Food Waste and Meal Plan

I'm not meal planning this week as my goal is basically to wing it to use up what we have on hand.  Mr. R did the grocery shopping yesterday and went a bit over budget.  Not bad.  I think we are over the food budget about $10 this pay period which I just took out of our "extra" spending money.

Yesterday, Mr. R baked a 5 lb. pack of Chicken breasts and I have 2 pounds of ground turkey that I thawed in the fridge that I need to cook.  The plan is to cook it with taco seasoning and use for nachos, burritos or taco salads.  We also have open packs of hot dogs, bacon and bologna  that need to be used up.

Basically this week will be a leftover week with the following options:

• Chicken - plain, with BBQ sauce, used in quesadillas or wraps
• Taco Meat - Taco Salads, Burritos or nachos
• Hot dogs
• Frozen Breakfast Burritos
• Frozen Spaghetti Sauce and pasta
• Eggs, bacon, toast
• Bologna sandwiches

This should get us through the first 1/2 of the week.  If I need to, I have a frozen pork roast and more frozen chicken that I can pull out to cook.

Food Waste

This was a bad week for food waste.  On Thursday, I had made a chicken, vegetable, rice soup in the crock pot.  The recipe consisted of 1 can of corn, 3 frozen chicken breasts, 1 cup of brown rice, 1 packet of chili seasoning, chili powder, cumin, about 1 1/2 cups diced celery, 3/4 cup chopped carrot, 1 large can diced tomatoes, and 1 can diced tomatoes with green chilies.  I made up the recipe as I went and it turned out OK especially topped with some melted cheddar cheese when I served it.  But halfway through dinner, Mr. R showed me this little metal sliver that he said was in his gum while he was eating.  It freaked me out.

A couple months back, I purchased a new can opener. I noticed twice when I first used it that I got a metal sliver in my finger.  It hasn't happened recently and I didn't think too much about it.  The can opener must be shaving metal off the can and when I dumped the can of corn in the soup, the metal went into the soup.

I took the half eaten bowls of soup away from the girls and threw the whole crock pot full away. Estimated cost of the recipe was $8.  It would have been enough for about 2 family dinners plus leftovers for lunches. Mr. R and I had already finished eating and the girls were 1/2 done when I threw it away.

Estimated cost of food waste $7

I also found a small container with a little bit of rice and kielbasa left in it.  There were only a couple small pieces of kielbasa left. Food Waste $.50

Total Food Waste this Week: $7.50

Total Food Waste for 2015: $11.89