I am so proud of myself today. I resisted the urge (I have so many of these) to buy something again. This time it was take-out pizza. My cell phone keeps handy the numbers of the ones I frequent, depending on what location I am in-- two Pizza Huts in New Hampshire, one in Boston, two shops in Marlborough (one of them is Pizzeria Regina), two in Worcester, and Dean Park and Domino's in Shrewsbury.
A spur of the moment decision for my daughter to gather some friends together before trekking to a library meeting/movie had me suddenly wondering what to serve her guests. Though my freezer, thanks to Frozen Food Month, was stocked, I couldn't imagine offering Eggos and green beans to the girls. I rinsed out salad items (lettuce head 99 cents) and pints of strawberries I bought buy-one-get-one free the other day. I boiled some macaroni (40 cents for half the box) and melted some slabs of butter ($2.49 a pound on sale) and mozzarella ($1.50 a pound after a coupon) into it, fried some hamburgers, set out snacks which I had stock-piled from previous sales -- Skittles, Twix bars, Fruit Roll-ups, Wheat thins, popcorn, fresh-baked brownies ($1 a box), and a red velvet cake ($3.99 - premade so I did not have to bake it!).
I still felt the spread was not enough, so I ended up peeling three quarters of a bag of Russett potatoes ($1.49) from Price Rite, slicing them with a crinkle cutter into a batch of french fries. Her friends were satisfied and I was overjoyed that I, for once, did not have to depend on take-out for a gathering. I wish I learned sooner that though time is short and there are other tasks to do in the house, putting together a frugal snack table isn't that difficult if one stocks up sale items and sets out to prepare the food. This is probably a no-brainer, but after all these years of dialing Domino's, it is a small, pathetic revelation!
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