Because Hobbies Happen

Project:Food Budget

2011-10-26T18:23:00.000-07:00

Project: Food Budget

Well lets see how we did this week (needs a calculator...). This weeks total $41.68! Okay so last week I didn't get a post in because we were so super busy. No excuse but it happens. I think I went over my budget by about $10 last week. So the budget this week was again $50 for 3 people (one being quite small).

Dinners for this Week:
Seared Chicken with Maple Glaze
Chicken Spaghetti Casserole
Classic Black Beans and Rice
Italian Chicken and Potatoes
Slow Cooker Potato Soup - I don't use frozen potatoes and I sub in my own vegetable stock. It makes it so good.

Other Foods for this Week:
Bliss Salad

I just realized there is a lot of chicken on this menu! Hope the boys don't mind. I'll have to make sure I mix it up a little next week.

The Week 3 Participating Blogs:

This Breakfast was the Bomb

2011-10-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Check out this awesome omelet I made in the microwave. I'm not usually for nuking food but this is a good way to get a somewhat good breakfast in before work. A little hot sauce and a sliver of corn bread and I was good to go

Microwave Omelet

1 egg

1 Tbsp soy milk

small handful of frozen spinach

a pinch of cheddar cheese

salt and pepper

hot sauce (optional)

In a microwave safe bowl (please don't use any thing plastic it's for your own good) place egg and soy milk and scramble it up. Throw in the cheese and spinach and give it one more little stir. Heat for one minute. In my microwave that is all it took for the egg to be done but check it and see if your's needs a little more time. Slide it out of the bowl and on to a plate and top with some hot sauce if you so choose.

You could add what ever you want in place of or along with the spinach but it might take a little more time to cook.

Oat Bread

2011-10-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

Check out this awesome bread I made in my bread machine. It's an oat bread, I had to change the original recipe to include some whole-wheat flour though because it was originally a white bread. I think next time I might even try to sub in a little bit of flax meal as well just to up the nutrition. If you don't have a bread machine this could easily be made in the oven. It makes a really moist bread great for sandwiches and slices wonderfully which is a big plus for homemade bread.

Oat Bread
1 1/4 cups water
2 Tbs butter (or oil of choice)
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs brown sugar (or sweetener of choice)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

If you are using a bread machine just put the ingredients in the pan in the order listed. Set you machine to the basic or wheat bread setting and I usually choose the light crust setting on my machine.

Meal Plan for this Week

2011-10-17T19:19:00.000-07:00

Monday - Salisbury Steak (salad, potato, carrots, and a piece of wheat bread)
Tuesday - Black-eyed peas
Wednesday - Warm sandwiches made in the crock pot
Thursday - Chicken Cordon Bleu (salad, sweet potato, stuffing)
Friday - Grilled Pork Ribs (salad, sweet potato, other vegetable of choice)
Saturday - Party (eating out)
Sunday - Pizza

The () include what was probived for everyone and what I ate since I'm not eating any meat. Lunches mostly include sandwiches and beans and grains for me. Breakfast for the week is any combination of eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes. Making my own pancake mix was the best idea I ever had. The recipe will be posted soon!

Mak'n Some Bread

2011-10-17T19:06:00.000-07:00

Time for making some bread. If there is one way to save money on groceries it is to make your own bread. I have bread machine that makes this very easy. I am going to make this Oat Bread recipe today. This bread turned out great!

A Little Mark Bittman

2011-10-14T20:01:00.000-07:00

Easy Dinner Day

2011-10-14T19:55:00.000-07:00

Yep I cooked a bunch of navy beans in the slow cooker last night and dinner was ready for today. I just threw some corn bread together and that was that. I did learn that I will never use boxed corn bread mix again! The ingredients are crazy. By crazy I mean that there are a lot of unnecessary chemicals in there. I can just make it my self for not much more effort and skip all of that. So basically dinner cost all of about $3 and there are tons of leftovers for me to eat this weekend.

2011-10-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

Check out Project: Food Budget. It's an awesome challenge and the Emilie's site is great!

Okay so my budget this week was $50. I needed to feed 3 people for the week. My grocery bill came out to $52 dollars exactly. Two dollars over but it seems like I could do much better than that. I am trying to cut as much meat out of our diet as possible. I have cut it completely out for me...maybe with a cheat every now and again because I made a deal with the B that I wouldn't make it hard on other people. Also I'm not going to force him to give up meat. The problem is that I didn't buy any meat this week and I was still $2 over. I going to have to get more creative with my budget. I do still expect B and F to eat no meat most nights of the week. It saves us tons of money.

The Week 2 Participating Blogs:

Eliminating Shampoo

2011-10-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

Well I have finally done it...sort of. I mean I really haven't used shampoo for over 3 weeks now. The problem is my hair is crazy horrible. I want to stick with this so I am going to have to find something that works. So far I have been going with the baking soda and apple cider vinegar treatment. As far as clean this does a great job but my hair is curly and it is totally out of control. I mean really out of control. A total frizzy mess. I am going to try first to find a completely natural solution to this problem but I'm not too confident that I will find one. The first thing I am going to try is pure aloe vera in place of a gel and see if that works. If that doesn't work I may try a mouse or gel from the health food store but that is more expensive (and expense is an issue right now) and probably not quite as chemical free as I would like.

2011-10-06T19:21:00.001-07:00

This challenge could not have come at a better time. Things are tight around here and probably the tightest they have ever been and it's happening right at the same time I'm getting serious about making changes in the way we eat. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by how much it seems like healthy food cost so it will be inspirational to do this along with other people who have the same goals in mind. Hopefully I will learn some helpful tips on how to improve the way our family eats and keep to a budget of $50 or less a week for a family of 3. I didn't learn about the challenge till today so I can't really give a great over view of this week but I didn't buy a thing this week to eat. We just ate out of the pantry all week. We didn't really eat that healthy but I did get a lot of the unhealthy stuff out of the house without just throwing it in the trash...which is probably where it should have gone anyway. Oh well.

Participating blogs: