Tuesday 27/4/10

Tonight was meant to be fettucine carbonara but we ended up with pumpkin soup hehe. I got an email this morning saying my box of veggies has been cancelled :( and so on my trip to get Richard ham for lunches, I bought a big 5.5kg pumpkin for 99c/kg :)

Costing:
Pumpkin $1.34 (used 1/4 of the pumpkin)
Potatoes $1.00 (used just under 1kg)
Onion $0.20
Bacon $1.50
Garlic $0.05

Total = $4.09 (We used less than half giving a total of $2.05)

We also had a damper with it:
2 cups SR flour $0.40???
1/2 cup milk $0.10
Total = $0.50

Dinner total = $2.55 :)

Today I also made more pizza scrolls. I actually received complaints this morning from Taylor that there were none left lol.

Costing:
4 cups SR flour - $0.80?
1.25 cups milk - $0.25
cheese - $0.85
ham - $2.00
pizza sauce - $0.75
pineapple - $1.01 (although I ate about 1/4 of it hehe)
Total = $5.66
Which made 39 scrolls giving a cost of $0.14 each

I make the scrolls in place of buying muesli bars and such. The muesli bars we used to buy were $3.14ish for a pack of 6 which is over 50c each so a pretty big saving there!!

Oh, I also made some cookies using LittleBT's recipe which always goes down a treat! I baked around a third of it and have some more in the fridge to bake this week and a large portion in the freezer.

I thought I'd also add a pic of the chicken burgers we had on Friday, they were so tasty!!

Ok, the rest of the week's meals..... I might alter my meal plan I think.

Monday - lamb, cheese and veggie rissoles and potatoes on the bbq in the park $4.19
Tuesday - pumpkin soup - $2.55
Wednesday - veal curry in the slow cooker with couscous - $5.48
Thursday - pepper steak/chicken schnitzel, mash and vegetables - $5.10
Friday - bacon and eggs on toast with tinned spaghetti - $5.63
Saturday - spaghetti pasta - $2.64
Sunday - beef burgers with salad on toast - $5.23


I don't actually need to buy anything for this weeks meals but will do the shopping on Saturday (making the most of any markdowns) for next week.

We have James' tonsillectomy next Monday so will be an easy couple of days meals I think :)

Meal plan 26/4-2/5

Oh my!!!! We are almost heading into the fifth month of the year!!! Anyway... I'm in meal planning mode (not sleepy but shhhhh don't tell Richard!) so I'm setting the menu for next week.

Monday - apricot chicken and rice - $4.23
Tuesday - fettucine carbonara - $4.86
Wednesday - chicken curry in the slow cooker with couscous - $5.48
Thursday - pepper steak/chicken schnitzel, mash and vegetables - $5.10
Friday - bacon and eggs on toast with tinned spaghetti - $5.63
Saturday - spaghetti pasta - $2.64
Sunday - beef burgers with salad on toast - $5.23

Total of...... $33.17 WOW!!!!!

The week's meals in text

Sorry about the lack of pics, I kept forgetting to take them!!

Wednesday - Moroccan pumpkin and chicken soup with buttered bread - went down a treat! $5.96
Thursday - rissoles with vegetable bake - another winner!! $5.35
Friday - lemon and herb crumbed chicken burgers with salad on multigrain rolls - yummo!! $7.85

Tomorrow night we are having meatloaf with mash and salad and Sunday we are having butterflied lamb with steamed veg (gourmet night lol).


So, costing for the week's meals:

Monday - $7.54
Tuesday - $2.64
Wednesday - $5.96
Thursday - $5.35
Friday - $7.85
Saturday - $4.59
Sunday - $10.75

So, my total for this week is............................ (drumroll please).............................. $44.68
I'm really happy with that!!

Now today when I went shopping (spent $75) I stumbled across some marked down mince so bought 7 packs of that hehehe. The most expensive pack was $1.84 with the markdown as it was already on special! So, that gives us another week of cheap meat in the freezer! I have also ordered a box of fruit and veg to be delivered next Friday!

For $59.32 (delivery is free), I'm getting:
2x rockmelons
4kg Hi early apples (lunchbox size)
2x red capsicums
4x sweet corn (planning on cutting these in half to do us for two meals)
2x broccoli
3x 1kg carrots
1x celery
1x cabbage
1x cauliflower
4kg potatoes (gourmet)
4x sweet potatoes
4x butternut pumpkins
3x zucchinis

Depending on the sizes of some of it, I'm hoping it's a good deal! Hoping that it will do us for vegetables for a fortnight and I think it should however I'm still going to have to buy salad stuff when I do the shopping. Now if only I could find a place that would sell me cheap groceries and deliver for free hehehe

This week's snacks

So, in an effort to reduce the food bill (read SLASH) I am now making all our snacks from scratch :)

This week, I made some savoury muffins, billy G cookies (bought the dough ages ago and found it in the freezer on the weekend), pizza scrolls and sausage rolls.

The muffins - simple savoury recipe with zucchini, carrot and cheese. I poured the remaining mix into a loaf tin and then sliced it and toasted it in fingers :)

The pizza scrolls - I made the dough using SR flour, milk and a pinch of salt and topped with pasta sauce, diced bacon, pineapple and tasty cheese.

Topped

With cheese

Ready for baking

Enjoying the scrolls on the couch! Excuse the tipped over laundry basket lol.

Sausage rolls - I bought some sausage meat this morning on clearance so mixed it up with some diced onion, grated zucchini and carrot and sage and wrapped it in some puff pastry :)

Assembly

Ready to bake - we ended up with 7 small and 9 large sausage rolls :)

Ready to eat!

I've also been asked to make a cake (by Richard) so will be doing that tomorrow.

Cheap cheap dinner - spag bog!

Tonight's dinner was spag bog with beef mince and red lentils. It was much tastier than DH was expecting hehe.

I used;
600g mince (I got 1.2kg for $2.50 on clearance)
2 cups red lentils
2 carrots, grated
2/3 zucchini, grated
2 small onions, diced
2 tins diced tomatoes
1/2 jar of dolmio pasta sauce (left over from making scrolls)
beef stock
tomato paste
mixed herbs
sage
water
250g fettucine

It made enough for three meals for the 5 of us and worked out to only $2.64 per meal!! (not per serve)

Can't believe how much more filling it is with the lentils added!

Cooking, cooking, cooking..... (doesn't look very exciting does it?? lol)

Silverside in the slow cooker

Ok, last night for dinner we had silverside (cooked in the slow cooker) with garlic cabbage, and steamed broccoli, sweet potato and carrot. Richard commented that it was the best silverside he has ever tasted hehe.

The vegies waiting to be cooked!

My yummy looking plate

It worked out to

$5.50 silverside
$0.20 carrots
$0.09 onion
$0.50 broccoli
$0.70 sweet potato
$0.05 vinegar & bay leaf
$0.50 corn flour, milk, butter & mustard for white sauce

= $7.54 :)

Cooking and housework

Wow, it's been almost a month since my last post!!

We've had school holidays, not that it's much of an excuse! Just been lazy with blogging!

I have however been working hard on keeping on top of the housework and I've been doing an alright job :)

I've decided that I'm going to start posting my cooking adventures as I'm endeavouring to slash our food bill!! Last night I made shepherd's pie with beef mince and lentils which came to a grand total of $5.19 including the corn cobs we had with it! Gotta be happy with that! Didn't think to take pics although there is another in the freezer just ready to bake so when we have that, I'll take a pic :)

So, tonight we had sausage casserole with pasta and cauli and broccoli bake.

My dinner plate :)

It was yummy :) cheap too!

I also made Richard's lunches for the week today (he normally makes it himself on Sundays in the slow cooker but he has been working really long hours so I wanted to do it for him - cos I'm such a great wife hehe).

And so, Thai red pork curry with cous cous was made :)

The curry

Gee it smelled GOOD!!

The couscous (looks so exciting hey!)

And in the container ready to be taken for lunch!

I've been doing up a meal planner during the week to use up most of what we have in the freezer (HEAPS!) So, I'll jot down our planner for this week :)

Monday: silverside with steamed veg
Tuesday: spaghetti bog with beef mince and lentils (1.2kg mince so will do 1/2 for spag bog and do something else with the other half)
Wednesday: Moroccan Chicken and Pumpkin soup (slow cooker) with dinner rolls
Thursday: lemon and herb crumbed chicken with continental pasta and salad
Friday: bacon and eggs on toast
Saturday: meatloaf, mash and salad
Sunday: butterfly lamb and steamed veg

And the shopping list to go with this weeks meals?
* potatoes
* sweet potato
* broccoli
* carrots
* tomatoes

We also need the following to see us through the week for lunches and afternoon snacks:
* bread
* milk
* margarine
* fruit
* ham (or diced bacon)
* zucchini
* cheese slices (horrible stuff!! but, Richard 'needs' it if he is going to take sandwiches instead of hot meals for lunches lol)

I'm planning on doing some baking this week!
* pizza scrolls - the whole family LOVE these (Ellie ate FIVE on Friday for lunch)
* savoury muffins
* oat slice

There will be no more buying muesli bars or fruit bars! We will be making all our snacks from now on :)