This week’s meal roundup: What we ate for an average of less than $1/person/meal.
Saturday: Mr. Sim and I skipped breakfast in favor of coffee like we frequently do. The kids were treated with leftover cinnamon rolls from a Halloween party earlier in the week. We went and did our big shopping trip, then spent $11 at McDonald’s for a quick lunch before driving home. We knew the minions would be asleep in the van by the time we got home, and we didn’t want to mess up nap time! For dinner, I made creamy dill chicken with roasted potatoes and asparagus with lemon, garlic, and Parmesan cheese. It was a recipe we got from our less frugal days doing Hello Fresh. We used asparagus instead of green beans because asparagus was about half the price per pound (surprisingly). I made some homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert. https://www.hellofresh.com/recipes/creamy-dill-chicken-59baef77ae702a06c26fc6e2
Sunday: Mr. Sim made some incredible Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes for breakfast. And iced coffee with creamer. We have this on the daily. It’s a requirement, especially for time change days! Mr. Sim also made us a sack lunch of peanut butter and honey sandwiches, “carrot sticks” we cut from large carrots, and leftover chocolate chip cookies. We ate these on the way home from church, again knowing the minions would fall asleep. For dinner, I made incredible (if I do say so myself) pesto pizzas with homemade crust, mozzarella, store-bought pesto, artichokes, pepperoni, and some diced chicken left over from the night before. I made two large pizzas so that we could eat one and save one.
Monday: As you’re beginning to see, Mr. Sim is the breakfast man. I often get up at 5 to go work, and he serves the minions. Honestly, I’m not sure what they ate. Either pancakes or toast with fruit or something of that nature. We had coffee. For lunch, I made our favorite kale spaghetti with veggie noodles (on sale for $0.67/box), a bunch of kale, a couple cloves of chopped up garlic, olive oil, and parmesan. The kids (and Mr. Sim) devour this meal, so I made a double batch so we could have leftovers. For dinner, I reheated the leftover pesto pizza.
Tuesday: Mr. Sim made breakfast sandwiches with bacon, egg, and cheese. Delicious! For lunch, we had leftover kale spaghetti. Dinner was tilapia cooked with butter, lemons, and Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning. On the side, we had rice and roasted the rest of the asparagus.
Wednesday: Again with the coffee for breakfast. The kids also got to have some cereal because the Kroger was having a sale where you could get 5 Post boxes of cereal for $0.96/each. For lunch, we had turkey sandwiches with marble cheese, pickles, mustard, and mayo. We had some chips on the side. I was tired at dinner time, and we heated up leftovers. Yummy!
Thursday: Pancakes and coffee at breakfast. For lunch, I made egg fried rice with coconut aminos, broccoli, carrots, peas, and a little diced up leftover chicken breast. Delicious! Even better, for dinner, I roasted a whole chicken with lemon, thyme, scallion, garlic, and butter for the seasonings. I roasted red potatoes and carrots on the side.
Friday: For today’s menu, we had cereal and coffee at breakfast. For lunch, we will be eating the leftover egg fried rice. For dinner, I’m using the leftover chicken to make chicken salad sandwiches with celery. We will have chips on the side and berries for dessert.
That’s our menu for the week! Good food with lots of flavor and easy on the wallet. This week, the key was batch cooking, cheap breakfasts, and making the most of leftovers!
