Mish Mash Kitchen Confidence-ial Update

For my fill in shopping list, I did better than I had anticipated, getting more for my money than I budgeted in my head. I still anticipate buying another 1/2 gallon, or a couple quarts of milk, but I have $4.39 left to spare, so every penny can go to milk and I will be spot on $300 for July. I spent $19.69 at Aldi's. My best buys were getting 5 pounds of potatoes for $1.89 instead of just buying a few loose ones, 2 pound bag of carrots for $1.29, and 3 pounds of onions for $1.69 -all twice as much as I thought I would buy. I even splurged on a bag of ranch flavored tortilla chips, not in my plan, but to go with hot dogs and salad if we go to the lake today. I'm not sure where I  added wrong in my head, but happy for once I miscounted in the right direction. I made the cucumber and onion salad, and am trying not to make a pig out of myself with it, but I love it so much! Onions are such an underrated vegetable.  They pack a punch cooked or raw. Are you an onion fan?

Saturday was stormy-hot and stormy, but I decided to bake anyway.  About 12 years ago when we decided not to move, we upgraded all our kitchen appliances and I am still impressed with the insulation factor of my oven. I lose virtually no heat, so not worried that I'm going to tax the air conditioning. My results are four mini loaves of banana bread and instead of granola bars, I made three dozen oatmeal cookies. I popped 2 dozen, leaving us one dozen, in the freezer to pull out during the week so they stay nice and fresh as with only three of us, a full batch is too much to eat before they start losing their freshness. If we decide to go the lake today, I'll grab a bag from the freezer as swimming burns the calories on kids.I love a good oatmeal cookie; I use the Quaker Oats recipe, omitting raisins. I'm not tempted to eat the dough, and one cookie feels so much more substantial than a chocolate chip so I am satisfied with one. I did the tedious calculations and my cookies came to $2.31 for the batch, and bread came to $2.58, using my pantry food prices. I used the full cost of what bananas would be, though these were frozen past their prime bananas that might otherwise have been food waste. 

To take us into the week, we are good with snacks and will over cook and set aside portions for lunches. We have sandwich meat and bread, and plenty of fruit as well. I have beef and chicken ready for mentioned meals,and will save time by doubling up prep sides such as rice and noodles when called for. The odd thing is, I used to always work my kitchen this way-it was a necessity for a family of five, with a baby/toddler and two active teenagers. I like the sense of order I feel, and the success over the budget is a great bonus. What does your week in meals look like?