BethAnne on a Budget: What We Ate, January 23

I learned this week that Kraft Dinner is a vegetable.

I planned to make burgers for supper on Wednesday and asked him what vegetables he’d like with his supper.

His reply? “ Kraft Dinner.”

My response? “But what vegetables?”

He snapped. In a tone curiously reminiscent of Darren McGavin’s “Not a finga!” exclamation after the infamous lamp incident in “A Christmas Story,” he shouted “Kraft Dinner! ” and stomped out the door, returning a short while later with a familiar blue box in hand.

It was not our finest moment but, truth be told, we’ve both been kind of grumpy this week. We’ve been good about using what we have on hand but even I'd reached a point where I just had to eat something different. I just had to.

So, even though our vegetable crisper is full of stuff from our Good Food Boxes, and even though we have corn, peas, and green beans in the freezer, I bought broccoli and beets on Tuesday. We had the broccoli that very day. It was wonderful.

I have yet to use the beets but I’m sure they’ll find their way into our menu this week.

Our only other grocery purchase this week came in the form of four packages of English muffins. The Superstore had packages of six on sale for a dollar a piece. They’re usually $2.50 or more for a single package so it was worth picking some up. We used a couple of them for breakfast one day this week. The rest are in the freezer.

Since there’s more February than January in this week, yesterday marked the end of our January food budget. I’ll be posting a recap of our spending later today. All in all, I think we did quite well this month. Despite our complaints about the lack of variety in our vegetable crisper, we both know that we’re fortunate to have so much good, nutritious food on hand.

Here’s what we ate this week:

Monday:

Breakfast – Orange pancakes
Supper – Potato and cauliflower soup, toasted tomato and lettuce sandwiches on multigrain bread, apple pie

Tuesday:

Breakfast – Apples, toast with peanut butter
Supper – Potato and onion frittata, steamed broccoli, leftover pie

Wednesday:

Breakfast – Peach spice muffins, Brie (from the freezer)
Supper – Grilled burgers on homemade hamburger buns made with garlic and rosemary dough from the freezer, Kraft Dinner , celery and carrot sticks, canned peaches.

Thursday:

Breakfast – Burger and egg breakfast sandwiches. (We had one burger patty left so I split it horizontally and heated the two halves in the microwave. I put them on toasted English muffins and topped them with tomatoes, onions, fried eggs and cheese.)
Supper – Vegetable ramen made as described here, veggie gyoza from the freezer, oranges

Friday:

Breakfast – Oatmeal and applesauce
Supper – Boiled ham, scalloped vegetables, peas, canned cherries

Saturday:

Breakfast – Baked eggs, cooked on top of leftover scalloped veggies, oranges
Supper – Grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, coleslaw made with cabbage, carrots, apples, and sunflower seeds, pears in brown sugar syrup with ginger.

Sunday: