The All You Grocery Challenge has officially ended! The last two days of meals weren’t very noteworthy, because Jai and I both came down with colds, so we didn’t eat a lot because of that; getting sick really kills my appetite. I bought two boxes of crackers on Friday night – crackers are my go-to food when I’m sick – so we pretty much just ate those and leftovers from that big batch of chicken casserole that I made.
Unfortunately, I messed up the chicken soup that I was trying to make, so I ended up having to toss it!

The two boxes of crackers that I bought cost $3.98, which brings my final total for Week 4 to $21.63. Our allotment for the Grocery Challenge was $25 per person per week, a total of $50 maximum for our two-person household.

Week 3 total: $23.00
Week 2 total: $48.34
Week 1 total: $39.20

Grand total spent on food during the 4-week grocery challenge: $132.17. In addition to feeding both of us, we had guests over for meals several times during the challenge.

Here’s our menu for Day 25 of the All You Grocery Challenge:

For breakfast, we toasted the leftover Blueberry muffins from Day 24. For lunch, I took the remaining cooked chicken in the fridge and whipped up a casserole, served with homemade bread and iced tea:

We had company, so this served 3 with generous leftovers. I actually made 3 casseroles, because I had so many ingredients! The casserole consisted of two boxes of cooked spaghetti, chopped chicken from about 3 and half breasts, a little flaxseed, and seasonings. I scooped it into casserole dishes, topped with shredded cheese, and prepared two cups of Shirley J Universal Sauce, which I poured on top. I added a little more seasoning, and baked at 350 degrees until it looked ready.

Since we had so much casserole, we ended up eating it again for dinner. I know that’s redundant, but we didn’t mind. I was too tired at the end of the day to care!

I put one casserole dish inside a ziploc bag and froze it – I can’t find a definitive answer on how well cooked spaghetti in a creamy sauce freezes, so this will be my experiment so that I can find out. Should be interesting!! The remaining casserole and a half went into the fridge for future meals this week.

When I was cutting the meat off the chicken breasts, I saved the bones, skins, and other little leftover pieces, and put them back in the stockpot to make soup. I added cold water, leftover celery and carrot sticks from Tuesday’s lunch, seasonings, and let it simmer all day. I took it off the heat before I went to bed, and put it back on the stove this morning to simmer again. My plan is to strain out the bones and serve it as a nice chicken soup for dinner – I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out!

We’re in the last stretch of the All You Grocery Challenge – here’s our menu for Monday & Tuesday:

Day 23:

We had company at lunchtime, so I set out a sandwich station of homemade bread, deli ham, shredded cheese, lettuce, salad, juice and shortbread cookies.

We had one steak left over, so I chopped it up for dinner and made steak quesadillas flavored with chipotle seasoning salt and leftover taco sauce packets from Taco Bell! We also had a little bit of potato salad left, so we had that as well as some green salad for the side dish.

Day 24:

I made blueberry muffins for breakfast, using this recipe.

We had company, so for lunch I set out another sandwich station of homemade bread, deli ham, lettuce, shredded cheese, deviled eggs, veggies with Blue Cheese dressing for dip, iced tea, shortbread cookies & muffins.

For dinner, I chopped up some of the clearance chicken that I had bought & boiled the night before and made chicken enchiladas. Last year, I won a package of Shirley J Universal Sauce from Desperately Seeking Deals, and the recipe that I used was adapted from the recipe leaflet that came with the sauce. I took three tortillas and filled them with the cooked, chopped chicken, a little cheese, more sauce packets from Taco Bell, and Chipotle seasoning salt, wrapped them up, and placed them in a pan. I prepared 1 cup of the Shirley J sauce, covered the tortillas with it, and topped with a bit of cheese and more taco sauce. I was concerned that the recipe wouldn’t have enough cheese – the recipe called for 4 cups, and I had maybe 1 cup of cheese left at the most. However, the sauce was so creamy that it made up for it – Jai actually thought that I must have put a lot of different cheeses in it. The enchiladas were very nice!

And by the way, in case you’re wondering why I have so many Taco Bell sauce packets: No, I do not raid all of their condiments! It’s just that we’ve paid a few visits through Taco Bell’s drive-thru in recent history (ahem) when our schedules were nutty, and every time they would stuff our bags with about 20 packets of sauce. So, I saved the leftover packets and put them in a ziploc bag in the fridge. Waste not, want not!

Last week was a busy one for Super Coupon Girl, with our move over to WordPress! Now that the new site is up and the dust has settled, let’s recap our menu for the last few days of the All You Grocery Challenge.

Day 18:

We had a heatwave last week, so a lot of my meals ended up being very simple, because I didn’t want to turn on the oven and make it worse!

On Wednesday, I made a simple pasta with carrots, cheese, seasonings and flaxseed for lunch, and we had leftover ham chowder for dinner. The chowder is actually a lot better the next day – especially if you stir in a little cheese before microwaving!

Day 19:

Thursday was as simple as it gets: Leftover ham chowder for lunch and spaghetti with butter and garlic salt for dinner. I was feeling sick and didn’t have much of an appetite, hence the very stripped-down meals.

Day 20:

We finished off the rest of the ham chowder for lunch – seriously, I made a huge batch of it! – and then for dinner I baked some corn and pre-cooked pork chops from the freezer, since I could bear to turn on the oven again.

Looks good, right? Unfortunately, I froze the pork chops in a pretty flimsy ziploc bag quite a long time ago, so they ended up being freezer burnt. BLECH! We threw them out and made quesadillas instead. Oh well, at least the corn was good!

Day 21:

For lunch, I defrosted some of the dirt cheap deli ham that I got in April and served it with homemade bread, cheese, and lettuce for sandwiches. I also made a potato salad to go with it, using up the rest of the potatoes that I had on hand as well as 6 hardboiled eggs and celery.

We also had veggies with ranch dressing for dip.

We had company join us for dinner – I defrosted a big package of thin cut steaks and marinated them in chipotle seasoning for the main course, and served it with homemade bread, potato salad, and a green salad consisting of red leaf lettuce, iceberg lettuce, carrot slices, and flaxseed. Our guest also brought over walnut clusters for dessert – yum! There was a lot of steak – two trays worth – but unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it! There were lots of leftovers, so we sent our guest home with a couple of steaks and half a loaf of bread.

Day 22 – The Start of Week 4:

We enjoyed leftovers from the previous day – ham sandwiches & potato salad for lunch, steak & green salad for dinner!