Did you try a new recipe this week that your family loved? Let us know in the comments.