Adventures in Freezer/Pantry Cooking: Week 3

We had quite a few leftovers this week, so my cooking was really sparse (that, and it's been a crazy week at work).

Note: I had a work event one evening that included dinner, and also had 2 lunches out for work with clients. One of those I brought home leftovers and Jordan ate that for a lunch. We also had Papa John's pizza at some friends' house another evening. 

Meal 1: Eggs and toast - this is our standard Sunday lunch. 3 eggs for Jordan, 2 eggs for me, 2 pieces of toast each, enjoyed with peanut butter, honey, or jelly

• Outcome: 2 servings 
• Approx price: Less than $3
• Affordable shopping tips: Eggs frequently go on sale for $0.99, so I try to only buy eggs when they're that price. We always buy the cheapest bread, which is normally $1.58 - bread does occasionally go on sale for $0.99, so I usually buy at least one loaf (more if I have space in my freezer for bread). And although we looooove JIF or Planters or Peter Pan (or basically any other kind of peanut butter), we buy the cheap Midwest Country Fare, which I think is around $3.50 for 40oz. 

Meal 2: Sandwiches and carrots (deer meat courtesy of my parents, cheese was a Christmas gift)

• Outcome: 2 servings 
• Approx price: Less than $3
• Affordable shopping tips: Bread is the same as above; a bag of baby carrots will occasionally be $0.99, otherwise a 2lb bag for $1.99 is my normal buying point. Good meat and cheese can be purchased by watching for sales - 8oz of brick cheese will go on sale for $1.99 and the same goes for 2lbs of luncheon meat as well. 

Meal 3: 1 frozen pizza

• Outcome: 2 servings 
• Approx price: $2 - Jacks, Classics, HyVee
• Affordable shopping tips: No, it's not as good as Digiornos, but the price is right for a fast, easy meal. HyVee has the 5/$10 sale on pizza pretty often, and the HyVee brand is our favorite. We lucked out one day when they had a sale for 7/$10 HyVee pizza. We stocked up, and got 2 rainchecks so we can get the deal one more time. $1.76 for a meal is too good to pass up!

Meal 4: Salad and sweet potato fries

• Outcome: 2 servings 
• Approx price: $2 - $1 for a bag of salad, $0.92 for sweet potato
• Affordable shopping tips: I love sweet potatoes, but they're never usually affordable (in my opinion - b/c you can get a 3lb bag of potatoes for $1 sometimes). Jordan spotted them for $1.18/lb and made homemade fries for us. Salad bags are usually $3, but if you watch for a sale, they're occasionally $1 each. We also watch for salad dressing sales - there's usually a Kraft sale for $0.99 each. 

Meal 5: Crockpot Ham & Brie Strata

• Outcome: 2 servings (this was actually frozen from before Christmas) 
• Approx price: $5-10 (this was a Jordan cooking extravaganza, so I'm not actually sure what everything cost)
• Affordable shopping tips: Jordan watched for a sale on brie - he found it for $4.