Thursday & Friday Meals

Hello again!

    Today we are going to look at some fun recipes and go over some more meal ideas and shopping lists.

My "helpers"

We left off with Wednesday last time so today we will go over Thursday and Friday.

For lunch on Thursday we had frozen pizzas. Toby loves sausage on his and Josh isn’t picky. I got 2 of the small Tostino individual pizzas and it was plenty for both of them and the leftovers were my lunch. Easy, and cheap. Total price: $2.66.  About .86 cents a person. Ya!

I also threw in some mandarin oranges so I could feel like I was being some what balanced.

    For dinner Thursday night, we had leftover ham and bean soup and leftover green beans (there were lots so I guess the $5 from the other night was well spent) as well as cornbread and applesauce. A big meal but not too expensive. The ham was leftover from Christmas so ham/bean soup is not a regular meal for us. However, I’ll break down prices in a minute.

    For the soup, I really don’t follow a recipe. I chop up the leftover ham and put it in a pot with a bag of dried Northern beans and a chopped onion. I dump a bunch of chicken stock and water on it and add some pepper and garlic powder. Then I just simmer it until the beans are soft. It’s yummy!   For cornbread, I use the Jiffy mix and it works fine.

**Tip: Don’t grab a cast iron skillet right out of the oven. Blisters, Ouch.**

For the grocery list I will assume you have eggs and milk which are needed for the cornbread mix and pepper and garlic powder for the soup. Here is a breakdown of costs.

Ham--$3.63 (if you don’t have ham leftovers, you can buy a bag of chopped ham)

Northern Beans (GV)--$1.18

Onion--.98c

Chicken Stock (GV)--$1.43

Cornbread mix--.42c

Applesauce (GV)--$1.96

Total: $9.60

Not too bad! Also, if you want to spend a bit more, you could just get a regular ham and use it for sandwiches too!

Alright now to go over Friday. For lunch today we are going to have fishsticks and applesauce. A box of frozen Fishsticks at Walmart is: $3.12 and lasts me at least two meals. My boys loooove fishsticks and eat a lot!

    For dinner, we are going to have a St. Louis classic,  Toasted Ravioli (click the link for the recipe).  I will also add a Premix salad.  We are big fans of the premixed salads that Walmart and Costco sell. They’re a bit expensive but not having to chop up lettuce makes it worth it to me.  Our favorite is the Chopped Asian mix. Walmart sells them for $3.32. Even Toby eats it and he usually doesn’t touch greenery!

For the toasted ravioli I will post the recipe below but here are the ingredients you need:

Frozen ravioli--$2.58

Bread Crumbs (not Panko!)--.82c

Dried Basil--$1.23

Dried Ground Oregano--$2.27

Parmesan Cheese--$3.42

Pepper (I assume you have this)

Eggs--$1.30 *

Pam spray--$1.53*

Spaghetti Sauce (Ragu)--$1.44

Total: $14.59

In the future I will assume you have basics like eggs, cooking spray, salt/pepper and I will not include prices for these things.

This is a higher price than usual but those spices will last quite awhile and the eggs will as well and the Pam. The bread crumbs are enough for at least two meals of this. And of course you won’t use all the parmesan.

    So really, these are basic pantry things you should stock up on too! And really, $4.48 a person isn’t bad for a meal!

My mixing buddy

 Hope you enjoy and I will post about weekend meals next time!

Until next time,

Mama Bear