OAMC - Once A Month Cooking

Someday I will remember to take a photo of my fantabulous spread, and you will all be duly impressed. (No heckling please!) Part of the belt tightening around here is that I have to cook more. While we've pretty well curtailed restaurant eating, we tend to have a problem with eating chicken nuggets, frozen pizzas, and other assorted "food" out of boxes. Not glamorous, but definitely less of a burden to me. Except it isn't very healthy. Or cheap. I mean green! No, frugal! Yes, that's the one. So. To make it easier on myself, I have got on the OAMC bandwagon. That's Once A Month Cooking for the uninitiated. I only have so much energy in me though, so usually it's more like cooking enough for 2 weeks or so. My littles are growing up, and they are eating a lot! Well, one of them anyway. It is becoming more and more food for less and less time. Le sigh. Anywho. This week the right sales came along (more on that here) so I was able to stock up on some things and make them on my cooking day. I won't burden you with the gory details (for once). Except it took most of the daytime, my feet were throbbing, and I pretty much vegged out in a couch potato funk for the rest of the evening. Here is the outline of the finished products, hold your applause till the end:


I started the session with homemade white bread. Recipe straight out of the owner's manual for my bread machine. Yum!

Indian Chicken Drums - 10 drums, yogurt, spices, all marinating together. A mild dish that even my mom will eat. Not dissing my momma, just saying one tablespoon of chili powder in the whole thing, and she thought it was 'HOT'. And it was the cheap not-good-quality chili powder to boot! These are sposed to be deep fried, but baking works just as well, plus its faster and healthier.

Sausage Is The New Hamburger - I used to make "hamburger mix" which is simply cooked burger with or without basic seasoning. This is much faster and easier than thawing out and browning the raw stuff, mainly because I pack them flat in gallon size zipper bags when done cooking. I'm being cheap frugal this week, so I packed them in quart size zip bags. Our required amount for one meal has expanded, so it was 2 Lbs. in there. They are fat, but it all fit. I cooked 9 Lbs. Yes you heard it right. 9 Lbs. Be impressed people! So I had an odd number, but this was okay since I had two 'flavors' of sausage. One had bacon in it, oooooohhh. (sarcasm - DH LOVES his bacon) Two of the bags are only 1.5 Lbs, but I think I can make it work. At least one of these packages is destined to become Stuffed Shells at some point. The rest will be good no matter what I do to it.

3 Bean Chicken Chili x2 - I don't know where I got this recipe anymore. All I know is that I made it the first time and it got gobbled up. I made it slightly more spicy this time, which may be why kids turned up noses and didn't eat much. Win some, lose some. Very good with a dollop of sour cream, sprinkle of shredded cheese, and a side of homemade bread. DH and I had full bellies, and since I made a double batch, there will be another round of chili goodness in the near future. I did have trouble containing it after cooking. It overflowed a 5 Gal ice cream bucket. So I had to find something else to put the surplus in.

Lasagna - 10 noodles, 5 brats, 1 Lb. bulk sausage, cheese, and sauce. Skip the cottage cheese or DH will not even look at it. Grr! The brats would have been enough I think, but DH didn't agree. They were leftover from the summer grilling season, pineapple in them. Excellent on the grill, I thought they were a little too sweet for this recipe. They were already thawed the hard way (in the fridge), and I couldn't find any more in the freezer (I'm sure there in there somewhere). Still, good stuff. There were even leftovers the next day, though I didn't get any of them.

And that was it for this time. So now, when dinner rolls around, I got options! I am very proud of myself. And wish I had a bigger budget to make it get farther down the calendar. Oh well. Next time!

This week in groceries

I suck at taking pics. Once again, I've got nothing to show. BUT, I got a ton done this week. Hyvee is having $1 sales this week. I have been waiting for MONTHS for some of these things to get to my price range. In another fit of blatant single mindedness I threw the receipts right in the recycle bin. But I can tell you I spent about $52 and change at 2 different Hyvee's (the closest one was out of some things already). I remember the highlights as follows:

Farmland bulk sausage $1/Lb. I decided as soon as my eyes landed on the ad that sausage is the new hamburg in our house. If I had more of a budget to work with I would totally have bought more. The $52 was stretching it already, and I put one thing back to get to that total anyway. Le sigh. Next time!
Next item. French bread $1 each. They were small. I have a bread maker (and I'm using it regularly so far). Passed that one up.
Eggs $1/doz. I have 3 dozen in my fridge so that one also got a pass.
Jumbo hot dogs $1/Lb. I gave that a pass too because they aren't very healthy and we have some in the freezer already.
Carrots (the whole kind without the leafy bits) $1/2Lbs. I snatched up 2 of these bad boys. Carrots keep almost forever and my produce bin was mighty bare.
Green onions $1/2 bunches. This pin explains it all. I only got one but I used it all up right away.
Bell peppers - green ones $1/2, colored ones ... I've forgotten but they were on sale too. More expensive though. My tip: spend a tad extra for Roasted Bell Pepper Strips in a jar. There is no waste and if you get the strips (as opposed to the ones that are cut into chunks) there is no cutting involved either. Most stores around here carry Mezzetta brand (16 oz), but Aldi has a smaller jar (12 oz) that they carry as a regular item. This is a good trade off IMO, as long as colored peppers remain high enough (you be the judge).
Spaghetti sauce $1/24oz. Hyvee actually had a better price than Aldi ($1.19/24oz). I was shocked! It doesn't happen often, particularly on pantry staples. I stocked up on these bad boys - 8 bottles. They had five or six of different flavors too. I am too used to only choosing between Aldi's 3 flavors.
Chicken parts $1/Lb - sometimes this is a good price, but mostly not. I bit on the drums anyway, and also a manager's special package of wings $6.xx/3ish Lbs.
Aspirin $1/100 count - when I got to the store it was marked at 88 cents. Bonus!
Boneless pork shoulder roast $1.77/Lb. I am hard pressed to find any kind of meat under $3/Lb - even hamburger (80% or leaner only). So this was a pretty good deal. Apparently this is the same thing as a "butt roast". Change the name for marketing I guess, it was marked on the package "Hormel Butt Roast". Anyhow, it is in the crock pot as I am writing (typing?) along with some potatoes and carrots also from this sale run.
Lasagna noodles $1.89/Lb - I haven't been keeping track. It seemed like a good deal at the time because DH requested it for supper and it was less than the name brands. A little.

There were some other good deals, and some deals on junk. (It's still junk even if it's cheap.) I don't know how it all adds up, this is just what I remember. Most of it got cooked up the next day. I'll be posting shortly about that. Until then, hasta la vista grocery budget! :D