October Dinners!

Hello Everyone!
Here is my October Dinner Calendar.
I am always excited for October. The weather is excellent. There is fun to be had everywhere. My birthday is in October. Trick-or-Treating is it’s own category of fun! And my big cooking returns! What do I mean by big cooking? Well, you may have read that I mostly prep meals in the Summer and don’t actually cook. It is hot in the Summer. My house is hot. I’m hot. I don’t want big, warm foods. So for the most part, I don’t cook, just prepare. I still make meals, just normally without long cook times. But October has a cool breeze to it. It feels good to let something simmer. Warm food is satisfying. The oven does double duty and warms a chilled damp house while cooking diner. This is the beginning of big cooking!

But then what is this Egg Sandwiches and Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches that keep coming up on the calendar? That is not big cooking! That isn’t even prepping! It’s more like a like a weak attempt at getting sustenance while being hung over! Yeah I get it. Let me explain…

I’m broke!
Not really. But I am treating my finances that way, as I have a financial goal I am aiming for. I don’t spend money on too much more than necessities, so I need to make small adjustments here and there in an attempt to save some money. I added a cheap, easy meal in to almost each week on the calendar in hopes of shrinking the grocery shopping spending.

I understand that I could really tighten up my food budget. I could go two avenues. I could make cheap junk food meals and suffer the health repercussions, or I could go a raw vegan direction and fight through mutiny arranged by my husband when I take away all meat and basically any of the food groups he holds dear. *(Raw veganism, at a very basic level, is not eating any animal products [veganism] however also eating the foods clean and raw. So yes, potato chips are usually vegan, but raw vegans would not eat it. Think fruit, vegetable, unprocessed nuts…that’s about it).

Back to the calendar – Taco Tuesday happens 5 times in October! My family rejoices! I keep Taco Tuesday fresh by changing the shell I am using. It is pretty simple, but effect in keeping the meal interesting. Hard shell, soft shell, flour tortilla, corn tortilla, tostada shell, chips, or no shell and lettuce only for taco salads. (The last one is met with push back, but we all live through it).

Sunday’s are always leftovers because it cleans up my fridge to start anew on Monday’s.

Monday’s are usually a big cooking day (involving meat/proteins and little carbs) because it is Family Dinner Night – which I have been running this year. People in our attendance have carb dietary restrictions.

Wednesday is sometimes a bit more, shall I say fun and less healthy. We run a Game Night on Wednesday’s (except for when Library Council Meetings get scheduled on Wednesday evening). I feel as though the group on Wednesday prefers taste over calorie restriction.

Thursday’s are great because they revolve around large amounts of vegetables. This usually helps clean up the fridge of left over vegetables. It is usually inexpensive. And best part, it helps reset my caloric intake after Game Night on Wednesday’s. I need that. Otherwise my scale numbers would keep going up.

This month, “D-Train” stands for me being out of town on Coast Guard Auxiliary training. So they will be providing meals those days.

And as always, the last Friday of the month is reserved for my husband to get his sushi fix in.

Wednesday the 16th may look a little cryptic. It is Veggie Spaghetti. I am going to try and make a build your own spaghetti bowl bar. There will be at least 2 different sauces and a handful of vegetables that are either roasted in to the sauce or are available as add-ins and toppings. I will most likely have meat balls on the side, but I can’t promise my Wednesday group anything.

I like cooking vegetables in the fall and winter because of the above mentioned. And I love seeing my plate LOADED with food, but only having around 300 calories on it, because it is all cooked vegetables! So, Monday’s the 21st and the 28th are going to be great because I will be making cooked cauliflower, steamed broccoli, cooked carrots, microwaved frozen peas, and warmed canned green beans. I am pretty excited!

Thursday the 31st got switched around a little because it is Halloween. It is our Trick-or-Treat Handout “party”. We hand out sodas as our treat. We have music and games and a kiddie “haunted house” for young ones to go in. We have decorations and carved pumpkins. We make for an excellent rest stop during Trick-or-Treating. It made me so happy last year to hear that people remembered us from previous years. They had to come down our block to visit us. I like being remembered for positive things! Dinner wise, I originally marked that I was going to make veggie pizzas. I love making huge veggie pizzas. They taste good and are cheap for feeding a lot of people. But I am going to be drinking wine and having a good time, which means I will most likely eat more than I should. So instead of setting myself up for failure, I will make at least 2 flavors of vegetable curry to put over rice. I will set them up in my slow cookers so that it will be minimal work required after the initial setup.

If there are any questions at all regarding any of these meals, just ask in the comments below and I will get back to you!

What is an inexpensive meal that you fall back on when your budget is tight? Let me know in the comments! As always, have a great one everyone! Until next time…

*The crowd can correct me if I’m wrong, but that is how I am using it here. (Raw Veganism)