Pinterest

I have been loving Pinterest lately for recipes!  We had a few really poor months there, and lived mostly (and repeatedly) on the recipes already on this blog.  Needless to say, we're pretty darn tired of them!  It always makes me nervous to try new foods, because I'm not sure how much they'll end up costing.  It is not like me to just make a menu and then buy the foods accordingly.  But with a newborn, I haven't had a lot of time for planning.  I did, however, find a few recipes that use similar ingredients and ended up spending about $80 for two weeks on my grocery bill (that includes ALL food, not just dinner).  That's about $30 more than I usually try to spend, but still a pretty good deal! Last week was spring break for my kids.  They always eat like crazy all day and I usually try to make one fun snack with them a day, too, so we did end up spending more for that reason, too.  I did not use coupons like a crazy person.  I mostly just bought what was on sale and used a couple of coupons that I already had on hand.  Don't underestimate the power of Kroger (Smith's in Utah)!  They send me TONS of coupons on great things.  Yesterday I got coupons in the mail for free diapers and wipes.  Today I got coupons for $1.50 off store brand chicken and $1 off produce.  These are the kinds of coupons that you're not going to get anywhere else.  I started receiving my coupons after shopping there for about 6 months.

We used this taquitos recipe and doubled it.  We froze half to save for a meal another day.  We changed the recipe slightly, though, and added more lime juice and halved the spices. 
This recipe for avocado chicken salad also calls for cilantro and lime juice, so I added that to the list.
Knowing that I'd have some extra avocado, I added this black bean avocado and rice wrap.  It looks so yummy.  Asparagus was on sale, so we made some of these (with regular breadcrumbs instead of panko.  I didn't know what those were a week ago, but now that I do, I think it would have made a difference.)  My daughter ate them up and had really rancid urine later that night.  But hey, if the asparagus is cleaning her system, I'm totally okay with that.  We paired that with some leftovers to make it a more complete meal.  Last night we had skinny chicken and broccoli alfredo to use up the rest of the broccoli from the potato soup we had last week.   
 

Strawberry smoothie!

Do you have a whole bunch of buttermilk in your refrigerator like I do?  Up until recently, I've not really known what to do with it.  Then I had the brilliant idea of using buttermilk instead of regular milk in the smoothies that I craved while pregnant.  It worked perfectly and added a different taste with a creamier texture and a bunch of added protein.  This is what I do:

1 cup buttermilk
1 cup frozen fruit (I usually use strawberries.  They were on sale at Kroger for $1.50 last week, so I bought a bunch and flash froze them.  That just means that I lined them up on a cookie sheet and froze them before putting them into a ziploc freezer bag.  The same amount of store-bought frozen strawberries runs about $3).
2 T. sweetener (honey, maple syrup, or even just sugar works).

Blend it all together and voila!  A yummy treat for a pregnant lady.  Or any lady who has a major sweet tooth and is looking for a healthier way to satisfy it.