Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone! Time for the last menu/grocery report for 2021.
A slight rabbit trail: Lisey and I often talk about how people say very “regular” things, and we have kind of a running list of Regular Things, like,
- “It’s not the heat that gets you; it’s the humidity.”
- “Boy, this week is just flying by!”
- “Wow, Christmas really snuck up on me this year.”
- When something doesn’t have a price tag: “I guess it’s free, then!”
You get the idea…a Regular Thing is just a stereotypical thing that everyone says; 100% predictable, 100% benign, and 0% creative.
When I think of one of these things, I always text Lisey to tell her, and we add it to our imaginary list. 😉
Me and my Regular Things list-maker
Anyway, when I started writing this post, I started to say something about how crazy it is that another year is over, and I realized that this is an extremely Regular Thing to say. Ha.
I better text Lisey right away. 😉
What I Spent
I spent:
- $9 at Firehouse (see Wednesday below)
- $41 at Giant
- $16 at Harris Teeter
- $6 at BJs
That adds up to $72.
What We Ate
Saturday
Christmas Day was a group effort.
I baked a ham, made these indulgent scalloped potatoes, and made two pans of potato dinner rolls with cinnamon butter.
My aunt brought a Caesar salad and a jello salad, and my mom contributed many varieties of cookies for dessert.
Sunday
Randomly, the girls wanted McDonald’s for dinner (Lisey specifically!), so we picked that up for them and Mr. FG and I ate Christmas leftovers. We did not do a date night this week due to the holidays, so I just used our date night budget for the McDonalds trip.
Monday
I made a mandarin chicken salad, which we ate with leftover rolls from Christmas Day.
Tuesday
I had a bunch of tomatoes from my last Hungry Harvest box, and they’d finally ripened, so I made BLTs for dinner.
To state the obvious: bacon is really freaking expensive right now. I saw so many packages at Giant that were $8.99-$9.99/pound!
I did get one on sale for $4.99, but still…I can’t ever remember the price of bacon being so routinely high.
Wednesday
This was the day Zoe got her braces off, so I told her we’d get whatever she wanted for dinner, and she chose a Firehouse sub. I had reward points in the app, so her sub was actually free!
Mr. FG ate chicken noodle soup, Sonia had a leftover chicken sandwich, and I got a small Firehouse sub.
Thursday
I made chipotle chicken kebabs with cilantro dipping sauce. On the side, we had cut-up fruit, plus toasted homemade French bread from the freezer.
Friday
The girls plan to have a cousin over for New Year’s Eve, and I need to find out from them what sort of end-of-year foods they’re wanting to eat.
What did you have for dinner this week?
And secondly, what are your plans for New Year’s Eve? Are you staying up until midnight?
(Me? I plan to be sound asleep at midnight. I am so not a night owl!)
Tracey
Saturday 1st of January 2022
I'm with you!!! Why is bacon so expensive all the time. It seems like meat in general has skyrocketed, but bacon especially. Here's what we ate:
Saturday - Christmas dinner was nontraditional this year. Since it was just four of us, we decided on stuffed shells with salad and garlic bread. Sunday - Leftovers from Christmas Eve's feast of garlic chicken, Mac and cheese, many veggies and homemade dinner rolls. Monday - Leftovers! Tuesday - Leftovers! Wednesday - Chicken, broccoli and rice casserole and the last of the leftover Christmas Eve dinner rolls. There was a separate pan without the chicken for the vegetarian. Thursday - Pb&j sandwiches and clam chowder. Our vegetarian had leftover rice casserole. Friday - The hubby and I shared a sub sandwich around 3 pm to have room for the late New Years Eve smorgasbord at a friend's house. We contributed a hot wing dip, sparkling grape juice and fruit platter to the affair.
bettafrmdaville
Saturday 1st of January 2022
I do not even want to think about how much money we spent on food this past week! 12/25: Just the two of use for Christmas dinner so we followed the Jewish tradition and got Chinese food. 12/26: leftovers 12/27: leftover Dijon and Cognac beef stew (Smitten Kitchen - seriously the best ever beef stew) served over noodles with sautéed green beans and bread. Triple-créme cheese and olives to start. 12/28: Out to dinner with nephew and in-laws on our Portland, ME getaway. 12/29: Still away, out for dinner, after a day of raw oysters, lobster roll, clam chowder and poutine. 12/30: I think I slept through dinner, so whatever one could scrounge from the fridge 12/31: back for more soup dumplings.
Time to reset diet and budget! Happy 2022 everyone!
LDA
Saturday 1st of January 2022
My Regular Things favorite is “It is what it is”. I like it because it perfectly sums up anything that defies logic or explanation. I didn’t plan to be awake to ring in 2022, but I was and celebrated quietly as I was trying to fall asleep. Food spending the past couple of weeks has been more than usual, which ironically is usual for us during the holidays. But I take advantage of sales on things like ham, baking ingredients, etc. We have immediate family members who are vegan so I accommodate them by buying certain things I know for sure that they like; otherwise it’s fairly easy to sub plant based milk, butter or egg substitute in normal holiday dishes. Wishing you all a healthy, prosperous & most blessed 2022.
Dicey
Saturday 1st of January 2022
I had no intention of being awake at midnight. My Fitbit says DH and I logged 7.5 mikes today (yesterday now). We watched a documentary that we really enjoyed (Tina), then turned in around 9:30, totally bushed. Two hours later, I was inexplicably wide awake and frustratingly, remain so.
I'm enjoying this year-end wrap-up, but would honestly rather be asleep. Here's to a happier new year for everyone!
ecoteri
Friday 31st of December 2021
Happy New Year to You, Kristen, as well as your lovely readers. Christmas was a total relax for me as I jammed on going to my Mom's (she is almost 92 and was cooking the turkey!!) because we have unexpectedly cold and snowy weather here on Vancouver Island. Instead, I pulled out an 11 pound turkey and did a very simple dinner for my son and me - roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, peas and carrots and gravy. Everything I love with no extras. We have eaten off that for much of the last week. My BIG SUCCESS STORY is crepes! My chickens are suddenly laying again (funny what providing them with light will do) and what with the weather preventing me from sharing the eggs with my other two kids and my mom, I have a LOT of eggs. I also had a LOT of turkey and gravy. So I made a LOT of crepes (used the Joy of Cooking recipe - with extra flour. So 3 eggs, 1 T each of water and Milk, dash of salt, and (in my case) approx 1/4 c flour. I was batching so ended up doing two double batches using up a dozen eggs. As the crepes were cooked (only cook on one side, a VERY short 1/4 cup of batter per, keep the pan hot and lightly buttered but not TOO hot, so they barely brown by the time the top has cooked and dried) I just stacked them up, they don't stick. I then chopped up the rest of the turkey (got about 6 cups) and heated up the gravy (maybe 3 cups?) and mixed them together, then filled the crepes. Filled one pan and sprinkled harvarti on top and baked for 20 min, and filled another to freeze, and another half pan and froze that. IT WAS A TOTAL WIN. will do it again. #2 Son was thrilled to take the leftovers to work, and if I had kept the second pan out we would have eaten them for supper tonight, too. As it was, final leftovers of Turkey and gravy and a bun for me, and cold turkey and a bun for him. No waste! and future Teri will have some suppers to pull out on a lazy night.