Wednesday Dinner

Have you ever made a meal that tasted so good you wonder why you hadn't been making it regularly all along?

Tonight was that dinner. I made grilled Rubens, oven-roasted potatoes, and jello with fruit. A few weeks ago, when Harris Teeter had their pre-packaged deli meats and cheese on sale Buy 2, Get 3 free, I had a flash of inspiration and picked up 2 packages of pastrami. (Technically, I think that turns my Rubens into Rachels since I didn't use corned beef, but I can't tell the difference in taste.) I also bought Swiss cheese and rye bread, and already had sauerkraut on hand. Man, those were some tasty sandwiches - every bit as good as I've had in restaurants.

I buttered the outsides of the rye bread as I would for grilled cheese sandwiches, spread some spicy brown mustard on one slice, then layered like this: 1.5 slices swiss cheese (spread out to cover entire slice of bread), 2 slices pastrami, about 2 T. sauerkraut, 1.5 slices swiss, and other slice of buttered bread. I grilled them on my mother's old foldover grill (that she got for a wedding gift in 1949!) and it makes them thin and crispy and wonderful.

The oven-roasted potatoes are an old standby for us. I just use the recipe on the side of the Lipton Onion Soup mix. About 2 lbs diced potatoes (with skin), about 1/4 cup oil, and 1 packet dry onion soup mix. Mix together well and roast at 425 for 35 minutes or until done. These are delicious and smell absolutely mouth-watering while they're roasting. (A secret I've found to these - they're not done until they "release" from the pan when you try to stir them with a spatula. If they stick, just keep roasting and checking. If you pull them out too early, the potatoes may be tender but you'll spend all night scrubbing and soaking the pan.)

Lastly, I made raspberry jello with canned peach slices because I wanted something light and fresh-tasting on the side and that's what I had on hand.

Totals:

$1.80 - pastrami
$1.50 - 3/4 package swiss
.80 - 1/3 loaf rye bread
.50 - canned peaches (HT 2/$1 sale)
free - jello (after triple coupons)
.50 - 1 packet onion soup mix (after double coupons)
.50 - potatoes (5 lb bag/.97 at HT)

$5.60 for dinner for 3 (with leftover potatoes & jello/fruit)

Sunday Dinner

Tonight was a night for comfort food; baked potatoes stuffed with ham, broccoli and cheese. Stuffed potatoes (with a variety of fillings) are also one of my go-to dinners for busy nights because it's a meal that doesn't require much planning or effort on my part.

I just baked potatoes, sprinkled on a little Mrs. Dash, then filled with Green Giant Broccoli in White Cheddar sauce, diced ham, and more shredded cheese. It doesn't get much simpler than that, and it's delicious on a cool night.

Totals:
.60 - potatoes (10 lb/$3 at Lowes Foods)
.67 - diced ham (3 lb Hormel canned ham/$3.99 at Lowes Foods - used about 1/2 lb)
$1 - 2 boxes broccoli in cheese sauce (.50/ea after BOGO sale + double coupon at HT)
.25 - shredded cheese

$2.52 for dinner for 3

Weekend dinners: Friday night we ate out with friends. A celebration Saturday afternoon left everyone still pretty full at dinner time, so we just picked at leftovers.

Thursday Dinner

Tonight I made one of our favorite meals - Salmon-Potato Cakes over fresh spinach, with a loaf of homemade (bread machine) wheat bread. I came across the recipe over a year ago in an issue of Better Homes & Gardens and have been tweaking it ever since. The result is now a light, fluffy salmon cake that tastes wonderful over a green salad.

I was originally drawn to this recipe because it sounded delicious and so different from regular salmon patties. But I was also a bit apprehensive because salmon patties are inherently budget-friendly and this recipe wasn't. It originally called for a salmon fillet to be cooked and then flaked and mashed in with mashed potatoes. That seemed an unnecessary step - not to mention expense - to me. If I'm going to flake and mash up fresh salmon to be indistinguishable from canned salmon, why not save time and money and just use canned salmon to begin with? The potatoes called for in the original recipe were also not a cheap ingredient - it called for heat-n-serve mashed potatoes from the dairy department. I thought that instant potatoes would work just as well for 1/4 the cost and I was right. Lastly, the original recipe called for serving the cakes over lettuce and my family prefers spinach. It suggested honey-mustard salad dressing to drizzle over and, while that's OK, we've found our family prefers Kraft Tomato Bacon. With all those changes in mind, here's how I now make this dish:

Salmon-Potato Cakes

1 can salmon, drained, skin & large bones removed, flaked
2 - 3 cups cold prepared mashed potatoes (can use leftover homemade or instant from a mix)
1 egg
Garlic salt, pepper, dill, celery seed to taste
bread crumbs
oil for frying

Combine salmon, mashed potatoes, egg and seasonings and mix well. Form into patties and coat in breadcrumbs. Cook in about 1/8th inch oil in hot skillet about 3 minutes per side, or until browned and crispy. Don't over-crowd pan - cook in batches, adding more oil to pan between batches if necessary.

To serve, place 2 - 3 cakes over fresh greens and drizzle with salad dressing of your choice.

Note 1: Flavored instant mashed potatoes, such as roasted garlic or sour cream & chives, work well in this recipe. If using instant, decrease amount of water called for in directions by about 1/4 cup. But make sure the potatoes are cold and stiff - the cakes won't hold together if potatoes are hot and fluffy.

Note 2: Tonight I used leftover homemade mashed potatoes because that's what I had on hand.

Note 3: Recipe makes 10 - 14 salmon cakes, depending on size. I can serve 4 - 5 people easily with one batch.

Totals:

$2 - canned salmon
free - mashed potatoes (leftover, accounted for in another meal)
$1 - spinach - (1/2 bag, $2/ea from Aldi)
.50 - salad dressing, misc. ingredients for salmon cakes + wheat bread

$3.50 for dinner for 3, with over 1/2 loaf bread and 6 salmon cakes leftover

Monday Dinner

No dinner post last night - I was too sick to cook so it was every man for himself.

I'm still too sick to cook tonight but I managed anyway. I made all my favorite comfort foods and looked forward to eating dinner all afternoon. Then I couldn't taste a darn thing because of this stupid cold/flu. Oh well, I'm sure it was delicious.

We had smoked sausage (grilled last week), individual potato gratins, and butter-crumb cabbage. For the gratins, I use a bag of Simply Potatoes Homestyle Slices (purchased BOGO + double coupon), so I have to increase all the other ingredients to accommodate 12 muffin-cups worth instead of 8. This isn't an exact-measurement sort of recipe, though, so it's very simple. For the butter-crumb cabbage, I use a lot more than 1/2 cup crumbs called for. I crush up 1/2 a bag of Texas Toast Garlic Butter croutons, so it probably comes out to more like 1 cup.

Totals:

.50 - smoked sausage (BOGO + double coupon)
.40 - Simply Potatoes
$1 - cheese & cream for potatoes
.40 - 1/2 large head cabbage
.25 - croutons (double coupons)
.25 - butter

$2.80 for dinner for 3, with 1 serving sausage and several servings cabbage & potatoes left over

Wednesday Dinner

Dinner tonight was smoked sausage with cabbage, sliced tomatoes, and these incredible little individual potatoes au gratin casseroles. I can't take credit for the potatoes - I'm a huge Food Network fan, and this recipe came from the winner of "The Next Food Network Star" competition show.

Here's the recipe - they are to die for:

5-Minute Individual Potato Gratins

Instead of slicing my own potatoes, I used a bag of Simply Potatoes Homestyle Slices that I picked up last time they were on sale. That was more than 2 potatoes worth, so I increased all the ingredients to accommodate 12 muffin-cups worth instead of 8. This really is a no-measure recipe - just layer the potatoes, cheese, salt & pepper in the muffin tins, then pour the cream over. They came out golden-brown and beautiful, and they tasted just as good as they looked.

For the main dish, I just shredded 1/2 a head of cabbage, quartered the sausage, and poured in 1/2 a can of chicken broth in my big covered skillet. I simmered on medium heat for about 20 minutes until the cabbage was tender. Delicious and couldn't be more simple as the sausage flavors the cabbage as it cooks.

I'm overrun with tomatoes again (I picked 9 today, plus at least 1/2 pint cherry tomatoes), so we had sliced tomatoes as a 3rd side dish.

Totals:

.50 - smoked sausage (purchased BOGO + double coupon)
.40 - 1/2 head cabbage
.30 - 1/2 can chicken broth
.75 - bag of Simply Potatoes
.75 - cheese, cream
free - tomatoes

$2.70 for dinner for 3, plus 1 serving of sausage/cabbage and 3 servings of potatoes left