Weekly Menu - week of July 12th

Brad and I just spent a good hour making a list of all the food in our pantry, fridge and freezer. I've tried really hard not to amass tons of staples in our kitchen, and instead just buy them as I go, but the inevitable has occurred over the past 6 months here, and stuff has piled up. It's time to use that stuff up. Our goal this week is to cook primarily from what we have on hand, only going to the store for perishables and other minor recipe components. If anyone is really interested, I can post the contents of our kitchen, but unless someone requests it, I'm going to leave it out.

As much as I despise leftovers, we're also committed to eating more of them. :big sigh: It's so hard to motivate myself to eat them, especially since I enjoy cooking so much, but it just makes sense financially, and it's the responsible thing to do. Man, I hate being responsible sometimes. But it will be interesting to see how much we save by doing so. Already we're only spending about $75/week on groceries for 3 meals a day, which I think is commendable, but maybe we can trim that budget even more. We'll see. We'd like to trade in Brad's '02 Mustang for a more fuel efficient car, so trimming our food budget could give us more to put towards that loan, if we decide to go for it. Hmmmm, so much to think about.

Anyway, here's what I came up with for this week menu. All we should need to buy is some french bread (and maybe I'll just make that myself), and fresh veggies for the green curry and the orzo salad. Nice! Talk about a cheap week!

Sunday - leftover spaghetti, salad, french bread

Monday - spinach and mushroom enchiladas, spanish rice, salad

Tuesday - leftover enchiladas, spanish rice, salad

Wednesday - green curry vegetables with rice noodles

Thursday - orzo, chickpea and roasted vegetable salad, french bread

Friday, Saturday & Sunday - out of town for the weekend! Woot!