Dinners from our Pantry & Freezers

(And April’s $100 grocery budget)

(& Our Net Worth & Debt Update):

Fair Warning to Foodies: This ain’t no gourmet food blog so don’t disappoint yourself looking for dinspiration here.  (see what I did there?) We’re cleaning out the freezers and pantry this month. If you’re looking for the net worth and debt update, scroll on down to the bottom.

April 1 – We were all so full of Easter lunch and candy that dinner was a tub of cottage cheese. Getting creative with the pantry meals already…

April 2 – The boys had PB&J’s before their ballgame (plus a pile of ballgame snacks) and I had leftover pork with BBQ sauce when we got home.

April 3 – Omelettes with leftover Easter pork, mushrooms and spinach from last week’s Aldi trip, and Mexican shredded cheese blend because we didn’t have any regular cheddar. I didn’t taste anything particularly Mexican about the cheese.

April 4 – Chili and homemade cornbread slathered in butter. Is that third freezer going out? Ohmygosh! Think! Think! Think! What are the bulkiest things in this freezer and how do we use them up fast?! Is there anything in there that just needs to be tossed?

18 overripe bananas, anyone?

April 5 – Two hours’ practice on two different fields. Frozen pizza it is.

Disclosure: I didn’t say this month was going to be the healthiest we ever ate.

April 6 – The Dad called. He’s cleaning out his freezer to make room for the cow he ordered (it’s two weeks early!) and cooked us a Boston Butt. Pick it up at 5. Clint picked up some buns for sandwiches and we pulled baked beans from the pantry. Groceries: $1.00/$1.00

April 7 – Wait. Did you say our quarter of a cow was coming two weeks early? In two days?!? I’m embarrassed to say I’m kind of relieved this weekend’s ballgames were canceled due to weather!  I’m cleaning out the freezer upstairs. First up, a baked french toast with a loaf of discounted bread in the freezer and eggs from our chickens.

I also discovered I had all the ingredients in my freezer (and a fresh lemon to zest! WHAT?!) to try this dressing-blessing loaf recipe I clipped from All You Magazine in 2012, except the chives, but nobody likes chives anyway.

How long do you keep your “recipes to try”?

It was pretty tasty, except I think I undersalted it. But I’m going to keep the recipe and try it again.

For dinner, we pulled the bag of marmalade marinade (loosely based on Ruth Soukup’s recipe for orange glazed pork chops recipe) from the freezer and bathed our pork chops in it. Add in a bag of frozen carrots + broccoli + cauliflower, a huge frozen garlic bread loaf and the leftover baked beans. In retrospect, putting three sweet components on the plate wasn’t that bright, but we ate it and didn’t die, so, there’s that.

But wait, there’s more! I even made dessert: Cranberry jello (tasted like regular red jello, probably a marketing thing for Thanksgiving) with canned pineapple chunks from the back of the pantry, and a tub of whipped cream from the freezer. Easy and surprisingly delicious. Shazaam!

The boys asked excitedly about when we could eat the “jelly jam” half the day!

I never want to forget them calling it that! Hilarious!

Did I mention I finally introduced my seeds to dirt today? Oh yeah, making things happen on this rainy weekend.

Also, I went to the Wal-Mart today to pick up groceries. Is it hard for you, too, to shop without purchasing a single thing to freeze? Agony. Money doesn’t go as far on fresh goods at the Wal-Mart as it does at Aldi, but I managed to pick up potatoes, mandarin oranges & bananas for still pretty cheap. Added in garlic powder, onion powder, and some clearanced Lucky Charms for the boys.

Bonus:

I happened upon some clearanced crockpot seasonings,  including one for seventy-five cent Slow Cooker Breakfast Apple-Cinnamon French Toast which will go great with another loaf of bread from the freezer tomorrow morning! Groceries: $35.00/$36.00.

April 8 – The thought crossed my mind that I could have made this french toast with a can of apple pie filling. But, seriously, 75 cents for a mix, 6 cents for a cup of milk, 30 cents for a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs from our chickens (which, I realize, do have a cost on the back end) made for a really cheap $1.11 breakfast with leftovers that also cleared a good quarter of a square foot from the freezer and didn’t put a dent in this month’s grocery budget. Win.

For dinner, we baked two chicken halves (remember our 75 cent chickens?) from the freezer and boiled a huge pot of corn on the cob we froze last summer from the farm. I sauteed in butter the last bag of frozen patty pan squash and pulled out another Italian bread loaf, because, freezer space.

I must have been feeling fancy because I even made dessert again! From the pantry, I pulled a box of orange jello and dumped in a tablespoon of cocoa powder with some sugar-free hazelnut syrup (because I didn’t have vanilla syrup). It was a beautiful chocolate orange blend that was super tasty with yet another tub of whipped cream pulled from the freezer. Tonight’s dinner made at least another half a square foot in the freezers for the beef that’s coming tomorrow.

The boys were not impressed with my sophisticated jello,

but went to town on the whipped cream.

April 9 – I wish every dinner would come together this effortlessly. I pulled thawed frozen vegetables, deboned chicken, thawed pie crusts, and mushrooms (sauteed on Sunday in butter) from the fridge and a can of cream of chicken soup from the pantry. Chicken pot pie is easy. I served it with garlic bread, because again, freezer space.

My children ate none of it.

You win some, you lose some.

All this frantic freezer-emptying cooking paid off, for those of you who are wondering. We fit all 223 pounds in the freezers with room to spare this morning!

April 10 – Shout out to meal planning! I chopped up a head of lettuce on Sunday, shredding about a cup of it into a baggie for tonight. I thawed out a package of tortillas from the freezer this morning and this evening Clint heated up some of our leftover pork in taco seasoning, a can of refried beans from the pantry, and sliced some olives. Add shredded cheese and sour cream and boom! Dinner. Augustus ate two soft tacos and finished the last third of Sterling’s taco. He’s THREE. I’d say we won dinner. Then we won our baseball game.

April 11 – Since there are no games and no practices on Wednesdays, we had a leisurely colossal three pound homemade meatloaf, real mashed potatoes and fancy green beans, plus a simple pineapple-in-jello-with-whipped-cream BAZZERT! Easy, and now we have lots of leftovers for the next two days’ busy ball schedule. Clint picked up some fresh fruit, milk, and bread. $12.00/$48.00 on groceries so far this month.

I took today off just to get my life together.

April 12 – Thank goodness I cooked so much this week. Leftovers for dinner–burritos for the boys, meatloaf for Clint and a real basic “taco” salad for me.

April 13 – Scrimmage on one ball field at 5:30 and a ballgame on another field at 6:30. This means we get home at about 8. Leftovers to the rescue, smorgasbord-style, just please, eat something…Oh? You just want peanut butter sandwiches? I’m okay with that.

April 14 – Ahh, Saturday. Time to relax, grill a steak, have a glass of…Wait, what? tornadoes? Just kidding. Mom and dad asked to keep the boys tonight so Clint and I had a date night Mexican dinner out. It was so peaceful. I had some Christmas money tucked back for something special off-the-budget, so this doesn’t count against our $100 challenge. If you count it, we spent $27 including the tip.

I know, we’re out of control.

April 15 – Easy Beef Pot Roast (dump a jar of pepperoncini on a slab of beef) with baby carrots. I served it with crescent rolls and some rice (batch cooked, frozen in 2 cup bags). Also, since it’s Sunday and I was childless, I went to the grocery store again to get fresh fruits and vegetables for salads and lunches. Groceries $25.00/73.00 – this leaves us with $27 for the rest of the month.

Don’t laugh.

April 16 – So, we tried another new recipe tonight–Buffalo Chicken Roll-ups. We already had a tube of pizza dough, bbq sauce, hot sauce, and chicken. I’m the only one who likes blue cheese here, so I just put mozzarella in ’em. And they were fine, just fine, except they were more BBQ than Buffalo, and I forgot to mix the filling with the chicken, so I mopped it on top of the rolls and called it good enough. It was fine. The boys ate four bites each, good enough to earn dessert. Also, I cooked and shredded 2 pounds of chicken at once, but only used one pound for dinner, so the other pound is cooked and ready for anything–maybe a white chicken chili if it stays cold. Brr.

Then I made some two-ingredient fudge, just to see if it would work, because it sounded too easy. It totally did; I’m not sure I needed to know that. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a can of sweetened condensed milk and a package of chocolate chips in the house…it’s delicious.

Somebody needs to take it away from me before I injure myself.

April 17 – Planned leftovers. So, Sunday night, as I was putting away dinner, I went ahead and shredded some of the pot roast into leftover broth and taco seasoning. While I was making the salad Sunday, I set aside some shredded lettuce for tonight. You see where I’m going with this?

Taco Tuesday, straight ahead. The boys will wrap ’em in tortillas from the pantry, Clint’s getting nachos (because we were down to the last two tortillas) and I guess I’m trying to be good again, so I’m having taco salad. Maybe I’ll remember to set out the salsa this time.

(12 hours later: I forgot the salsa again.)

April 18 – So, it’s Wednesday again and that means no games and no practice, so I get to take my time with dinner! Tonight we tried a recipe for breakfast casserole from South Your Mouth. Grits. Cheese. Sausage. Eggs. What’s not to love? And it makes a ton, so we have hearty leftovers for breakfasts. Of course, the boys just want their French Toast and Lucky Charms, so I guess it’s just…more for me.

April 19 – We’ve got another scrimmage for one kid followed by an hour of practice for the other, so it looks like we’re having PB&J in the car. Nothing could go wrong here, right? I need to make time to clean the car anyway, but the boys really enjoyed the novelty of eating chips and sticky sandwiches in the car.

April 20 – So, Augustus didn’t bite anyone at daycare this week, so we’re going to Monster Jam to celebrate.

Do you celebrate weird stuff like this? I think we just wanted an excuse to take them.

I cooked some ground beef with onions last weekend, so all we have to do is thaw, throw in some pasta sauce from the pantry and boil some egg noodles. Spaghetti with egg noodles? Yeah, I just didn’t want to go downstairs for regular noodles.

Of course we have another loaf of bread and garlic bread seasoning so we can make a little elbow room in the deep freezers.

Does everyone have earplugs?

Got your twenty dollar icees? 

April 21 – It’s so beautiful today! We had two ballgames, four hours apart, so we made two trips to the ballfields. Clint took over dinner and grilled steaks (and pork chops), grabbed some baked beans from the pantry, and baked potatoes.

April 22 – It’s raining, it’s pouring, the boys are going stir-crazy inside. Where are all those little activities I squirreled away for days like this? We had planned to have a roasted chicken for dinner, but it didn’t thaw in time, so we’ll crock pot that bad boy tomorrow. Remember yesterday’s extra pork chops? We cleaned out all the leftover vegetable sides in the fridge, cooked up some of our corn from this summer, and called it good.

April 23 – The ballgame was canceled, but dinner was already in the crockpot: Roast Chicken. We reheated the leftover corn and baked potatoes, but we’ve got plenty of room for fresh groceries.

I ran to the grocery store on my lunch break and forgot my list. AARGH!

Fortunately, I remembered what was left of the budget, and had worked so hard on drilling down what we really needed that I only forgot two things that I reckon we can do without for ten days. The grocery total was $26.39, which brings us to our $100.00 for the month. The only thing I can think of that we might want before the end of the month is hamburger buns, but I’m going to check the freezer to see if I have some stashed away somewhere.

If we end up buying the buns with change scrounged from the car and couch, does it count against the pantry and freezer challenge budget? 

April 24 – I’d been craving this since the last time we made it: Betty Crocker’s Oktoberfest Pie. Seriously, I don’t really even like sauerkraut, but this is so unbelievably delicious, I might just buy another jar next month. We already had all the ingredients from the first time we made this recipe, except for the beer that I improvised with some diet 7-up.

Oh, man. I’m putting this into heavy rotation on the dinner menu.

April 25 – So, tonight, I flipped some leftovers using the recipe on a can of green enchilada sauce. I pulled the dark meat off the chicken from Monday because, honestly, the white meat was so dry it was almost powder, and rolled ’em up in corn tortillas. Since I forgot to buy shredded cheese, I had to throw slices of Muenster cheese on our Mexican dinner, but use what ya got, right?

I slung the soggy things on plates, topped them with sour cream, canned diced tomatoes, & shredded lettuce and called it Green Chile Enchiladas. To me, the corn tortillas soggied up and kind of reminded me of tamales, and the green chile sauce was unexpectedly spicy, but it was a good use of leftovers and things we weren’t going to eat (I’m talking to you, corn tortillas!) so I’m still calling it a win.

A Never-Making-This-Again Win.

April 26 – Our game and practice both were rained out (AGAIN!), but we had Leftovers Smorgasborrrrrd to keep from wasting any prepared food! I wasted my precious saved hour(s) scrolling through Facebook, but sometimes it’s like I can’t peel my eyes off that trainwreck. No offense to anyone who was in a train wreck. Or a wreck. Or a train. 

Also, side note, remember that kind-of-dried-out-pork roast we made not too long ago? (What is it with us and our slow cooker lately?!) I cubed it up and froze it in single servings, thinking maybe I could use it somehow. Today, I dropped about half a serving of pork cubes into about half a serving of some leftover frozen chili, and it was fine. Was it something I’d crave? Meh, probably not. Was it edible? Yeah. And it was free. I like free. D’you like free?

April 27 – I defrosted some Hawaiian Rolls to make patty melt sliders on, but I forgot to tell Clint my great idea, so he put Patty Melts on Toast with Tater Tots and dinner was done. We didn’t have to buy buns, so we’re looking good for our $100 grocery goal for April!

April 28 – Trying something new again tonight: Betty Crocker’s Sheet Pan Teriyaki Chicken “Stir Fry”. This is probably the first time I’ve ever turned my oven on to 500 degrees, but my little cubelets of chicken were cooked perfectly in 14 minutes! I used canned pineapple instead of fresh and it was fine. We didn’t have any bell peppers or carrots, but I threw in some frozen broccoli and dumped the whole mess over some rice we’d previously cooked and frozen. I’m pretty sure we went from zero to dinner in 21 minutes.

My wheels are turning on this sheet pan “stir fry” idea for future quick meals. What about you?

April 29 – Tonight, I sauteed some onions and cooked up some ground beef for Taco Thursday, and then threw in the other half of the cooked onion to tonight’s meatloaf.

I was really tempted to shape it into something funny,

but my onions were burning so I had to hustle. We heated up some green beans and instant mashed potatoes. How do you make your instant mashed potatoes taste better?  I stir in some sour cream. Pretty sure my father stirs in mayonaise. 

April 30 – Leftovers smorgasbord. Get over it. Mama’s tired. I had some leftover meatloaf. The boys grazed on a massive carbfest of popcorn, tortilla chips and salsa, toast with honey, and then post-game snacks of oreos and honey buns.

Also, after the ballgame, we ran by the Kroger to pick up food for Tuesday’s field trip to the zoo. I’m not counting this on this month’s budget, because all the food is for May 1, none of it was consumed in April, and the charge won’t even show up until May 1 on the card. For the record, it was $15.17, so if you count it, fine, we spent $115 on groceries this month, which is still winning.

After a month of trying to eat from the freezer and pantry, our pantry doesn’t look that bare, and the freezers have already been filled back up with beef.

I think for May, we’re going to have to dig in and force ourselves to get creative and use up what’s in the pantry before it expires. I’m talking to you, four cans of pureed pumpkin and 7 cans of sweetened condensed milk (what was I thinking!?).

Since we have plenty still in the pantry and freezer, we will only have to buy fresh dairy, bread, fruits and vegetables, so I think we will set a reduced grocery budget for May, but maybe not as strict as it was this month.

Also, it’s $10 Tuesday at Papa Murphy’s;

I think we’ll have Pizza in our PJs after practice tonight.

*Update: I forgot to ask Clint to get pizza. We had PB&J, made to everyone’s specs.

Net Worth & Debt Update*

*A couple of changes:

1. I added the Rocket Mortgage Estimated Home Value to update our loose estimate. This increased our potential equity and estimated net worth by about $13,000.

2. I reduced the value of my car by $500. By next month,I will actually bother to look up the value on Kelly Blue book for a more accurate idea, but for now, see April 30.

3. I paid off all the credit cards on Sunday, but one charge snuck in on me, so just relax and know we’re not carrying over a $9.48 balance on our credit card! I did let an $11.00 charge roll over one month when I was in college and still learning about credit cards, just to see how much it would charge. It was only a few cents, but I got the message.

So…April…

Seriously?

I’m headed to work and I hear that dreaded Da-Dunk, Da-Dunk, Da-Dunk. Do I have a kid’s toy under the car? Back up a little bit to get unhitched from it. Da-Dunk, Da-Dunk.

Ugh. Go look.

Yeah, the rim’s on the ground, dude. Um, all my tires are looking kind of bare, now that I’m looking at them. I probably should be checking them on the regular for tread wear. It’s a wonder they didn’t blow out on Highway 157 at a high rate of speed with the kids and a huge unsealed thermos in the car.

I’ve told you before that I’m the luckiest person I know.

Really, how lucky is it that I discovered I had a supa-flat tire twenty feet from my driveway, while Clint was still home, at an hour when tire shops would be opening up soon?!  How about installing some new tires for less than $425? And how about this little inconvenience happening the same month we are doing a super-reduced grocery budget? That’s right, we don’t have to charge these tires; it’s all been cash-flowed.

How’d you do this month?

I was talking budgets with a friend recently, (you know that’s how I roll) and it occurred to me that I need to be planning more than five years into the future. If I want to help my oldest kid with maybe $5,000 for a car when he’s 16, then I only have 11 years to save for it, which means I need to start saving $40 a month NOW. And I have another kid who will be 16 two years after THAT. Cha-ching. Too bad I can’t earn overtime anymore…

How far out do you plan? Did you have any interesting revelations this month?

I was thinking about doing a fifteen minutes on Burton Farm post for May, just to record the day-to-day stuff we’re doing. Interested?

See you soon,

Erica