Making a meal plan helps me stay on track for the 30 days of dining out. Ryan and I have decided to start going to the gym after work on Tuesdays and Thursdays as well, so I'll need to plan to make things that are either quick and easy or that I've made ahead so they can be reheated quickly.

With most of these meals, I make enough to have leftovers for lunch the following day.

Here's what we're doing this week:

Sunday: Pork Chops, Rice, Brussel Sprouts, Salad

Monday: Garlic Alfredo Tilapia, pasta, salad

Tuesday: Slow cooker chicken and dumplings, broccoli

Wednesday: (Ryan's night to cook) Steak, Roasted potatoes, spinach

Thursday: Chicken Stir Fry, Rice, salad with ginger dressing

Friday: Veggie Burgers, fries

Saturday: Taco Pie

Hummus is one of those things that everybody just loves, but at around $4 for 12 ounces is quite expensive! I rarely find it on sale, either so I decided to try out a recipe I found on allrecipes.com. (modified slightly)


Ingredients

* 2 cloves of garlic
* 1 (19 ounce) can garbanzo beans, half the liquid reserved
* 4 tablespoons lemon juice
* 2 tablespoons tahini
* 1 teaspoon salt
* black pepper to taste
* 2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1. In a blender, chop the garlic. Pour garbanzo beans into blender, reserving about a tablespoon for garnish. Place lemon juice, tahini, chopped garlic and salt in blender. Blend until creamy and well mixed.
2. Transfer the mixture to a medium serving bowl. Sprinkle with pepper and pour olive oil over the top.

To go with this I simply warmed 3 pita breads I had on hand in the freezer at 350 for about 5 minutes, then sliced them into eighths. I have to say, this hummus was fresher and more delicious then any store bought hummus I have ever had!



Homemade Hummus Savings

Now, since this about saving money, it's time to look at the price of the recipe. Many of these are well-known, common ingredients. Since I didn't have the prices of these handy, I simply decided to estimate the prices. The one rare product was the Tahini which was about $7 for 15 ounces.

* Chick Peas - Total: $0.75? per can - Cost Per Recipe: $.75?
* Tahini - Total: $7 for 15 ounces - Cost Per Recipe: $1?
* Lemon Juice - Total: $2.00? - Cost Per Serving: $0.50?
* Garlic - Total: $2.00? - Cost Per Serving: $0.20?
* Salt - Total: $0.75 - Cost Per Serving: fractions of pennies
* Total for the recipe: $2.45

This savings between $3.99 and $2.45 may not seem like much, but you get an extra four ounces when you make it at home. Also this hummus is extremely easy and can be made in about 3 minutes using many ingredients that you have around the kitchen. For a lot of people, that's not bad return for the time spent.