This week we’re out of the house a bit more with normal lessons, a makeup lesson and our usual collection of library/post office runs. So I’m digging into the freezer for a few meals, picking some quick favorites and saying hello crock pot again. Last week we actually were able to make our meals last us all the way into this week. Super bonus since we didn’t get much cooking done for our working people’s lunches!
Breakfasts: Metaphor Muffins, Eggs & English Muffin Toast, Oatmeal
Lunches: It’s refrigerator round up this week as we eat up many of the small leftovers we’ve got stored in there! Also as options are pb&j/cheese sandwiches or friend egg sandwiches.
Suppers:
Meal 1: Spaghetti & Meatballs with Homemade Sauce.
This one should be interesting as I’ve not really perfected a good red sauce yet.
Meal 2: Black Bean Chowder (freezer)
Meal 3: Pasta Fagiole (freezer)
Meal 4: Chicken Fingers, Corn Cornbread and Baked Sweet Potato
Meal 5: BBQ Beef Sandwiches and oven roasted potatoes
Meal 6: Popcorn Shrimp
Heavy prep here so this one will be on the weekend when I have more hands home.
Meal 7: Pot Roast
Find more menu planners here!
Mama P asked a good question last week that I’ve not answered yet. “How do you budget/account for meat when you buy it in bulk?”
We don’t have a good way of doing this yet but here is how I generally think about it. We buy half a beef in the fall. We know approximately the cost of this so we can plan for the mass purchase. For beef we have a monthly “allotment” for the beef we use. It works out to be around $50 a month for beef. If we put our $50 aside per month then we have the payment for our beef. If we’re just trying to take an accounting for a month we’ll add in $50 for beef.
For all other meats we try to buy on sale again in bulk. So if you see thighs and legs on sale 59cents a pound, you can probably bet we’ve bought 40 pounds. Whole pork loins on sale? Yep we’re there too. Here we attempt to have a “meat budget” for the sales. I’ll typically try to keep a $100 or so on hand for those purchases since they come up on the whims of the stores.
Eventually we hope to change our the majority of our meat purchases to be annual or produced here at home. We’re making slow progress on that and may yet this year find a half a hog in our freezers too!
Your menu for the week looks great! have a wonderful week,
Sherry
http://frugaldomesticgoddess.blogspot.com/2008/11/menu-plan-monday-layoff-bound-edition.html
I bought a side of beef this year for the first time ever. I have never been so disappointed in beef before. The roasts are tiny and full of fat. The steaks are full of fat. I asked for very lean hamburger and I bet it’s about 70%, there’s so much fat in it that it is disgusting.
The nice part is that we did get some really good steaks, that I typically woulnd’t buy.
We will buy one more beef when this is gone, but will use a different locker. If we’re still unhappy, I’ll go back to stocking up during sales.
Our side was $750, and the man told us it was small. We got it in September, and I expect it to last until late spring.