Terrific Tuesday

It's  Tuesday.   Last night my husband made Mac and cheese with blue cheese and ham.  It actually tasted good, I wouldn't have out those flavors together. Betty Crocker this week has macaroni with ranch and bacon. Bumping the flavors of Mac and cheese up a notch can make dinner more interesting-- spice up the winter blues.

I never pay more than a dollar for pasta.  Lately I have been getting it for around .75.  I have also got it  for fifty cents more frequently,  I have got it for as low as .38.  I have not found coupons for regular pasta lately.  I have found some where double white fiber worked.   Lasagna is almost never on sale.   I have made noodles from scratch, but not since cooking school.   It's a long arduous task, and I don't find the time is  worth the difference in price.  We don't have lasagna often.

One of our favorites is stir fried shrimp and veggies with olive oil on spaghetti noodles. I can still get shrimp at Safeways  for five bucks occasionally.

We have a standard outline for meal plans. It makes the task easy.  I work the meal plan to include what perishables  are on sale cheapest and what is on the fridge that needs to be eaten.

Four plus one is five: four people! one meal! five bucks.   That doesn't mean every meal has to be  five   bucks.  It means seven meals have to be 35.00.  Averaging affords you some more variety and a treat every now and then.   If one meal is a frittata, you can afford shrimp another day.  I can still  find cheese for two bucks a pound occasionally.  I want to stay close to a max of  2.50.  They ate predicting eight dollars a pound.  It will pay you to stock a little.  Too much will go bad before you can use ot.  I grate cheese and freeze it.  Toss it with a little cornstarch to keep it from clumping together.  Most of our cheese os grated anyway.  Costco wholesale os the best price I have found so far.

2 beef
2 chicken or pork
2 vegetarian
1 fish or shellfish

This is our  matrix. Yours may be different.
 Starting   with a plan and  backing into it by using the perishables at your disposal is an easy way to assure variety of meals and use up what's on the fridge.

For instance. I got pizza crusts on sale cheap at Big Lots 20 percent sale. We might have a Buffalo chicken pizza this week.  


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Jane