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my week in the kitchen...
I am really, REALLY happy. For the first time in a long time, I don't feel like I've thrown money into the trash as far as the grocery bills go.
My resolution this year was not to be more frugal, but smarter in how i spend my grocery money and cook our meals. I have known for a while that 1) we ate outside of the home too often and 2) when I did cook, I didn't do so in the best manner- i.e., I followed a recipe where I bought ingredients that only worked for that one recipe, or the servings were too many for just two adults, etc.
So, I started doing a lot of internet research on how to fix things.
This week, we ate roast beef, chicken pot pie, chicken & chorizo soup, shredded beef enchiladas, one night of a leftovers dinner(last night) and crockpot applesauce chicken. Not only that, but the entire tray of enchiladas, and the entire pot pie and the roast beef were completely eaten if you count DH's lunches . We had one extra piece of applesauce chicken b/c my MIL didn't eat with us as I had anticipated. The soup is for tonight and there will be leftovers for sure to be frozen. While I'm thrilled that I am wasting less, I think more important is that the new things I've tried came out very well and were EATEN, even as leftovers.
I used the leftover chunk of roast beef for shredded beef enchiladas. One family tray of boneless chicken breasts went into the three chicken meals- two in the pot pie, one in the soup, and three in the crockpot chicken. I already had the chorizo laying around in the freezer.
So now, I have to look over what I have here for next week. It should be a bit more interesting as my pantry is more picked over now, but I have to learn. 
Re: my week in the kitchen...
Great job, Heather!! Jude and I have been doing a variation of this b/c I am currently out of work (financial reasons) and also because of the lo-so diet. We find that we are eating more leftovers and that saves money. We are also combining this with shopping the sales and using those ingredients to plan the meals. So, if chicken is on sale - we make chicken things - and enough to freeze (that way if it's not on sale and we want chicken...).
It's funny - this is what my mom always did and I thought it was a PITA - but now I see why - with a family of 6 - she did it this way. My mom was a smartypants.
Happy to. I saw it and i was like, eh, maybe it's okay, but it's definitely convenient...but it was SURPRISINGLY good.
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/09/crockpot-applesauce-chicken-recipe.html
I used regular cinnamon applesauce, not the applesauce recipe, and added another 1/4 tsp to it. Also, I only used three chicken breasts because in my smaller crockpot, I didn't have real estate for the fourth to lay across the bottom.
glad it went well. i feel like i had a good dinner week as well. while i didnt necessarily meal plan and use items more than once, i did use what we had at home and tried out some new recipes. we didnt eat out once this week
it feels good huh?