{"id":129,"date":"2025-10-24T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/?p=129"},"modified":"2025-10-23T19:08:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T02:08:03","slug":"food-friday-the-last-week-of-the-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/?p=129","title":{"rendered":"Food Friday: The last week of the month"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This week I am setting myself a challenge – how low can I go? Can I make a week’s worth of decent meals for as little as possible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strategies: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Shop my pantry\/freezer first. What do I already have? That can be leftovers from last week (what can I do with the rest of the pulled pork?), other frozen foods (we have some sausage), and just plain ‘luck’ (last week I might have bought a frozen turkey for $0.99 a lb that I planned to turn into ground turkey and turkey stock.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Lean on non-meat meals. I am trying to lean into a little less meat and a little more vegetable based proteins, and finding ways my family will appreciate them. I do have a fairly carnivorous husband though, so I am working little by little to get there.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    What does this look like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Saturday: Because we’re all going to be going in different directions on Saturday, I’m going to start this cheap week off strong with a scheduled “Every man for himself” kinda night. Not even going to meal plan. (need to buy – nothing)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Sunday: I have time today for something that might take longer. I’m thinking a beans and rice meal with the last of the frozen Italian sausage, a can or two of garbanzo beans, and a hearty tomato sauce. Oh, I’ll make a loaf of crusty bread with it! This sounds awesome. (need to buy – nothing)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Monday: always leftover day here. Same as usual. (need to buy – nothing)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Tuesday: I think I am going to make any pulled pork that still exists from last Thursday into pork chili and make cornbread with it. (need to buy – maybe some diced tomatoes? Milk for the cornbread?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Wednesday: grilled. cheese. sandwiches. (on homemade bread from our bread machine) YUM. (need to buy – nothing, if we’re not picky about the cheese we use, we can clean out the cheese drawer)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Thursday: I plan to break down and grind turkey on Sunday, which will mean I have some for a quick dinner any night this week. I think I’m going to riff on Asian lettuce cups, and make a seasoned ground turkey and cabbage to eat over rice. (need to buy – scallions and maybe some Hoisin.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Friday: The Halloween tradition here is comfort food for dinner and a Halloween movie night as a family. Nothing fancy. I’m making up a “Halloween baked pasta” this year. A tomato cream sauce (orange!) with either orange baby tomatoes or orange peppers baked in and a layer of cheese on top. I think I want mozzarella and parmesan (sadly, not orange.) I’m going to make it up as I go. I will need to buy … probably more tomato sauce, and some cheese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I think I can get away with buying almost NOTHING for dinners this week, other than maybe some milk, a few cans of tomatoes and sauce, mozzarella cheese, and scallions. I wonder how low I can make this week’s grocery bill?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This week I am setting myself a challenge – how low can I go? Can I make a week’s worth of decent meals for as little as possible? Strategies: What does this look like? Saturday: Because we’re all going to be going in different directions on Saturday, I’m going to start this cheap week off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grownupish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}