New recipe sucesses

In a recent post of mine, I said I was going to try new recipes, hopefully one a week. So far, we've actually done well!

The first thing we tried was a shredded beef taco with jicama slaw. I just used leftover roast from a pot roast dinner and cooked it up with red onions, garlic and taco seasoning, served it on tortillas with a mixture of jicama, red onion, dried cilantro and Italian dressing. Surprisingly, my three year old loved them, when my hubby wasn't a fan. And I should have saved some jicama without the dressing, as my one year old liked the bite she got while I was chopping, but she doesn't like Italian dressing. But still, I say its a success!

The latest dish I attempted was a wild rice/potato soup thing with rosemary tilapia. We just made a thick potato soup and added wild rice (rice-a-roni) and served the pan fried seasoned fish on top. Huge success, flavor wise, and everyone loved it, I just need to cook the rice and soup separate next time....

So, does anyone have any yummy recipes that you think are different/unusual that you'd love? Please share!

Grocery challenge: complete

So its been a while, but I was sorta waiting till I has completed the challenge I had issued myself before I added any new thoughts.

Anyways, the Sam's club grocery challenge from my last post was indeed a success - not only did my family like most of the recipes (except for the one with quinoa) on the list I found, but it lasted us many more meals then the 20 it was intended for. Plus, 2 month's later, we still have a few freezer meals left, and some groceries left from the initial trip!

I considered trying the 20 meals for $150 Costco list, but I decided with the new year I'm going to just try at least one new recipe a week. I have so many cookbooks with so many yummy looking or sounding recipes, and I still plan my menu ahead so we can do budget friendly, and I want my girls to continue to be so adventurous and willing to try at least one bite of anything with out fights.

So here's to some adventures at dinnertime!!

Grocery Challenge

I had a good friend post a link from this site (www.5dollardinners.com) a week or so ago, and I decided to try out the "20 Meals for $150" with options for 2 lists for Sam's Club and 2 lists for Costco.

We started out with the first one for Sam's Club.

The recipes so far are yummy and simple, but the 4 servings that most the recipes make are too much for my family of 4 as two of the mouths are three or under. 😃  So I took it into consideration when I made my initial list. I already had a few things, like rice and canned tomatoes, but after making my list and comparing it to the one the site had, I found it was missing a pricey item: quinoa. Once we went to the store, I found that our Sam's didn't have some of the same things that were on the list, like the spaghetti sauce and salsa; the prices were also different, which i expected. Plus (as stated above) two of our four mouths are very small, So I didn't get as much meat as on the site's list. Then I didn't get the avocado (only my hubby eats it) or mango (that's one I just gotta do fresh 😉) or bakery rolls (I got frozen Rhodes rolls instead). Oh. And we got bacon.

That being said, (before taxes) we spent $137.

And by my estimates, not only will we have the 20 meals plus leftover food, we'll a few extra whole meals and maybe enough to 'create' a whole new meal!

As of right now, I believe I have dinners planned thru Dec 14, but that is taking out most Sundays as we're usually with extended family... We'll see if it works out to not have to buy much for dinners in the next month!

Here's a secret though, I just copied and pasted the recipes from the listing she had, and didn't buy the printables, (being the designer I am, I will make my own printables). However, (the site changed since I last got on it) the links to the recipes aren't in the meal plan page anymore, but i bet the recipes are still on the site.