Hey y’all! Welcome to the series Weekly Eating.

Here is where I’ll talk about the week’s meal plan versus reality, what we ate for the week, and how we did budget-wise. I hope it gives readers a behind-the-scenes look into our life through the lens of food, and it’s also a way to keep us on track with meal planning and grocery budgeting.

Feel free to share your wins and lessons in the comments below!

 

As promised, I spent a big part of the weekend planting the fall things and ripping up the summer things. Tomatoes and beans are now composting, and kale/beet/radish/broccoli/cabbage are in the ground. Fingers crossed we get something edible. I’m already planning next spring’s garden.

Monday:

Breakfast – Avocado and egg sandwich, quite filling and tasty

Lunch – Leftover from the weekend roasted vegetables, with a small piece of steak under there (hah, I bet at least one person thought “under where?”)

Snack  – homemade creamy hummus and raw veggies (I ended up not being hungry enough to eat the peaches I canned)

Dinner –

 

Tuesday:

Breakfast – Peach oatmeal

Lunch – out to lunch with a coworker

Dinner – Lentil sloppy joes! My new favorite. With dill pickles and homemade purple sauerkraut

Wednesday:

Breakfast – A friend at work keeps chickens, and she brought me a gift of a dozen free range eggs! I was so thrilled, because happy healthy free range chickens make the best eggs. I had a tasty breakfast burrito with bell peppers and onions and hot sauce and eggs and cheese. Nomnom.

Lunch – Leftover lentil sloppy joes! Not mad about it.

Dinner –I made a big batch of my crispy oven baked tofu

And whipped up a quick teriyaki stir fry to go with it

Oh and I also have a jar of homemade apple cider vinegar that’s finally getting going! It’s a great way to use apple cores and peels and scraps. Just fill a jar 2/3, cover with water. Add about 1 tbsp sugar per cup of water needed, and cover. That’s it. Let it sit in a dark place for 2 weeks, strain, and let it sit again until tart enough.

Thursday:

Breakfast – Another breakfast burrito!

Lunch – Out again! Shocking, I know, twice in one week. The down side of trying so hard to make friends for 2 years is that now I have them haha but at least our work meal card gets us 10% off so this was just over $4

Dinner – Ya’ll! Remember how when I went home for a wedding shower, I ended up coming home with a pressure cooker my mom didn’t want? I finally used it! My first item: baked potatoes.

The good news is, it didn’t blow up! The better news is, it steamed perfect soft potatoes in 15 minutes. These things are pretty legit. And WAY less energy used than an oven at 350 for an hour.

Friday:

Breakfast – At the grocery store, I found an insane sale on smoked rainbow trout (like 75% off). Given my love of smoked salmon, I figured it might be similar. So I got it, because luckily for me someone brought leftover Panera, and I nabbed an everything bagel with cream cheese, the perfect lox canvas. Turns out, definitely not the same as salmon. But pretty good.

Lunch – Leftover tofu teriyaki stir fry

Dinner – My second experience with the pressure cooker. Some tiny acorn squash that came with my Produce Box.

Took 15 minutes yet again, perfectly fork-tender. They got whipped into a creamy cheese sauce for acorn squash mac n cheese.

Dessert – Wooo what a crazy week, out for lunch twice AND dessert on Friday! I had 2 peaches that desperately needed used up, so I cut them into a bowl with an also-near-death banana and some frozen pineapple. Topped it with some butter/brown sugar (crack) and granola, then I microwaved it for about 8 minutes and bam. Instant sweet tooth satisfaction.

The Weekend

Saturday is a busy day! My pal Steveonomics is in town, his company is trying to convince him to move here. And so am I.   🙂  Then I have a downtown Food Tour afterwards. So definitely getting my steps in!

Then Sunday is the opposite, no plans whatsoever. Well, just getting down the Halloween decorations from the attic, because you know I’m having a party! Gotta brainstorm a good costume.

Food Total: $98.19

Uhhh… oops. I swear I went to the store with a list in hand… and then there were just a lot of good sales. At least most of the things I got were staples and fruits & veggies. The canned goods will stay for a long time, and we were down to almost nothing on rice. We had like 3 rice based meals this week, and burritos are a main way the boy stays alive, so running out of rice would be a disaster.

Meats	$23.57	Staples	$40.27	Fruit/Veg	$30.32
smoked rainbow trout 4oz	2.97	wheat bread	3	bag spinach 2	4
frozen whiting fillets 2lb	4.97	tomato sauce	1.18	bananas	2.28
frozen cod fillets 2lb	9.97	tortillas	1.48	avocados 4	3.58
Stew meat 1.5 lb	5.66	long grain white rice 10lb	2.99	cucumber	0.69
		basmati rice 5lb	8.99	carrots 10lb	5.99
		brown rice 3lb	4.49	sweet onion	1.21
		cereals x3	5.89	bell peppers 9	8.91
		Pasta – various x4	3.96	Limes	0.99
		4pk org garbanzos	3.29	Pears 2	1.88
		Pasta sauce x3	5	Lemon 1	0.79

Lessons Learned

Ugh guys. I need to admit that I am not doing as great with Zero Waste as I’d hoped. But this blog is supposed to be safe space though right? How do I get better? My biggest issues continue to be cheese (sliced and shredded) and anything frozen. The boy is the main cheese consumer, and he will definitely not shred or slice his own, I’ve tried buying blocks before and they just get moldy. And I’m not that much of a saint to do it for him weekly.

 

 

How about you guys? Did you have a learning week or an awesome week of wins?