Hello, dear Thrifties!
Once in a while I like to challenge myself to a week of no grocery shopping. This serves as dual purpose because I can empty my tiny fridge freezer and save money! I did start this week on Monday with the intention of sharing every day, but here I am half a week behind! We will start from the beginning anyways. I also am mostly just going to be sharing the mains, because my husband and I have cereal for pretty much every breakfast and last night's leftovers for lunch.
Day 1: Monday
Seafood Spaghetti! I used a can of pasta sauce and a small baggie of homemade from the freezer. I pretty much always make my own pasta sauce because it is so simple and I like to "vegetize" it more than the canned version. However, I got some cans on clearance a little while ago.
~ Rabbit Trail ~
When making my own spaghetti sauce I usually buy from Costco one giant can of diced tomatoes and one giant can of tomato sauce (they both go for about 3.50-3.99 each at Costco). I empty them both into my slow cooker with diced onion, celery, and carrots. I add a tbsp or two of diced canned garlic, and a few other spices. Pasta sauce is not all that picky for spices. Sometime I use my "Italiano" blend which is a mix of peppers mostly and sometimes just basil or oregano. Just whatever I have on hand and can find! I've used Clubhouse "Parmesan and Herb" for a cheesier version which was quite nice. Naturally the Clubhouse blends were gifts, as I am too cheap to buy such things! :p
Once the sauce is cooked (veggies are soft) I cool and separate into various sizes of baggies and containers. Some are large enough for full meals of spaghetti etc., but I also make little portions for pizza. I use the same sauce for my pizza (carrots and all!) and it is just fine. Amongst the other toppings, the extra veg is not really noteworthy, and I actually quite like it as it makes for a more substantial pizza.
~ End Rabbit Trail ~
I combined the pasta sauces with the remnants of a bag of "Seafood Medley" that was in my freezer. Unfortunately my husband does not especially like mussels, and that was mostly what had sank to the bottom of the bag. Too bad for him.
I had meant for this to be a red wine seafood spaghetti but when I looked for the leftover wine I realized that my husband must have drank it. I still had some cooking sherry in my cupboard, so I used this instead. If you do not have any alcohol remnants, some balsamic vinegar can substitute, but be careful as to how much you add! Pretty much any alcohol will work though, beyond overly sweet flavoured ones.
Serve over noodles and voila! In my version I carefully topped with lots of parmesan petals in order to cleverly disguise all of the mussels. (Yes, he still noticed that the seafood mix was "somehow just mussels now")
Decent substitutes to the seafood medley would be shrimp or chicken. A can of tuna would also work in a pinch or leftover potroast. Pretty much anything could go in a tomato wine sauce.
No alcohol? No leftover meat? You could also try making "Eggs in purgatory". Just drop the eggs into the hot pasta sauce and cook until they are firm. The pasta sauce keeps them pretty much in place. This makes for a surprisingly heavy meal I have to say. You can also beat the egg first and add to the sauce slowly so that the egg is throughout the sauce in pieces.
Monday also saw a Chinook roll in. All of a sudden my "outside freezer" was just a chest of food on my porch. Unfortunately this meant that ....
Day 2: Tuesday
Was leftover-appies-from-New-Years night! I had three defrosting boxes of breaded appies on my hands. So this was dinner. I understand that this is a cheat. Give yourself a pat on the back and pull out that frozen pizza or KD!
Tune in tomorrow for Wednesday: Freezer clean out challenge!
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