Budget Girl to the Rescue

Starting this month (November), I am the one in charge of our budget and bills. This is not something that comes remotely naturally to me, so I had to make some adjustments in our life. I will talk about those some other time, because they are a little bit ingenious and comical at the same time--good qualities in a blog post, you know. But the reason I'm thinking about it right now is that I must (must must must!) get our grocery budget under control--it was already dicey with our recent extended house guest situation, but then Thanksgiving weekend blew it all to hell. It's our biggest expense (besides, you know, housing) and one of the only ones we actually have any control over, so I'm going to put all my problem-solving skills to work on it.
Starting right now! What with leftovers and a few other options in the freezer/fridge, I think we can keep the grocery bill very low this week. But I have to plan.* Thoroughly and boring-ly. Sorry.

Monday

Breakfast: Peanut Butter/Banana smoothies
Lunch: Soup; peanut butter sandwiches
Dinner: Out (my brother's coming to town and there's nothing we can do about that; this kind of unexpected--and totally welcome--expense is exactly why I need to be smart about our bills!)

Tuesday

B: Cereal
L: Leftover sloppy joes
D: Broccoli spaghetti squash (intriguing? Possibly disgusting? It's gonna be an experiment). Leftover turkey/stuffing/sweet potatoes are my insurance policy in case the squash is awful.

Wednesday

B: Oatmeal
L: Soup; peanut butter sandwiches
D: Breakfast for dinner: sausage & egg bagels; hash browns.

Thursday

B: Smoothies
L: P can go out; I'll scrounge something--can of soup, toast + egg, whatevs.
D: Tuna noodle casserole (from a box! I know, but this is also part of the budget plan: we have the box for reasons I won't go into; it's much cheaper to use what we have than to go out and buy all the various individual ingredients--they do add up).

Friday**

B: Oatmeal
L: P can go out again; I will maybe have leftovers or toast or something.
D: Roast chicken; rice; cabbage of some sort (there's a head of it in the fridge right now) spinach salad (with goat cheese! And glazed pecans! And red onions!)

Saturday

B: Pancakes, maybe? We have nowhere to go this weekend, which is nearly unprecedented. Whatever we do, it will be very relaxed and lovey and yay for weekends!
L: Chicken salad? Maybe we'll do last night's spinach salad with chicken, or maybe sandwiches on toast. Celery.
D: Maybe we'll go out. Or have chicken tacos with refried beans made from the cooked cranberry beans I've got in the freezer. Salsa ingredients; lettuce; tortilla shells; cheese.

Sunday

B: Oatmeal or bagels or eggs and bacon
L: Soup--we'll have chicken stock for sure, and I have a boatload of frozen corn from Thanksgiving: corn chowder it is! Onions; milk or cream; potatoes.
D: Spaghetti and meatballs (from the freezer--P's favorite, for sweet nostalgic reasons, Sunday-night dinner); salad; bread (made while I was making the soup).

*We eat breakfast together every single day, plus P's lunch expenses snuck up on us last month (when I was tracking these things for the first time); I have to plan for those meals too or else what's the point?
**This will be the grocery store day, I think...

OK--see how I did that? The orange words constitute a shopping list! This is, or would probably be, really dull if you were a person who existed in the world, but it's totally working for me! And the list is pretty minimal, so it gets December off to a cheap start. Hooray!

I'll tell you all about our awesome camera later. For now, please know it's awesome and that's all.

(Mostly) Drug-Free Pie-Making

This morning I stuck with ibuprofen while I made pies. I made some dough for the crust on Monday, thinking that wold make it easier today. But I didn't put enough fat into that batch, so after tons of rolling and crumbling and trying my best, I had to give up and start the crust from the beginning. Should have done that to begin with: mixing the dough isn't what takes time and concentration; rolling it is. Anyway, I always make pie crust with shortening but today I added about a tablespoon or two of butter and look:
Pretty, huh? I'm trying to refrain from saying "wait 'til we get our new camera," but I obviously wasn't trying too hard! This pie deserves a very nice camera.

Anyway, I used this recipe, which calls for the juice and zest of one whole lemon. I added more than a dash of cloves and some extra cinnamon and nutmeg. And I ate a tiny piece of one of the apples once they were all mixed up with the seasonings and zowee! It tasted great! I'm scared of under-seasoning apple pies because of a disastrous experience in high school: my friend and I made lasagna and an apple pie for our Christmas Dance dates and the apples were old and tasted like absolutely nothing. Plus, the lasagna was cold. So that was the other lesson. The apples, though, were an unforgettable disappointment--the pie looked lovely but tasted like sawdust. Anyway, that lemon juice and zest really added a zing!

And this pie! It's so pretty! Like, magazine pretty! I hope everyone's impressed tomorrow at P's family's house. They aren't really pie people, though. Usually there's not even a pumpkin pie at their table, which is why I'm making one right now. They are a pumpkin-roll-up-with-cream-cheese-icing people. They are cake people. But I'm a pie person! I come from pie people! It's tragic, because this crust is the kind of crust that can only be truly appreciated by people who really, really loooooooove pie.
P.S. When I finished the dough-chilling and pre-baking and rolling and shaping and filling and blah blah blah, I did take a Vicoden. I figure I can handle removing pies from an oven and determining whether they're done, even under the influence of prescription painkillers. I felt I should tell you about the Vicoden so you'd forgive me if this post is error-riddled and/or incoherent in any way.
P.P.S. Damn! I just looked at the recipe again and realized I forgot to dot the apples with butter before I put the top crust on. I repeat: Damn! I hope it doesn't totally ruin it. I mean, I know it won't totally ruin it, but I hope...I just hope it's good!