by Friday night we went out to dinner at IHOP. Aaron took Averie home (after she loaded up on sugary syrup) and let me have some ‘me’ time. So I went shopping.
I started out grabbing groceries, but I decided I should shop for something for me, so I left Target and hit the mall. Nothing really excited me until I walked past the pillows in JC Penney’s. I love pillows. And I needed new ones. I’ve never in my life bought my own pillows though.
Do you know how many different kinds of pillows there are out there?!?! I think I plopped my head down onto at least 30 different pillows in the store. Yes. I was the idiot in the aisles testing out all of the pillows at JCP, Younkers and Walmart. And yes, I had to go to three different stores to do this…
I finally settled on some king sized extra firm stay-cool pillows from Serta. Coupled with putting new sheets on the bed and a bubble bath before crawling in, and I slept AMAZING on Friday night!!
That said — spending extra cash on pillows meant that I had to take the money from somewhere, and rather than dipping into savings, I opted to dip into the grocery budget for the week.
Simple way to do that? Come up with a cheap lunch for the week… Being me, I have a few options that fit that description. I decided that I should pick something to go with the fall weather that we’ve been having. And apparently its so tasty that I always forget to get a picture of it in a bowl before I eat it all!
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A year or so ago, a coworker enlightened me with a great potato soup recipe. I love potato soup, but I’m not a fan of pork, or of chopping up potatoes by hand, so I made some minor modifications to the recipe. It’s such a great recipe that it didn’t require a lot of modifying! And it’s forgiving, so if you add a little more or less of the main ingredients, it still works out great. Considering potatoes are around $3.50 for 10 lbs, you can get cheap turkey sausage at Wal*Mart for $1.50 a pound, and the rest of the ingredients are things I tend to have around the house anyway, it’s an incredibly cheap meal. Plus it’s something that Averie is able to help with. She washed the potatoes for me. And she wore her goggles while I cried my eyes out chopping the onions.
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And she made me giggle when she put her chefs hat on Moxie. Poor cat.
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This also freezes remarkably well, so it’s perfect for lunches at work. I’m set for 2+ weeks of lunch, and I have an extra comfy bed to sleep in on top of it!
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- 6 cups sliced potatoes
- ⅔ cup finely chopped onion
- 1 lb Italian Flavored Ground Turkey
- 6.5 cups water
- 4 tablespoons chicken bouillon granules
- 2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, or to taste
- 10 tablespoons butter
- 10 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 4 cups milk
- Brown Ground Turkey.
- Combine potatoes, onion, turkey and water in a stockpot. Bring to a boil, then cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in the chicken bouillon, salt and pepper.
- In a separate saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in flour and cook, stirring constantly until thick (1 minute). Slowly stir in milk being careful that clumps don't form.
- Continue cooking the milk mixture over medium-low heat until thick, stirring frequently to prevent clumps (10 minutes).
- Add the milk mixture into the potatoes and meat in the stockpot, and cook soup until heated through.
