$65 A Week Challenge, Week 3!

You can see how this week's shopping went at the bottom of this post.  In the meantime, here's what's been cooking lately.

One night for dinner I made brown rice pasta with ground venison and added veggies to my canned pasta sauce.  No recipe for this, just a simple quick dinner to put on the table.

Total cost for me to make this meal: about $4

Last week a friend and I hosted a Valentine's Day party for the little kids in our area.  We had a great turn out and it was lots of fun.  I was responsible for cookie decorating so I made a couple of batches of sugar cookies and some frosting and the kids had a blast decorating them and were able to take them home.  

I searched pinterest for a sugar cookie recipe that didn't need to be refrigerated and found this really good recipe over on In Katrina's Kitchen.  It is titled 

Best Sugar Cookie Recipe EVER and I'd have to agree that these were pretty much perfect for what I was wanting.  Go check out the recipe!  Since I was able to get butter for $2 a pound last week, these cookies weren't too expensive to make.  Two batches cost me about $3.25 to make, extra for the frosting.

One of the nights that my husband was out of town last week I made homemade pizza for the kids.  They loved it!  Pizza is always a special treat!  I topped the kid pizza with Antelope sausage that my husband and I made during hunting season along with cheese and olives.  It was super good!

My pizza was a bit more adventurous.  It has the sausage and olives along with zucchini, garlic, green bell peppers, onion and mushrooms.  Then I topped it with fresh tomato after it baked.  SO GOOD!  

Total cost for our 3 big pizzas: about $7

Here's a good pizza dough recipe:

Pizza Dough:

2 1/2 C. Medium Hot Water
1 Tbsp. Yeast
2 Tbsp. Sugar
3 Tbsp. Oil
1 tsp. Salt
6 C. Flour (you can do half all-purpose and half white wheat or 100% whole wheat)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees
1. Pour medium hot water in mixing bowl. Sprinkle yeast on top and allow to dissolve.
2. Add sugar, salt, and oil. Gradually add approximately 6 cups of flour.  Let mix in electric mixer for about 6 minutes.
3. Place dough on sprayed cookie sheet or pizza pan and press to fill pan, top with sauce, cheese and your favorite toppings.
4. Cook for 12 to 14 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and crust is cooked through.
 

Makes 3 to 4 pizzas.

Now onto this week's shopping.  My husband pointed out to me that I wasn't technically over budget last week since the week before I was actually under budget!  So, I stuck to my $65 budget for this week.  Everything I purchased for this week is pictured above.  The total for this week's groceries was $64.71!  So, I stuck to budget and got a few things I wasn't even planning on getting.  

Here's what I got:

5 dozen eggs, 2 gallons milk, twirly lollipop (not pictured), ham lunch meat, 3 packages shredded cheese, Cinnamon Toaster cereal, celery, 8 oz mushrooms, mayo, 2 liter soda, sliced cheese, taco bell hot sauce, saltine crackers, fresh salsa, tortillas, 1.1 lbs roma tomatoes, strawberry syrup, 1 lb brown rice pasta, 1.79 lbs broccoli, 3 avocados, .61 lbs banana chips, .65 lbs mixed nuts, 2.13 lbs tangelos, 2 lbs carrots, 1.20 lbs yellow delish apples, 2.44 lbs bananas, 2 lbs green cabbage, raisins, hot dogs and Smucker's jam.

I'm so used to buying a FULL cart of groceries every time I go shopping, so I'm getting used to only getting what I need and leaving with a very empty cart compared to what I'm used to.  But, I think it's been going pretty good so far!  

How did you do on your grocery budget this week?