Meet Larry. Larry is a fully cooked smoked young turkey and he is the center of this week's menu. Larry is named after a guy that I used to work with and um, Larry Byrd. I'm not that big a basketball fan, but it just seems to fit. Larry (the turkey, not Larry the basketball player) was purchased from Aldi's about two weeks ago. I've really been trying to do better with our grocery budget. Melissa feeds her family of 7 on less than what I spend on our family of 2-3. The baby doesn't eat much, but he does need other things like diapers and special teething biscuits. If he'd ever take a nap, I might be able to figure out how to make those myself. In any case, I've really been trying to make our budget shrink, and one of the big things I know will help is cutting the cost of the meat that we buy. I already shop what's on sale, but the other day when I was at Target I saw some butt roasts marked $4 off. I already had two dinners worth of pulled pork in the freezer, so I passed, but it got me thinking about looking for discounted meat. As far as I can tell, my beloved Publix doesn't do this- I've never seen anything marked down because of being close to it's sell by date. I resolved to keep my eyes open when shopping Super Target from now on, though. So back to Larry- I was in Aldi's, where I buy a lot of my produce since it's inexpensive and supposed to be more local. There was a handwritten sign saying Turkey- $6 off. This caught my eye of course, and I went over and checked on Larry, who was frozen solid. Of course, he had no tag, no price, I just knew he was $6 off. I kept walking, not sure what I would do with a whole turkey and not sure if I would be getting a good deal or not. And then I walked by again. I pulled him out of the freezer case and checked for a price again. Nothing. I decided to take him up front and just see what they would tell me. The cashier had to go ask the manager, but ultimately they decided Larry could be mine for only $8. This seems pretty good for a whole turkey- I paid about $12 for the smallest breast I could find at Easter- so Larry came home with us that day and has been hanging out in our freezer ever since. I know that I will get at least 3 meals from him this week, plus sandwiches for lunches. I am not sure if we will be able to stretch him further since we are not big dark meat fans. Also, I am not sure if I can refreeze the meat since it's already been frozen. Help on that one would be appreciated!
So here's the plan for the week:
- Monday: Roasted Turkey, Stuffing, Fresh Green Beans and Cranberry Sauce
- Tuesday: Skillet Dinner (green peppers, onions, ground beef, tomatoes, black beans and rice, all cooked together) with corn bread
- Wednesday: Turkey Pot Pie, loosely based on this recipe- I think that I am going to try making simple drop biscuits for the top- the puff pastry is not doing it for us!
- Thursday: Garlic Beef Stroganoff from the CrockPot
- Friday: Turkey Enchiladas
- Saturday: Burgers on the grill
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Garlic Beef Stroganoff sounds like an interesting twist... I'll have to try it, we're big garlic fans.
ReplyDeleteHomemade pizza is easy- I used to shy away from it too, then just bit the bullet one day. Now we have it often. Give it a try! Great way to use up leftovers!
Turkey a-la-king is my husband's favorite way to use turkey leftovers. Also turkey soup or turkey quesadillas... You can re-freeze the meat if you cook it after you defrost it the first time. You should make some turkey a-la-king and freeze it for a future meal.