Shopping list for 1-16-12

First of all, I was lucky enough to get to the meat case when they had some meat that was ALMOST to its due date so I snatched some up! I was able to get two lbs of hamburger and a family-sized tray of thinly cut round steak! In the freezer section Walmart also had some frozen fish marked down to $4.50!

I tend to shop by the week just buying what we need for the week. However, I will stock up on some things. For example, when turkeys were marked down at Thanksgiving time I bought three of them and two hams when they were marked down for Christmas. I also tend to buy about 10 bags of frozen veg when I stock up.

This week uses a lot of celery, onion, carrots, and hamburger!

Monday I am already putting the Hamburger to good use by making the slow cooker Spaghetti Bolognese. I am sure you can find the recipe at realsimple.com

However it calls for ---ground chuck, 28 ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes, 2 carrots, 1 stalk celery, 2 cloves garlic, 1/4 c tomato paste, 1/4 c dry wine (red or white), tsp oregano, tsp thyme, salt and pepper to taste.

***the thing I like about this recipe is you don't have to pre-brown the hamburger!!!! Throw it all in and cook on slow. When you get home make the noodles and serve!

Tuesday--We are having left overs! One of the left overs is some butternut squash soup I had frozen last fall. I use both butternut and acorn squash. I have also made this same recipe using sweet potatoes. Bake the (like 1 butternut and 2 acorn)squash like you normally would. While it is baking saute a couple diced carrots, one small onion diced, and 2 stalks of celery diced. Add a clove of diced garlic towards the end. Cook until they are tender.

Take the squash out of the oven and scoop the flesh into the pot and add one quart box of chicken broth. If you need more liquid, add more broth if you have it, if not just add water. You want it to BARELY cover the veggies. If you have an immersion blender use it at this time and blend until smooth, if not, carefully scoop it out and blend in a regular blender and return it to the pot. This soup it VERY thick and creamy even though it doesn't have cream in it. I use cloves, cinnamon, ground sage (go light of this) salt and pepper for taste.

Wednesday--grilled chicken salad. Go crazy.

Thursday--fish fry. I was able to pick up some frozen white fish so we will use that. I use Shorelunch batter, frozen sweet potato fries and frozen green beans. I will deep fry the fish (this is one of those 'hit the spot' meals at our house!!!) We have a burner on our outside gas grill and we do it out there to keep the fish smell out of the house. Hopefully it won't be -40 or snowing that day!

Friday--Poor Mans chop Suey--1 lb hamburger, 1 c diced onion, 2 c celery 1 can cream of mushroom soup 1/2 can water, 1/4 c soy sauce (I'll probably back that off) 1/2 c raw rice (I use brown) 1 can bean sprouts, 1 can mushrooms.

Brown the meat, onion and celery together. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Transfer to an oven safe dish and bake at 350 for one hour.