Here’s yesterday’s menu:

Breakfast: Oatmeal

Lunch: Finished off the rest of the garlic chicken and potatoes:

Dinner: Tofu stir fry with onion, cabbage, yellow squash, and mushrooms, served on Jasmine rice:

When I make stir-frys like this, I like to marinate the tofu beforehand in soy sauce and garlic; simple, but tasty. Tofu really absorbs flavor well – if you don’t add enough flavoring beforehand, it turns out bland and unappetizing.

Thursday marked day 4 of the Grocery Challenge! Here’s our menu:

Breakfast: Jai and I both had a pot of yogurt, a bartered item.

Lunch:

We had leftovers – Jai was out at a job, so I packed some casserole as a lunch that he took with him. I had half a pasty and casserole, served with this bartered fruit juice. (In case you missed my earlier posts, these bartered items are samples which I have been sent to review on Contest Corner.)

Dinner:

Remember the .99 cent pizza I ordered from Schwan’s in back June? Well, I thought this would be a good time to make it:

I had one big ear of corn left that I had purchased on Tuesday, so I cut that in half and served it with the pizza.

Yesterday, I purchased three 2-liters of soda, for a total of $2.28. This brings my running total for the week to $9.04. I also spent an additional $1.69 on sponges, but household items do not count towards the challenge total.

Wednesday marked day 3 of the Grocery Challenge! Here’s our menu:

Breakfast: I skipped breakfast, yet again. (Now I see the value in food journaling!) I think Jai had something from the stockpile, but I’m not sure.

Lunch:

Leftovers from last night’s casserole, served with a fruit drink – a bartered item which I am writing a review of for Contest Corner. Jai wasn’t home for most of the day, so I packed some casserole for him to take along as his lunch.

I’d like to start this by thanking all my readers for the kind words of condolence; it is truly appreciated. Keeping some semblance of normality during this time is very helpful to me, so let’s shift the focus a little bit and talk about the grocery challenge for a while.

Monday – Day 1 of the challenge

Breakfast: I skipped breakfast – a habit which I have gotten into lately and am working to break. Jai ate leftovers for his breakfast.

Lunch:

Gardenburgers & freeze-dried fruit. The patties & buns came from my freezer, while the fruit samples were sent to me so that I can review them on Contest Corner – so those would fall under the “Barter” category.

Dinner:

We had a lot of Chinese food leftover from the weekend, so I reheated it for dinner. The flavored fortune cookies are also samples for a review, so those are bartered items as well.

Tuesday – Day 2

Yesterday morning, I went to the store and purchased a gallon of milk, a quart of half-and-half, and three ears of corn, for a total of $6.76.

Breakfast: Jai skipped breakfast, while I had a SoyJoy bar from my stockpile. (I know these have kind of a bad reputation, but I actually enjoy them!)

Lunch:

I had packed a lunch for Jai the night before, since he was going to be at work during the afternoon. After we got the news about Grandma, he cancelled his work appointment and ended up just eating the sack lunch at home.

There was one Veggieburger left in the freezer, so I ate that along with some freeze-dried fruit, yogurt, and a protein drink. The yogurt and protein drink are also bartered items which I will be reviewing. Jai’s lunch also contained one of the freeze-dried fruit pouches and protein drinks, along with a Zone bar and peanuts, both from the stockpile.

Dinner:

I am also participating in a recipe challenge on my other blog. Pace Salsa sent me two jars of salsa for review, and asked me if I wanted to create some recipes using them. So for dinner last night, I modified my favorite Bean and Cheese Pie recipe to make this casserole – click here if you’d like the recipe.

Remember how I planted garlic back in October? Well, here it is now:

I pulled one fresh head of garlic, which I chopped up and used in the casserole. Yum!

The salsa was another bartered item, while the rest of the ingredients came from my stockpile.

I served it with the corn that I had bought that morning, and some wine that has been in my fridge for a while. As you can see, the recipe made a lot, so we had plenty for second helpings and lunch today.