We are on vacation this week. To be as healthy, and cheap, as possible, we are eating most of our meals at my sister-in-law's house. While I love her to pieces, her food supply is abysmal. Literally, we put more food in her fridge/freezer as leftover from our snacks and lunch on the trip than she had in there to begin with. The pantry contained three spices, half a bag of white rice, a pound of spaghetti and a jar of sauce. OK. I'm starting from scratch here. I brought 4 pounds of ground beef, and 10 pork chops, so there was my starting place. I meal planned and made my grocery list (featured in another post).
When I got to the store, Wal-Mart, I found the choice for food not to my liking. I wanted to buy things that were in a quantity that we would use in the week we were here, as it is obvious that my sis-in-law isn't big on cooking. I don't see any sense in buying a bunch of food that would go to waste and we have limited space to bring things back with us. I had to revamp some of my list on the fly and buy things that I normally wouldn't be caught dead purchasing (all-purpose flour for instance). Overall, I was happy with the amount of money we spent on the week's worth of food and I figure that we are still eating better than if we chose to eat out for all of our meals while spending a lot less money. I am still feeling like we've taken a step backwards in healthy eating though.
Here's our menu plan for the week (Saturday - Friday)
Breakfasts: Omelets, Toast, Cereal (leftover from the trip), Banana Muffins, Scrambled Eggs, Oatmeal
Lunches: Frozen Pizza, Ham &/or Turkey Sandwiches, Bean and Cheese Quesadillas, Homemade Lunchables, Chicken Salad, Leftovers
Dinners: Spaghetti & Meatballs, Beef Nachos, Grilled Pork Chops, Chicken and Mashed Potatoes, BBQ at a friend's house, Eat Out
I'm not sure how much I'll be posting this week as I'm sure we going to be busy. Have a great week!
Good for you for stepping in and helping to plan some meals. I agree that it's really hard when away from home. When I met the Kann family recently near Orlando and toured their family farm, they said many vacationers who know about them come visit for organic vegetables, etc. and stock their hotel kitchens. In the future, I wonder if I could find more local sources of produce, farm markets, etc. Ideal, but not sure it's always realistic?
ReplyDeleteAnne: We did up hitting a reasonably local produce stand and picking up a few things, but I'm finding that it's a hard line to walk when dealing with other people's ideas of what healthy food is. I definitely don't want to offend my extended family, as we're staying here for free, but don't want to totally go off the deep end with junky food either.
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