Even thought this year I won’t be celebrating Thanksgiving, I wanted to share with you my menu from last year. I was able to feed 7 adults and two children with $50. Looking back now it seems like a lot of money but last year we decided to try fresh turkey. The turkey alone took $22 of my budget.
With that in mind, here’s my menu:
Appetizers: Deviled eggs, vegetable tray and dip, cheese and crackers.
Soup: Butternut squash soup, except I won’t use the cream cheese but fat free evaporated milk
Main dish: Roasted Turkey (gravy without the alcohol) and stuffing (family recipe)
Side dishes: Caramelized sweet potatoes (family recipe), green beans and shallots, glazed carrots and roasted Brussels sprouts.
Bread: Challah bread
Dessert: Chocolate Pecan Pie and pumpkin cheesecake brought by guests.
We made a lot of extra meals from the leftovers. We could have easily fed more people. Right now I am confident I can feed the same or more people for half the money (Let’s go for twelve people). Here is how:
From now until Thanksgiving day I can expect frozen turkey to go on sale at my grocery store for 49 cents a pound.
$7.35 15 lb Turkey
$2.73 3lbs of butternut squash for the soup
$1.98 two dozen eggs for deviled eggs and challah bread
$1.96 Stove Top stuffing 98 cents at Walmart (My husband prefers this)
$3.00 two big cans of yams
$2.00 two pounds of baby carrots
$1.98 two pounds of green beans
$0.79 one can of jellied cranberry
$0.50 one can of pumpkin puree to make this Spiced bread (Pie was a bust last year)
$0.98 one bag of marshmallows
$0.50 one can evaporated milk
Flour, sugar and others come from my pantry
=$23.77
I think this is entirely realistic considering the sales that are going on now. What are you planning to spend on Thanksgiving dinner? and what will you be serving and how many will you be feeding more importantly? Share with us!
