Last night's pork loin and potatoes (cooked in the crock pot with a little garlic and soy sauce) turned out AWESOME!  Something so simple is so homey and wonderful.  I have 3 more 1-lb pork loan roasts in the freezer as well!  It was so tender it just melted in your mouth.  Dh gave his compliments to the chef!

Tonight I MAY waver from my menu plan.  I am supposed to be making unstuffed cabbage, but I may make this casserole with ground beef, hashbrowns w/ onion and green pepper, cream of mushroom soup, and french fried onions.  I'll link to the recipe if it is any good!  Dh LOVES those crunchy onion things -- I think I"ve only had them once in my entire life if you can believe that!

I will also be blanching, peeling, chopping, and freezing my frugal tomato find.  I will also be chopping and freezing 7 of the 8 peppers I got for a dollar.  I wonder if you can freeze raw cabbage?  Even making unstuffed cabbage and veggie-cabbage soup this week, I will still have some left over.  I can make a coleslaw one night if I can't freeze it.

Another thing I will be doing, which I haven't done before and it is an area where I waste a lot of money, is cutting up my day old bread and buns and making croutons and bread crumbs.  I also have some left over, going stale pita bread that I am going to make garlic pita chips out of.  (DELISH!) 

As you can see, much of my afternoon and evening will be spent in the kitchen preparing for next week and beyond.  I will also be cooking all three pounds of ground beef even though I am going to only use 1 pound for dinner -- then I will freeze the other 2 pounds in single-servings for later use. 

As time goes on -- I hope to become more and more organized in the kitchen.  This is just a starting point.  I want to come up with a rotating monthly menu.  I want to cook and freeze more dinners.  I want to buy more in bulk when it is on sale.  I want to cook more from scratch.  I want to search out and make new, frugal meals that my family will love. 

The kitchen is truly the heart of my home. 

It's the first day of September and my new, self-imposed budget has come into effect!!! 

Grocery shopping took a little more effort this afternoon, and some of our new meals will be more involved, but it's going to save us a lot of money!

I went to three grocery stores.  The first is a discount, mostly off-brand chain.  I got a lot of canned goods there (veggies, beans, and tomatoes) baking supplies, dairy, and a few other basics. 

The second is a major chain and I bought only things that were on a good sale.  I bought most of our meat there, as they were having a great sale on ground chuck, ham, and pork loin.  My best buys were a 10 pound bag of potatoes for 1.49, a box of fresh tomatoes for 99 cents, 8 Michigan-grown peppers for 1.00, and cabbage for 19 cents a pound. 

The last grocery store I went to only to buy the loss leaders.  I got country spare ribs for 1.29 a pound and GM cereal 3/5 and I had a $1 coupon.  The only other thing I bought there was cheese, as it was the cheapest of the three places.

Here is my menu for dinners for the week: (we don't normally eat this much pork, but it is what was on sale the most this week)

Friday:

Country bbq ribs with asian+coleslaw homeade peanut butter cookies

Saturday:
Pork loin and potatoes (in the crock pot) and green beans

(THE KIDS AND I EAT DINNER AT MY MOM'S ON SATURDAY)

Sunday:
Unstuffed cabbage and salad

Monday: (LABOR DAY COOKOUT FOR ME AT MOM'S HOUSE )
For Mike:  Red beans and rice with homeade tortillas

Tuesday:
Salisbury steak w/ mushroom gravy and egg noodles, salad

Wednesday:
Chicken_rice_and_ham_casserole

Thursday:
Homeade veggie soup with homeade bread

I tried to work around what we already had and what was on sale.  We have cereal and skim milk, eggs and turkey bacon, bagels, and yogurt for breakfasts.  Veggie soup, turkey or salami sandwiches on ww bread, leftovers, tuna, or egg salad for lunches.  We also have popcorn, pudding, jello for snacks.  I bought the makings for cookies, brownies, bread and tortillas.  I think they will be well fed enough!

I plan on taking pictures of a few of the meals and posting them. 

Now, I realize there are some places in my budget that I could have cut back this week.  I bought Pringles chips because they were 69 cents a can and 4-pack off brand fat free pudding for 69 cents and I bought TEN BOTTLES OF PEPSI FOR MY HUSBAND ------ and this will NOT last him a week.  But I can't change them all entirely overnight.  I did get the Pepsi for 88 cents a 2-liter.  This is about the long haul -- and this is my first week. 

I spent $110.00 for a family of 5 -- but I have enough pork loin, country ribs, ground chuck, and ham for a second week!  So I think that going over that 10 dollars wasn't so horrible.  I will try to only spend 95 the next 2 weeks and then I will be right on track for the month. 

I realize for some of you that 110 might even be a LOT.  For me it's pretty good.  I DO have to quit wasting so much. 

My assignment for this week:  Make my first loaf of breaf from scratch! 

Hope you have a wonderful September!

Sherry

ps  My Autumn cleaning plan will be posted tonight!