Thrifty Thursday: Restock!

 

Friday:  We were home...but what did we do, what did we eat?  I can remember breakfast and that's it.

Meals:  Omelets, Toast

later:  supper was Cheeseburgers and oven fries.  Lunch?  Really no clue.

Saturday:  I checked the weather for the day and decided that it was cool enough (low 80's) and rainy enough to warrant comfort food today. I dug around in the freezer and took out a Roast Beef that was dated April '24.  It was a Bottom Round roast and not very large, but it netted us a lot of leftovers as well as supper this evening.  It was good!  

I made Lemonade but was out of sugar. I used Turbinado sugar that I got free years ago.  How long ago?  I don't even know!  I just know I've had it in my pantry for a long time.  Thank goodness sugar doesn't expire.  It made the lemonade a bit the color of very weak tea, but it tasted just fine.  I am completely out of white sugar and powdered sugar both at present.  I'm looking forward to restocking next week.

Meals:  Bagel for John, I skipped breakfast had a much later snack of yogurt and sliced peaches.

Lunch?  I don't recall

Pot Roast with Vegetables (carrots, potatoes, onion).  I tossed in two envelopes of mixes from the pantry that were expired, one Mushroom Gravy, one Knorr Vegetable Soup mix.  

Sunday:  Disappointed.  I'd planned to pick up takeout today for lunch because I'm so tired of pushing through and making meals.  Alas, we don't feel well so no takeout for us (nothing in town and I refuse to spend an hour driving to get a meal).  

Lower temperatures again today.  I decided to make bread in the oven.  And I baked our lunch prior to baking bread.  I had to pre-heat the oven, anyway, so why not use it?

I puttered about the house, but no one would have been any the wiser.  It only barely looked better for a short while.

Meals:  Eggs, Hash Browns, English Muffins, Bacon (last of the bacon and I used a potato I'd cut up Friday for the hash browns.

Pizza.  I don't have pepperoni. I only have sausage so that's what we had.  I used up a small chunk of Swiss cheese on the pizza as well.

Leftovers.  John ate hot dogs. I had the Scalloped Potatoes with a bit of roast beef.

Monday:  Put a whole chicken in the oven to bake.  If I'd read Cindi's comment earlier, I'd have spatchcocked it and cooked it in a frying pan.  Cindi's suggestion was to put it on the grill which sounds lovely, but with lower temperatures again today (never above mid-80's) I don't mind using the oven.  Still, it might have cooked quicker if I'd spatchcocked it.

Totted up the checkbook.  

Moved $20 into my Christmas Savings fund.  

Deposited Ibotta to PayPal and moved into the Savings account.

Put two or three African Violet leaves to root.  

Gave Rufus a partial trim.  This will be an ongoing thing over the next several weeks.  It's a process with him.

No takeout today either.

I refined my list for restocking the pantry.  I decided to increase one or two items and decreased others.  

Went over the Amazon Subscribe and Save list for August's order. I eliminated several items entirely.  Then I went to check on my supply of a couple of others.  Finally, I checked prices to be sure I was still getting the best price on things that I've decided we do need.

Meals:  Cereal for John, "Smoovie" (Caleb's term for them) for me.

Luncheon Meat Sandwich, Chips

Roasted Chicken, Cheesy Broccoli Rice, Sliced Cucumbers.  I used broth that cooked out of the chicken to cook the rice.

Tuesday:  I made my list.  I added on item to it this morning on my way out of the door.  And now I have the bulk of everything on that list in the cabinets.  It's a huge mess.  I need to remove, do a first in first out arrangement, but for the moment it's all put away.  And how glorious it feels to know that those outages have been filled once more.  The cabinets burgeon with pantry goods once again.   Lovely, lovely, lovely.

When we spoke earlier today, Katie said, "Mama you've been wanting to do this restock for months..."  It's true.  I have wanted to do it for months, but I was taking the patient approach.  I was watching and waiting for sales to fill gaps.  

Well, there were sales galore today, mostly unadvertised, on probably 3/4's of my list!  It was provident this offer came at the time it did.  It was provident that I'd only recently done a fresh pantry inventory, so I knew exactly what was needed. 

I entered my receipt into Ibotta after I got home and got a whole 50c back.  I took that as a sign that I had truly relied only on basic items.  The rebate came for a single box of Graham crackers, store brand, that I'd decided this morning would be nice to have on hand.  I used to consider store brand grahams and vanilla wafers as inexpensive treats.  I was flabbergasted at the cost of graham crackers today, even the store brand ones...Wow!  I did not buy Vanilla Wafers.

Meals:  Sausage and Cheese toast.

John out with his friend and I met up with Katie and Caleb to have a meal out.

I have roasted chicken. John might want a sandwich after mowing, once he's showered.  I'll have the Chicken Soup I made.

Wednesday:  I did my housework early this morning and had the rest of the morning to relax.  I planned to take the children out this afternoon, but they had other plans...John went off to mow.  I stood around looking at the empty house and ticked off the jobs I might do while John was gone and then I started four of five tasks at once.  

I started a batch of dough for bagels.   I started arranging the pantry shelves since I just shoved in yesterday's restock items.  I started to clean the kitchen.  I also emptied the fridge and planned how I'd use the leftovers.  Then I started three different recipes...I was doing all of it at once, too!  I'd do a bit here and then a bit there and then a bit at the other side.  I finally wore myself out!

Here's what I got done.  While the bagel dough was mixing in the bread machine, I set out the roast beef and the roasted chicken.  

I pulled grapes from the fridge to wash and separate into bunches.  I found a bowlful of green grapes that John didn't eat. They weren't sour but they weren't sweet, either.   I put them in the freezer.  I'm hoping that the freezing will bring up the sugar in them. It has with other grapes I've had, so we'll see.  If they don't get sweeter, I'll dump them.  

I dug out those three iffy tomatoes.  I let them go too long so they went into compost.   No...I'll tell the truth.  I had every intention of cutting the bad places off, but I left them on the counter and John saw them.  There was no way he was going to eat those tomatoes after seeing the bad spots no matter how sure I was that I'd cleaned them up and they were safe.  So, I decided to lose the tomatoes and save the arguments.

I checked my vinegar.  It has the most beautiful mother on top now!  I'm so excited about this batch of vinegar.  I made it using just apple cores this time, none of the peels as I had tried last time, and it's done super well.

I decided to make roast beef hash with the leftover roast.  I mixed in another expired packet of dry mushroom gravy mix, one can of expired potatoes that I diced up along with some fresh onion.  

I took the roast chicken and divided it into pieces the other night and boned some of the meat.  I have 2 leg quarters, and half a breast.  This was a huge chicken (about 6 pounds), so there was a lot of leftovers.  I decided we'd eat the leg quarters tonight with the remaining Broccoli Rice.  This left me with a lot of chunks of meat and half the breast.  I chopped half the breast and mixed with the can of mixed vegetables in the cabinet which I'd thought was expired.  It actually expired at the end of this month.  No harm.  I found a can of expired Creamy Chicken and Dumpling soup...I thought, why not use that instead of cream of chicken soup?  So, I dumped that in!  I will add here that the canned mixed veg was mostly carrots.  I took out over half of them and added half a chopped onion and some seasoning.  That all went into a pie pan and was frozen.

I chopped the remaining breast meat and made John a bowl of Chicken Salad with Grapes and Celery.  He ate that with crackers when he came in from mowing.  While John ate, I boiled the bagels and put them in the oven.  I made 8 bagels total.  I used my regular bread dough, but it seems to be too soft a dough.  I'm not sure why because it's only a slight difference from the Nikki Vegan recipe I typically use.  In the meantime, these will be eaten.  

I thought I had three cans of expired chipotle peppers in adobo sauce.  JI had just one.  The other two are both in date and don't expire until later.  I opened the expired can and spread them on sheet of waxed paper to flash freeze.  There were 19 chipotles in that can.  I was shocked.  It was a short can too, not a big one.  I don't think I've ever had a can with 19 chipotles in it.  

I took one small one and tossed it in the roast beef hash.  That added just a hint of smokiness in the background.  After the hash had cooled and seasonings had been adjusted, I put it in a container.  I put it in the fridge for now.  I can't make up my mind if we'll eat that on Friday or if I'll put in the freezer.

All the time all of this was going on, I was also organizing that pantry.  I got four of the seven shelves fully organized with the most recently purchased stuff put at the back of the cupboard and the older stuff at the front so I can use it first.  

Thursday:  Georgia mail has been rerouted and messed up for months.  It's because they have closed a few smaller distribution centers and routed mail to a HUGE distribution center.  Mail has been lost for months at a time.  That's not good news for those of us awaiting funds or making payments.  I went online this morning and checked to see the status of my insurance payments.  Although the auto insurance was mailed early in the month, it arrived late.  At least it got there, but geez I'll be glad when they get this snafu with the mail system worked out.

John and I decided to go out for lunch today.  I had a gift card that had a small balance and a new gift card that I earned recently with Fetch rewards.   Of course, we brought food home which has become the norm for us.  

I filled out two surveys for the restaurant and Dunkin' where John stopped to get coffee.  The Dunkin' survey netted me a coupon for a free Doughnut.

We had notice from our wireless carrier today that in August we can expect our monthly amount to increase by $20...Gracious.  A $50 increase this month on our monthly auto insurance bill and now $20 on phones...It's a good thing I've been watching pennies lately.  Adjustments ahead.

All in all, it's been a good week, far better than last week.  I hope your week was awesome as well.

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