My goal is to provide dinner for my
family for an average of $5 except on special
occasions. We don’t have to eat beans and rice to
accomplish this goal! We typically only cook a main dish 4 or 5 times a week. Each
main dish cooked will serve 4-6, and the
leftovers will be for easy dinners on the weekend, or to freeze
for another week. This cuts down on cleaning,
cooking, and meal planning- saving us lots of time!
This week we’ll be trying the cowboy skillet suggested by H,R,E, and C.
Since I don’t have any ground beef on hand right now, and the only
fajita seasoning I have is chicken fajita seasoning, we’ll be making it
with chicken.
And an update on our fridge and freezer after cleaning out some leftovers over the last week. The picture on the right looks 10 times better don’t you think?
Cowboy Skillet, Green Beans, Fruit Cocktail
1 lb. chicken @ 1.78
1/2 an onion @ .30
2 red bell peppers $1.98
1 can baked beans @ 1.00
1 tbs. chicken fajita seasoning @ free
1 egg @ .07
1/3 cup milk @ .04
1 can green beans @ .25
1 can fruit cocktail @ .76
Total Cost: $6.51
Garlic Grilled Chicken, Pineapple, Sweet Peas, Toast with Honey
1 lb. chicken breasts @ 1.78
garlic and misc. seasonings for chicken
1 can pineapple @ .83
1 can sweet peas @ .45
3 slices of bread for toast @ .12
honey @ .20
Total Cost: $3.38
Cereal, Sausage Links, Jelly on Toast (I’ve still got an abundance of cereal and I’m the only one who eats it regularly for breakfast)
Cereal @ 1.50
10 sausage links @ 1.00
4 slices of toast @ .16
jelly @ .30
Orange juice @ .64
Total Cost $3.60
Chicken Spaghetti and sweet peas
1 lb chicken @ 1.78
spaghetti @ .50
velveeta @ 1.00
1 can rotel @ .55
cr mushroom soup @ .50
1 can sweet peas @ .45
Total: 4.78
Corndogs/Hotdogs, Chips and Cheese Dip, Carrot Sticks with Ranch,
6 Corndogs @ 1.50
2 Hot Dogs @ .08
Rotel & Velveeta @ 1.31
2 Carrots @ .32
ranch
tortilla chips @ .25
Total Cost: $3.46
Average Cost for the meals we’re cooking this week: $4.28 *I had left the cornbread mix off Sunday night when I wrote the post, so the actual average is $4.35
This is part of OrgJunkie’s Meal Plan Monday
Your menu plan and the Cowboy Skillet look great. Thank you for sharing and have a great week!
Thanks for stopping by Miz Helen. I need to get some more recipes posted so that I can join you on your Full Plate Thursday link ups. Hope we’ll like the modified cowboy skillet…I’m sure you could cook it 10 times as wonderfully as we can.
Thanks for sharing your recipes! I’m always looking for new ones. Just FYI, one thing that saves me money and time is frozen onions and bell peppers at Kroger. A one pound bag is 88cents and includes all colors. I keep several bags in the freezer all the time for pizzas, omelettes, you name it.
PS — I guess I need a new ‘couponing’ ID;)
That’s a great tip June! I usually buy when prices are good and my husband is sweet enough to chop them all up and freeze them. I’ll have to check and see if I can find similar prices here in Tyler. It would beat the prices I can usually find on the peppers. I do love using minced onion in recipes for the convenience too.
Just a note on the Cowboy Skillet: Go down to the reviews, and the first one (the “Most helpful” one) is by the author of the recipe and she suggests a few things. One being to maybe scale down on the peppers. I found that to be true. One pepper was definitely plenty for our taste preferences. And I’ve used green peppers in the past, just because they are usually cheaper.
Thanks HREandC. I was thinking that it was a lot of peppers, but that I should include the full cost to be true to my $5. (I do that a lot because I want people to be able to duplicate the ideas if they want). I think we have both green and red peppers in the freezer chopped, so I may just use about the equivalent of 1 pepper and add some rotel if needed.