Janice over at Knitting w/ Dogs pointed me to the Budget Bytes blog earlier in the week and I was totally impressed by the fact that the recipes are actually budget! I get really tired of these websites that call themselves budget conscious or money saving and you go there and they’re patting themselves on the back for getting through the week on like $100 (groceries only, non food items and eating out are extra) for  2  city dwelling vegetarians.  While that’s great for them (and while I’ve got nothing against city dwelling vegetarians..) -it doesn’t really help those of us who for one reason or another aren’t vegetarians and don’t even have the luxury of the sort of weekly budget that they are “challenging” themselves to live on.  The other extreme is often menus that are loaded down with mayonnaise filled casseroles  and things that are deep fried… two things my family won’t eat.

We here at Chez Mousie  live on a very tight grocery budget due to being a single income family and honestly, I’m sort of proud of  how much money I can save us each week by shopping wisely and menu planning.  Of course I’d love to have more weekly grocery money and be able to buy ‘extras’ like snack foods or better cuts of meat and organic produce but there is a hot meal on the table every night and for that I’m eternally thankful.

Tonight’s meal, the Cheesy Shepherd’s Pie from Budget Bytes was tasty, filling, and even provided some lunch leftovers after the 3 of us gorged ourselves stupid. Because I buy our meat in bulk when its on sale,  omitted the cheese, and used bulk instant mashed potatoes instead of fresh  I’m pretty sure that I cut down the cost of the recipe (not to mention the prep time) from the site by another few dollars.. making this a keeper for our family recipe book.    I’ll even be able to use the open can of tomato paste for homemade spaghetti sauce in tomorrow’s dinner and I’ll freeze the remainder of the beef broth for another meal.  The meal was a big hit with hubby and also Munchkin, who usually doesn’t care for the beef stew I used to make  because the meat was sometimes tough (using stew meat) or ‘too stringy’ (beef roast) for his 8 year old taste buds.

After puttering around the house for a while yesterday I pulled out SIL’s challah recipe and gave it a go. I usually don’t have eggs in the house (which challah uses a few of) but I made brownies for hubby’s birthday last week and still had them in the fridge. I followed the directions and ended up with a whole bowl of sticky, soupy dough that would have just oozed down the counter rather than kneaded. I panicked, called SIL (who didn’t answer her phone), and then proceeded to dump flour into the bowl and stir until the stuff in the bowl resembled dough. When SIL did finally call back.. she was convinced that I had done something “wrong” but had no idea what — since she mostly watched the bread-making and didn’t actually do it herself. DOH! By this point the bread was rising in my “dough bucket” and I figured I would just ride it out and see what happened. I had already “wasted” the ingredients and had the oven pre-heating.

After a few pathetic attempts at a 4 strand braid (admittedly, I had never done a 4 strand braid and should probably try it on something other than giant wads of sticky dough) I gave up and did a simple 3 strand.. let it rise a second time, covered it in an egg wash, and threw it in the oven while silently hoping that it didn’t suck. The results?

It seriously didn’t suck. My husband has eaten over half the gigantic loaf between last night and today.. He usually doesn’t go that crazy for homemade bread but I couldn’t even keep him out of this! Totally a success- and it looks pretty too! The only thing I’ll do differently next time is to add more sugar so its sweeter – more like the Russian Easter bread (or “paska” as its called) I love so much.

(also.. if any bakers out there would like to tell me why the bread “cracked” like that on the top where the braiding crossed over and how I can avoid that next time.. I’d be very grateful. I’m thinking I might have “braided” it too tightly.)