MY March Madness

As you saw in the post about the Mexican Filled Biscuits, I have a lot of this & that in the fridge. The
pantry is the same way. So Nathan and I decided to challenge ourselves...really just me... to see if we can ONLY spend $50 a week on groceries for the month of March so that we use up some of our stockpile. This is a big deal, because I ALWAYS spend a lot on groceries! Now, this isn't to say we wont eat out at all, and that's not included, but I'm going to try not to cheat and eat out if I cant easily come up with something to make... So I had my first shopping trip yesterday...
RESULTS
I went to ALDI and spent $52.39... $4.39 of this was on plastic cups and plastic baggies, so I don't know if I should consider that part of the grocery money or not ;-)

Things we needed for lunches, etc:

Split Top Wheat Bread .99

Bag of pears .99

Green Grapes 1.78

Chicken Breasts 3.57

Cheese sticks 2.99

Crunchy peanut butter 2.29

Canned Green Beans .59

Elbow Macaroni 1.69

Shredded Cheese 1.79

Shredded Cheddar 2.99

Purified Water 2.49

Artisan Lettuce 1.99

Mandarin Oranges 1.99

Things I thought would be good for meals:

• Cream Cheese  1.19
• Shredded hash browns 1.49
• Tortilla Chips    .99
• Black Beans x 2 1.98
• Peanuts    2.69
• Canned Diced Tomatoes    .59
• Canned Olives   .99
• Tomato Juice          1.29
• Red Pepper Soup   1.79
• Butternut Squash Soup     1.79
• Cooked sausage patties      .99
• Frozen berries    2.99
• Roma Tomatoes   .99
• Ricotta Cheese    1.69
• Snack Crackers   .99

Extras:

• Plastic cups   2.39
• Plastic baggies 1.99

I was hoping to save a little bit of the budget in case there was something I really wanted to make later in the week, but as you can see that didn't happen! Oh well, I'm still happy with this amount... Now we just have to see how creative I can be with it!

DINNER 3/5/12 - Creamed Avocado & Lime Pasta and Quinoa Taco Salad
using the elbow macaroni, tomatoes, lettuce and shredded cheese I bought yesterday...

3/6/12 Chilli - using the tomato juice, diced tomatoes, cheddar cheese I bought this week

3/7/12 tonight was a pizza night because Nate was working on his engine until 10pm...

3/8/12 cheesy baked hash browns with the shredded hash brown potatoes and cheddar cheese, grilled sandwiches with the bread, and leftover chilli

3/9/12 Johnny marzetti with the macaroni and cheddar, and the canned green beans for a side

3/10/12 dinner with friends @ a Thai restaurant... Yum!

3/11/12 fish tacos with jicama slaw and black beans & corn... Yum!

Mexican Filled Biscuits

When I first got married, one of my biggest fears was knowing what to make for dinner every night without getting bored, so I'm constantly trying new things. I'm really grateful to my mom because she could always look in the cupboard or refrigerator and figure out what to make out of thin air, and a little bit of that wisdom was passed down to me.
I would love to be OCD about my organization, and it actually kills me that it's this messy, but I just have no time, as you can see from this picture of my refrigerator...

So this evening I was trying to decide what to make I took a little inspiration from this recipe I made a few weeks ago ----> Pillsbury Buffalo Chicken Croissants. I knew in my fridge I had some leftover soy 'ground beef', a thing of refrigerated biscuit dough, and always fixin's for Mexican food, so I pulled these things out of the fridge to decide exactly how I was going to throw it together...

Next I pulled out my Mexican seasonings : Adobo, Chili Powder, Cumin, and Coriander, plus salt & pepper and seasoned the 'ground beef'. Next I added the leftover black beans and corn mixture from the other day and a little salsa. I actually didn't end up using the bell pepper or onion yet. * You can use taco seasoning mix if you dont have these spices!

Then I put a little cheese with a little of the filling on a biscuit that I flattened out with my hands,

Then I pinched it toward the middle... This actually didn't work as well as I would have liked because the filling kept falling out, so I got out the rolling pin after the 1st few. You can see below, the one on the right was rolled out by hand, the one on the left was rolled with the rolling pin.

Topped with a sprinkle of cheese and baked in the oven, a little longer than the actual biscuit packaging suggested since they are filled biscuits

I needed a veggie, so I cooked some brussel sprouts... Ill blog about that another day! For now, I hope you enjoyed the first recipe! Keep checking back!

1 can of biscuits, each biscuit rolled flat

1/4lb leftover ground beef/ soy crumbles

Taco Seasoning: packet or homemade

1/2 can black beans

1/2 can corn

2 Tbsp salsa, plus some for serving

Sour Cream for serving

Shredded Cheese

So it begins

Life by trial and error... I thought this would be an appropriate title for my new blog. Even this blog is going to be like that a little bit. I'm still not sure what all I want to narrow it down to. A little cooking, a little photography, a little DIY, a little fashion. I'm still learning blogging 'etiquette' so I hope I don't offend anyone or look stupid, but that's life right?

This all started when my husband introduced me to Pinterest(http://pinterest.com)... which is awesome by the way... I started checking out all these amazing blogs and thought how fun that would be. I love trying new things and I feel like I have been in a slump in that regard lately so here it goes... life by trial and error :)