Frugal Forward

I’m trying to delay going to the grocery store to save money. So, I decided to use what we have. I want to avoid food waste and wasting money.

To do this, I take a look at what we have in the refrigerator, freezers, and pantry, and get creative.

The Refrigerator

Here’s the refrigerator as of Friday, June 6th:

On the far left of the bottom shelf, we have leftovers that will get eaten up this weekend.

In the metal bowl, I have 3 pounds of chicken thighs thawing and a bag of frozen broccoli.

A closer look at our produce drawers:

We have cucumbers and mixed veggies from last week’s grocery shopping. There’s a sweet potato, grape tomatoes, celery, and I have potatoes that are starting to go soft in the pantry. There were some really sad carrots from a purchase a loooong time ago that looked awful, so they went into our Mill.

For fruit, we have this:

We have some seriously sad bananas (I need to make banana bread), some apples (one was rotten and went into the Mill), some limes, and the plastic container has red grapes.

What I Made

French Toast Casserole

I decided to use up some milk, eggs, butter, and a few end pieces of gluten free bread from the refrigerator. I always keep a gallon sized bag in the freezer of these end pieces of bread or bread that won’t keep for much longer.

I used these to make a French toast casserole. I also added a small bag of frozen raspberries that I had thrown into the freezer before they went bad.

I cut these pieces of bread into cubes.

Then, I melted a stick of butter, a half cup of sugar, and a few tablespoons of molasses in a sauce pan.

Once melted and stirred, I poured it into the bottom of a glass baking dish.

I mixed 1.5 cups of milk with 6 eggs, cinnamon (about a teaspoon) and vanilla extract (I measure with my heart).

I put the cubes of bread in the glass dish, poured the egg/milk mixture over the top, then sprinkled the frozen raspberries all over. I let this sit in the refrigerator (covered) for a few hours so the bread could soak up the liquid.

I baked it in a 375 degree oven covered with foil for about 45 minutes, then uncovered for another 15-20 minutes. This was the end result:

To serve it, flip it upside downs so the gooey brown sugar/butter mixture is on top. I added a little bit of maple syrup on top as well. I also cooked up some breakfast sausage patties to go on the side. It was delicious.

Other Meals

Some other things we made with leftovers in the refrigerator and freezer items:

Tostadas with Guacamole

Chicken and Roasted Vegetables

I used up all of the mixed vegetables in the gallon ziplock bag from the produce drawer (except the celery), as well as the rest of the potatoes from the pantry, in this dish. I cubed 2 pounds of the chicken thighs. I mixed them with some avocado oil, mushroom soup mix (a powder from Azure Standard), some season salt, and fresh garlic. This was so good.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

On Saturday, I made up a double batch of gluten free biscuits (I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Biscuit and Baking Mix). We had them as snacks with homemade raspberry jam throughout the day. On Sunday, I baked up another batch (from the dough I made Saturday), and made a homemade breakfast sausage gravy. I died and went to heaven after eating this.

Random Other Stuff I Made

We also used up some frozen meatballs. I covered them with marinara sauce and parmesan cheese and baked them. I also used the bag of frozen broccoli, seasoned and topped with the rest of the parmesan, and baked with the meatballs.

For Mr. FF’s lunch for Monday, I packed him the rest of the chicken and roasted vegetables, a bag of celery sticks and cucumber slices, the last package of apples and caramel (that I bought last week), and another apple from the fruit drawer.

I still need to use up the last cucumber, the sweet potato, the bag of celery and the grape tomatoes. I definitely need to get on baking that banana bread.

By Monday morning, the refrigerator had plenty of room for new groceries. The pantry also has a lot more empty space where the potatoes were. Our snacks are pretty much depleted. The young adults. They eat SO. MANY. SNACKS.

What are you making for dinner? Do you have any favorites? What are your go-to frugal meals?

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