Two-fer Weeks

Sometimes you have to plan for two weeks of cooking.  Perhaps you will be traveling over a long weekend and won’t have time to plan and shop for the next week when you return.  Sometimes, you have to plan and shop for two weeks worth of food for financial reasons (i.e., Mom and Dad are in town and are paying for your trip to the grocery store).  You can easily buy meat for two weeks of cooking and freeze everything until you need it.

This is a good time to repeat favorite recipes from previous weeks.

Also, you will have to restock a few basic items in week 2 that don’t last well over a 7-8 days (milk, bananas, lettuce) and the second week’s recipes will be mostly cooking out-of-the-box and using frozen vegetables.

Shopping for two weeks of food to cook the recipes below (plus extra basics including 18 apples, 12 pears, 8 bananas, Ziploc bags, toilet paper, paper towels, etc.) cost approximately $250 on October 2, 2010.  One reason it wasn’t double the cost was due to left-overs.  Each week, pasta has been on your shopping list in the basics section, but we still had several unopened packages.  Ditto with unopened packages of Pad Thai for Two.  I had left-over Taco meat from a previous meal and remembered seeing a dry package of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing in the cabinet, so all I had to buy for the soup was 5 cans of vegetables.

Remember, you will have to spend some additional money in the second week to restock milk, bananas, and lettuce for sandwiches or a salad.

Week 1

Week 2