March 26, 2014

I started this blog on a impulse this past weekend, even though doing a blog has been one of my goals for the past two years.  This wasn't the original topic I was planning on, but I feel this is a good starter blog for me to cut my teeth on.

I've already decided there will be a change in the way this rolls out starting with this coming weekend.  On Saturday or Sunday, I am going to attempt to post my entire weekly menu, along with the best deals I've found in the area.  Throughout the week, I'll post applicable recipes, and we can chat about the process of budgeting wisely on groceries.

Today's Menu:

Breakfast:
Yogurt 53¢

Mid-morning:
carrots (85 mg) 12¢

Lunch:
Chicken Noodle Soup, side portion 39¢
1/2 chicken salad sandwich (1 slice whole wheat bread, 3 oz chicken, 1 T mayo, 1T relish) 74¢
banana 8¢

Mid-afternoon
none (calorie rich lunch)

Dinner:
Sheppard's Pie (Dinner serving) $1.10
gala apple 25¢

Snack
2 T popcorn kernels popped in 1 T olive oil 25¢

Total Cost: $3.46  
Total Calories:  1595

Recipe of the day:

Classic Chicken Noodle Soup

12 oz. leftover chicken meat, dark and white mixed ($2.40)
8 cups of chicken broth/water (from roasting chicken/simmering chicken bones)
3/4 c celery, sliced (65¢)
1 lb carrots, sliced (65¢)
1 large onion chopped(18¢)
12 oz. egg noodles (79¢)

In the chicken broth, simmer celery, carrots, and onion until tender.
Add  noodles and cook until tender.
Stir in cooked chicken meat, heat through.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 12 at 39¢ per serving (side servings)
Serves 6 at 78¢ per serving for main course servings
Calories per serving: 192 per side serving, 384 per main course serving

Money Saving Strategies

I've struggled over the last few days as to how to accurately count my chicken servings from the 2 chickens I roasted over the weekend.  At first, I was going to break it down into the cost per meal, because there is certainly value in the broth derived from the carcass, but I decided to determine my cost per ounce of meat, since I picked both chickens.  On sale at 99¢ per lb, my chicken yielded cooked meat at 20¢ per ounce. I determined this will make meal calculations easier.

My cost for the celery is high.  Why?  Well, I knew I wouldn't be eating celery this week other than in the soup, so I bought just what I needed from the salad bar at the store for 65¢.  An entire bag of celery was about $3, and there was no organic celery available. It is one of the foods that consistently show up on the dirty dozen list, and I try to avoid it when I can't get organic celery at a reasonable price (OK... when I get Hodecker's Celery Farms celery, I eat it until it comes out of my ears, pesticides or no pesticides... however, my trips to the neighboring county to get this celery are far and few in between).

One of the other challenges I have... there is only one person in my household, so I either repeat things endlessly (which gets very boring very fast) or I freeze it.  For my soup, before I added the noodles, I divided my batch in half.  I will freeze half (and add the noodles later on when I cook it), and use half now.