Meals When I Just am Not Feeling Food

       

     The purging of the house and trying to deep clean a few rooms has a side benefit- I just don't have an appetite. I realized when 2:00 came around in Saturday, I should probably eat something. I found a burrito in the freezer I had made weeks ago with leftovers from Taco Tuesday. I would have been happy with a piece of toast later, but pulled something together for us. I am in the chaos zone of purging the extra bedroom, still deciding what will go, and where I'll put what stays. I fear I've  made college kids room worse by hauling in things from the other room temporarily and not sure how much I'll get done each night this week and today. I need my kid to feel like she has a respite when she's home next week, so need to get this round of chaos resolved by Thursday night. So what about meals?  Easy is my thinking!

• Grilled sausage in rolls with side salad 
• Chili (challenge) and grilled cheese 
• Frozen or Take and bake pizza
• Steamed veg, rice, and chicken tenders 
• Crockpot pasta ( and using a liner)  
• Hamburgers and air fryer home cut fries
• Leftovers 

     I plan on nothing that takes long to prep or cook, easy to keep warm for DH. We have a $5 off $50 spend at our local grocery store so I might let DH run amok with a short list of things we need, and let him get his fun things and any loss leader se finds as a good deal. If I sound apathetic towards any meal prep what so ever, it's because I am. Yesterday kicked my butt and I fear I won't be as productive as I need to be today. Meals don't need to add to my  frazzle.

The Saga of May Meal Planning

Happy Mother's Day to all celebrating being a mom, having a mom, or having or being  someone in your life that is special  in a mom like way. I took out the old church cookbook for some homey meal planning inspiration and I can't help thinking of all the mom like folks in the book. We're going for brunch later this morning. DD2 actually will be our hostess, so her grandma will see her for a bit.No gifts for me-I was adamant to all, though I would not be opposed to someone waking me up with the coffee pod already set and a cup  brewed and ready. 

I'm doing well in the household and grocery (H&G) department this month. I'm trying t keep my annual spending to $5,000, which gives me on average $400 per month, plus a couple hundred for overages. January I was self challenged to use up all the extras from Christmas and February if I recall was on target. March and April both had significant overages, but then March shopping went towards hosting Easter and in April I stock piled some paper goods, paper towels or Kleenex not needed for the rest of the year, and a two month supply of TP. I'm hoping therefore to keep May and potentially June to $380, but won't stress myself to do so.

Meals will be humble, but we have several cabin Sundays/weekends, so I tend to make extra food as additional folks could turn up. Leftovers can always be brought home for eating in the week. We have a lot of gift giving in both months with oodles of graduation parties and Mother's Day so tweaking the H&G to a more austere spending pattern will help the overall plan. I have to give Kudos to DH this past week. He only spent $26 picking up fish, tator tots, and sandwich rolls, lemonades, milk, and a couple pizzas. He did pretty darn well with controlling his rogue shop. I mean, he is an adult and if he felt like making fish and tots for supper last Thursday, who am I to always be slapping his hands? Plus, there are a couple pizza's to use if we  end up with a busier week, keeping us from take out. I'm not always an evil grocery  miser.

I picked up breakfast and lunch items yesterday at Aldi's as we were pretty low on both.We needed a supply of fruit and snacking vegetables, and those ate up a significant amount of my estimate for my Aldi shop, but I have an unopened container of hummus plus peanut butter that me and DD2 like for snacking. DH requested trail mix, also a pricey item. Building off what we already have in the pantry, fridge and freezer and my new shop, here's the possible meal plan for suppers for the week and carrying into the following week potentially to have two final low spend weeks.My spending on Saturday was $6.09 at the bakery which included $4.00 for lemon bars for DD2's friend/ my friends daughter who has been unwell and has missed a lot of school, $66.72 at Aldi's and $21.98 at Target, but I used a coupon and received a $5.00 gift card for buying $20 in  beauty supplies. My Target funds went to restocking DD2 in make up remover wipes and micellular water, myself with SPF 15 face lotion and a drastically needed new mascara, and a coral nail polish for us to share. I don't anticipate needing anymore H items for the month. I now have $20 in Target cards, even after giving DD1 some when she was home last month in appreciation of all the help she gave her sister during the snowy weekend. 

Meal Options. Nothing fancy here folks, but should yield a night or two plus lunch leftovers.

• Homemade pepperoni pizza
• Turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes, stuffing, steamed Vegetables
• Tuna hotdish with peas and steamed carrots
• Boneless BBQ chicken thighs, baked, sweet potatoes and broccoli
• Loaded baked potatoes, with homemade chicken nuggets, baked beans
• Chicken, rice, and broccoli hotdish-my favorite
• Rigatoni and sauce and salad
• Ham, hasbrowns, steamed vegetables
• Tacos with hamburger, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes, refried beans, Spanish rice
• Veggie and chicken fried rice with Egg 
• Rice crust ham, broccoli, and cheddar quiche with garden salad
• Chili dogs with homemade fries
• leftovers
• frozen pizza

Status Of my H&G budget
Spending goal: $380
Spending as of May 13, 2018 $291 
$89 balance/2$45.50 per week for May 19th and May 26th
Pantry:Full

Supper was... a Sad State

New Year's resolve-cut down on food waste and eat better, while saving money at the same time.  In the spirit of waste not, want not, I'm tackling the woe begotten items in the pantry.  There are quite a few things that probably should not have been purchased, but I can't justify purging now.  We got a nuisance snow today.  Enough wet snow and freeing drizzle to make the roads slick and dicey, but not a huge cumulative effect on the roads (but seems like we got more here at home).  That meant a slow commute home, but evening events all running as scheduled.  Dinner needed to be quick. 

Dinner consisted of microwaving some potatoes, and cooking a noodle side dish to round off the plates. I actually thought I was making a rice side dish, until I opened the packet to pour in with the boiling water and milk and saw noodles and not rice.  The dish had very little taste, and I suspect the rice wouldn't have had much more so it was irrelevant what came out of the pot. I did accomplish less food waste, and money savings-probably under $2.00 for the noodles and the five small russets.  I managed to scour the sides of a tub of sour cream for the remaining amounts clinging to the plastic so the potatoes were nice. DD#2 and I ate one each, a bit bigger than the others, and saved these three little ones for DH when he comes home.  It's a 50-50 guess if he'll eat the noodles.

The job change is a reality now, but there have been little elements of drama involved with submitting my official resignation that I will save for when I am really done.  I can honestly say that the last two days have given me ample medicine to suppress any qualms I've had about resigning.  I've done taxi run number one of the night and managed to get 80% of the driveway shoveled. I need to move my car to finish, so I'll just park behind the other car after picking DD up and save the gas needed to move it now.  Every penny helps!