We’re in the last stretch of the All You Grocery Challenge – here’s our menu for Monday & Tuesday:

Day 23:

We had company at lunchtime, so I set out a sandwich station of homemade bread, deli ham, shredded cheese, lettuce, salad, juice and shortbread cookies.

We had one steak left over, so I chopped it up for dinner and made steak quesadillas flavored with chipotle seasoning salt and leftover taco sauce packets from Taco Bell! We also had a little bit of potato salad left, so we had that as well as some green salad for the side dish.

Day 24:

I made blueberry muffins for breakfast, using this recipe.

We had company, so for lunch I set out another sandwich station of homemade bread, deli ham, lettuce, shredded cheese, deviled eggs, veggies with Blue Cheese dressing for dip, iced tea, shortbread cookies & muffins.

For dinner, I chopped up some of the clearance chicken that I had bought & boiled the night before and made chicken enchiladas. Last year, I won a package of Shirley J Universal Sauce from Desperately Seeking Deals, and the recipe that I used was adapted from the recipe leaflet that came with the sauce. I took three tortillas and filled them with the cooked, chopped chicken, a little cheese, more sauce packets from Taco Bell, and Chipotle seasoning salt, wrapped them up, and placed them in a pan. I prepared 1 cup of the Shirley J sauce, covered the tortillas with it, and topped with a bit of cheese and more taco sauce. I was concerned that the recipe wouldn’t have enough cheese – the recipe called for 4 cups, and I had maybe 1 cup of cheese left at the most. However, the sauce was so creamy that it made up for it – Jai actually thought that I must have put a lot of different cheeses in it. The enchiladas were very nice!

And by the way, in case you’re wondering why I have so many Taco Bell sauce packets: No, I do not raid all of their condiments! It’s just that we’ve paid a few visits through Taco Bell’s drive-thru in recent history (ahem) when our schedules were nutty, and every time they would stuff our bags with about 20 packets of sauce. So, I saved the leftover packets and put them in a ziploc bag in the fridge. Waste not, want not!

Last week was a busy one for Super Coupon Girl, with our move over to WordPress! Now that the new site is up and the dust has settled, let’s recap our menu for the last few days of the All You Grocery Challenge.

Day 18:

We had a heatwave last week, so a lot of my meals ended up being very simple, because I didn’t want to turn on the oven and make it worse!

On Wednesday, I made a simple pasta with carrots, cheese, seasonings and flaxseed for lunch, and we had leftover ham chowder for dinner. The chowder is actually a lot better the next day – especially if you stir in a little cheese before microwaving!

Day 19:

Thursday was as simple as it gets: Leftover ham chowder for lunch and spaghetti with butter and garlic salt for dinner. I was feeling sick and didn’t have much of an appetite, hence the very stripped-down meals.

Day 20:

We finished off the rest of the ham chowder for lunch – seriously, I made a huge batch of it! – and then for dinner I baked some corn and pre-cooked pork chops from the freezer, since I could bear to turn on the oven again.

Looks good, right? Unfortunately, I froze the pork chops in a pretty flimsy ziploc bag quite a long time ago, so they ended up being freezer burnt. BLECH! We threw them out and made quesadillas instead. Oh well, at least the corn was good!

Day 21:

For lunch, I defrosted some of the dirt cheap deli ham that I got in April and served it with homemade bread, cheese, and lettuce for sandwiches. I also made a potato salad to go with it, using up the rest of the potatoes that I had on hand as well as 6 hardboiled eggs and celery.

We also had veggies with ranch dressing for dip.

We had company join us for dinner – I defrosted a big package of thin cut steaks and marinated them in chipotle seasoning for the main course, and served it with homemade bread, potato salad, and a green salad consisting of red leaf lettuce, iceberg lettuce, carrot slices, and flaxseed. Our guest also brought over walnut clusters for dessert – yum! There was a lot of steak – two trays worth – but unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it! There were lots of leftovers, so we sent our guest home with a couple of steaks and half a loaf of bread.

Day 22 – The Start of Week 4:

We enjoyed leftovers from the previous day – ham sandwiches & potato salad for lunch, steak & green salad for dinner!

Here’s our menu for Day 17 of the All You Grocery Challenge:

Breakfast:

Peanut butter & banana slices on toasted homemade bread.

Lunch: Kept it super simple with a quesadilla!

Dinner: I made up my own “Ham Chowder” recipe, taking inspiration from the yummy potato soup I made on Day 4. I cut the bone out of a ham steak and put it in a stockpot with maybe 5 potatoes (I don’t remember how many exactly!). I filled the pot with just enough water to cover, added a stock cube and seasonings, and boiled until the potatoes were well cooked. I blended the soup a little at a time in my food processor, and served with homemade bread.

Jai liked this, but I thought it was a little bland. It was OK, but a bit watery – I only had one stock cube left, so it didn’t get cooked in lots of nice juicy stock like the last batch of potato soup that I made.

Our final total for Week 2 was $48.34. $30.59 of this was spent on groceries, while $17.75 went towards lunch at a restaurant. Our allotment for the Grocery Challenge is $25 per person per week, a total of $50 maximum for our two-person household.

Our menu for Monday, Day 16, was a bit thrown off by the holiday weekend. We had some cupcakes left over from the 4th of July, and were also sent home with some Rice Krispie Treats and popcorn from the party; so we ended up snacking on those throughout the day. For lunch, I threw together a quick, experimental dish of leftover spaghetti noodles scrambled with 4 eggs, bread chunks, cheese, seasoning, and flaxseed. It was good, but it would have been better without the bread. (Hey, it was worth a try!)

I was so exhausted that I ended up going to bed early without eating dinner. I guess the holiday weekend really took it out of us!