Leftover Threads

I am dressed, wood stove is stoked, purse is packed, made my list, got my water/tea mix in my bottle,  laundry's started, dinner's started and waiting in the fridge'. I have scoped out the sales, coupons, my refrigerator, freezer and pantry to see what I need to use and what I need to buy.

I am ready to go to town for my weekly shopping. I find I don't need much since last week we shopped really big at sales and because we ran out of everything all at once, and couldn't get out to shop as planned the week before. And we still have our co-op order to use up.

Here are the meals we had for dinner this week and what we will have over the weekend
and this Sunday:

• Sunday: big salad dinner---spring lettuce, romaine, Roma tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, red  cabbage, spicy sprouts, cukes, avocado and slices of cheese with natural cottage cheese.
• Monday:  Pizza at our daughter and son-in-law's house for our second grandson's birthday.
• Tuesday: Crockpot soup---ground turkey, home-grown frozen onions, broccoli, cauliflower, green cabbage, carrots, spaghetti squash (rinds and seeds and pulp was fed to the chickens), Roma tomatoes, mini-summer squash, spaghetti squash and
  org. tomato paste
• Wednesday: mugs of leftover soup with crumbled remainder of  blue cheese, big salads with all of the above veggies, dredged/fried thin slices of  our co-op eggplant served on the side of our salads.
• Thursday: tonight we will have a tomato tart since I have  some fried eggplant leftover and more Romas from our co-op. The eggplant will be the "crust", it will contain sliced tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, cooked and crumbled organic/uncured apple wood-smoked sausage, topped with crumbled cheese and olives, with a dinner salad
• Friday: vegetable, pecan, stir-fry in a sweet and sour citrus glaze made from the citrus we got at our co-op almost two weeks ago, corn starch, honey and pureed soup left from Tuesday.  My husband will have the last steak in a package of three that I splurged on for Valentine's Day freezing one for later, and I will have a chicken breast (package of two---I'll cook both and save one for Sunday's salads). Served with a Julienne-cut  raw veggie salad: cukes, carrots, broccoli and red onion, sprinkled with a little balsamic vinegar. I'll make more of the salad to use the leftovers for tomorrow.
• Saturday:  no-meat lasagna---I will serve one, and freeze the other half for a "freebie" meal. And all the leftovers from making the lasagna and what will be left from tonight's lasagna will be frozen to use to make lasagna soup next week. Served with romaine lettuce and topped with a marinated (in my balsamic vinaigrette) mixture of olives, garbanzo beans, red onions and any leftover veggies from last night's salads.
• Sunday:  big salads for lunch after church with chicken breasts (left from a package of two that I cooked Friday) and a small breakfast for dinner if we are still hungry.
  
  Well, that's it for another week. The meals are not as big on savings as the threads usually are. But certain things lend themselves better to planned and disguised leftovers than other things do. I had a lot of things to use up and not waste. This thread has little leftovers that I incorporated into meals in a smaller way than usual. I love that we do not waste anything. Well, I did have a big bag of broccoli go bad on me a few days after purchase----but the chickens turned that bag into more eggs for us and our customers.
  
  Next week there will be a chicken thread and a couple  "freebies" served from the freezer.
  
  I hope this gives you some ideas for your own creative and  yet inexpensive menus!
  
  Off to town..........aw, the sun just came out---love it! How nice.........
  Kathi~