Monday Meal - Fried Rice with Asparagus and Chicken

1st Meal in my new effort to be a cheap cook = )

Last night I made Fried Rice with Asparagus and heated up some chicken tenders we had in the freezer to go with it.  So really it became Chicken Fried Rice with Asparagus.  and I must say - it was YUMMY!!!  I think the fact that it was so cheap made it even yummier =).

I found the fried rice recipe for this meal on this great website, Poor Girl Eats Well while I was searching away last weekend.  I'm hoping that I'll find lots more yummy and cheap things here in the future. 

Her blog is awesome - this is a girl who's making meals for literally $1 or $2 per serving!  And super yummy stuff too, with lots of veggies and protein.  I have a lot to learn from her.

I'll let you visit her sight for the full instructions, but here's some pics of my dinner in progress: 

Rice cookin' away

All the other ingredients (I'm missing the scallions in this pic)

Almost done!

And completion:

My picture isn't that appetizing, but I promise it was good!

P.S.  I actually forgot to get the scallions at the store today so had to have Trent pick up some on the way home.  Adding to my total for the week by $0.68.  So my total for groceries for the week is now $59.40.

Boo again for making the total higher =( 

On the plus side, I realized I actually had 3 eggs in the fridge, and a small amount of rice leftover too, so technically I think I could return the 1 1/2 dozen eggs for just a dozen and take the rice back too.  But I think I'll use these ingredients elsewhere and save myself the trip.  Lesson learned to look CLOSELY to the pantry before going to the store =)

Next time I think I'll double the recipe to make more leftovers.  Speaking of leftovers, I've now got the remaining bundle of asparagus, scallions (a.k.a. green onions), and some white rice left.  Now I just need to figure out how to use it so it doesn't go to waste!

Tackling the Grocery Store

With grocery list in hand, $50 budget in mind, a sheet full of recipe's that will last till August 15th, and my sweet 9-month old in tow, we headed to the grocery store this morning.

It took me quite a bit longer than normal trying to find all the good deals and writing down everything along the way.  By the end Kinley was crying and ready to go home

Here's the meal plan for the next 8 days: ( I'll share the recipes, where I found them, and how they turn out at a later time)

Breakfast:
Cheerios & Bran Muffins

Lunch:
Leftovers from the previous days' dinners
Egg Sandwhiches

Dinner:
Monday - Fried Rice w/ Chicken
Tuesday - Spaghetti w/ Green Beans
Wednesday - Pasta w/ Peas
Thursday - Poorman's meal (don't laugh, this is really what it's called)
Friday - Breakfast Taco's w/ Black Beans
Saturday - Frank & Bean Soup
Sunday - Black Beans & Rice
Monday - Freebee - I'm hoping we'll have leftovers at some point which will either bump the schedule back a day, or we'll have peanut butter sandwhiches

Kinley's meals
She's eating mostly pureed baby food at this point and I'm making it myself which saves a TON of money and she's eating things I can't always find in the jars.  Plus it's all real - no preservatives.   This week she's eating peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, zucchinni (all of which I've already made) as well as bananas, apples, avocado, broccoli, and peaches (these items I purchased today).

Take a look at my loot = )

I also had several ingredients I'll be needing this week already at home.

All-in-all, I spent $58.72.  I'm not going to lie, I was pretty bummed.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time tallying up my costs, looking on the bottom shelves for the cheap off-brand of every item I could find and still went over budget.  BOO!

I did however find a great deal on chicken, which wasn't on my original grocery list, so this cost money now, but will save me later.  My hope is that some of the other ingredients I purchased will be able to stretch into next week too.

My complete grocery list and pricing is layed out here

Things I learned
1)  Always go to the store with a list and stick to it.  Only exception is if you have wiggle room and find a great deal that will help you later.  Or if you have a wiggle room combined with a sweet tooth - I mean you've got to keep your sanity =P
2)  Always always check the unit cost...sometimes bigger isn't cheaper on a per-unit cost-basis.  At my grocery store (HEB) they'll list the unit price for you, but be careful, I've found that it's not always right!
3)  Potatoes and Onions may be my new best friends.  They are cheap and go a long way to thicken up lots of recipes and add flavor.  Sidenote - buy bulk when you can of these items...I compared a 5 lb bag of russet potatoes...about 10 smallish size potatoes ($ 2.47) to 3 large baking potatoes ($3.50ish).  Also did the same thing for the onions.  A 3lb bag of 7 medium white onions was $2.21, this compared to 5 larger onions ($3.20ish)
4)  Making your own bread is really cheap.   Flour + Water + yeast ( $0.78 for 3 packs) - now let's just see if my bread actually turns out!
5) Stick to what's in season - because it's MUCH cheaper and actually will taste better.  (Ever seen what the strawberries look like in the middle of winter...pathetic and $3 or $4 for a carton!).  Today I found red and green bell peppers as well as peaches for super cheap! 

Hope you're not completely bored at this point!  I'll fill you in on all the recipes next!

A new mission

Last week Trent, Kinley, and I went on a little vacation out to a friend's lakehouse.  It was a great week of relaxing and reconnecting after a super busy youth ministry summer. 

(Sidenote: I somehow always forget that summer is not a season of slowing down, but rather a CRAZY season for ministry.  I'm thankful for the extra time to invest in students, but I'm also a little grateful when the summer is over and we get Trent back!)

So anyways, back to last week.  We're in a season of frugality at the Thompson house.  Which means keeping a pretty strict budget and not so many splurges.  All that to say, we decided that since we'd been blessed with basically a "free" vacation, we'd splurge a bit on groceries.  I got a bottle of wine, a carton of Trent's favorite orange juice, salmon for dinner one night, and a few other things we don't normally get.  But I also managed to swiftly blow our entire grocery budget for the first half of the month on meals that lasted less than one week!

Coming home I had literally $11.00 left and it was August 5th (we re-up the grocery budget on the 1st and 15th). 

Yep, $11 for 11 days. 

We knew we'd have to go over budget, but I decided it would be fun to figure out just how frugal I could be.  I spent most of Saturday and Sunday perusing different websites I found by searching things like "really cheap meals" (more on those later).  I even found some youtube video's of a sweet 90+ year-old lady cooking meals she remembered from the depression!

All of it got me to thinking...

I want to learn to cook cheaply.  I mean REALLY cheap.  I know this month is the exception, but it feels like I can never quite make our grocery money stretch far enough. 

So I've developed a plan of attack (dorky, I know)

1)  I'll set some goals/criteria for how I plan to shop and cook in case it's helpful to anyone else
2)  I'll share my grocery experiences, what I learn about smart shopping etc.
2)  I'll layout the meals and recipes I'm cooking (as well as where I got them all from...there are some GREAT blogs and websites out there completely devoted to this sorta stuff)
3)  Any other tidbits of knowledge I gather, I'll share that too.  (so if you happen to read this and want to pass along some wisdom, PLEASE share!)

Goals:
1)  Get our grocery budget down to $50/week -This means breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 7 days a week! 
2)  Make relatively healthy meals - I've pretty much thrown the idea of eating all natural or organic out the window on this budget, but I think healthy well-balanced meals is still a major priority. 
2)  Learn to not waste food - so many times I'll buy an ingredient for a recipe and end up throwing the last little bit away. 
4)  Learn how to cook without a recipe - this I think is key...especially for learning not to waste food.  I look at my refrigerator and pantry so many times knowing there's a great meal in there somewhere, I just don't have a clue how to make it up on my own!

So that's it!  Here we go =)

Who needs real toys...

When you have tupperware and wooden spoons?!

Kinley and her shoes!

Well she did it...Kinley finally started crawling!!!  Last Wednesday she took a couple little crawling steps while she and I were in Dallas (Trent was with some of our high school students in Peru.  I was a little bummed that he wasn't here to see it).  Well this little lady literally had no interest in taking more than one or maybe 2 crawling steps until Sunday afternoon...

which happened to be when Trent came home!  Yay!!

And what finally tipped her over the edge to get moving?   

SHOES!!

check out this video one of the first times she was on the move

I guess everyone needs a little motivation.  I'm just wondering if this is a sign for what is to come =p

 so....close...

As I mentioned earlier, Trent was in Peru for 10 days.  I'm soo glad he's home!  He brought back these cute things for Kinley

 They are made from Alpaca (similar to the Llama)

Yes, I think she approves!

 

Kinley is 8 months old!

Time is really really flying now.  I caught myself looking at videos from when she was first born and already missing the "newborn" stage.  Shoot me if I ever start wishing for her to grow up!

A few updates:

• Kinley is sitting up great, and can pull herself up from lying down now.  It was weird to walk in one day at the end of her nap and find her sitting up waiting for me!
• We started some finger foods - cheerios and bananas.  She doesn't really get them to her mouth, but loves for me to feed them to her.  She's also up to 3 meals a day and only nurses 4 times a day now (I know nobody cares but me...I'll just NEVER remember unless I write it down)
• LOTS of babbling.  Added in "lalalala" this month
• Kinley loves to have 2 toys (one in each hand).  She kinda freaks out when this happens and holds them up high in the air...cracks us up = )
• She's SOOO close to crawling AND very close to cutting some more teeth.  I think it could be this week or next.

And pictures:

What is it with this tongue?!

Silly girl!

My amazing husband

So I'm convinced that I'm married to the greatest man in the world.  Don't get me wrong our marriage isn't perfect, but he points me to Jesus and makes me a better "me" every day.  On top of loving Jesus more than me (a MUST), and being incredibly handsome if I do say so myself, my man is very clever, a blast to be with, and a really great communicator. 

I've never said this on the blog before, but I'm married to a pastor.  And I love it!

He was asked to participate in a blog along with several other pastors around the country and I just think he's GREAT at writing.  Want to read some encouraging stuff?  Check out this and this.

Enjoy!