The week started off badly, since I wasn’t able to get the grocery store. Last night, I had to quickly run through my list of breakfasts and lunches and make sure I could make them without getting groceries. Luckily, I only had to shuffle breakfast; lunch was already from my stores.
Breakfast: Big Breakfast Cookies $0
I am so glad I had baggies of the dry mix for this recipe made up. Our family loves them, and they are so easy, I can bake them on my braindead mornings.
Peanut Butter Noodles, Meatballs, Mini Muffins $0
This is my son’s very favorite meal – the noodles, I mean. He could eat these everyday, and prefers them with broccoli and carrots. The carrots look weird, because they were the tail end of a bag of Normandy vegetable mix from the freezer. The meatballs were a homemade batch I stashed in the freezer, and the mini carrot muffins were also from the freezer.
After school, the kids and I went to the store. It wasn’t quite as detoxing as I was hoping for for, but it was certainly cheaper than Relish! at only $113 (after taking out pet food, etc.).
Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans $14.11
First of all, this is not strictly speaking Maggie’s recipe. I’m using Alton Brown’s meatloaf recipe. And instead of instant mashed potatoes, I am using real potatoes. I like instant for camping, or for making Doodlebugs, or for making bread. But, for eating, I prefer using red or gold potatoes, the nice waxy ones, and leaving them a little chunky. And frankly, I didn’t buy any potatoes for dinner, because I had a bag of mashed potatoes in the freezer ready to thaw and save us some money this week!
I know it looks pricey for a financial detox week, but I have three explanations (excuses?): this is the splurge of the week, there are leftovers which are going to be lunch tomorrow, and I actually made TWO meatloaves for this price – one for now, one for the freezer. For future budget detox weeks.
Alton’s recipe is a little spicy, which most of us liked (even to the point of licking the plate), and the proportions are weird. Five of his servings became 8 of our servings, which is good for the budget. Four leftover slices will be making appearances for lunch tomorrow . . .
In Scout's Freezer 