Our meals on the Pantry/Grocery Challenge

It's getting late and I wanted to make sure I posted what we have had to eat the past couple of days.  I will warn you that it may be rather boring but it is primarily for me as I want to keep a record of what we ate this month.

Saturday, Jan. 2nd we ate leftovers. My DS and DH left in the afternoon to drive to a basketball game and didn't get home til late.  They ate at a fast food restaurant.  I dined on eggs and toast.  I love eating breakfast for supper every now and then. 

On Sunday I made up a batch of chili and put it in the crockpot to simmer while we were at Sunday School and church.  I used ground pork instead of ground beef.  I do that every now and then and the flavor is a little different but just as tastey.  When we got home from church the chili was ready and I made some grilled cheese sandwiches.  It makes a large amount.  We like to dip the sandwiches in the hot chili.  We also had some mandarin oranges.  Later on in the afternoon I baked chocolate chip cookies.  I have about 4 large coffee cans full of chocolate chips that I purchased over the holidays.

I froze the leftover chili into two separate packages.  One will make nice leftovers for my DH and I when our son is gone some evening.  The other half I will use to make chili mac before the end of the month.  Chili mac is simply chili stirred into macaroni or other pasta and heated in the oven with some grated cheese on top.  I take leftovers and freeze them for use in later weeks.  My DS does not like leftovers. If I freeze them and serve them again in a couple of weeks he doesn't consider them leftovers.  Go figure.

Breakfast is cereal or whatever anyone wants to fix for themselves and Sunday suppers are usually leftovers.  My DS had some Kraft Deluxe Mac and Cheese for supper last night. I like having the evening off from cooking a meal.

Today my son turned 17.  I had some bacon wrapped sirloin fillets in the freezer purchased last fall on sale ($1.67 each).  When these go on sale I stock up for special occasions.  We had these along with corn and baked potatoes.  I forgot to put the tossed salad on the table and well, I was a little embarrassed that I forgot it.  We had birthday cake and ice cream for dessert. 

During the day for lunch my DS eats at school.  My husband is home for lunch 3 days out of the work week and packs his lunch the other 2 days.  He either eats leftovers or has a PB & J sandwich (he loves these) or a meat sandwich, tuna salad sandwich or egg salad sandwich.  I have either soup or a salad at lunch.

I always have apples on hand and this week we have bananas also.  I also have plenty of carrots and salad mix on hand.  We have juice along with canned oranges and other canned fruit for anyone that wants them.   In the winter I generally prepare what my mother referrs to as "winter salads."  These are carrot salad, coleslaw, waldorf salad or a simple tossed salad. 

I am not a gourmet cook.  I am a simple cook that can make a meal out of leftovers from the fridge.  I try very hard to have on hand fresh fruit and vegetables and fruit juice and always milk and cheese.  My family only eats basic fresh fruits and vegetables and nothing exotic, which is fine with me.

Tomorrow I will be baking bread as our beloved dog, Griffey, was able to get a loaf of bread off the counter and she ate it wrapper and all. Darn it!!!

It is very, very cold here and by the end of the week they are predicting temperatures at minus 10 degrees without a windchill.  I am spending my days doing housework and checking all the water faucets to make sure that the pipes don't freeze.   This is homemade soup and stew weather and I am sure that we will be having these sometime this week.