So in my quest to save money on food by meal planning I put several books on hold at the library. Another one came in on Friday and I just had a chance to finish it up today. It's called How to Feed Your Whole Family a Healthy, Balanced Diet with Very Little Money...and Hardly Any Time, Even if You Have a Tiny Kitchen, Only Three Saucepans (One with an Ill-fitting Lid), and No Fancy Gadgets--Unless You Count the Garlic Crusher.... Well, with a title like that you have to read it, don't you?

It's by Gill Holcombe, who is English, but the book is written in American (no extra u's or re's), only they forgot to translate for dollars so stuff is still in pounds. And there are a few foods mentioned that I'm not sure they even have here, and a couple of things I had to look up on

www.britsfood.com. Might as well have kept in the u's and re's then, silly publishers, thinking we can't read British English or something.

The author has a great sense of humor as you might recognize from the title. The organiztion of the book leaves a lot to be desired since the recipes are scattered throughout the very wordy (but funny) chapters instead of neatly organized and there are no photos (I do like photos in a cookbook), but I did find a few promising recipes. One for hashbrowns and one for making a small amount of tomato ketchup if you happen to run out of it and need some in a pinch. It's 3 tbsp tomato paste, 2 tsp vinegar, 1 tsp brown sugar, and 2/3 cup of boiling water. It's all stuff I keep on hand and I am tempted to try making it anyway since ketchup has gotten so expensive and we can't use the brands with corn syrup in them. Tomato paste is still relatively cheap. If we like it I can make it up and just pour it into an old ketchup bottle in the fridge.

It also had a recipe for Lancashire Hot Pot which is a lamb dish that looks so good. It's meant to be cooked in the oven as a sort of layered casserole but I think it could very easily be adapted to the crockpot. Lamb is forever being marked down here. The stores carry it, but never seem to sell enough of it that there isn't always some in the discount bin that needs to be used or frozen that day. So I will make that if I find some marked down lamb and let you know if it's any good. Also will make the hashbrowns and report back on them.

I found a few recipes for cakes and a simple fudge that I am going to write down and try later on. I don't like to make those unless there is a birthday or something, but we've got two coming up in the next six weeks. The recipe for ginger beer (ale) looks promising and would be simple to make the next time I have a stomachache and don't feel like running to the store for ginger ale (the kind without corn syrup). Though I have six bottles at the moment so that might actually be a while.

I haven't gotten around to roasting that chicken yet and using the extra for enchiladas and the carcass for soup stock. Maybe Tuesday. The chicken is still frozen. Yesterday was eggs and pancakes for breakfast, leftover spaghetti for lunch, and tacos for dinner.

Today's meals are--

Breakfast:
Blueberry pancakes made from Jiffy muffin mix (.79)
Eggs (free from chickens)
Milk ($2)
Total: $2.79

Lunch:
Leftover spaghetti with leftover sauce (price already taken out the day I made it, so free)
Hamburger ($2.29)
Bananas ($2)
Salad (.50)
Total: $4.79

Dinner:
Beef pot roast ($5.69)
Mashed potatoes ($1)
Green beans ($1)
Homemade gravy (.50)
Biscuits (.50)
Milk ($2)
Total: $10.69

It's a pretty large pot roast and there will be leftovers of it and the potatoes and gravy so there will be at least most of another meal out of this for 2 of us, probably Monday's lunch for me and DH. Maybe more, but it depends on how hungry everyone is tonight at dinner. Mom will be eating with us tonight so this will feed five people instead of four. Mom drinks her own milk that she buys herself so I never count that in our food costs.

Even though dinner is pricier than usual, lunch and breakfast are lower than usual and I still came in under $20 a day which is what I'm aiming for at the moment. If I can get to $16.50 per day as an average I'll get the monthly grocery budget down to $500. If I can get it down to $15 a day it'll be $450. But those are goals for later months. $13 would put me just under $400 by ten bucks, which is the ultimate goal. Right now just keeping it under $20 is good for February.