Day of Rest

I like Sundays. I cannot imagine it as anything except a day to relax, take stock of life, spend time with family and contemplate God in one way or another.

Sunday is also the day the Sunday paper comes (crazy, I know) with allll of my coupons in it! Woohoo! Today was the coupon mother load with three huge coupon inserts ... and one of them will be available AGAIN tomorrow at the commissary. This is exciting. (You think I'm a dork. That's cool).

This week's selection included a few coupons for our normal food stuff (like tortillas!) that we'll be able to use for upcoming dinners. Neat!

Because of a few nights last week that did not go as planned (examples: my stir fry debacle and a late work night for Luke) we have a few leftover meals from last week. Neat! Less money that needs to be spent this week! Here's what we've got going this week:

Dana's Tilapia

Butternut flat bread

BBQ Chicken (by Luke)

Tomato soup and grilled cheese

And that's it!

As we know, my grocery list has a habit of growing when I'm not paying attention. How does it do that?! Regardless, right now we've got about 20 things on our little list. We'll see what ACTUALLY ends up happening tomorrow.

Budget Eating

It's been about a year since I started couponing. And it's been a great year! I'm not sure I've actually saved any money, but I definitely have felt good about myself, so that's something.

The goal for this coming year, as I mentioned a few days ago, is to ACTUALLY save money. I know, crazy talk.

A major part of this, I feel, is saving on our groceries by eating low-cost meals. I am trying to serve at least one vegetarian meal a week. I used to think this required either using cheap, highly-processed canned food OR very expensive fresh vegetables and tofu.

Alas, it is not so.

It takes some hard core deliciousness to convince Luke that a meal without meat is good. I don't know how it happened, but he has been super excited about most of the vegetarian meals I've made in the last few weeks.

And if they are THAT awesome, I should share them. So here they are:

Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti

Cheesy Beans and Rice

Butternut Squash Ravioli (from costco... yummy!)

And, a recipe I couldn't find linked but we LOVE:

Black Bean Taco Pizza:


-- tbps cornmeal
-- 1 refrigerated pizza crust (or make your own)
-- 1 bottle taco sacue
--2 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped
-- 3/4 c. canned black beans
-- 1/2 cup frozen corn
-- 1 can (4 oz) chopped green chilies
-- 2 green onions, chopped
-- 1-1/2 c. (6 oz) shredded reduced-fat Colby-Monterrey Jack Cheese
-- shredded lettuce
-- Reduced fat sour cream

1. Coat a 12-in pan with cooking spray; sprinkle with corn meal. Prepare pizza dough according to package directions. With floured hands, press dough onto pan. Bake at 450 for 7 minutes or until lightly browned.
2. Spread with taco sauce. Top with tomatoes, beans, corn, chilies, onions and cheese. Bake for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and crust is golden. Serve topped with shredded lettuce and/or sour cream if desired.


This coming week we're going to have more bean recipes because they are on sale at the commissary.

Living from Envelopes

As part of our "husband is home from war" to-do list, we are taking stock and reexamining our budget.

If you know me at all, you know I LOVE saving money, or feeling like I'm saving money (two entirely different things, lets be honest). This budgeting business is just another way to do it ... or to do it better ... or to keep track of how I'm doing on it. Whatever.

I've been inspired over the last year by a variety of sources, including ladies at my PWOC chapter, a few blogie friends and, most recently, the lovely Alisha, to look into the whole Dave Ramsey budgeting system, which includes a detailed plan and paying cash for certain things, such as groceries.

Over this holiday weekend the husband and I have made a budget and started using the envelopes. We are doing a few practice weeks over the end of February, just getting the hang of things, and will start diving fully into the system come March. The reason for this is our fluctuating income (thank you, post deployment) and an inability to figure out exactly HOW MUCH we are making due to the whole mid-month government LES business.

Alisha will be making me some truly lovely envelopes so that I dont have to use the boring white ones. So phew that's done. And I'm taking a new view towards our groceries to make sure I'm not only using coupons, but preparing meals that are economic to start with (think: chicken and vegetarian meals based off commissary sales).

For this coming week (starting tomorrow) our menu plan is:

Tuesday:
Hamburgers (a Luke request)
Pineapple

Wednesday:
Cheesy beans and rice

Thursday:
Honey-mustard chicken

Friday:
Ravioli with sweet potatoes

Saturday:
crock-pot sloppy joes (to use up those extra hamburger buns from Tuesday)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other news, I'm actively preparing for my triathlon! I'm going to try to add a countdown clock to this blog. Luke bought me a bike we found on sale! ... more info later.

Eating From Pantry Challenge

I'm going to join in on this because it is kind of fun and because I had already decided to do it before everyone else did, therefore, I'm not on any sort of band wagon. I'm anti band wagon.

So this challenge started last week. The idea is that you attempt to diminish your stock pile of random canned goods and freezer food over the month while buying as little as possible at the grocery store. This is a good time for me to start this since I just now got a husband back to eat food and, when Karissa moved, it all of the sudden hit me that the Army probably WON'T move my giant pile of canned food on behalf.

So I trotted back to my food shelf and checked what I had. Here is a list of the stuff I wanted to make dent in of over the next few weeks:

5 cans of chicken broth

5 cans of beef broth

4 cans of pumpkin

3 cans of yams

2 cans of mushrooms stems and pieces

2 cans of diced tomatoes and green peppers

2 cans of diced green chilies

1 jar of banana peppers

2 cans of black beans

1 can blackeyed peas

1 can tomato paste

4 cans cream of mushroom

1 can cream of chicken

1 can evaporated milk

3 cake mixes

2 can crushed pineapple

2 cans cream of potato

1 cream of celery

1 can refried beans

2 boxes vanilla pudding

3 boxes jello

A variety of canned veggies

Jar of taco sauce

Wow that was a boring read.

Now, because Luke heads of to work in the deep darkness of the early morning and because Dave is still a baby cereal kind of guy, we don't really do breakfast and lunch around here. My menu plan is basically all dinners. The panty challenge therefore started with New Years dinner:

Ham

Sweet potato casserole

"Pink stuff" (pineapple/cottage cheese/cool whip creation)

Pumpkin pie

... bye bye 2 cans of yam, one can of pumpkin, one crushed pineapple and one box of jello.

Last week I made:

Pumpkin sausage noodles (NOT delicious so no link for you)

Texas ranch chicken casserole (totally delicious -- but no link available -- and made a TON, so we ate this pretty much off and on the rest of the week)

Pumpkin dessert bars

... bye bye 2 more cans of pumpkin, 2 cans of chicken broth, a can of diced tomatoes and green peppers, a can of diced green chilies, one cream of chicken and one cake mix.

Now, this week's plan:

Shrimp fettucini

Mexican chicken skillet (baked into tortillas), (can of corn, can of black beans)

Black bean taco pizza (taco sauce, can of black beans, diced green chilies)

Pumpkin lasagna (that final can of pumpkin)

Eclairs (both vanilla pudding boxes)

And next week, so far:

Chicken pot pie (one cream of potato and the cream of celery)

Chili (remaining diced tomatoes and tomato paste and chicken broth)

mushroom chicken noodles

So! My list should look more like:

3 cans of chicken broth

5 cans of beef broth

1 cans of yams

1 jar of banana peppers

1 can blackeyed peas

4 cans cream of mushroom

1 can evaporated milk

2 cake mixes

1 can crushed pineapple

1 can cream of potato

1 cream of celery

1 can refried beans

2 boxes jello

A variety of canned veggies

So that was a terribly boring post. Sorry about that.