The Menu

Now that I'm home full time, I've made it my goal to cook dinner every night that Dan is home. Which shouldn't be that hard because he is only home 2 out of every 8-9 days! Once a month he has a 4 day stretch (that turns into 3 with the commute but whatever). Anyway, when the babies were younger I was lucky to even have time to eat something at night, let alone cook it. Now that they are much more self sufficient and I've worked their dinner schedule to be convenient for us, I'm doing pretty well at meeting my goal.

This week we have Dan for 3 nights, assuming he doesn't have to leave early today, so I planned 3 meals where I could coordinate some of the ingredients and use what I have on hand. Cooking for two can be tough, but I've found some things that work for us and are much cheaper than eating out! Always a good thing when you're down to one income. Monday night I made Chile Rellenos, one our favorites. I bought 4 chiles and a block of jack cheese, I had half of a can of sauce in the freezer from last time. I also picked up a bunch of cilantro, all in all the meal cost less than $6! Not too shabby :) Tuesday night, I made taco salad with ground beef I had frozen from last time, do we see the theme here? I bought a pound and froze half, we don't do so well with leftovers here so I always try to cook what we'll eat. I've also switched to taco salad because the shells come in such a big quantity and half of them wind up breaking. I put some chips on the side, which we usually always have a bag in the pantry. I bought some shredded lettuce, a tomato and an onion. I had the cheese already and viola; super cheap and yummy dinner. Even if you consider the price of the gb, again the meal is around $5 and feeds 2! Tonight we'll have burgers using patties we froze after Memorial Day, so I bought buns and a bag of Kroger French fries. We'll use the L,T,O I used for taco salad on the burgers and we'll wind up with buns and fries for next time! Another $5 meal for two.

So this week I'm feeling pretty good, feeding two of us for three nights for about $15! Can't beat that, plus Dan has been doing the dishes so I can't complain. He's happy and full, I'm sticking to my goal and we're saving money. Next week I'm thinking about making Pad Thai, grilled chicken and zucchini fritters and maybe enchiladas or pasta. Time to menu plan!

What are some of your favorite dinner recipes?