budget tip: eat-what-we've-got week

i think this will become a new standard for the last week of the month in our house - in an effort to cut down on the grocery bill (and to use up as much as possible before we go away), we decided to skip the regular monday grocery run and see if we could make a week's worth of meals on what we already had in the house.  it took a bit more thinking but it worked out pretty good!  we made one trip to the grocery store to replenish the fruit bowl and buy more milk, but other than that, every meal we prepared was with ingredients we already had.  here's what we ate this week:

• breakfasts were surprisingly varied, including the last of the cereal, eggs and toast, waffles (with peanut butter and honey since we're out of syrup and jam), and homemade granola with some frozen blueberries i dug out of the back of the freezer.  yum!
• lunches were mainly leftovers and soup, but there was the odd salmon or tuna melt in there too.
• pasta and sauce with cheese - can't have a "clean out the cupboards" week without expecting one spaghetti night in there.  good thing we love spaghetti.  :)
• black bean chili - i had a bag of dried black beans so i made a huge pot for potluck last weekend and a smaller pot for us.  i wasn't really in the mood for chili this week, but it was still good (and half of it will come on our trip with us).
• turkey barley soup - i made stock from frozen christmas turkey bones, and then soup from fresh stock, barley, and a few veggies (recipes below - some of this is coming with us too).
• chicken kabobs - these were so simple and so good!  frozen chicken breasts, some peppers, onion, and pineapple (which i had from the week before, intending to make these but never getting to them - recipe below)
• chick pea and coconut curry - this is a recipe i haven't made in years but it was so good and so simple!  a can of chick peas, a can of coconut milk, some spices and some rice.  we both loved it (i'll post the recipe next).
• veggie stir fry - the last of the peppers and snow peas with some carrots, onion, and garlic.  it made a strange plate companion to the curry, but it tasted delish.
• we snacked on fruit, chips and salsa, and fresh oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (because i reeeeally wanted some!)

the thing i'm most excited about is that i haven't thrown out one bit of rotten food!  usually there are a few things that get away from me - there always seems to be one container of leftovers that gets pushed back too far in the fridge and i can never use up a whole bunch of celery for some reason.  but when we leave tomorrow, we are leaving a head of garlic, half a bag of carrots, and two parsnips - and i'm pretty sure they'll all survive til we get back.  the bread is gone, our leftovers are eaten or frozen, and we have just enough milk and cream for breakfast.  i love it.  we're not wasting food, we're still eating pretty healthy (i had visions of being reduced to mr. noodles all week), and we saved a bit of cash.  win win win.  

of course, we'll have to shop like mad when we get home... but it's a step in the right direction.  ;)