What's On The Menu?

Most people laugh when I say we're sticking to a food budget, because they don't believe it.  But the reality is that I am trying very, very hard to stay under $175 for every pay period.  Which may sound like an astronomically large budget, but that's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  We also eat mainly organic (which would be a discussion for another time), and real food, not highly processed.  So I sat down the other night and painstakingly worked out menus for the rest of the month.  Many of the recipes are new ones I'm trying (actually almost all of them), and I'll be sharing them here as I go along. 

We realized that in order to stick to the budget, we really have to utilize our love for beans, legumes and veggies.  Most of this is meat free if not actually vegetarian (some use chicken stock, which I'm subbing in homemade turkey stock for).  And most have salad or some other veggie side, to make them well rounded meals.  As for breakfast I make a delicious slow cooked oatmeal (cooks overnight) that will basically be a staple. 

Here are some things on the menu for the next 2 weeks (we eat a lot of leftovers around here):

• Spicy Sweet Potato Soup Over Rice
• Tomato Basil Soup (which I have actually never made!) with Grilled Cheese (Mozzarella and Parmesan)
• Butternut Squash Tian with Herbed Bread Crumbs
• Quinoa and Black Bean Casserole
• Moroccan Chickpea Curry (we're actually using my lamb heart recipe only utilizing chickpeas)
• Quinoa Veggie Burgers with Homemade Baked French Fries
• Black Bean Burgers with Homemade Baked French Fries
• Spaghetti Squash Curry with Roasted Chickpeas
• Pork Chops with Black Beans and Corn Salsa with Garlic Mashed Cauliflower
• Niçoise Salad

Sounds tasty, non?  I'm out to prove that you can eat very inexpensively while still eating whole foods with flavor.