Just wanted to share the frugal birthday celebration that we had for Dh yesterday. I cooked almost everything from scratch. I did buy some flour tortillas for our enchiladas because I haven't been successful at those yet. So here is the breakdown of how much it all cost. We fed 13 people including our family (I counted our girls as 1 person because they don't eat much)


Spanish Rice (3 cups long grain rice, 1 1/2 cups dry black beans, 1 can corn, 1 onion, 4 Tbsp. garlic and oil, taco seasonings and other misc. spices.) cost: $3.76 have 8 cups leftover

Cornbread (made a double batch, but poured into 3 pans) cost $2.98/all two pans leftover

Tortilla chips from homemade tortillas cost: $0.90 (1/3 left)

Taco Dip (cream cheese, tomato sauce, 2 cups hamburger)cost: $3.76 1 cup left

20 Beef Enchiladas (homemade enchilada sauce) cost:$7.33 5 left

Beef cubes with onion cost $5.93 1 1/2 cups left

Carrot Cake cost $4.85 2 pieces left (miracle!!)

2 Pumpkin rolls cost for both: $5.16

Here's what it all amounted to:
The total cost for supper was: $34.57
Minus leftovers totaling: $ 9.57
Net cost of supper was $20.00
we fed 13 people (including us) so it amounted to $1.57/person WOW!!!

I was so worried about the cost as I was making the food thinking that the cost of the meal was going to be outrageous. We spent just a little bit more to feed 13 people than we spent to feed the 4 of us when we went out to eat on Dh's birthday. The cost of this food is all full price because we don't have sales and coupons here, so I can just imagine how cheap it would be if I could buy things on sale.
Plus, my fridge and freezer are stuffed with leftovers to use for the rest of the week. We didn't get much use out of them today since we went to a friend's house for supper. But we ate some cornbread for breakfast and some of the leftover chips and the taco dip for lunch.The chips are very filling. A lot more filling than the ones you buy in the store so I only eat 5 or 6 and I am satisfied. And Dh ate one of pieces of carrot cake for his breakfast.

I just had to share!!:bfly:

Wondeful!

:dancing:

Congratulations!

WTG! :thumb:

I am impressed! Great job. Happy Birthday to your Dh.

You did great! Makes my mouth water to read about it. I'm a little surprised that tortillas are readily available in the Republic of Georgia however...?
I had no idea. Glad that your celebration was a great success and wtg on the cost :thumb:

The tortillas are not actually "tortillas". :loop: They have something they call Armenian Flat bread. It's super thin so I actually have to roll two together to get it to hold up. I'm not quite sure what they use them for, but for us they are a good substitute for flour tortillas while I'm trying to figure out a good recipe to make them. I had good success with the corn tortillas we made the other night so I'll just try to apply what I did to the flour tortillas. But we're not going to need any in the near future.

That is impressive. Happy birthday to your husband also.

Great job! I've enjoyed reading about your frugal success while living in the Repulic of Georgia. Do you have a recipe for the pumpkin roll?

The recipe I have for the Pumpkin Roll is my MIL's. I "believe" it is the Libby's basic one.....I'll type it out in the recipe forum.

This was my first time making it and I failed miserably, but at least I can blame it on the fact that we were having natural gas issues that night (it's a big issue here) and I couldn't get my oven to heat up over 300 degrees so it was either cook forever or burn it. (I managed to do both...lol)

Wow, great job. I think I will use this menu at a later date. My DH and DS would love this (maybe DD as well).

Cool deal.....I think the meal sounds awesome!