Idiot-Proof Paleo Shopping breakdown

So, here we are again dear readers with a grocery list!
This is significantly shorter than last week's, because this is my regular list, not my stock up/get started list. This is what my cart looks like most weeks. This feeds two people for just over two weeks, though I'm normally busting out the frozen veg by the very end of the fortnight.

As promised, look for a breakdown of the list and where the food actually goes below. Again, feel free to share, print an use this list for yourself!

We keep all our meet in the freezer and just defrost as needed, so every two or three shopping trips I'll need to replete my stock, but for the most part, I just replace whichever animal product is lowest. This week it was chicken breast. We only had about three left, so I bought two more packages. But I've still got tons of pork chops, ground pork, beef for stew and steak cuts that I picked up on sale, so none of those need replacing. I've only had to totally replenish the freezer maybe twice, but it's really easy to stay on top of it if you just take stock of what's stocked up before you go shopping. And I try and use things according to how old they are. We date all the food that goes in the freezer, so the newest chicken breasts will get saved for last and I'll use pork and beef mostly for the week. This means I only really ever have to restock one (maaaybe two) kinds of meat on a particular shopping trip, which saves a TON of money. 

Okay, let's get to the break down. 

Easy-peasy dinners.

Generally, I love cooking. I love experimenting with new recipes and new foods. Sometimes though, I miss the ease of chicken nuggets and frozen dinners. There are some days I can barely be bothered to eat anything, let alone cook something complicated. On those days, it's very helpful to have a few staples on standby so I can throw some stuff together in less than an hour and not have to stress. 

• Cauliflower can be used as a substitute for my pre-paleo fall backs, rice and mashed potatoes. The only real difference between cauliflower 'rice' and cauliflower 'potatoes' is the degree to which you mush them in the food processor. That seems pretty self explanatory. I also admit to putting a couple pats of butter in my mash and a sprinkling of chives. Makes it feel more authentic. Mash or rice, one other veggie (asparagus, carrots, squash, zucchini, whatever you've got around) and a meat and you have your meal. I love this because it's really hard to screw it up and I don't have to think about it. So, keep cauliflower handy. You can also use the cauliflower rice to make garbage stir fry which can be a lifesaver. Throw your 'rice in with some soy sauce, some sliced meat (pork and chicken work well) as well as some frozen vegetables and serve. 
• Carrots are my best friend if I want to stretch a meal out a little, any meal. Want to make your brekkie scramble last an extra day? Dice up four or five carrots and it'll eke things about. Carrots are great for snacking, I mash them up with sweet potatoes and parsnips to make a mash, I fry them with onions and pork chops, I julienne them into salads. They add color to your meal and they last forever. I usually buy a five pound bag once a month. 
• Sweet potatoes do the same work as carrots, they help stretch everything out, and they are really filling. I love them because I can make fries or sweet potato crisps with them, which is a better cure for my constant snacking than popcorn or potato chips. I adore them with my breakfast, sliced up with some sausage and egg and peppers. So good. 
• Leafy stuff is also a savior of mine. Whether it's lettuce, cabbage, spinach, collard greens, turnip greens, bok choy, whatever your fancy it's essential to keep this stuff handy. If I don't feel like cooking, I can roughly chop some lettuce and spinach, boil and shred some chicken, slice some carrots and throw a basic dressing together. You can find my personal favorite salad here, from Nom Nom Paleo. That particular salad takes me literally 20 minutes from prep to table. 

Everything else on that list--eggplant, asparagus, mushrooms--get used in addition to the four essentials above. I am partial to cauliflower mash, asparagus and pork chops. Or sauteed mushrooms, steak and sweet potato fries. On the nights when I look forward to getting in the kitchen, having a good selection of veggies to choose from makes coming up with dinner a whole lot easier. I am partial to eggplant parm when I'm feeling like spending a while in the kitchen, or coconut-breaded fish or chicken with some fried spinach.

Food for snacks

One of the biggest challenges when you go paleo is finding food you don't have to cook. Sometimes you just want something crunchy or sweet and you want it now. I am partial to Nut Thins. They're gluten free crackers. I don't think they're technically paleo, but they're damn close and I love crackers and ham too much to care. But what about sugar cravings? I usually keep a little stash of dark chocolate somewhere, and I'll slice up an apple, grab the almond butter and make 'smores'. I mean, they're not really smores, but it hits the spot. There's also nothing wrong with giving yourself a night off and having a Twix or something. Letting yourself go once in a while is key to actually staying on the diet.  I'm also partial to cauliflower popcorn, you can get the recipe here.

To be honest, when I was getting started on paleo, and this is true of anyone who's starting to learn how to cook, recipe lists were my saving grace. NomNomPaleo and Paleomg both have AWESOME recipe lists that are broken down by meat and veg, and for the first little while I relied on them completely. Learning how to throw together a meal is a skill. You're not going to start teaching yourself to cook by never look at recipes. So, get to know your food a little, what your skills and are what kinds of flavors you like together. Once you do that, you can start to write your own recipes. 

Idiot Proof Paleo Shopping

Alright, you asked for it, and it's here, the Idiot Proof guide to your first paleo shop. I know I said I'd have it up last week, but the Mother Idiot was here and we were busy enjoying the sun (that finally made an appearance and warmed up the godforsaken iced over hellscape of NC).
So, it's here now. This is a complete list of everything you'll need for your first shop. I'm going to get another printable list up soon to show you what my weekly grocery list looks like, because it isn't nearly as extensive as this. Next weeks list will also have amounts of what I'm buying and a breakdown of where the food goes and how many meals I get out of it. I hope you guys like this, because this lil ole' blog is turning into a full-time thing, what with all the designing I'm doing.
Now, this list is also for two people. If you're a solo paleo eater, you can probably knock off some of the veggies and a few of the meats and still be okay. A lot of this is trial and error, and I hate to break it to you, but the first few weeks you may find yourself not eating things in time and throwing them away. I know that's awful, and it made me super angry because I absolutely detest wasting food, but until you figure out exactly what your individual needs are, you just have to suck it up. Or buy less and make more trips to the grocery store. Mr. Idiot and I share a car, so multiple grocery trips are a huge pain in the butt.
Tell me what you think, tell me if there's anything missing, and as always, feel free to voice your opinion in the comments!

March Madness

Hello all.
I'm going to apologize again, and in advance for the lack of posts in the next few days. It's been a bit of a crazy week for me. The dog has been taking up pretty much all of my attention, because I mean come on. She's adorable and ALWAYS down to play.

Look at that freakin face!

So, there's that, there's the fact I've been working out (at an actual gym I'll have you know) and going to yoga a ton. (More on that whole deal later this week, I promise)

AND there's the minor thing that mama Idiot is coming to visit on Saturday! I'm pretty stoked about it, because I haven't seen her since Christmas, BUT that means I have to do a total blitz of my house. I have a highly organized plan of execution, room by room, to get the whole place mom-approved before she gets here. 

I've also got some furniture revamping to do. We finally got around to getting a sander, so Mr. Idiot sanded down the coffee table and the dresser and it's my job to paint them. I have never painted furniture, so we'll see how they turn out. I'm pretty hopeful, because Mr. Idiot is a total handyman n00b and he did a beautiful job sanding the stuff down. Fingers crossed I can pull of my first attempt as flawlessly. 

In other news, I managed to spend less than $200 at the grocery store this week. I don't know if that's because I'm eating less, so we have more food or something, but it was nice to not cry inwardly as I watch all the money just...trickle away. I'm going to post a shopping list for all my dedicated followers (all three of you <3) Partly for me, so I can stop wasting scraps of paper, and partly for you guys, so you can get an idea what paleo shopping on a pretty tight budget looks like. I know that $200 at the grocery store sounds like a LOT of money, but that feeds two people for two weeks and change. Fifty bucks per person a week isn't bad I think. It's actually less than we were spending before we went paleo, because I'm not buying chips or oatmeal or cookies or anything. Or frozen dinners, I won't lie, I was kind of partial to those, and they add up quickly. Plus, there's normally at least two or three days left of food at the end of the two weeks if I can't get to the grocery store on payday (because it is an ungodly hellscape.)

So, stay tuned for the grocery list, a break down of my workout, my diet and how the weight loss is going (I'm down ten pounds already!!)

So, stay tuned, I promise to be more on top of the whole posting thing, because I know you all care about my little life. 

Much love,

Mrs. Idiot. 

Monday salad: extra easy because I'm extra tired

It's nearly 9pm here at la casa des Idiots, and I'm finally sitting on my bum. FINALLY.
Today Mr Idiot had the day off, so we used our Monday much more productively than last week (in which we binge-watched Netflix and ate bacon) and ran all of the errands. ALL. THE. ERRANDS. We prayed at the alter of the Army Gods (aka the Soldier Support center) to get some of the cost of the move back, (YAY MONEY!), we visited Mr. Idiots long-ago-neglected UPS box only to find out that they only keep mail for thirty days before they return it to sender. And his has been closed for at least three months. Oh well. We also needed to pick up some groceries, but it's my least favorite time of the month, which is the time three days before payday where we have maybe a $60 buffer, and we're all out of almost everything. My fridge is a sad, mostly empty mess right now, and it gives me a big sad. But! We're trying this new thing where we space out our bills so we don't get completely drained by the 3rd of the month, so here's hoping come February we won't have these shitty three and four day periods where we've got zilch in the bank. To make that long story short, we need some more food, but we had to really scratch out what we've got left. So, thirty bucks poorer, we've got enough nosh to see us through until payday.
We even remembered to return my (shockingly) overdue library books, which I think they've written off as lost by this point.
By the time we got home, I was ready to cook dinner and just flop on the couch, but nope. Mr. Idiot has plans for his Monday and they've gotta happen. We spent almost an hour moving a couch from the spare room into the living room, and moving the pull out couch into the spare room. I know that sounds like no biggie, but the movers tried to get that sucker into the spare room and failed. The people whose job it is to make things fit through doors couldn't get it, so these two Idiots figured they'd try. Yeah, pro tip, if the movers don't do it, don't try it yourself. Eventually we got it through the door with only minimal doorframe damage. I was sweaty, grouchy, had pulled something in my back, stabbed by invisible couch nails, and had yelled at Mr. Idiot at least six times to NOT DROP THE COUCH ON ME, the last thing I wanted to do was actually cook dinner.
But, what did I do? I went and made some awesome salad thanks to Michelle Tam over at nomnompaleo and as luck would have it, it was easy as hell. I did make a few modifications to her recipe, because I'm lazy and I need to improvise sometimes...

Asian nut salad
This salad is awesome because it makes enough for both of us to be full, and to have leftovers for our lunches tomorrow. And just let me say, Mr. Idiot eats A LOT for both lunch and dinner, so the fact that there's leftovers is saying something.

For the sauce, you'll need:

2 tbsp almond butter (I used peanut, sue me)
1 tbsp fish sauce (I'm pretty sure you could sub coconut aminos for this and be okay)
1 tbsp white vinegar.
1 tbsp coconut oil
2 tbsp applesauce (unsweetened)
1/2 tbsp garlic chili paste

For the salad:
2 chicken breasts
1 whole head of romaine lettuce
3 or 4 carrots, grated/julienned/sliced however
2 apples, sliced

This salad has shredded chicken in it, and before we got a hand mixer/food processor (THANKS MUM <3 ) we had to shred chicken by hand (like savages). So, my advice is boil the chicken breasts while you're doing everything else to cook them. If you don't have a mixer or anything, you can shred by hand once the breasts are cool, or use two forks to rip it to bits. Your call. IF however you just got God's greatest invention, the food processor, you're fine.

So, put the breasts on on boil and start grating/julienning/slicing your carrots. I used four medium carrots for this, but use your judgement. Whatever ratio of carrots to lettuce to apples you want is good.

A mandoline makes your life easy

Put your carrots in a big bowl.

Chop up the apples. I didn't peel them because I love apple skins, but that's totally your call. Slice them into eighths and then in half long-wise, so they've still got some chunk to them and toss them in the bowl with the carrots.

Hopefully, your chicken is done boiling, so let it cool if you're using your hands, or cut it into quarters and process that bitch.

Wash off the lettuce and rip it into bite-sized bits. I hate the giant...spines, whatever they are on lettuce, so I just ripped off the leafy parts.

Throw that into the bowl and mix it all up.

Combine all the ingredients for the sauce and pop it in the microwave for 30 seconds to melt the coconut oil and soften the almond butter. Mix all that goodness together, pour over the salad and serve.

I was too damn tired to take any pictures after I'd added the chicken or the dressing or plated it, because I was so excited to eat and sit down.

This blog entry took longer to write than the salad took to make, so it's AWESOME when your feet hurt and you're hangry.

Breakfast of champions

Breakfast is a pretty easy meal for paleo, because it's basically bacon and eggs every morning, no sweat. Plus, that much protein in the morning means I'm not hungry again during the day until nearly three. As much as I love bacon and eggs in all its permutations (soft-boiled eggs, hard boiled eggs, scrambled, fried) sometimes it's nice to mix things up. I've been experimenting with paleo pancakes, but with zero success so far. There's tons of recipes online, but mine just turn into mushy puddles. 

So, we're sticking with egg-based recipes so far, but I'll keep experimenting with non-egg breakfast foods. 

Anyway, this Mexican inspired brekkie is an amalgamation of a few recipes I found online, and whatever the hell was in my fridge. I think I'm getting the hang of throwing things together and getting pretty solid results. 

I made this recipe again this weekend for Mr. Idiot, and improved it vastly, but...I didn't take any pictures for you, so use your damn imagination. 

Breakfast of Champions

This recipe kept me full right up until dinner last Sunday, and then again for breakfast and lunch the next day. So it will (in theory) feed four.

1 sweet potato, diced

1/2 bell pepper diced

1/2 onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced (or 1 tbsp pre-minced stuff)

2 tbsp coconut oil

handful of spinach (Or any other filler you like, spring onions, broccoli, anything you like)

2 roma tomatoes (you can use any tomatoes, this is just what was in the fridge)

7 eggs

Bacon. As I've said before, you can NEVER have too much bacon, I made 4 strips each

Chop everything, all the veggies get diced up and thrown in together.

Once the veggies are chopped, add coconut oil to large skillet, and add garlic over medium heat. 

Once the pan is hot and the garlic starts to brown add in chopped vegetables. Don't add the spinach yet. 

Once the sweet potatoes are soft to the touch (Use a spoon, not your hands, dur) add in the spinach and lower the heat to medium low. 

Crack the eggs directly into the skillet and mix everything together until it's all a nice big lumpy mess. 

Serve with bacon and some sliced and salted avocado. Feel free to add salsa, hot sauce, whatever you like. 

Alternatively, substitute the bacon for pork sausage mixed in with the eggs. I added two big spoonfuls of salsa to the scramble, and it was SO MUCH better the second time around. I think the fat from the pork sausage really helped bring all the vegetable flavors out. 

So. Good. 

I'm now officially on the lookout for paleo tortillas, so I can make breakfast burritos with this lovely, delicious mess. 

Idiot burgers w/ the wrong lettuce

Happy (Very, very) belated MLK day everyone! I hope you used your day off wisely like Mr Idiot and I did.

I mean, watching IT Crowd and Fringe all day on the couch is wise right? Right?

Well, whatever, judgeypants, we made some pretty damn tasty burgers too, so there.

I've been longing for a good burger for a while, and I'm going to have to seriously investigate some paleo bread options, so if you've got suggestions, send them my way. But, as I was browsing the internet wondering what the hell I was going to eat, as is my wont, I kept finding beautiful, cheesy, delicious looking pictures of burgers (thanks Tumblr, geez) and figured we could throw something together.

And so was the born Idiot Burgers With the Wrong Kind of Lettuce

We're still in the process of keeping on top of the vegetables we buy. I DETEST throwing away food, and I try really hard to use everything that we've bought (I'm looking at you slowly wrinkling apples) so I needed something that used up the tomatoes hiding on the bottom shelf, as well as the last of the mushrooms in the bottom of the crisper. I'm always nervous about mushrooms, after a few days they get a little slimy and all of a sudden, there's mushrooms in everything.

So, burgers!

1 lb ground turkey

2 Roma tomatoes

Several leaves of Romaine lettuce

However many mushrooms were left in the fridge (I think five)

1 avocado sliced

1 large sweet potato, sliced

2 tbsp coconut oil

I didn't want to defrost a whole 3-lbs of ground beef, so the little 1 pound ground turkey tubes that we found hidden in the wrong aisle at the grocery store came in handy.

We were also out of eggs, so we had no glue to hold the patties together and they were admittedly a little fragile. So next time, I'll be mixing an egg in to hold everything together better.

Anyway, roll out some patties with whatever ground meat you want to use. We made sliders, so I got nine out of one pound of turkey.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees

I shallow fried the patties in coconut oil, they took about seven minutes to cook over medium high heat.

Cut the sweet potatoes into fry-sized bits (Mr. Idiot did that bit, and I have no idea how he cut them so you're on your own)

Coat the fries in coconut oil (I think Mr. Idiot cheated and used peanut oil, but shhhh) and a generous helping of salt and pepper.

Spread them out on a baking tray and make sure they have a little room to breathe or they'll get soggy, not crispy. Put those suckers in the oven for 15 minutes. Once the 15 minutes is up, flip them over and put them in for another ten. Check up on them, they should be getting brown, but not black. Add extra five minutes of baking as you need to.

Slice up the tomatoes, avocados and mushrooms.

I sauteed my mushrooms briefly in some coconut oil, but feel free to eat them raw if you want.

Arrange everything on your lettuce, and top.

We really should have used iceberg or something for this, because the romaine lettuce was a pain in the ass to use as a “bun”

We cut up a little sharp cheddar and put that on the patties too.

That's all, just go ahead on nom on these little burgers. They are delicious. Next time though, better lettuce.

Chicken nugget spaghetti

I loved this recipe. Which really surprised me, I'm normally not a fan of cooking-out-of-a-can so to speak, but this was delicious. Not exactly very healthy, but a winner on the tasty and filling and easy fronts.

This is all the cooking you have to do. And turn the oven on. If you can't do that, you might be beyond my help.

I had a one pound bag of nuggets in the freezer and I used about half of them, but that depends on how big a pan you use.

So, step one is to cook the spaghetti and preheat the oven to 475. The recipe I posted last week said to heat to 400, but the nuggets I used needed to be cooked at 475. Nothing went catastrophically wrong by adding 75 degrees, so, just follow the cooking instructions on whatever nuggets you're using.

As in previous recipes, wine is an essential ingredient.

Once the pasta is cooked, add spaghetti sauce and pour into a baking tray.

Make a layer of nuggets on top and pop in the oven for about eight minutes.

Once the eight minutes are up, flip the nuggets over and put them in for another eight minutes.

That's it. You're done. This recipe was great because I only used two dishes and all I had to do was cook the spaghetti. So if you're starting out cooking, and you're looking for something to make for dinner that's nice and easy, pretty tasty and requires only the ability to boil water, you've got yourself a winner here.

Taco Tuesday update

Sorry about the lag in posts everyone. Yesterday was a bit mad. Mr. Idiot had a late night on Tuesday, and then had to get up and back to work at 2am so it was a little nuts.
Anyway, here's the scoop on the tacos.
They came out pretty good. I was starving when I started cooking and the smell nearly drove me crazy. Mr Idiot had no complaints, and neither did I, but they were just kind of bland. I'm not really sure how to spice them up (Sorry). I used some taco seasoning Mr. Idiot picked up on the way home, as well as a couple of sliced up jalapenos, but it just kind of tasted boring. Nothing exciting, nothing terrible.

Anyway, here's what I did for the tacos. Admittedly, these took like five minutes and they were good for something quick. So if that's what you're after these are a good idea. Though honestly, if I had the beef already defrosted, I'd go for the meatballs. They were just as easy, though they admittedly take longer to cook.
However, if you've got a hankering for tacos, here you go.

1lb of ground beef
2 jalapenos, sliced and diced
1/2 an onion sliced
1/2 a packet of taco seasoning (optional)
garlic powder
2 cups of rice

Brown the beef in a pan over medium heat. Use a pan that's bigger than you think you'll need, because to keep the beef from clumping into bits too big for tacos, you need to move it around pretty vigorously. I ended up getting beef and onions all over the stove, so take that advice unless you want a pain in the rear cleanup.

Slice the jalapenos and the onions and put them in with the beef. Continue mixing and moving everything around.

Add the salt, taco seasoning, garlic powder and whatever else you're inclined to put in.

I put a lid on the pan at this point and lowered the heat and left it to simmer for a while, while I cooked the rice.

Most of the time when I have tacos, there's shredded lettuce and tomatoes and beans and stuff, but I didn't really have the traditional trimmings. Maybe that's why these kind of fell flat, I don't know. I had some leftover tinned diced tomatoes I'd used earlier in the week to stretch out spaghetti sauce, so I warmed them up and served those with the rice and the meat.

All told this took me about ten minutes, fifteen if you include chopping the jalapenos and the onions.

This is a recipe I'd really like to improve on because it is super easy and super quick, so if you have suggestions, leave them in the comments!

Mrs Idiot makes meatballs!

So, due to an early christmas present, aka a cheque, (thanks grandpa!) Mr. Idiot and I had a lovely weekend which involved buffets, ice skating (I'm terrible) and brunch (I'm pretty good at that). Unfortunately for the blog, but fortunately for me, it did not actually involve any cooking. Unless you count Mr. Idiot microwaving corndogs (don't, that would be an unnecessary boost to his ego).
But, I'm back now with the meal plan, though not at all in the order I had intended to implement it. Oh well.
But, let's get to the meat of this post. See what I did there??
I was really excited to try these. I adore meatballs, not only because they are god damn delicious, but because they've always been one of those things I never bothered trying to make myself. I don't know why, because these meatballs are one of the easiest things I've made for dinner.
I looked up quite a few recipes for meatballs before I made these, including the one on the meal plan post, but I ended up making it up as I went along. I'm normally pretty skeptical of the 'wing it' approach to meals I've never made before, but these came out really well, they were shockingly easy and delicious.

Ingredients
1 lb of ground beef
1/3 of an onion, chopped finely
1/2 cup of breadcrumbs
A splash of milk (the recipe links calls for 1/8 a cup, but who has the time to measure that?)
A generous dose of Worcestershire sauce (Again, the linked recipe calls for one teaspoon, but that seemed way to stingy)

I also added salt, pepper and garlic salt to taste.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit and mix everything together in a bowl. You can use a spoon or a masher or whatever you like to combine the ingredients, but I had a really good time mushing it by hand; it's a gratifying substance ground beef.

Once the ground beef is good and mixed, roll out the meatballs. I used a tablespoon to help keep the size consistent. 

Wine is an important ingredient that I forgot to mention above.

Line them up in a baking pan. You don't have to leave much room between the balls, so feel free to squeeze as many of them in as you can. (Bonus for those of us who hate dishes) Bake them for about 25 minutes, and hey presto. Meatballs. 

This amount of ground beef yielded 24 meatballs, so both Mr Idiot and I had leftovers for lunch today. All that's left is make spaghetti and plate and you've got dinner. 

This whole recipe, including prep and cook time took me about 40 minutes, and half of that was drinking wine and watching River Monsters with Mr. Idiot, so the ease of cooking is high with this one. 

I'm pretty proud of these meatballs, and I've excited to make them again with different ingredients. They're easy to make, easy to freeze (just let them cool and stick in the freezer) and tasty. They also strike me as lending themselves to experimentation, so I'll definitely be trying new spices, different meat (Asian pork meatballs maybe?) and different combos of flavor. 

Have you got a better meatball recipe? Did you make these and love them? Let me know in the comments. 

Happy cooking. 

Meal planning like a champ

I've been doing lots of Googling lately about first time cooking, being married, how to utilize your kitchen and bla bla bla. Almost everyone says that meal planning makes your life easier, and it makes sense. You know in advance what you'll be making every night so there's no "what are we having tonight" moment while you stare helplessly into the fridge.

I feel you Ein. 

I've been meaning to get around to planning dinner out in advance, but we moved in two weeks ago, and the priority in the last 14 days has been to get everything out of the boxes, start making our house look like ours and get settled. Well, now we are settled, though making the house look like us is still pending. We were a bit generous with how much money we'd have left after bills, so some of the things we were hoping to buy (like a dresser, side tables, TV stand, picture frames, lamps...) have to get pushed back. That smaller budget is part of the reason today is make a meal plan day. We're on the last stretch of the groceries we bought when we moved in, and with limited money to restock until next Friday, a plan didn't seem like such a bad idea.
So, for your reading pleasure, here is our dinner menu for the next seven days. I'm not quite at the 'whip-up-your-own-recipe' cooking level, so these are all links to recipes I found online; credit where credit's due. I'll inevitably be tweaking these as the week goes on, but that info is for later posts.

Tonight: Chicken salad. Mine won't be shredded chicken, mostly because I have no idea how to do that...
Friday: Dijon pork chops. I made these last week and Mr. Idiot loved them, so I'll make sure to take pictures this time and give you hungry lot the deets.
Saturday: Tacos. It's Saturday, which means it's time to get crazy, so I'm making this one up as I go.
Sunday: Amish fried chicken with rice (or maybe potatoes)
Monday: Spaghetti and meatballs. I might go out on a limb on this and make my own sauce. We'll see.
Tuesday: Chicken nugget spaghetti Don't judge me on my use of frozen nugs, okay? You gotta use what you got, and I've got chicken nuggets.
Wednesday: Cottage pie. I'm really excited about trying this. My mother makes a mean cottage pie, so we'll see how mine measures up.
Thursday: Mustardy pork and apples. I know this is a lot like the dijon pork chops, but I'm adding apples this time, and I'm going to try these with it instead of mashed potatoes.

So there you have it. I've eked out the supply pretty much as far as it will go, and according to these calculations, we'll have exactly 1/2 a bag of nuggets before Friday. But then it's shopping day! My favorite day!
Stay tuned to find out if the chicken salad is enough for Mr. Idiot's capacious stomach, or if he ends up making himself a sandwich.
Happy cooking!