It isn't a whole week since our last week's meal plan, but we have a bunch of things coming up this week that'll make it hard to go shopping, so we went today. We still have a bunch of food, including enough chickpeas for another couple of chickpea meals (who'd have thought you could get so much food out of one small bag of dried chickpeas?!), so we'll do that.
Last week's meals went brilliantly. That chicken pot pie soup from Skinnytaste.com is just amazing. Economical, nutritious, and lasts us three meals! It uses up all the leftover chicken, and tricks you into thinking you aren't eating a lot of vegetables by virtue of its creaminess, having been simmered in low-fat milk and thickened at the end with a bit of flour. I accidentally doubled the flour, but I really liked it that way--it made it seem extra thick and satisfying. I'm definitely going to add this to our repertoire of staples.
So, I think I've made some progress in both my quest to make myself like chickpeas and my quest to find the perfect veggie burger. I made a chickpea burger using some of vast crock pot of cooked chickpeas I made and some of the brown rice left over from another recipe. I have three criteria for veggie burgers: 1) it mustn't fall apart while you're cooking it; 2) it must be flavorful and have a pleasant, non-stodgy texture; 3) it mustn't be so starchy that it sends everyone into a carb coma. I think I've almost achieved that, but I'm going to tweak the recipe a bit more the next time I make it.
This week's recipes:
Breakfasts: steel cut oats with frozen fruit (already had both these things from last week) and yogurt
Lunches: peanut butter sandwiches OR eggs on toast, with apples, pieces of cheese, celery, carrot, etc.
Snacks: cheese, apples, etc.
Dessert: grapes
Drinks: milk for Baby B, water for us all, tea left over from last week for Mr. B and me
Extras: I'll probably make some homemade sandwich bread to augment our bread supply.
1) The aforementioned chickpea burger on homemade whole wheat hamburger buns, with slices of cheese and some spinach left over from last week.
2) Chickpea, tomato and spinach curry with Perfect Basmati Rice. Made with the chickpeas and spinach and rice I had left over from last week.
3) Chicken soup with lime and hominy from finecooking.com. (I love hominy, but until recently you couldn't find it in the stores around here, not even in the specialized Mexican sections. I was thrilled to discover recently that this had changed.) I'll make a side of quesadillas with some tortillas I need to use up, plus the remains of last week's large block of cheddar.
4) Hominy, ham, and broccoli quiche. To use up the rest of the giant can of hominy I bought, plus the block of Cotija cheese. I use an all-purpose crustless quiche recipe for this, adding whatever fillings I want. Very versatile!
5) Crock pot salsa verde chicken with cilantro-lime rice from Skinnytaste.com. Side of peas.
6) The creamy pasta recipe from the New York Times that I made last week, this time experimenting with more cheese, some peas, and some ham.
7) Leftovers... there will be a few, I think.
This week's groceries:
Fruits and vegetables:
1 head celery 1.18
2 lbs carrots 0.98
3 limes 0.76
3.93 lbs Fuji apples 5.03
3 broccoli crowns 1.60
2.15 lbs red grapes 4.04
Bulk:
1 lb rotini 0.84
Cans:
El Mexicano white hominy 1.77
2 cans of store-brand diced tomatoes 1.16
Dairy:
Nancy's low-fat yogurt 2.37
Darigold cottage cheese 1.98
Cotija cheese 3.78
Organic Valley 2% milk 3.46
Eggs 1.99
Misc.
Sara Lee 100% whole wheat sandwich bread 1.98
Frozen:
Store brand green peas, 1 lb 0.78
Meat:
2 locally raised chicken breasts (label said "all natural"..hmm) 5.38
1 ham steak 1.98
Total: $41.06
Not a bad haul, really. Now that I've stopped buying pre-grated cheese, the dairy bill went down substantially. The Cotija cost a few dollars, but it was actually a lot more than I'm going to need, so with any luck we'll all like it and want to use it up in other things. The grapes seem like a bit of an extravagance, but Baby B loves them, and she really doesn't get a whole lot of treats, so whatever.
It's funny, I really did get the bill down a bit this week, but I still feel like I'm being a spendthrift middle-class shopper. Back to beans next week, maybe? (I might give the chickpeas a rest for a while!)
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