Budget Friendly What We Eat In a Week, With CRAZY Money Saving Tips!

hi I'm Julie keeper of my home welcome back to my channel today I'll be sharing another what we eat in a week video I haven't done one in a while so I thought this would be kind of fun and inspiring as well so on this first night Joe fried up a bit of bacon these are just pieces that are bite size he removed them from the pan and added some brussels sprouts that he had halved now he pan fried these up for about a minute and then to change things up a bit I added some gala apples I just chopped them up and half inch size cubes and added them to the Brussels sprouts stirred them up a little bit and then I put them in the oven to cook I feel like every time we have brussels sprouts we always cook them the same way Joe usually cooks them up with bacon and we just eat them that way a little salt and pepper and call it good so I told him I said I he started frying the bacon and I said let's not do the same thing that we usually do let's change it up a bit so I thought I had some apples in the refrigerator something that I usually always have in the fridge and I just chopped those up and threw them in with it I did not I've never tried this before it wasn't a recipe I found anywhere um but I thought it would kind of you know apples and pork go well together so I thought the apples and the bacon would be really good and um it's a mild flavor so I thought it would kind of add to the Brussels sprouts brussels sprouts can be um strong so the sweetness of the apples I thought would really make it taste great you should never be afraid to just change things up a bit instead of always going in your same normal routine so while those were cooking Joe pan fried some pork chops now these are just some pork chops that he dry rubbed with his favorite seasoning Osmos it's the honey killer bee seasoning he has between him and our youngest son the two of them are always finding different seasonings that they love our youngest son loves to cook just as much as Joe if not more and he has two cabinets filled with seasonings and he uses them all and uh so he's always calling his father and saying dad this I've got this seasoning this new seasoning I found you've got to try it it's just great and of course Joe will get it he'll try it and they go just back and forth on this and I love it uh so Joe's always working on a new favorite seasoning all the time depending on what Andrew tells him about so so on this night it was dry rubbed with the cosmo seasoning and I have to say that is a really good seasoning I like it as well once those were finished we just kind of put those aside and when the Brussels sprouts were done which was about the same time we pulled those out of the oven and we added some Mission fig balsamic vinegar this was a gift from a friend thank you Meredith and uh I'm telling you this stuff is so good I wasn't sure what it was going to taste like but I said why not we'll just throw it in I love balsamic vinegar so I added about a tablespoon not too much mix that around until it was caramelized just kind of pan fried it until it caramelized up a bit it didn't take long maybe a minute and it was ready as a side with this meal we had taken out of the freezer some of Joe's Bean whole beans I will link the video to our Bean hole beans at the end of this video if you want to watch it so just click on that at the end we bake a lot of those in the summer because we like to throw them in the freezer for having all winter long they are so good and it's it's just a nice summer flavor you know because you get that Smoky flavor of those beans it's just a nice reminder of summer in the middle of winter which who doesn't love that so that's a quick side that we had and um then we just plated everything and as we plated it we just sprinkled the bacon bits on top of the Brussels sprouts and this was a very quick and easy meal there it didn't take any time to come together it didn't take any special skills anybody could put this together um you know simple is sometimes the best way you can you can do it just keep things simple okay so on the next night sorry my voice is still not not real great but work with me here because I don't know I just it's gone on for two weeks here and at least I have a voice right now because for nine days I did not have anything more than a whisper and I actually think the whisper was a little bit more than what my voice actually was so on I've written notes so if you see me looking down here it's what I'm looking at um on this next night we made a very simple meal of just chicken gravy and asparagus um I'm not a big fan of potatoes and so you'll notice that these meals week didn't have any potatoes my husband Joe would love to have potatoes with every single meal he was brought up on a potato farm his dad's a retired potato farmer and so his meals consisted of meat potatoes every meal we have hash browns at breakfast do you add potatoes at lunch you had potatoes at dinner so it was a big Staple in his house okay so getting back to this meal all I did was I took some homemade chicken broth I thickened it a little bit with some arrowroot powder and just made a gravy just flavored it with a little salt pepper onion powder garlic powder whatever seasoning you want to put in it just make a gravy it doesn't have to be anything elaborate and we put in the oven some chicken thighs some more just salt pepper onion and garlic powder and some were Joe's favorite seasoning because most killer bee seasoning so a little bit of both but you put on whatever seasoning you like that's that's the great thing about making this is you you do you whatever you like you can put on this it's it's that simple so the asparagus all I did was pan fry that in a little bit of avocado oil you can use olive oil or whatever butter would add flavor whatever kind you want to put in there is fine coconut oil whatever you want to cook it in just fry those up until tender and a little salt a little pepper and that's it we plated it it's a little gravy on your chicken and your asparagus on the side it was delicious and very simple the next day or the couple days later we had this as leftovers and we just made um some chicken hot chicken sandwiches we used the gravy and the leftover chicken for that and it was delicious so you get more than one meal depending on how many you know pieces of chicken you make and how much gravy you make it really stretches which stretches your dollar so on to the next meal I'm gonna be totally honest shepherd's pie is not my favorite at all like not I'm not a potato fan as I've said and I'm not a corn fan I don't know if you've noticed there's not much corn in any of the meals that we make but Joe loves to make his shepherd's pie with the Burger on the bottom with the onions and then the corn and then the potatoes on the top and sprinkle a little cheese he does it I think more because that's how his mom always made it um but I just I'm not a fan so I wanted to do something a little bit different with it I know he wanted he wanted shepherd's pie and I said I'll make the shepherd's pie but we're gonna change it up a little bit kept it simple but it was so delicious so all I did was I browned up some uh ground beef a little salt pepper little seasonings I added chopped onion zucchini and carrots and garlic now these were finely chopped because you really want your carrots to cook along with everything else so really finely chop those then I added some mushrooms and these are some organic Jarred sliced mushrooms that we found at clearance at Walmart for 43 cents a jar Yes you heard me right 43 cents so we grabbed a case of those and we also grabbed a case of the organic Jarred whole mushrooms they were on sale for 61 cents a jar I could not believe it now these were all up to date they weren't expired or anything or they wouldn't have been able to keep them on the Shelf this was at Walmart and I had asked why the why the price dropped like it was a drastic drop in price and they had said that they are clearing off that shelf to make room for new product so these are the kind of things that you want to look for when you are shopping you know when they're clearing off the shelves when they're bringing in new product a lot of the time what product they do have on the Shelf they drastically mark it down and that is to your advantage because you're going to get a really great deal so instead of buying one or two cans or jars of something by a whole case because that whole case with like dirt cheap there was 12 in a case so I mean that was a huge steal on our part so I recommend doing that when you're shopping okay so now once the ground beef was all browned and everything was softened I added a little bit of beef broth this is just some homemade beef broth that that I'd made and um I also added some Worcestershire in there and some tomato paste now I used the Tomato I made the tomato paste from dehydrated it's my tomato powder that I eat let me get this right I made the tomato paste using tomato powder that I had made by dehydrating tomato skins because you can do that now when I made our spaghetti sauce this fall and our tomato soup base and all the Tomato stuff that we canned for later on this winter I roasted my tomatoes instead of dropping them in hot water to peel the skins off I sliced them in half I put them on a cookie sheet and I roasted them that way the Skins literally all I had to do was just pick the skins off just like this pulled them right off and I saved them dehydrated them and then turned them into powder these this is just one of the many ways that I like to use everything it saves money and saves time later on too because you're not going shopping for all of these things you save me money because you're not shopping for all of these things and it's just a quick grab on your shelf and these are homestead grown tomatoes these are from our garden so hey added bonus I mean you're getting something for nothing here except a little Sweat Equity which I don't mind I made a tomato paste with it you just add a little bit of water with it and added that to the meat mixture now this is going to help thicken the mixture a little bit and it also adds a lot of flavor so you can use this tomato powder for soup stews roast eggs you can use it in anything really anything you like tomato tasting okay so in a steamer I also have some cauliflower steaming away and this is going to replace the potatoes in the um shepherd's pie now as you can see the meat mixture is nice and thickened just a bit and the liquid has been cooked off this is just how you want it to look our cauliflower is also done and we're going to mash this with a little bit of butter some sour cream and a bit of pepper onion powder garlic powder and some Parmesan cheese notice I did not add any salt because the parm is pretty salty so I did not want to add any more salt on top of that so we're gonna just dollop that on top of the meat mixture spread it around just like you would your mashed potatoes and sprinkle with a little bit more uh parm and toss it in the oven and let it bake until it's nice and browned and bubbly and one of the things that I love about this meal is that you're using the same pan that you fried the um you put the cook the ground beef in your vegetables in it's just a cast iron pan my timer is going off so you'll have to excuse me for a minute because I have rolls in the oven that I need to pull out okay so they weren't quite Brown enough so I'm gonna put them back in for a couple more minutes and you'll hear the timer go off here in a minute and I'll go get those then so as I was saying one of the things that I really love about this meal is that you're just using one pan I love that because it's simple it's less clean up and it's just quick and easy and those are the kind of meals that I like to do and I will also tell you that this is something that I highly recommend because it was delicious it was very very good uh we had a couple of our Grands over for dinner on that night and they did not even notice that those were not potatoes which I don't know in my opinion that would be a great way to sneak in a few vegetables for your kids that don't typically like them so um it was just it's just a nourishing healthy and delicious way to eat and you have to try it okay so on this next night Joe is making a hamburger soup this is one of his absolute favorite soups he doesn't make it that often and I don't know why but he absolutely loves this soup it's very easy to make it doesn't take a lot at all um you know soups usually are pretty easy in general to make and I again like that it's a one dish meal so to a dutch oven he is adding some ground beef and carrots onions garlic and mushrooms and he's sauteing those until they're done you want the hamburger cooked through now he's adding some fresh tomato paste to this and by fresh I mean he used Our tomato powder to make the tomato paste he's just taking the Tomato powder and adding a little bit of liquid to it and he's stirring it adding to the consistency that he is looking for so he just wants a paste he's adding that to his ground beef mixture and stirring that all in and again that's going to thicken a little bit and it's also going to add a lot of Flavor now here's where you want to add some beef broth and he's adding some homemade beef broth and a little bit of Worcestershire sauce that adds great flavor bring it to a boil there goes my timer hold on just a minute we'll hold that thought and I'm gonna pull those rolls from the oven I am back and we left off Joe is adding noodle to his soup now you don't want to overdo adding the noodles because they're going to double in size so you have to keep that in mind you don't want them to overtake your soup because it is it is a soup not a macaroni once you've added your noodle your macaroni noodles add some tomato soup I'm just gonna put that in there give it a good mix let it come to a nice simmer and let it simmer until your noodles are cooked then that's it that's you're done it's all done and Joe topped this with a little bit of Parmesan cheese but you can top it with shredded cheddar or whatever cheese of your choice that you would like it um or go without the cheese either way it's delicious so you need to try this one now again I do want to say I love simple meals I love you know getting something on the table that didn't take all day to get there we don't always have a lot of time there's always stuff going on and the simpler we can make it the better it is now adding seasonings to your food is really a good way to kick it up a notch and like I did with the Brussels sprouts I added the apples try adding something new getting dinner on the table does not have to be something that you dread um you know so don't overthink it don't make it more complicated than it has to be because sometimes simple is the best way sometimes simple makes it seem like you took all day to make a meal when really didn't take any time at all now these meals that I showed you today these all were very easy meals quickly thrown together none of them took very much time at all and they didn't take a whole lot of effort either and the ingredients they were pretty inexpensive ingredients ground beef has been on sale at our store I'm not sure what the prices are in your area so we can get about a 10 pound bag of 80 20 ground beef for 2.99 a pound it's not bad so we like to buy it in bulk and then package it into one pound packages and throw it in the freezer and that way we know exactly what we have if we need one pound we've got one if we need two if we can grab two so buy your food when it's on sale that makes a huge difference in the cost of a meal when you're putting it together and we're all on a budget so we don't want to break our budget so shop the sales and get into those stores because not all the sales are in the flyer some of the sales are in the store manager specials so you want to go into your store every once in a while and just browse around and check out those sales like this week we have a sale going in on at our store right now you can get chicken breasts for 69 cents a pound yeah that's a heck of a buy so if you have the freezer space or I mean it's great meat to take off the bone and can it so I mean there are the sales out there so go out there and look it doesn't have to be really expensive so um shop the sales now if you're looking for more recipe or meal inspiration at the end of this video I will link a playlist where you can go and find my recipe and meal planning playlist and watch that and be inspired to make all kinds of different meals so thank you for joining me I make videos every week on simple living Homestead grown and all things home and until next time foreign [Music]

Channel: Julie - Keeper of My Home

Views: 3,760

Keywords: fall recipes, fall dinner recipes, cooking, home, cooking videos, healthy dinner recipes, easy healthy dinner recipes, low carb dinner recipes, low carb, healthy recipes for dinner, quick healthy dinner recipes, keto shepherds pie recipe, low carb shepherds pie recipe, low carb shepherds pie, shepherd's pie, hamburger soup, hamburger soup recipe, pork chops, asparagus, brussel sprouts, chicken recipes, mashed cauliflower, homemaker, tips, frugal living, budget friendly meals

Id: HTg3trP-oZI

Length: 20min 31sec (1231 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 26 2022