The month of August is flying by, we will be in December before we know it. This is my second week of trying to cut back my food budget and still eat healthy. Sunday was spaghetti day, it was also family day, we shared with 7 people, spaghetti and meatballs, salad, home made ice tea, ( I am told it's every ones favorite) and great family time.) for dessert I made brownies and homemade blueberry cupcakes with real whip cream . (they were good). From this meal I sent home food with my son and also had leftovers Monday night also with salad.

 I was watching a show in the middle of the night (since sleeping all night is a rare event now) and it was on nutrition. The person said your salad should be your biggest part of your meal, not the side dish. Hm mm that made sense. but it shouldn't just be greens and tomatoes, it should also be fruit, and nuts. The reason the nuts should be added to salad and not as a occasional snack is because the nuts help absorb the vitamins from the salad. Wow that makes sense. So my new challenge is to make a bigger salad and cut back on rest of meal. I can see getting bored very easily with the same salad every night so research will be done to provide interesting combos. While this is not my salad it will be this week.

Okay back to my menu and budget. Monday was suppose to be meatball subs with salad and fruit, but hubby already had spaghetti cooked and so that's what we ate, I put the small leftover sauce in freezer which equaled to about  pint. This will be used at a later time for english muffin or bagel pizzas as a side with soup or salad.

Tuesday my husband brought home fried chicken, not sure why, I didn't ask, I also made chicken soup, so our meal was chicken and soup. It was another rainy day so the soup hit the spot. Wednesday I made London Broil, Baked potatoes, zucchine on the grill (from garden) and corn on cob. From this meal again I fed 7 people.

Thursday I was in and out all day, cooking was not in my mood. My husband went to a baseball game with the grandsons and my son. So my meal, gosh this is so bad, a pint yup a pint of Cherri Garcia ice cream from Ben and Jerri's, I swear I did not mean to have a whole pint, and I've never taken a spoon and eaten out of the container, but I did and well it's gone. I topped this off with cheese and crackers and a peach. AND we wonder why I didn't sleep well?

Tonight I am making beef lo mien with leftover steak from my daughter, she didn't know what to do with it.. aah the secrets of using up leftovers. I love beef lo mien and its so easy to make and not that expensive. Recipe for Beef and Broccoli lo mein is here: http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/beef-and-broccoli-lo-mein-685945/

my total this week for all groceries and I didn't separate what was food and what was other stuff was $122 and change. I did stock up on a few household items like laundry and cleaning as all were on sale and of course I had coupons so I made great use of both. I think that what I bought for groceries was still in the $80 range. And again some of this food bought will be used in future meals. I did use the chicken from the soup to make chicken salad for some lunches, I also boiled eggs for hard boiled to use for either lunches or with breakfast.