Glitches

This seems to have been the weekend of bumps in my master shopping process. My computer connection was slow to nonexistent, and I had my first frustrating experience with Couponmom....I would log in, go to the page where I pull up deals for my stores, and instead of spitting out the list of sale items, it sent me back to the login paged. Over. And over. It just came back online yesterday afternoon, so I haven't been able to look over everything just yet. That is probably a peril of using a free service, I still think it's worth using over paid services like Grocery Game.

We're still working on solving the vehicle problem - my in laws got us a lead on a cheap car with low mileage - the last thing I need right now is a car payment! In the meantime, this week is shaping up to be a $12 shopping week - milk, 2 loaves of bread, eggs, and some produce. I might actually hit the local farmer's market on Thursday to see what the prices look like - we went to the farm stand up the street and their prices were pretty comparable to what I pay at Price Rite! Some things were more expensive but they had ENORMOUS heads of lettuce for $2.30 each - same price as the grocery store but twice the size. Plus my son got a kick out of watching the ladybugs crawling on them :)

I'm going to try and work on a real meal plan for the week today, but I did take stock of what I have for main dish ingredients. Here's what the pantry and freezer situation looks like:

3 packages ground turkey (20 oz each)
2 3-pound roasting chickens
1 15 pound turkey
8 split chicken breasts
8 chicken drumsticks
4 boxes of pasta (misc shapes, 1 pound each box)

That alone would make at least 14 meals, not counting leftovers. I need to sit down with my recipes (and my favorite website, Allrecipes.com - you can search by ingredients and even enter ingredients you DON'T want) and try to work out main dishes, and keep an eye out for things that I can make with leftovers. It seems like a lot of work, but I have certain things I know I can make and that will give me a starting point. I plan to have the store circulars handy so I can incorporate fruits and veggies that are already on sale, and I'm looking for a good make-ahead biscuit dough recipe so I can have that on hand along with the rice that's always in the fridge. I figure I can use that for dinner rolls as well as casserole/pot pie crust.

I will try to post the framework of my menu today so I can "officially" join in with
Menu Planning Monday!

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