GCC Shopping Round Up

I didn't find any outstanding produce deals this week. Some weeks are just good and some aren't. I did find a cake mix and frosting that was cheaper than making from scratch. This is what else I found today....


Franz Bread Outlet




2 bags bagels, 3 loaves bread $4.70



S & S Liquidators



Oil $2.99
Coffee $2.99
Cake mix $.50
Frosting $1.98



Grocery Outlet

TP $6.99
Whole chicken w/$1 off coupon $5.77
2 hot dogs $1.98
Smoked Sausages $3.99
Ham slices $.99
2 shampoo $1.98
Body wash $.99
Cotton swabs $.99
conditioner $.99



Win-co

Tater tots $1.48
Soda $.78
Milk $1.98
Basil $.98
Bananas $2.88
Mushrooms $1.78
Bulk granola $1.14
Broccoli $.91
Sugar $5.18
Bulk Rotini $1.02
Whipped cream $1.69
Canning lids $1.52
Yogurt $1.78
2 boxes margarine $1.56
Strawberries $1.98
18 Eggs $1.86
Bulk onion soup mix $.55



Grand Total $66.90


I was a little over this week but a little under last week so I think it all evened out.


How did YOUR shopping go this week. If you'd like to tell us just fill in the Mcklinky info and please link directly to your post, not your homepage. Oh, and don't forget to link back to The Grocery Cart Challenge.

Menu Plan Monday

I had some leftover roast beef from last week, some leftover chicken meat, cooked rice in the freezer, and baby red potatoes in the pantry. All these will find their way into my menu this week.

We also have the first of our three September birthdays this week. Normally all three of my September boys have one big family party but as they get older they feel like they are getting lost in the crowd and have voted to have their own special day instead of a family party. I couldn't be more happy. Our new tradition is that they get to pick what they want to eat for each meal on their birthday and we'll open family presents together and do a fun activity of their choice such as swimming, bowling, or a picnic at the park. My soon-to-be six year old picked the menu for Thursday which is why you'll see a slightly different menu than normal.

Breakfasts

Toast with plum butter and fruit
Plum Muffins
Breakfast Frittata
Pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream
Oats with fresh berries
Yogurt parfaits
Leftover pancakes or muffins from the freezer

Dinners

Skillet Rice, Broccoli and Chicken dinner, fresh veggies and dip
White Chicken Chili, Buttery Bread Machine Rolls
Beef and Rotini Salad with Tomato Basil Dressing
Hot Dogs and Tater Tots
Roasted Kielbasa Potatoes, marinated tomato salad
Soup with leftover meat, veggies and pasta, Peasant Bread
Leftover Night

For more great menu plans go HERE.

What To Do WIth An Abundance Of Plums

Look at these!

I didn't even pick half of the plums that were on the tree but I ran out of time and ended up with two boxes. I didn't think it was very much until I started using them and the boxes NEVER seemed to look any emptier.

We ate lots of the plums fresh until I finally had to let the kids know what would happen to their bowels if they didn't stop. And then I was faced with what to do with them all. I didn't want to run to the store for supplies but I wanted to preserve them in a way I knew they would get used. I had no pectin or sure jell. All I had was a bunch of canning jars and lids, lots of sugar and two never ending boxes of plums.

So I came up with this simple recipe for Plum Butter that required nothing but plums and sugar....no water....no pectin....no peeling the plums. My kind of lazy recipe.

So here's how I did it.

First I threw a bunch of canning jars into the dishwasher to sterilize them and get them hot.

While those were washing I started the process of preparing the plums. I washed and sliced out the pits and threw the fruit in my giant pot, skin and all.

Then I boiled it all down until it was just a pulp. The skins dissolved and it became all juicy with just a bit of soft fruit chunks. All that juice and remember...I added no water.

Next I added sugar to taste. Plums are pretty tart so the ratio of sugar that I liked was for every pound of plums I used one cup of sugar. That still left them slightly tart.

Then I boiled and stirred...boiled and stirred until it began to thicken and condense. I could feel the tug on my spoon and even though it was still much runnier than you would picture a butter to turn out, I knew that as it cooled it would gel up even more.

I got out my hot canning jars from the finished dishwasher cycle and poured in the plum butter leaving about 1/4 to 1/2 inch at the top.

I wiped the rims clean and put the lids on REALLY tight.

Here's where I cheat and do the canning like my grandma did. Most people would process the jars in a water bath but if there's an easier way than that's how I do it. Cause I'm lazy like that. Just turn your very hot, tightly sealed jars upside down on your counter top. Let them cool completely that way and when they are cooled, turn them over and check the seal.

The top of the lid should be completely sucked in. If you push on the center dot of the lid and it gives, than your jars have not sealed properly. I've never had that happen but if it did than those jars would go into the freezer and get used first.

I preferred the consistency of the plum butter much more than the results I get from using a jell or pectin to make jam or jelly. I opened one jar after it cooled and of course had to test it out. It was naturally firm, almost creamy and easily spreadable. So now we have thick tart plum butter for our toast and biscuits all winter. Yum!

*****The USDA does not recommend this canning method. And while I've never had problems doing it this way please use caution and proceed at your own risk. (Oooh, that sounds ominous doesn't it.)

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap - Marinated Tomato Salad

Every once in a while you'll see a marinated tomato salad in my menu's. I love tomatoes and the garden grown variety are sweet and fresh. And now that I have an abundance of garden tomatoes, this is my go-to salad for the next few weeks. It's simple, healthy and yummy.

Marinated Tomato Salad

Slice or dice your tomatoes. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar. Add Salt and fresh ground pepper and refrigerate for 30 minutes to blend flavors. Great served next to homemade macaroni and cheese.

Do you have a recipe you'd like to share? Enter your info into Mcklinky. Please be sure to link directly to your post, not your homepage, and include a link back to The Grocery Cart Challenge.

What REAL Grape Juice Looks Like

Remember those free grapes I got this week?

This is what it made.

Once you have fresh juice, the store bought tastes like junk. It was so good and sweet. I didn't add a thing and you put the stems and seeds and everything in it. The machine separates them from the juice and you can throw the pulp into your compost bin. No waste!

HERE's a juicer that I recommend. It's sturdy and can take lots of seeds and stems with ease.

Juicing is a great way to sneak in fruits and veggies to the kids. Carrot juice is really sweet and we mix it with apples so the kids will drink it. We also make our own V8 juice and whenever one of us has a urinary tract infection, one 12 ounce glass of fresh cranberry juice wipes it out in a matter of hours. We also like ginger/apple and fresh orange which is thick and frothy.

HERE's the recipe book that I use. It explains how to prepare the fruit and veggies, different combinations for recipes, and the health benefits of each fruit and veggie.

Organized Grocery Shopping - WFMW

What works for me, you ask? Ok. So maybe you didn't ask but I'm going to tell you anyway.

Being organized when I grocery shop.

Without a plan I would either over spend or my family would end up eating boxed macaroni and cheese every night for dinner. There is just NO way I could spend $60 a week on groceries without some kind of plan in place.

So I've put together a free Menu Plan Organizer as well as a free Grocery Shopping List for you to print out and use at your convenience. It's the same thing I print off and use every week to plan our family's meals and to take to the Grocery Store to make sure I'm not forgetting anything.

Go HERE to print them out.

For more Works For Me Wednesday ideas go look HERE.

GCC Shopping Round Up

Jackpot! I found the free produce stash at my favorite liquidators today. I totally scored. This is the stuff that doesn't look so pretty anymore but is still edible. In the past I've found ripe bananas (brown spots), 15lb bags of potatoes with one rotten one in the bunch, onions, and other great stuff.

Here's today's haul....

S & S Liquidators

Starbucks Coffee $3.49

2 family size cans chicken noodle soup $1.98

2 bags of red potatoes $3.38

Stir Fry Sauce $.49

Cream of broccoli soup $.49

4 bags of green grapes FREE

1 orange pepper FREE

3 zucchini FREE

7 limes FREE

Franz

4 loaves of bread and 1 bag of bagels $4.70

Grocery Outlet


Soy Milk $.79 (2 days until expiration)

TP $2.99

Cheese $4.99

Soap $.99

Razors $1.99

Conditioner $.99

Frozen peas $.79

Whole chicken w/ $1 off coupon $4.81

Win-co

Bulk Rotini $.81

Bulk gravy mix $.67

Bulk rawhide bones $2.44

Bulk onion soup mix $.53

Bulk chili powder $.40

Bananas $2.13

Beef Roast $3.88

Beef Roast $6.61

Grand Total $50.34 (I think I'm under budget because of the free and garden produce)

I also harvested some tomatoes, squash and carrots from my garden this week. Woohoo!

Do you want to share you shopping adventures this week? Just enter your info into Mcklinky but make sure to link directly to your post, not your homepage and please provide a link back to The Grocery Cart Challenge.

Menu Plan Monday

I've got carrots, plum tomatoes, lettuce and squash ready in my garden this week. Mom harvested some garlic from her garden to share and one shelf of my freezer is full of wild berries that we've been picking. Plus, last week, friends with chickens gave me their overflow and I got 12 brown eggs.

I love summer.

And friends with chickens.

Breakfasts

PB toast and milk
Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins and Yogurt
Poached eggs, toast, fruit
Apple Pan Goody
Oatmeal with fruit topping
Pancakes and homemade syrup
Leftover Muffins

Dinners

Stir Fried Garden Veggies over rice (making this up as I go)
Easy Crockpot Roast and Veggies, peasant bread
Crockpot Rotisserie Chicken, garden salad, mashed potatoes
Chicken Soup (made from yesterdays carcass) and Buttery Rolls
Baked Potato Bar
Shredded (leftover) beef over noodles, steamed peas
Leftover Night

For more great Menu Plans go see Organizing Junkie. Check back tomorrow to see how my $60 menu plan went.

The Gift Giving Question

One of the questions you all asked was "What do you do about gifts?" And it just so happens that my daughter had a birthday to attend this weekend so I managed to take some pictures of a typical gift.

Usually when we give birthday presents outside of our own four kids we set a budget of $10 - $20 per gift, depending on how elastic our budget is for that week. This week it was $10.

Throughout the year I store up gift wrapping supplies. I have a drawer full of ribbon that I've salvaged from gifts I've received as well as garage sales and thrift stores.

I also collect tins and pretty containers or unique boxes. And under my bed I have two boxes that store gift bags of all sizes and shapes, tissue paper, bows and curling ribbon from gifts I've received.

Today's gift was for my daughters friend who is turning 13. (Vangie if your reading this just look away, girl!) Lately she's into nail polish so we picked four colors that we though she'd like, a bottle of remover, a cute little container of cotton remover pads, a chocolate bar and her favorite candy...sour patch kids.

I used a cute little green pail that someone had given to me, added some brown tissue paper because Camouflage is one of her favorite patterns, and put the gifts inside. We finished it off with a green ribbon and Ta Da!

An adorable birthday gift for $10.

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap

I'm attending a girlie function this Saturday. Well, it's more like a homeschooling function but it's full of women and we'll eat, and talk homeschooling for the upcoming year and maybe get our crafty on. And I signed up to bring something fruity. So this is my yummy fruity contribution.

Ambrosia

1 cup coconut

1 cup mandarin oranges drained
1 cup crushed pineapple drained
1 cup lemon yogurt
1 cup mini marshmallows

1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Combine all ingredients except marshmallows; chill for several hours. Add marshmallows right before serving.

Would you like to share a recipe? Just enter your info into Mcklinky. Make sure to link directly to your post, not your homepage and please include a link back to The Grocery Cart Challenge.

Aww Shucks

I totally didn't send out that last post so you could all just build me up, but gosh, that's what happened and you all rock. You made me feel good.

To be honest, my rut stems from the fact that my dad is sick. The last few weeks have been a dizzying time of changes and hard choices and a future that looks way different than I was ready for. Which means my time in the kitchen has been survival mode. "Cook what's on the menu and then get out." No creativity, no extra baking, and a lot of "Here's the recipe kids. Do your best and I'll be home later."

But your questions were fun and are getting my mind swirling again. I needed the jump start as I start to settle back into a routine again.

So over the next few days (weeks maybe?) I'll try and tackle your questions. And you had some really good ones. You gave me great ideas on future articles, some input on stuff that I had no idea you'd want to know about but I'm happy to oblige, and an opportunity to get a little more personal which is scary since I have so many readers and don't really know who is lurking out there in the shadows, but I really want to go there.

SO....stay tuned. This could be interesting.

Ask Away!

Sometimes I get in a rut. The frugal lifestyle is becoming so normal to me that my radar on what might be interesting to YOU can git a little wonky sometimes. So here's where I'm thinking you could just tell me.

• Have you read my blog and ever wondered about something?


• Have you ever found yourself spending too much money in a certain situation and thought, "What would Gayle do?"


• Are you curious about how we spend money in other areas?


• Or are you just curious about my personal life...you know...the one not attached to this blog?

Then leave a comment or send me an email (gaylebryant6@hotmail.com) and I'll answer your questions.

Oh, and I have a new article up about the actual process of shopping at The Daily News. You can go HERE to read it.

GCC Shopping Round Up

My past few weeks caught up with me today. Two weeks ago I just didn't shop. Last week I came in way under budget. And even though we had enough to eat both of those weeks, it depleted my stores so this week I caught back up. I hope my weekly totals for August will still balance out to be $60 per week.

S & S Liquidators

4 cans albacore tuna $3.96
2 soy milk $.98
Bananas $.79
2 boxes stuffing $.98
4 boxes of cereal $3.96
Coffee $1.99


Grocery Outlet

Frozen peas $.79
Frozen corn $.79
Garbage bags $4.99
Buttermilk $1.49
Parmesan $1.99

Win-co

3 lbs ground beef $5.72
25 lbs flour $7.98
2 gallons milk $3.96
10 lbs sugar $5.18
quick oats $1.98
paper napkins $1.68
Fritos (taco salad) $2.38
ketchup $1.48
2 lbs cheddar $5.00
Bulk brown sugar $1.38
Yogurt $1.68
Tartar sauce $1.72
Bulk seashell pasta $1.33
2 cucumbers $.96
Lettuce $.98
Grapes $2.32
Bulk taco seasoning $.6o
Bulk seasoning salt $1.20
Broccoli $1.60
Bulk baking powder $.76
Catalina dressing $1.98
Tomatoes $1.65
corn $1.52
5 dozen eggs $3.98

Grand Total $81.73

Would you like to share with others how your shopping trip went this week? We can learn so much by seeing how others are saving money. If you'd like to participate just enter you information into Mcklinky. Please link directly to your post, not your homepage, and provide a link back to The Grocery Cart Challenge from your post.

Menu Plan Monday

Soccer season starts this week with multiple practices for three out of four of the kids. It's about to get insanely busy at our house. So in the next few weeks I'll be pulling out all my tried and true crock pot recipes so our busy evenings are still filled with homemade dinners. But until then we'll be having these yummy dishes for the week...

Breakfasts

Scrambled eggs and fruit

French Toast with blueberries

Yogurt Parfaits

Oats with apple and cinnamon

Apple Pie Muffins

Blueberry Pancakes

Leftover Muffins

Dinners

Tuna Cakes with tartar sauce and veggie tray

Cold Taco Salad

Quiche (doubled) with homemade crust and fruit

Chili Macaroni and garden green salad

Broccoli Garlic Pasta and balsamic tomato salad

Chinese Fried Rice and Veggies

Leftover Buffet

For more dinner ideas check out Organizing Junkie's Menu Plan Monday.

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap

I can feel summer starting to dwindle down into fall. But before we put up the Popsicle molds in place of soup and warm bread, I'll share one last summer recipe with you that is sure to bring a smile to your kids faces.

Homemade Fudge Pops

3/4 sugar

3 tablespoons flour

3 tablespoons baking cocoa

4 cups milk

Popsicle mold

In a saucepan combine the sugar, flour and cocoa. Gradually stir in milk until smooth. Bring to a boil over medium heat, cooking and stirring for 2 minutes or until thickened. Cool slightly and pour into Popsicle molds. Freeze and eat. Good for 3 months.

Do you have a recipe you'd like to share? Please make sure to link directly to your post, not your homepage and please include a link back to The Grocery Cart Challenge.

Bedroom Remodel Update

So I mentioned last week that while three of our kids were gone camping with Grandma, we were going to surprise them by shuffling rooms around so they would all come back to their very own spaces. No more sharing. We'd been talking about doing this for at least a year but time and money and trying to take it on with 4 kids underfoot was too overwhelming. Well, the day they left to go camping I said to the hubs, "Let's just do it!" So we kicked into gear the very next day.

Spontaneous moments of insanity are always the best way for me to tackle big projects.

One of the projects was to transform my daughters room into my youngest sons room with VERY little money. Her walls were a pale green and her floor....well, in another spontaneous moment of insanity, we gave in to her girly whims and had installed pink carpet. This was our biggest and most expensive hurdle. We didn't have the money for new carpet or laminate floor so we had to get creative. We ripped up the carpet, the padding, the tack strips and the staples from the floor. Then I found a $16 gallon of floor paint at Wal-mart and rolled a deep navy blue all over the plywood floor. I'm so glad I went with a dark floor color because it hid a multitude of sins in the condition of the plywood floor. I think the glossy white that I was contemplating would have made all the flaws stand out. The walls were painted a Robbin's eggs blue (1 gallon at $13) and the trim a shiny white semi-gloss which I already had leftover from another project.

The total cost? $29 for one happy little boy.

Before (I forgot to take the before picture until after we had already ripped up the hideous pink carpet)

After

Stay tuned for the master suite remodel. It isn't quite finished yet so as soon as it's done I'll give you the breakdown and photos.

Any Tips For This Reader?

I got this in my e-mail this evening and thought I'd send it out to see if anyone can help.

Hi Gayle,

My family and I live in SW Washington, where I shop exclusively at WinCo. I know from your blog that you shop there too, as the other major grocery chains are TOO expensive. We are to be moving to Wenatchee in the next several months and I found out that there is not a WinCo there. I was wondering if you know or could ask your readers if they know what the cheapest stores are for groceries in that part of the state? I have never been an ad watcher/coupon clipper as WinCo doesn't advertise and they don't take home printed coupons. I guess I will go that route if I have to, however I am dreading that if that is my only option to keep my grocery costs down. Thanks for any help you could offer.

Jackie

So is anyone familiar with that area and have some tips for Jackie?

WFMW - Laundry Soap Dispenser

This tip is more indirectly frugal because, hey, time is money right? And the time it takes to clean up a mess could be better spent making a meal from scratch or shopping the sale rack at the local grocery store. So on that note, here's my Works For Me Wednesday tip for this week.

Do you use liquid laundry detergent with the little dispenser cup? I make a homemade version and a use a 1/2 cup scoop to dispense it into my laundry tub. But that little cup gets gooey and drippy and gross after just a few uses. Plus I can never get every drip of laundry soap out.

So one day I dumped the soap in the laundry tub and the cup slipped out of my fingers and into the path of the water as it filled up. I decided to just leave it there rather than fish it out. And you know what? The dispenser went through the wash, used every little drop of soap, and came out clean when it was all over. No sticky goo. No wasted soap. No slimy fingers.

So now I do it on purpose.

That's what Works For Me. Anybody else have the same problem?

GCC Shopping Round Up - The Garden Starts To Pay Off

Getting some great fresh and free produce from our garden this week. We found some beautiful bright red tomatoes, lots of lettuce and some cucumbers and squash. The green beans are working hard at climbing the poles but aren't quite ready yet. And after the huge burst of hot weather we had, the apples and plums are starting to ripen earlier than normal. All that kept costs down for me this week.

Franz

4 loaves of bread and 2 bags of whole wheat bagels $5.70

S & S Liquidators

Adam's Creamy Peanut Butter $.79

2 cans of chili $1.18

Cream of mushroom soup $.59

Coffee $1.99

2 night lights $1.98

3 onions $1.00

Grocery Outlet

Soy Milk $1.99

Pasta $.99

2 packs of ground turkey with $4.00 off in coupons $3.38

Cheddar cheese $1.49

Parmesan $1.99

Two toothbrushes $.99

Conditioner $.99

4 cans blackeyed peas $2.76

Win-co

Gallon milk $1.98

Turkey sausage $2.48

Ammonia $1.58

Whipping cream $1.28

2 margarine $1.56

Bleach $.98

Corn syrup $2.32

Fels Naptha $1.12

Bananas $1.81

Grand Total $42.82

Want to share your trip? Please include a link directly to your post, not your homepage and remember to include a link back to The Grocery Cart Challenge.

Menu Plan Monday

Well, last weeks no-shopping trip was punctuated by one emergency toilet paper run. Other than that we did it and I'm back in the saddle this week with my menu plan. I have to admit it took much more effort everyday to come up with a meal than on the weeks when I already have a plan in place. And it was SO much more tempting to just give in and run to a fast food joint at the last minute.

So here's what's cooking at Gayle's house this week....

Breakfast

Leftover muffins from the freezer

Leftover waffles from the freezer

Poached eggs and toast

Amish baked oatmeal

Blueberry Picnic Bars

Pancakes with homemade blueberry syrup

Toast and fruit

Dinners

Black eyed pea casserole

Grilled feta and tomato sandwiches

Hamburger Stroganoff and garden salad

Pasta with sausage, tomatoes and cream, veggies and dip

Baked Potato Bar

Egg salad sandwiches, pickles and fruit

Leftover night

For more great menu's check out Organizing Junkie.

Check back tomorrow to see how my $60 budget stretched for the week.

Finding A Grocery Liquidator Near You

A very popular question I get from readers is "How do I find a Grocery Liquidator near me?" And while I wish they were as common as fleas on a dog, they are spread sporadically through out the U.S. and unfortunately there just might not be one by you. Here's a link to post I did a long time ago, listing the ones I could find. So if you're interested, go take a gander HERE.

Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap - Sack Lunches

A quick round up of our non-shopping meals today....

Breakfast - Chocolate Chip Muffins and sliced apples

Lunch - $1 menu at Wendy's

Dinner - I wanted to make quiche but halfway through realized I had no milk. So I used THIS recipe and sub'd 1/2 cup sour cream whipped with 1/2 cup water for the milk. Added a can of mushrooms, sub'd 1 cup of shredded Parmesan for the cheddar, julienned turkey strips, topped with tomatoes, parsley and more Parmesan and it was the creamiest BEST DARN quiche I've ever made. Yum!

My husband said to me today, "I can't believe how good our food looks for $60 a week!" To which I replied, "Baby, this week is $0!" Woohoo!

So are you ready for our themed recipe swap? Here's where you get to share your best sack lunch ideas and tips for the quickly approaching new school year. I can't wait to see your ideas!

Themed Recipe Swap This Week and Other Stuff

A reader wrote in and said....

I love your blog, especially the recipe swaps. They give me such great ideas! With school just around the corner, I was wondering if you can do a recipe swap of school sack lunch ideas? This would help me get out of a rut with the same old stuff. Thanks a bunch!

And I thought that was a great idea! So the recipe swap on Friday (which I usually put up late Thursday night) will have a theme this week...

Sack Lunch Recipes & Tips

Also, my latest newspaper column is out today. Can you believe the one week I'm not menu planning is the week they post my article ON menu planning? You can go see it HERE.

Check back later tonight to see what I scrounged up for meals today. (hint...breakfast involved chocolate.)

The Unshopping Unplanned Menu For Today - Day 3

As if all that I've been juggling in the past few weeks hasn't been enough, I've added a little home re-model to my plate. (I'm a glutton for punishment.) Whenever my kids are gone to summer camp with Grandma, I like to take on a house project since they aren't underfoot to BUG me. The looming project that we've been talking about has been to move the master bedroom into our basement rec room, put our teen daughter in the old master so she can have her own bathroom, and split the two little boys up into their own bedrooms so all four kids have their own space.

And to do it cheap and in 4 days.

Let me just set the stage.....

• wood paneling
• pink carpet in a boy room
• broken baseboard heaters
• no closet in the rec room

And I won't settle for having my bedroom oasis look like a 70's reject. So it's a serious Trading Spaces week around here. But with a WAY smaller budget and an already stressed out woman. I'm looking forward to posting before and after photos when it's all finished.

So when I woke up this morning I knew I better stick something in the crock pot for dinner or we'd be tempted to spend the remodel budget on fast food.

Today's Unshopping Unplanned Menu looked like this...

Cinnamon Toast and applesauce for breakfast

Lunch was sandwiches and grapes

And dinner was creative. I had some stew meat in the freezer so I tossed it in the crock pot with potatoes, carrots, 3 cloves of fresh garlic, 1/3 bottle of red wine that company left at our house a few weeks ago, water, onion soup mix, salt, pepper, and a bay leaf. It turned into some yummy beef stew.

Not bad for a cupboard-scrounging meal. And if you're just tuning in, I decided that grocery shopping was overrated this week and I just wasn't gonna do it. Instead I'm shopping from my cupboards to see what kind of meals I can come up with.

The Unshopping Unplanned Menu For Today - Day 2

Today was busy hauling truckloads of stuff across town and visiting the dump as we helped prepare a family member's house to sell. Busy and No-Menu-Plan equals EATING OUT! Fortunately half of our family is on a camping trip with Grandma so it was just the expense of two adults and one 5 year old.



Breakfast was yogurt, blueberry and granola parfaits. This is one of our breakfast staples and I happened to find a partial container of vanilla yogurt as well as a little bit of raspberry. Some leftover bulk granola and blueberries from the freezer completed the meal.




Lunch McDonald's. (Ouch on the budget)


Dinner Fish and Chips...out again.


Feels so good to come home after a long and busy day. We're tucking our lonely only child into bed and getting ready to relax with a movie.


After only two days of no menu plan, I'm am really looking forward to getting back into the groove next week. Today's meals just goes to show that without a plan the temptation to eat out is just too hard to resist. I'm also pretty curious what kind of crazy concoctions I'll come up with by the end of the week. Should be entertaining.

The Unshopping Unplanned Menu For Today

We managed to eat well today while shopping from my own cupboards and fridge instead of grocery shopping this week.

For breakfast we had The Best Ever Waffles with blueberries and Homemade Syrup. The waffles were melt-in-your-mouth good. I highly recommend this recipe.

Lunch was hard boiled eggs, applesauce and grapes. Sorry no picture but it wasn't that inspiring.

And dinner was Spaghetti and Broccoli.

This might get interesting by the end of the week but I'm enjoying the creative challenge in the meantime.