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Archive for All You Grocery Challenge – Page 2

Day 23 – AYGC

By Valerie

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Shopping day!

I picked up a few essentials and some good deals on splurges at Harris Teeter on my way home from client meetings.

I decided against getting more steak, even though the NY strip was only $4.99 a pound. We just *had* steak, and I already had the beef for tonight’s burritos in the crockpot. The boneless, skinless chicken was BOGO, but their regular price is over $4 a pound, so that wasn’t all that great of a deal, and I still have some chicken. (I usually stock up when it’s about $1.80 a pound.)

I did splurge on a discounted cherry pie. $2 off (making it $3.99) because the top was cracked in a few places. Seemed to me the top shell was just pre-cut! And, since I splurged on the pie, I needed vanilla ice cream to go with it. I got the store brand for $2.50. Total splurges! With strawberries and blueberries on sale, I couldn’t resist them either. I also got 3 dozen eggs (at 88¢ each). Plus a loaf of bread and a package of hot dog buns. (once I get my second freezer I’ll buy the larger, cheaper packages of buns at Sams Club). Lastly, I bought a gallon of whole milk for another crack at homemade cheese, for a total of $19.02 including tax.

Like I said, dinner was shredded beef burritos with tomatillo sauce. The sauce was “okay”. I’ll be looking for a new recipe though, as I thought it should have had a LOT more flavor. I have more tomatillos from my garden and more on the plants.

The burritos were wrapped in homemade flour tortillas. Slightly thicker than the store-bought ones, but SO much tastier. And cheaper. I glanced at the flour tortillas at Harris Teeter and they were over $3 for a package of 8! (I’ve since looked at “express lane” and see that they have another brand that is much cheaper, but I don’t know where those are in the store.)

We topped the burritos with homemade salsa (made with tomatoes and jalapenos from the garden).

My kids teased me because the cheese was store-bought.

Dinner got an A+ rating from one kid and an A from the other. I like them to rate the dinners occasionally, especially when most of it is from scratch, to see if its worth all the trouble. Personally, I thought the meat was a B-.

I’d only made half the tortillas before dinner and finished them when we were done. They’ll make nice snacks, or perhaps another meal at the end of the week.

Tomorrow the new ads come out, so I’m sure I’ll be using more of my budget.

Day 22 – AYGC

By Valerie

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

The start of week 3! I’m looking forward to really being creative in the grocery challenge.

The freezer actually has room in it and my stockpiles have dwindled significantly in the past few weeks. Having 2 teenage boys around all day will do that!

We had a simple dinner of sloppy joes and pasta salad. That took care of the last of the hamburger buns AND the hot dog buns. I still have some plain white bread (PWB) for tomato sandwiches. The pasta salad was made with Wacky Mac that I got free with coupons, part of a jar of roasted red peppers (I usually use diced green bell peppers, but didn’t have any), the last of a can of olives from the pizza on Saturday, some julienned zuchinni, and a bottle of Kraft Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing (also free after coupon). Toss a little parmesean cheese and top and it’s wonderful. Fast too!

I’ve been busy printing out the IPs this week, and will go hunting for coupons tomorrow (recycling day). Oh, don’t gross out! I’m not digging through folks’ trash, just the bins with the newspapers. I’m hoping August will be a good stockpile month.

My sister inspired me with something she did this week. She spoke to the folks that run a wonderful produce business near her and asked them to call her when then had a bunch of blemished produce that they were willing to sell VERY cheap. She got a whole case of black velvet apricots at a very good price and made 30 pints of jam. Yum! And what a wonderful idea!

I’m also tickled to report that a client of mine, the owner of HomeBrew USA, read my post about the rennet and messaged me that they have some in their store. Perfect! I’ll get another shot at making cheese.

Categories : All You Grocery Challenge

Day 21 – AYGC

By Valerie

Sunday, August 2nd, 2009

Wow! Three weeks in already!

I picked up some cookbooks today from a fellow freecycler. Old cookbooks… just the way I love them! A Yankee Cookbook from 1939, an Indian cookbook and a Chinese cookbook (both from the 1970s). Why do I like old cookbooks? Well, it’s usually cheaper to cook with unprocessed ingredients and there weren’t too many around back in the old days. The only drawback is when a recipe calls for something obscure and I can’t find a modern substitute, which isn’t nearly the problem is used to be before wikipedia and answers.com.

Dinner today (prepared by my hubby) was bratwurst baked in sauerkraut, served with real mashed potatoes and a mixture of corn & peas. Yum! Why does dinner always taste better when somebody else cooks it?

No shopping today, so I’m well under my budget for the week. Heading downstairs to make muffin batter for tomorrow morning.

Categories : All You Grocery Challenge

Tags : 1970s, Amp, Bratwurst, Budget, Chinese Cookbook, Cooks, Corn, Drawback, Fellow, Hubby, Indian Cookbook, Mixture, Muffin Batter, Old Cookbooks, Potatoes, Sauerkraut, Tomorrow Morning, Wikipedia, Wow, Yum

Day 20 – AYGC

By Valerie

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

Addendum to purchases from 7/31: Mike bought a big gulp at 7-11 for $1.50. He really doesn’t waste a whole lot of money, and he’s the one with the full-time job, so I can’t complain too much — even though it makes me a little crazy when we have soda pop at home…)

We bought a new coffee maker several months ago (our old one was a wedding present and was over 20 years old). The new one has one of those cone filters. We’ve been buying the paper liners and ran out just before our trip. Now we’ve decided that we like our coffee better made with just the mesh strainer. Not a huge savings, but why spend money when you don’t have to.

Today was garage sale shopping day. I grabbed soft drinks before we left the house, so we didn’t stop anywhere for food/drinks. Slow day as far as “finds”. Our first stop was to pick up carpet remnants from a fellow freecycler to use on the paths in my vegetable garden, which, by the way, had plenty to harvest when we got home from vacation. A TON of green beans. Several more jalapeños, tomatoes (sort of a pathetic year, not doing heirlooms again!), and about a quart of tomatillos.

Okay, back to today’s food. Dinner was homemade pizza, as is our custom on *most* Saturday nights. We make a 2 pound batch of dough and make two large thin crust pizzas. I make the dough in my bread machine, but it can easily be made in a heavy duty mixer or by hand.

Pizza Dough – 2 pounds

1 ½ cups Water
4 cups Bread Flour (you can use all purpose if that’s all you’ve got)
1 tsp Salt
3 tbsp Olive Oil
2 tbsp Sugar
2 tbsp Yeast, Active Dry

Place all ingredients in pan, select dough setting and press start.

When dough has risen long enough, the machine will beep. Turn off break machine, remove pan and turn out dough onto a floured countertop or cutting board. Split dough into two parts and form dough into small mounds and allow it to rest for 10 minutes.

Roll out dough into 2 large pizzas. Top with pizza sauce and toppings of your choice. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

I generally use the pizza sauce sold in the #10 cans at Sams Club. They cost about $4.80, or thereabouts. That makes a LOT of pizza. When I open a can I use what I need and freeze the rest in plastic ice cube trays and pop the cubes into zippered freezer bags. It takes 8-10 cubes of frozen sauce to make a pizza (defrosting them in the microwave takes a little over 2 minutes). I’ve considered making my own, but the tomato sauce costs about the same, and I’m happy with the pre-made, so I just don’t see the point.

Tonight’s pizza had mozzarella and parmesean cheeses, pepperoni, bell pepper (bought on sale, chopped and frozen), chopped onions, and sliced black olives (I buy whole and use my egg slicer to slice them up quickly). Even with 2 teenage boys we have leftovers, and those make a good lunch for who ever remembers its in the fridge first.

Categories : All You Grocery Challenge

Day 19 – AYGC

By Valerie

Friday, July 31st, 2009

Settling in back from our trip. Had to restock some food.

First trip: Central Meats. I was hoping they had rennet… am I on a mission, or what? They have lots of seasonings and preserving products, but no rennet. Bummer. But they did have a small pack of salt-packed sausage casings ($6.14 including tax). Now I’m all set to make my next batch of brats or kielbasa (pork butt is in the freezer). Not the cheapest casings in the world, but a decent price here locally for 50 feet or so.

Next, on to Sams Club. Pizza fixin’s were at the top of the list. They now have another brand of pepperoni, in a larger package (5 lbs), that worked out to about half the price per oz. of the Hormel, so I got it instead. Now I have enough pepperoni to last me well into 2010. Boy am I glad I had room in my chest freezer. I also got 5 pounds of shredded whole milk mozzarella, which will be used on the pizzas, as well as lasagna, baked ziti, and a few other recipes. Mike asked me to pick up some fresh brats, and it didn’t occur to me that I’d just bought casings… (duh), but we’ll go through them, as we love them grilled in the summer. And last, but not least, half and half for our coffee. Mucho slurge, but I don’t like my coffee any other way. I got 3 quarts since I don’t actually go to Sams that often. Total: $35.21

For dinner tonight we had meatloaf, baked potatoes and green beans from the garden.

The meatloaf was one I had in the freezer — frozen raw in a 1-gallon zipper storage bag. I flatten out the whole thing before I freeze to take up less space. I make them up when I buy hamburger on a loss-leader sale for no more than $1 a pound.

Meatloaf – Serves 5

1 ½ lbs Ground Beef
3/4 cup oatmeal
1 ¼ cups Milk (reconstituted dry milk works fine)
1 lg Egg
¼ cup Onions — chopped
1 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 ½ tsp Salt
½ tsp Dry Mustard
¼ tsp Pepper
¼ tsp Ground or Rubbed Sage
1 clove Garlic — crushed

Mix all ingredients. Spread in an ungreased loaf pan, 9x5x3 inches. Cook uncovered in a 350° oven until done, about 1-1/2 hours. (I usually make 6 mini meat loafs placed in a 9×13 baking dish and baked for 45 minutes — faster!)

Want to make more?

7 meatloaves:

10 lbs Ground Beef
5 ¼ cups oatmeal
2 ¼ quarts Milk
7 lg Eggs
1 ¾ cups Onions — chopped
½ cups Worcestershire Sauce
¼ cups Salt
4 tsp Dry Mustard
2 tsp Pepper
2 tsp Ground or Rubbed Sage
7 cloves Garlic — crushed

Mix all ingredients together well. Divide into 7 portions. Fold back the sealing edge of gallon-size freezer bags (to keep the zipper clean) and plop a portion into each bag. Seal the bags ALMOST closed and then smoosh the meatloaf mixture until it’s flat and fills the bag (how’s that for a technical term!). It should be about 3/4″ thick. Once you’ve got it flat, finish sealing the bag. Mark the bag with a Sharpie®. Stack flat to freeze. Once they are frozen they can be stored on their end like a book to make the most of your freezer space.