Grind It Baby!

Don't go getting all excited - it is only a food post. Yes, another one.

In an effort to stretch our dollars and eat healthier I have been incorporating ground pork and ground turkey into our ground beef meals. Yesterday Wallene and I used all three to make dinner for the work week.

We had 3.5 lbs of hamburger, 1 lb of ground pork and 1 lb of ground turkey.

We used .75 lbs of hamburger in our ghoulash last night and another .75 lbs for 3 hamburgers to grill [with hot dogs] on Thursday night.

We then mixed up the remaining two pounds of hamburger with the turkey and pork and made one meatloaf and 30 meatballs. [Mix together all the meat with 2 packets onion soup mix, 1.5 cups water, 4 eggs, 2 cups of breadcrumbs and 1.5 cups waters - you may need a little more of the breadcrumbs tho' - we always do]

The meatloaf is for dinner tonight and since it is monstorous the family will have leftover meatloaf sandwiches in their lunches for the next couple of days.

The meatballs were frozen and 12 will be used on for a spaghetti dinner on Friday with the remaining 18 for meatball subs on Wednesday. I am going to make the spaghetti sauce in the crockpot tomorrow and use it for both nights - it tastes really yummy on the subs.

The meat cost $11.00 total - which breaks down to $2.20 per meal for the protein. Except for the grilling night where I had to add hotdogs [4 dogs @ $1.20 - 30 cents each - for all beef hotdogs] that is pretty good I think - but the biggest bonus? I had a coupon for the hamburger meat and it was FREE [$7.00] so I ultimately only spent $4.00 on the turkey and pork. It is a good week when the meat in our meals cost less than $1 per dinner.

To recap our meals:
Monday: Ghoulash, sliced tomatoes and french bread
Tuesday: Meatloaf, smashed potatoes and steamed broccoli, califlower and carrots
Wednesday: Meatball subs, chips and fruit salad
Thursday: Grilled hamburgers and hotdogs, macaroni salad and raw veggie tray
Friday: Spaghetti and meatballs, salad and garlic bread

Another bonus? I can actually eat most of this because the tomatoes are either fresh or low sodium, I skip the chips, the macaroni salad has minimal mayo in it [about a tbsp] and the onion soup mix [high! in sodium] is stretched out throughout the meals so I am not eating a huge amount at once. Yes!

I do miss our menus that I had made [for the whole year] but it was too hard for me to eat around what I was making for the family - so I have gone back to one week at a time. Once I become acclimated to cooking with less sodium and working around their favorites so I can eat too I will be making more month long menus. All I know is the family is thrilled because, once again, they can look on the fridge and see what's for dinner.