Wow!  It has been a while.  I’ve missed bantering and sharing with you.  I hope you’ve missed me.  I hope your not like, oh, yeah, she hasn’t written in a while.  Hadn’t realized.  Or, Oh, no…she’s back!  That’s not been your thoughts, right?  I imagine it is more like, Still no word from B.L.D. on a budget.  I’m going to have to call in sick to work for the 9th straight day.  Or, still no Sarah?  Living is becoming more and more of a struggle…  :)  I’m full of it, huh?  Full of flavorful and interesting meals on a budget!

I had another successful run to Aldi/Wal-Mart.  Aldi hasn’t been stocking any ground turkey.  What is up?  And I had to get a few other things they didn’t carry.  Green Enchilada sauce, Uncle Ben’s wild rice and a few other things.

I’m making a few new things this week/next! 

Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas (using pork instead)

Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice Soup!!

That’s a good start, huh?  I’m making the soup in a crock pot and it will simmer and smell up the house all day!  Yay!  I’ll try to take pictures of my creations and see how they compare. 

This is just a short little entry back.  Next time I’ll tell you a story about my amazing husband.  It isn’t food related in the slightest, but it is probably just about the cutest thing ever.  I want to tell you now, but I want to take pictures, and I can’t do all of that at the moment….so, it will have to wait. 

Hugs, savings, delic meals and all that jazz, oh and a special birthday shout out to my Will!  I adore your heart for Christ and your desire to be like Him.  I could go on and on, but thank you for providing for me in so many amazing ways.  Mmmwuuuahh!!!

My Saturday trip to Aldi was another success. I made it just under $62 or so.  Success!  I thought I had my list of purchases with me, but alas, i don’t, so from memory I will re-create my shopping trip and just what i plan to do with it!

Again, I am pulling from what I already have in the cabinets, freezer and fridge to piece together some inexpensive meals this week.

When you enter Aldi the first thing you see are the snacks, chips, chocolates, crackers and the like, so I always start my trips thinking about what Will would want to go with his lunches and general snack times.  Mmmm…snacks.  I know the lunches can get boring with just sandwiches and chips and yogurts and stuff, so I try to get a variety of snacks and switch things up when I go in there. 

This time I went with some kettle cooked sea salt and cracked pepper chips, some baked potato chips (little more healthy), some cheddar cheese pringles…yes pringles.  Aldi carries a few name brand things.  Random things, but they have some.  I picked up some Aldi brand crunchy Cheetos, which I shouldn’t have, cause I stinkin love Cheetos.  Will had to pry the bag out of my hand last night….:(  No.  He just lovingly reminded me that I might have potential regret if I kept eating them.  He is awesome and right.  I would have.  Grateful for that man.  Some Aldi brand chili cheese Frito type chips, and some Aldi cool ranch Doritos!  Variety of unhealthy things.  I cannot wait to compre these prices to Publix!   Wow…chomping at the budget bits!! 

I moved onto to the condiments and grabbed some Aldi Ranch and some bacon bits as well as some olive oil.  Peanut butter, eggs, milk, yogurts, half and half, the usual suspects, lettuce, bread, buns, cheese, lunch meat, pasta, sausage, ground beef.  Aldi honey nut cheerios and cinnamon toast crunch!  Mmmmm…..

I had a great idea, and I wanted to get some frozen 100% fruit juice and some club soda and make some more healthy kind of soda.  Well, I got a seltzer type water that was flavored, but I thought it would just be a little flavored…it was really sweet, so that mixed with really sweet lemonade made for quite the drink for Will.  Oops.  I might have to try that again.

               Will after a few drinks of that sweet lemonade!

What am I making with all of this stuff???  Here is the plan.  Last night Will ate free chick filet and I ate random things from the cabinet and yes, some Cheetos.  :(

• Tonight- turkey hot dogs, fries, salad
• Wed. - Cheesy beefy macaroni thing…yes, I am just coming up with something based on beef, cheese, pasta, spices, etc.  Should be tasty!
• Thursday- beef sliders..mini burgers made with that beef from Wed. night, salad, and some sort of other side…perhaps a pasta salad or something
• Friday- re-visiting our old friend, breakfast for dinner again.  Hope you all don’t think I’m awfully lame, but it’s cheap, easy and can be changed up a bit here and there.  Eggs, sausage this time!, toast, etc.
• Sat.- game day, leftovers, what have you!
• Sunday- Troutman deliciousness comes our way
• Monday- Chicken thighs in an Indian sauce with rice
• Tues.- Lemony fetuccine Alfredo with sausage and salad
• Wed.- Mac and cheese with hot dogs, green beans, I’m classy!
• Thursday- Chicken Thighs and some delic rice and greens
• Fri- breakfast for dinner again!!!!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!  Please no judging!

As I’ve said before, Mama Gayle has started giving us weekly bags of health.  That’s what I call them.  On Sundays, she gives us a bag of fresh, live delicious food for the week.  Cherries, blueberries, apples, bananas, granola bars, lettuce, shredded cabbage/carrots….saying it is a blessing is an understatement.  Lunch today just might have to be blueberries and oatmeal!  Yummy!!!

I’ll share some photos of photo worthy dinners.  Thanks for reading those of you that do and following this random smorgasbord of meals and what I do with little $$. 

Love to you all!  We’re ready for some Gamecock football!!! 

It’s been a while.  I know.  We’ve just been pluggin away at our budget and our food intake and what have you.  Haven’t done our side by side cost comparison yet.  Haven’t had time.  :(  But, I have been cooking up some goodies in the meantime. 

I made that pretzel chicken.  It was good.  Very good.  Here’s a picture!

         Served with mustard butter sauce and a cheesy rice!

Okay, so you know what is super cheap…chicken thighs.  Such a great deal but they can come with quite a few to a package.  Just a teensy bit more work and that’s no problem.  I got some on my last trip to good old Aldi and before putting them in the freezer, I wrapped them up in twos, so whenever I want to cook, I can pull out as many as I want…probably always wanting at least two, though. 

That’s what I did last night and thought I’d share that pic with you too.  The entire meal probably coast about $1.30.  Chicken thighs that I sprinkled with salt and pepper and then made a nice little rub of garlic powder, onion powder, lemon peper and sprinkled that on both sides and even rubbed some under the skin.  Then I coated in flour and onto the heated oiled pan.  After seering on both sides and getting a nice crust, I popped those boys into the oven at 350 for oh about 15-20 or so.  About halfway through I put a few pats of butter in the pan and some on top of the chicken.  Let that cook.

In the meantime, I made up some delic cheesy grits.  Instead of using all water, I used 1 and 1/2 cups water and about 1/2 cup milk…just to give it some creamy backdrop, salted and peppered it good and then at the end when they were ready, I grated in some sharp cheddar.  Oh man!!!  Some corn on the side with a little basil in it and dinner was set.  Wanna see the finished result??  I didn’t think the plating out all the way, but I thought this was kinda cute.  :)

And there you have it guys. 

I Aldi it up tomorrow again with a reduced budget…like not I cut the bill, but like, I don’t have much going in, so I’d better ROCK this.  We’ll see!!

Peace!

I think the thing I’ve realized the most so far on this new budget is not only how much $$ is wasted on eating out and on shopping in more expensive stores, but when your broke your going to just have to suck it up and have some of those really cheap meals.  Every meal doesn’t have to be this, though.  You can have a mixture of innovative and fun meals in addition to the ramen noodle kind of night. 

To adore cooking and with that knowledge serve my husband box mac and cheese with some fried bologna in it, ehhh, doesn’t exactly make my heart soar, BUT…short term negative, long term positive.  Breakfast for dinner once a week…it can be done…I can suck it up.  I think that’s where I was struggling so much before, not wanting to compromise good quality amazing meals.  We simply don’t have money for those all the time.  So suck it up, I must!

Shall I give a run down of the meals so far this week and what I have planned?  Okay.

Monday night-  Remember those tortillas I had leftover from quesidillas, I had just enought to make Will another pizza.  I still had pizza sauce too.  This time I used bacon that I bought at Aldi on Saturday.  It was tasty, and I didn’t waste ONE of those tortillas.  That made me happy.  That and a delic salad! 

Tuesday night- I had turkey meatballs leftover from probably a month ago…from my first run, I think.  I cheated and got a quart of steamed rice from a local chinease restaurant and refrigerated it…it cost about $2 and from it I made a quart of fried rice that would have cost close to $5 or $6.  I fried up some egg in my wok (loved using that) and then put in my rice with some soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic powder and onion powder.  I had all of that on hand already and then I put the meatballs in the freezer (used them all up) and brushed with my general tso’s sauce that I had in the fridge.  Voila!  I made a salad for me.  Trying to cut them carbs!

Wed- Pretzel Chicken with Mustard Butter Sauce!  Cheesy Grits!  Salad!

How good does that look?  I am so excited about this!  Will’s sister, Liz, is coming over to join us for dinner.  Liz is amazing, beautiful, funny, smart, etc.  She is also a fitness expert and would probably wish for me to shut up at this point, but she recently went to New Zealand to be a part of a fitness DVD.  It is quite the honor to be requested for this and we’re super proud of Liz.  We get to watch the DVD with her tonight!!!

Thursday night- if there is chicken leftover, chicken salad and if not…mac and cheese and bologna and salad.  The salad makes it okay, right?

Friday- breakfast for dinner with our friend Marty.  Grits, pancakes, eggs, bacon, toast, jam…whatever they want!

Sat. - leftovers of some kind

Week 2 

Monday- Chicken Thighs, Risotto, green beans

Tuesday- Spaghetti, salad

Wed- Tuna mac, salad

Thursday- Chicken Thighs in Indian sauce with rice

Friday- Hello breakfast for dinner again!  How are you?  Too soon?  Hope not!

There you have it, oh and my Aldi bill from Sat.  $71.23  That’s right!  My next adventure will be to go to Publix and “purchase” all the same things and see what the difference is.  I’ll go around with a pad and pencil jotting down prices and oh the glorious moment when I see the difference!  Maybe I’ll do that this weekend.  I’ll also give you the verdict on that pretzel chicken. 

Things like pretzel chicken and my frozen chocolate peanut butter terrine.  They are different fun recipes that require purchasing ingredients that you would use again.  Peanut butter, duh.  Using that again, we can eat pretzels for snacks…it’s not some obscure ingredient we’d never use that much.  Just a thought.

Okay, I’m out!  hope your having super duper weeks!!!

Sarah

So, I made my dessert last weekend.  The Frozen Chocolate Peanut Butter Terrine.  Mmmmm…..Below are step by step photos!

                Melt chocolate                             Stir in peanut butter!

               Mix it together                        Just heavy cream for now

   But after whipping for a bit…       You get stiff peaks like this

  Pout this into cooled chocolate                   The pouring…

                  Gently fold                                     Prepared pan

                 Pour it in                    Sweetened whipped cream goes next

Smooth out and add nuts to the top, freeze and then unmold the terrine

      Slice of the goodness with a little powdered cocoa on top!

12 oz. bag of semisweet chocolate chips, or 12 oz. chocolate, chopped evenly
1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 1/2 cups heavy cream - divided
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups roasted, salted peanuts
Wax paper or parchment
Baking spray

1. Coat a 9x5-inch loaf pan with baking spray.  I used a PAM spray.

2. Line the pan with a long piece of waxed paper.  Make sure there is enough wax paper to hang over each end of the length of the pan.  Press the paper to the sides of the pan allowing the oil to adhere the paper to the sides.

3. In a medium bowl, whip 1 ¼ cups of the heavy cream with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Set aside.

4. Melt chocolate – you can do this in the microwave at 30 second intervals, or over a double boiler.  I used the stove because using the microwave in our place means no other appliance or source of power can be on or else it will short.  Fun, right? 

5. Stir peanut butter into the hot melted chocolate until the peanut butter has melted and the mixture is consistent.  Let mixture cool slightly.

6. Gently fold together chocolate mixture and whipped cream.  Pour into prepared pan.

7. Whip remaining heavy cream, gradually adding the ¼ cup sugar and vanilla. Beat until stiff peaks form.

8. Top chocolate layer with sweetened whipped cream.   Spread evenly with an off-set spatula.  Cover whipped cream with peanuts; gently press them into the whipped cream with your fingertips.   Pick up the loaf pan and drop it once on the counter to settle the layers.

9. Wrap tightly in plastic. Freeze for 3 hours.

10. To remove the chocolate loaf from pan, use a dish towel soaked in hot water to warm the sides and bottom of the pan.  Lift chocolate loaf out by gently tugging on the wax paper.  Slice about 1 1/2 inch thick with a large chef’s knife, wiping the knife clean between slices.

That’s it, guys.  This was very easy and very tasty and I imagine could really be played with and changed up for different flavors.  Jarrot, you could take that challenge on…:)

Hope you enjoyed the pics and the blog!  Love to all!!!

Seeing as how we traveled over the weekend, I did my shopping yesterday.  Aldi closes at 7, which makes it difficult to get there during the week, but Wed. I leave work a little early, so I was able to work in a workout (ha) with sweet husband and then do some grocery shopping. 

Okay, at the beginning of the week, I was looking at bills and our account and realized that we needed to take $20 of our grocery $$ and put it back into our account for a bill that would automatically come out later this week.  Bummer!  We also needed milk and cream upon our return from Virginia, so we had to stop and get that on Monday night.  So, I went into Aldi with about $73 or so….for 2 weeks!  Okay.

I made a VERY detailed list and crossed off things that weren’t absolutely necessary.  I formulated meals that I could make with what was leftover from the last go round.  Shall I share with you what I bought and what I plan to make?  Okay.

• Chicken Thighs
• Eggs
• Ground Beef
• Lunch Meat chicken
• lunch meat roast beef
• Bologna
• 1/2 & 1/2
• Yogurts (blueberry, vanilla, peach, strawberry, etc. 10)
• Sour cream
• Colby Jack block
• Sliced Provolone
• Romaine heart
• Baby spinach
• Lemon Lime soda (essentially Sprite)
• Peanuts
• Taco Shells
• Wide Egg Noodles
• Refried beans
• Semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Plain potato chips
• Hint of Lime tortilla chips
• French onion soup mix
• Honey wheat bread
• Flour tortillas
• Devils food cookies
• Low Fat Smores granola bar
• Cream peanut butter
• Crackers (ritz)
• Orange jello (mix)
• Chocolate pudding (mix)
• Vanilla pudding (mix)
• Snack crackers (peanut butter filled grab and go crackers)
• Cheese puffs

That’s a HAUL…they didn’t have two ingredients I needed, my roast and my heavy cream.  Are you ready for the total at Aldi…..$56.58!!!

I then headed to Wal-Mart for my last two ingredients.  That totalled $10 bringing my grand total to about $67.  I came in under budget and we have $5 and some change that will go towards gas.  It’s funny how huge $5 is now! 

So, what am I making?  I hope this isn’t boring you.  :(  :). 

I made turkey burgers last night, which was a meal from the other week.  Tonight I’m making another last week meal and it goes as follows.

• Tonight-Spaghetti with ground turkey and salad
• Friday night-Pizza.  I’m using leftover sausage and making my own pizza sauce with tomato sauce and Italian herbs.  My crust is tortillas that I’m using later on next week and I have leftover cheese that I will grate.  I also have onions that I will caramelize for mine.  Plus a salad!
• Saturday- I am making a crock pot of beans for me to eat off of and we will figure out something for husband.  Saturday is leftover day and I would say leftover spaghetti, but we’re having a friend over tonight, so I don’t know if there will be leftovers.
• Sunday- Troutmans for dinner
• Monday- Crock-pot roast with french onion soup as a base, egg noodles, salad
• Tuesday-Turkey meatballs (leftover from last go round) with fried rice and General Tso sauce (thank you mom and Trader Joe’s)
• Wed.-Roast beef quesidillas (leftover roast from Monday) with spanish rice and salad
• Thursday- Chicken thighs with couscous (thanks mom) and green beans
• Friday- Tacos!!!  Will is excited about this one.  Refried beans, Spanish rice

And there you have it folks.  Our next two weeks living off $67.  I’m also making my Peanut Butter Chocolate dish for Sunday dinner at the Troutmans.  Fingers crossed! 

I hope to post some pics of food finishes and some step by step stuff too with recipes! 

 My handsome man waiting for some Vienna grub

      Ice cream…Vienna style!  I want to go back!!!

Thought I’d leave you with two foody shots.  I love how in the ice cream one, I’m diving lips first into it and Will holds it out at an attractive angle! 

Hello all!  What a weekend!  Will and I traveled to the Richmond area of Virginia, where I am from, to take part in a wonderful event with family.  My beautiful cousin (pictured below), Jordyn, is going off to college.  Big deal, right!  Indeed.  But, Jordyn is also a piano player and singer liker her big cousin (me…also pictured below) and she was putting on her first concert!

So, I had the immense priviledge of being a part of that concert by lending my voice and some piano playing to the amazing event.  My uncle Jim (Jordyn’s dad) was also a part and if felt like old times as we harmonized and enjoyed praising the Lord together. 

One more shot of us studying music tediously….oh the artists at work!

And you might be asking…what did that amazingly talented and good looking husband, Will, of yours do?  Well, he took these glorious pictures and treated them with an expert eye.  I have an amazingly supportive and wonderful husband.  Oh, I am blessed. 

So, we got to see tons of family at the concert and then some brief but great quality time with my mom and dad, brother, sister in law and little nephew, Ethan.  How is it that he was only one that got mentioned by name?  Saying he’s cute is an understatement.  He is CRAZY cute!!!  Wow.  And Kristi (sister in law) is about to have another in about a month or so.  Can’t wait to see what he or she looks like!! 

I know…are you going to talk about food or not?  I am.  Right here!  So, my amazing mom works at Trader Joe’s.  She is one of the store’s artists.  She is so talented and can draw up amazing signs and what not.  I didn’t get much/any of that.  Musical artistic yes, but artistic artistic, not so much.  Well, all of that to say that she LOADED us up on amazing groceries while we were there. 

A crate of wine, hot sauce (which I just tried and is actually quite spicy…habenero!), blueberry muffin mix, other cake mixes, coconut milk, white chocolate, cereal, canned goods, indian curry sauces, beans, plantain chips…the works and so much more! 

Because of our weekend trip, I couldn’t do my usual Saturday trip to Aldi, so we’re going tomorrow.  I hope to save more tomorrow due to the meals that were saved over the last two weeks.  I look forward to incorporating these goodies into our meals and I will be sure to tell you about my finds tomorrow!  Also…the votes are in, all the thousands and thousands of them and it looks like i’ll be making the frozen chocolate peanut butter terrine, so I’ll be picking up the stuff to make that!  In case you forgot what it looks like!

I’m not sure whether it is because I gave up sugar for a few days or the fact that I probably can’t even afford to make this stuff with our new budget, but I have been drooling over pictures of sugary deliciousness all morning.  Why?  Well, I refuse to be alone in this.  I am posting some pictures of what had me gaping and checking for wet spots on my shirt.  I thought it could be fun to get a little voting going.  Which dessert would you like me to try to make on a budget? 

I feel like I’m getting a little ahead of myself here.  I mean this blog is like not even born yet.  It is still growing in the womb, and I’m already asking the throngs to come out and cast their votes!  But alas, I cannot help myself.  So….here goes!

“No bake” Berries Cheescake

Frozen Peanut Butter Chocolate Terrine

White Chocolate Smores Gooey Cake Bars

 Molten Chocolate Explosion

And there you have it.  Let the voting begin!!!!!!!!!!

Well, week 1 of cooking from my Aldi purchases has gone good.  Their knock off cereals have gotten big thumbs up from Will, and we can both be pretty picky.  Can’t beat $1.89 vs. roughly $4.  Lunches have been good and I’ve mixed them up for Will with the various cheeses, meats and then grilling some for a nice effect. 

The only things we’re iffy about is the French Vanilla creamer.  Not our fav.  We also cracked open the cheese dip and probably won’t venture there again either.  Didn’t hate it, just not the best. 

Monday night I poached some boneless chicken breast in water and added some garlic powder, onion powder, generous salt, pepper and a bay leaf and let that bubble away until the chicken was cooked through.  I then stored my chicken in the fridge and got two container of chicken stock out of it.  One I popped in the freezer and the other I used later on in the week.  I used half of the chicken to top lettuce for salads on Monday night.  Tuesday night we got an invite to eat spaghetti with the Troutmans.  Yes, please.  What did that mean…one night of food that could go into week 2!!!

I did go ahead and make Thursday night’s dinner on Tuesday, though because a portion of it was going to a good friend who needed a home cooked meal.  I made rice with the chicken stock, a good glug of wine and a little butter and oil.  then I added the poached chicken on top.  Some green beans with a few sundried tomatoes thrown in (happened to have some on hand from my mom’s Trader Joe’s goody box).  Yummy!!

I had already thawed out some turkey meat when I thought we were having spaghetti on Wed.  Seeing as how we had it Tuesday I opted to make sloppy joe’s instead.  Turkey, onion, red pepper, smoky paprika, garlic powder,brown sugar, ketchup….delic!  Pasta salad with a little mayo, ketchup, garlic powder and dill and a little sharp cheddar cubed in it.  Yummy again!

Thursday night it was the chicken and rice.

Friday night we went to the movies with some extra $$ for selling back books.  We nibbled at sandwiches, yogurts, chips, etc. while watching Captain America.  Will loved it, and I thought t was okay.  :)  Love seeing Will joyous over something, though so totally worth it.  But if you read that right, that meant that yes, another meal for the week was not what was planned so now TWO meals were saved.  That’s $$!!!! 

Sat. I made Will turkey hot dogs with chili and cheese and fries for lunch.  I love cooking for my husband.  What a blessing!  I did pop the dogs on the stove top to brown them up a bit and then while the fries were cooking I got out my buns, slathered on a little ketchup and mustard, set dog in, sprinkled with cheese, topped with chili and then into the oven for a few to melt the cheese and crisp up the bun some.  Tasty!

Sat. night we visited with Will’s precious grandmother and Mama Gayle (Will’s mom) cooked up a fabulous dinner.  May I brag?  Pecan crusted chicken, potato casserole (to die for) zucchini and squash and onions, broccoli, rolls, strawberry delight!  Amazing!

Then today, Sunday, we ate leftovers from the night before for lunch and then again, Mama Gayle blessed us with another meal.  Mexican paella!  That’s what we called it.  And a salad!  It was soooooo good, and I ate way, way, way too much. 

So, that’s it, guys.  Our week with our budget and our food stuffs.  Let’s see how this week goes and what I’m left with and how I can cut our food bill even more on our next shopping trip.  ;) 

                                          Enjoying chocolate in the park!

Well, I started out my budgeted food season with a trip to Aldi on Saturday.  I went into the store with a $100 bill and was determined to spend no more than that.  I had my list, my calculator and and pencil and as I put items into my basket, I jotted down the price and crossed the item off my list.

As I made my way through the specials, dairy, meat and produce, I did a mini-sub total and realized I had about $30 left to spend of the remaining grocery, frozen, etc.  I had a few “stow aways” that I would purchase if the money allowed.  They consisted of two bottles of wine, a bottle of sparkling lemonade and a bottle of ranch dressing.  As I approached the register, I kept those 4 items to the back of my basket. 

The cashier, who works with the speed of light, zoomed through my items and before I knew it, she had a total.  Without my 4 “maybes”, the total was….are you ready….$100.41 on the nose!  I was okay with the .41.  I even had .75 cents of quarters in my purse, so no harm. 

I got my basket of groceries together and made my way to the bagging station.  If you are not familiar with Aldi, you can purchase bags there, but it is more thrifty to bring your own and you can bring sturdy ones that last better.  So, I bagged up my groceries, loaded up my car and headed home to husband. 

I couldn’t WAIT to tell him how successful my trip was.  Shall I tell you what I purchased?  Okay. 

• 4 bags of chips (BBQ, Wavy, Hot & Spicy and a Aldi version of Sun Chips)
• Shark shaped cheese crackers….yummy and cute, right?
• Cheese Dip
• Fit & Active Devils food cake cookies
• Fit & Active Berry wafer things
• Mayonaisse
• Butter
• Eggs
• Milk
• 1/2 and 1/2
• French Vanilla Creamer
• Spinach
• Romaine lettuce
• 10 yogurts
• Sliced Cheese (Provolone, Meunster, Colby)
• Block Cheese (Monterey Jack, Sharp Cheddar, Colby
• Lunch Meat (Turkey, Roast Beef, Honey Ham
• Ground Turkey (2)
• Honey Wheat Bread
• Turkey Hot Dogs
• Hamburger Buns
• Hotdog Buns
• Sack o’ Vidalia Onions
• Sack o’ Red Potatoes
• Tri-Color package of Pepers (red, orange & yellow)
• Frozen Turkey Meatballs
• Frozen Sausage Links
• Tube of ground turkey
• 3 boxes of cereal (Aldi version of Raisin Bran, Cap’n Crunch, Shredded Mini Wheat)
• Coffee
• Mac & Cheese (2 boxes)
• Tuna (2 tins)
• Macaroni
• Farfalle
• Spaghetti
• Spaghetti Sauce
• White Rice
• Chili (can)
• Green Beans (3 cans)
• Corn
• Frozen Fries

I might be forgetting some things, but this is the jist.  With these ingredients I will be making the following

• Poached Chicken Salads
• Chicken and Rice (using the poaching liquid for my stock base for cooking my rice) and Green Beans
• Sloppy Joes with Ground Turkey and Pasta Salad (using, mayo, ketchup, dill, garlic powder, s&p)
• Breakfast for Dinner! (eggs, toast, sausage)
• Spaghetti with ground Turkey and salad
• Tuna Mac with green beans
• Mac and Cheese with Turkey hot dogs, corn, salad
• Homeade Turkey burgers…look out, and potato salad
• Turkey Hot dogs, chili, potato salad, fries
• Turkey meat balls, mashed potatoes, green beans

That is ten meals, Saturdays are for leftovers and Sundays are generally spent eating with the Troutmans.  Our lunches are lunchmeat sandwiches, chips, pb&j, oatmeal, yogurt, etc. and our breakfast, cereal, oatmeal, coffee, etc. 

Week one is going well!!!  I hope to add more pics next time and be a bit more detailed.