Weekend Meal Plan Complete!

These last couple weeks I have done a horrible job getting meals planned and groceries bought. Today I had to bite the bullet and make a plan for the weekend and go grocery shopping. Since a budget has been set for the most part and savings are a priority this trip took place at Aldi. The prices don't include things that I already had in the pantry.

Tonight is one of our favorites!

This is 20-Minute Sriracha Shrimp Ramen. This stuff is great and can be found over on the blog Baker by Nature. The total price of this meal is around $10 and could have been less if I hadn't been low on soy sauce.

Saturday is another pasta day. Honestly I have never been a really big pasta eater but since getting pregnant I want it all the time!

I am in love with all the different one pot pasta options. I haven't tried this one yet but this is Easy One Pot Pasta Puttanesca and it can be found at the blog Creative Juice. I got everything to make this one for $11. 

Finally on Sunday since we are finally supposed to start feeling the autumn weather I wanted to do another soup.

Now I haven't tried this one either but I'm a sucker for a crock pot meal on a Sunday. This one can be found at Carlsbad Cravings and is a Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff Soup. This soup was a little more expensive to shop for since it contains beef and came in at $14. 

While at the store I also picked up some snacks for the game tomorrow that cost about $7. There were also a few staples that we needed and they had pumpkins. We had to have a pumpkin! Over all the total for the weekend with tax came up to $54.60. Not bad for three dinners (which hopefully will provide some leftovers) and food for hosting the game.

It's a Keeper

I tried a wonderful recipe from Half Baked Harvest last night. Chris didn't even notice that it didn't have meat in it! It is really that good. I did cut down on the cheese quite a bit. We like cheese just not copious amounts of it all at once. I would be interested to try the recipe as written to see how cheesy it really is.

http://www.halfbakedharvest.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/One-Pan-Four-Cheese-Drunken-Sun-Dried-Tomato-and-Spinach-Pasta-Bake-1.jpg

That looks really good right? Next time I make it I am going to try out a couple of changes. First I am going to add some Italian sausage. I liked it without meat and so did Chris but I would be interested to see how it turned out with some sausage. Also I want to substitute half of the canned tomatoes for rotel tomatoes. The red pepper flakes in the recipe do add a little bite to the pasta but I would like a little bit more without having to add tons of red pepper flakes.

The Crack Down

Well we are back from vacation so what now? It's time to crack down.

Spending got a little out of control over the last few months. There was a lot of eating out. Between school and training for the marathon cooking at home was just not always possible...and honestly eating out was a little bit of a treat for all the running we were doing.

Now that we are back from vacation, school is over, and the marathon is run it's time to budget up!

Today I did our grocery shopping at Aldi as an attempt to get the grocery budget under control. Let's see how I did.

Snacks:
Trail Mix                                      4.99
Trail Mix                                      1.99
Veggie Chips                                2.79
Hummus                                       1.99

Produce:
Mandarins                                     3.89
Sweet Potatoes                              2.39
Avocados                                      1.96
Baby Spinach                                2.49
Blackberries                                  1.59
Blueberries                                    1.49
Raspberries                                   2.19
Mushrooms                                   3.18
Mini Sweet Peppers                      2.39
Cilantro                                         0.44
Green Onions                                0.69
Fresh Asparagus                           1.79


Protein:
Raw Shrimp                                  10.98
Boneless Thighs                            6.49

Dairy:
Fresh Mozzarella                           2.49
Plain Yogurt                                  3.89
Greek Yogurt                                3.00

Other:
Organic Granola                            3.49
Passion Fruit Granola                    2.49
Italian Bread                                  1.69

With tax it came to a total of around $79 dollars with tax. I don't think that is too bad. I will be keeping an eye on grocery spending the next couple of weeks to see if I can get it down even more.

Thursday PPR

Oh PPR (Pack Pint Run) how I totally wanted to crush you! But I failed. So last night we added an extra half mile on to the usual PPR route so that we would get our full 4 mile run in. Because of this we ended up running at the very end of the pack! Which must have affected me mentally because I pretty much killed myself on mile 2 and 3. Killed myself dead. I ended up having to walk some during the last mile. I was so disappointed! If I had just kept my pace reasonable I would have been fine. Still a pace of 10:32 is about exactly where I want to be...just with out the walking! Hopefully my 5 mile run tomorrow goes much more smoothly. I'm am hoping to stick right at the 10:30 pace for most of the run. 

Knitting! My friend Cristal sent me a picture of a arm knit scarf. I couldn't help myself. I'll try almost anything knitting related. I made her this scarf in about 20 minutes! How awesome is that? The picture doesn't do it justice. Too much cheese from me but it's really cool. 

Fuel:

Today's run was fueled by sushi form Sushi Neko and after the run the body was resupplied with some pizza from Upper Crust.

CSA Day!

Yesterday was CSA day! We got a lot of good stuff and the basil tomatoes and potatoes made a great dinner last night along side some grilled chicken. Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do with a whole lot of purslane. From the looks of the internet it will be going on salads and sandwiches? I will be making some zucchini boats with all of those strange looking zucchinis. And the peppers look salsa ready!