End of April Menu

Ruth's post of her menu and budget was great, so I thought I would follow suit.

The grand total for food this month came out to. . . $330.00.  I have $30 left over!

My menu for the last two weeks of the month, which included Easter, looked like this:

Sunday-Baked Potatoes topped with bacon, cheese and sour cream, green salad (always make extra baked potatoes, they can be used in a potato soup or potato salad/side dish later in the week)

Monday-Chicken Pot Pie (I chopped up my extra potatoes from Sun. and mixed them with my veggies, and I had extra pie dough to use later), green salad, fresh bread, strawberry jello salad (we had company)--I made extra chicken to be used later

Tuesday-Chicken Noodle Soup, bread, strawberry pie (I had enough pie dough for two single crusts leftover from Monday)

Wednesday-Spinach Bacon Quiche (pie crust from Mon.), strawberries, green salad

Thursday-Passover feast--Roast (I actually bought it in Feb. for beef stew, and used maybe a third of it for that, and froze the rest.  I would have used lamb, but it was too expensive), bitter herbs--celery and carrot sticks, hummus and flatbread,  and Strawberry Dessert (Ruth needs to share the recipe).

Earlier in the day I had a little Easter playgroup activity at my house and I served Spinach Dip w/carrots and celery, strawberries w/fudge sauce for dipping, and a friend brought cupcakes for her little girl's birthday.  I also had monkey bread leftover from seminary, but we didn't get to that until later.

Friday-Pizza Pockets, salad (I made the pizza pockets ahead of time and froze them).

Saturday-I actually didn't make dinner.  We were working in the garden all day, then had to get washed up and go to a baptism quick.  The refreshments were quite ample and when we got home I just had the kids go to bed. 

Sunday-Ham, cheesy potatoes, yummy jello salad, green salad (I splurged a little on the ham, but I got it for $1.57/lb and got a 7 lb. ham.  I divided up the leftovers into bags-maybe 1/2-3/4 lbs each- and froze them for later)

Monday-Leftover ham and cheesy potatoes mixed together, green salad

Tuesday-Taco salad (I used the leftover meat from Thursday's roast, heated it up in a skillet with peppers and onions, cumin and garlic, a jar of salsa, and refried beans.  I let that cook down until it was nice and thick, then I served it over salad greens and topped it with cheese and a homemade ranch dressing).

Wednesday-Chicken and Spinach Lasagna, green salad

Thursday-Leftover Chicken and Spinach Lasagna--I wanted to fix something else, but the kids complained--it was that good-- Strawberry Shortcake

Friday-Broccoli Ham and Cheese Salad--delicious (I'll have to do a separate post on this), rolls

Saturday-Homemade Pizza, salad

And there you have it folks!  Two weeks of menus.  I stayed in budget too.

You might be thinking, wow, they eat a lot of salad.  This is the reason why:

  

I have tons of salad in the garden, and until it bolts, I just pick the outer leaves, so it keeps growing and growing and. . . well, you get the idea.  Once the spinach does bolt, I'll wash it up, blanch it, chop it up and freeze it for later.  Then I'll plant something else in its place.  We've also had a lot of strawberries in our garden lately.  It's been great using them up.  Sadly, those are almost done producing. -Lena