Frugal Meal Series: Big Mac Salad

Welcome to my new series aimed at helping families on a budget with some new and cost effective ideas for meals! I aim for around $5-7 per meal while trying to highlight dishes from scratch, meatless options, common ingredients, and whole grains. My typical weekly grocery bill for 4 was $50-60 just a couple years ago, but with the current economy it has increased to about $80-90/week. This series shows you my average family dinners including cost breakdown, links to recipes, and other details to help inspire you!

Step 1 of saving money on your grocery bill is to MAKE A MENU! Once a week I sit down and write out a dinner menu for the next 7 days. I take into account what I have in the freezer, what our schedule is like for that week, what the weather is (hot/cold), and any leftovers. It also stops everyone from asking "What's for dinner??" From this you can easily make your shopping list to only get the items you need while keeping an eye out for any markdowns/clearance items you can stick in the freezer for a different meal. I do 90% of my grocery shopping at Aldi as I find that they have the best prices on most items. For a few other remaining items I go to Walmart.

Some meals I make are easy, some are more complicated. I mostly stick to tried and true dishes that I know everyone likes, but occasionally I like to try out a new one and experiment! I cook many style from American to Italian, Chinese, Mexican, and lots of Tex Mex. Variety is the spice of life!

For my cost breakdowns I will show real or estimated prices of items (based on current prices in western NY), but I don't include typical pantry ingredients i.e. spices/oil/butter/milk etc. unless it's a significant amount.

For this meal I made Big Mac salad

Total cost of meal for 4: $6.75

Cost per serving: $1.69

Price breakdown:

1 head of green leaf lettuce: $1.75

1lb of ground turkey: $3

1 cup shredded cheddar: $1

1/2 bottle Thousand Island dressing: $1

A simple but filling dinner that is also healthy and low in simple carbs. Cook your ground meat with your favorite seasonings (s/p/garlic), then sprinkle that over lettuce. Top with cheese and optional diced pickles and of course some thousand island dressing for a new take on an old classic without the bun. Serve with crackers, bread, or rolls if you prefer.

Jello Poke Cake--The Perfect Summertime Dessert

Have you ever heard of a poke cake? What about a JELLO poke cake?? They are so delicious, so simple, and so moist! Once you try it, you will be hooked and want to make one of each flavor. The beauty of this cake is you can make it any flavor you like! *NOTE* You need to prepare the cake a day early as the Jello has to set up overnight.

Ingredients:

1 box white cake mix

1 box any flavor jello mix

1 tub cool whip (can use lite)

That's it! Prepare the cake mix according to the directions for a 13x9 pan. Preheat your oven, grease your pan, and pour batter in then bake until done.

Take your cake out to cool for about 30 min. Then poke lots of holes with the end of a mixing spoon as pictured below:

After that, prepare your Jello mix according to the box. For this cake I used orange flavor. It's delicious with almost any!

After you prepare the Jello, you then pour the liquid evenly over the cake. It will soak it all up like a sponge! Place the cake in the fridge overnight to set up!

After the Jello has set up completely, then you take your thawed tub of Cool Whip and use that for your "icing". Quick and easy!

You can also get creative after this and put fresh fruit on top like mandarin oranges, cherries, strawberries, etc. Yum! Store this in the fridge covered with plastic wrap for best taste.

Visiting Oklahoma

We finally got to take our family trip to Oklahoma! We were supposed to go in Feb but had to cancel last minute due to sickness. So thanks to the school schedule we had to wait until summer time to go. I reserved the rental car, hotels along the way, and we hit the road last Thurs morning!

I ordered 2 different DVD players for the car and both arrived broken....so the kids had to entertain themselves! They actually did really good. Snacks helped!

Our rental was upgraded to a 2023 Nissan Murano.

We stayed at our usual halfway point in Terre Haute, Indiana on Thurs night with Dominoes for dinner. We hit the road at about 6am Fri morning to make it to Oklahoma in early evening. Our hotel for 3 nights in OKC was much nicer and had an indoor pool. I booked a suite so we would have a bit more seating room for us and visitors.

My mom invited us all over for dinner Fri night so we started off with seeing them that evening.

After dinner of course the boys wanted to hit the pool for a bit. It was very hot while we were there--95-100 each day--so cooling off in the pool was nice. My brother Shane met us there after he finished working and hung out with us by the pool.

Sat morning after breakfast we headed south to Foster to see Nick's family. One of their cats had kittens so the boys had a lot of fun snuggling on them.

Nick and his mom

Brad and his cousin Zoe (they are the same age!)

Nick and his sister Sarah

After that visit we headed back into OKC to meet my dad at our FAVORITE Greek restaurant Athena's. We all got gyros with some falafel for an appetizer. So good!

And baklava for dessert!

Saturday evening we had dinner with my brother Eric and the boys swam in his pool for a bit.

Sunday afternoon my stepdad Gary picked up the boys for a fun afternoon out with grandpa. Jacob got to shoot his first guns! He did so good, and hit his target several times.

Brad also did very good and shot some big guns! He also got drive grandpa's new Bronco on some country roads.

While they were all gone Nick hung out with his friend Terry and I visited with my mom and brother Eric at his house. I got to go swimming for a bit in his pool then came back to the hotel and got cleaned up for dinner. Gary took us all out to a new Mexican restaurant for our last night there and my dad also met us there.

My dad and me

Papa Tony and his grandsons!

That evening I met up with my brother Shane and his girlfriend Regina for one last visit, and caught this beautiful sunset on my way out!

It was great to see everyone as usual, I just wish more people would take the journey north to visit us! It's very hard to make this trip each year, we are not sure how soon we will be able to make it back. Thankfully our house and Cuddles were safe and sound when we returned! It's nice to be home in our own beds and with our cooler temps. Until next time!

Summer Camp at Woodcraft

Brad and I are back from our 3rd summer at Adirondack Woodcraft Camp in Old Forge, NY! Once again I was the camp nurse and Bradley moved up to the oldest boy division of "Trail Camp". He was in his very own lean to on the far side of the lake. The older boys have much more privacy and even their own fishing dock!

Brad's last day of school (goodbye middle school!) was June 22 and we hit the road early on June 23 to get to camp a few days before arrival day so I could get my office stocked, all camper forms ready, and also give a lecture to counselors about safety and camper health/hygiene.

Arrival day was June 25 so that morning I helped Brad get all set up in his lean to and unpacked. After that he was officially a camper and I was on duty! Once his fellow campers arrived they helped him set up his new hammock right behind his lean to.

I snuck over there later on to grab some pics!

This is the trail camp fishing dock on their end of the lake...

The trail leading to their camp, and a selfie!

In my downtime I enjoyed the peace on the swimming dock and walking around camp on the trails.

Much coffee was enjoyed out of my new lovely mug that was our staff gift this year!

Brad stayed busy with activities all over camp and doing fun stuff. There were several familiar faces from the years prior, so he had many people he already knew.

June 26 was Brad's official 14th birthday, so I drew him a cute card! After dinner chef Gloria made him and his table a big chocolate cake to enjoy, so I brought it out to him while everyone sang happy birthday!

Tradition is also to skip around the room giving everyone high 5s!

The dining hall

On the extra hot and sunny days I took a dip in the lake to cool off! One of the days I even swam with the camp owner Christina across the lake.

My one day off was June 29 so I headed up to the high peaks region of the Adirondacks so I could squeeze in a solo hike of Seymour mountain. I'm now at 27/46 high peaks. Slowly but surely! Post to come soon for that hike.

We were there for July 4, and the camp celebrated with festivities on July 2 so to get in the mood I did patriotic nails!

Thankfully Nick and Jacob made the journey to visit us as well and enjoy fireworks with us all. The weather wasn't the best but we still had fun.

They did fireworks from the swimming dock while we all watched from the beach.

The next day Brad and his group packed everything up to head out for a 4 day canoe trip to Tupper Lake. I hung around to supervise and see them off.

Some pics from his trip

While most of the camp was gone on trips for the actual July 4, the few campers that were still at camp were taken out for a hike up McCauley mountain in Old Forge to see the town fireworks. Since there were no kids at camp I got to go with! A rare excursion for me since otherwise I do not get to leave camp.

Later that week some of the campers departed, then I finished my contract up and Brad and I headed home on July 8. Here is Brad showing off some his great tan lines from his canoe trip!

Jacob didn't want to go this summer, but after paying us a visit he said he may want to come back next year!

After working a couple of shifts at my hospital, we are turning right around and heading out again but this time to Oklahoma! This is the rescheduled trip we were supposed to take in February. Unfortunately the weather will be MUCH warmer this time but luckily our hotel has an indoor pool so we will be staying cool. Check back soon for pics from our visit!