March 31, 2014

I am a very adventurous eater. I love trying foods from different countries, and my favorite world cuisine is Indian.  So much of the world eat far less meat than we do, and the cook their vegetables in incredibly creative, flavorful ways.  Vegetables are not an afterthought side dish in most of the world.

Cooking this way can require lots of herbs and spices... which can be a grocery budget disaster.  I find spices much cheaper when I can buy then in places that sell them in bulk.  Amazon can also be a great resource for harder to find spices.

One of my very favorite cook books is Extending the Table, a World Community Cookbook by Joetta Handrich Schiabach.  The cookbook was commissioned by the Mennonite Central Committee. In addition to wonderful authentic recipes, it is filled with wonderful stories about people from all over the world, and their food habits.  The following recipe comes directly from this book.

Recipe of the day:

Mattar Gobi- Indian Peas and Cabbage

Brown in 1 T oil:
1 clove of garlic, minced (7¢)
Add:
1 cup frozen peas (22¢ bought for 52¢ per bag at Target)
1/2 t. ground cumin (in cupboard, unsure of what I paid)
Stir briefly.  Add:
1/4 cup water
Boil until water evaporates. Add:
1 lb cabbage, shredded 29¢
1/4 t ground tumeric
1/2 t salt
dash of ground red pepper or to tast.
Stir and cook over medium heat 10 minutes.  Cover during last 2.3 minutes.

2 large servings at 29¢ plus cost of spices, estimate 8 cents bought in bulk per serving... 37¢

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast	Breakfast
banana smoothie 45¢	3/4 cup homemade yogurt 24¢	banana smoothie 45¢	1 c cooked oatmeal 20¢	3/4 cup homemade yogurt 24¢	3/4 cup homemade yogurt 24¢	1 egg 8¢
(1/2 c yogurt, 1/4 c milk, 1/2 frozen banana	Frozen fruit 30¢	(1/2 c yogurt, 1/4 c milk, 1/2 frozen banana	2 T brown sugar 25¢	frozen fruit 30¢	frozen fruit 30¢	1 toast, 1 tsp butter 16¢
Mid-Morning	Mid-Morning	Mid-Morning	Mid-Morning	Mid-Morning	Mid-Morning	Mid-Morning
hardboiled egg 8¢	apple 25¢	hard boiled egg 8¢	apple 25¢	Cantaloupe 22¢	hard boiled egg 8¢	1/2 grapefruit 20¢
Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
Cabbage Roll Casserole 83¢	Egg Salad Sandwhich 30¢	Cabbage Roll Casserole 83¢	Egg Salad Sandwhich 30¢	Cabbage Roll Casserole 83¢	Lunch out with friends	Ham Steak $1
apple 25¢	Carrot Sticks 20¢	apple 25¢	Carrot Sticks 20¢	apple 25¢		Broccoli 20¢
	Cantaloupe 22¢					Baked Potato, butter 20¢
						Cantaloupe 22¢
Mid Afternoon	Mid Afternoon	Mid Afternoon	Mid Afternoon	Mid Afternoon	Mid Afternoon	Mid Afternoon
Carrot Sticks 20¢	Carrot Sticks 20¢	Carrot Sticks 20¢	Carrot Sticks 20¢	Carrot Sticks 20¢
Dinner	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner	Dinner
Pan Grilled Chicken thighs with curryseasoning 79¢	Celebration Dinner out with friends. WTG on your MSN Joyce!	Pan Grilled Chicken thighs with curryseasoning 79¢	Cabbage Roll Casserole 83¢	Ham Steak $1	Cabbage Roll Casserole 83¢	scour fridge for leftovers
Mattar Gobi (Peas and Cabbage) 37¢		Mattar Gobi (Peas and Cabbage) 37¢	apple 25¢	Broccoli 20¢	apple 25¢
Cantaloupe 22¢		Cantaloupe 22¢		Baked Potato, butter
Snack	Snack	Snack	Snack	Snack	Snack	Snack
popped corn 35¢	grapefruit soda 20¢	grapefruit soda 20¢	3/4 cup homemade yogurt 24¢	grapefruit soda 20¢	popped corn 35¢
	(1/2 grapefruit juice, top with seltzer water)		frozen fruit 30¢
Cost	Cost	Cost	Cost	Cost	Cost	Cost
$3.54	$1.91	$3.39	$3.02	$3.10	$3.17	27¢
Cal.	Cal.	Cal.	Cal.	Cal.	Cal.	Cal.
Total cost per week:					$19.41

March 30, 2014

For this weeks menu, I developed my meals around what is already in my house.  Last week, I picked up a cantaloupe at Aldi's for $1.29.  It is finally ripe enough to eat.  You will also notice I don't count a cost for seltzer water to make grapefruit soda.  I actually have a Soda Stream, so I make my own carbonated water. I received it free, and have not yet had to replace my carbonating bottle.

You will see some of my prices went up (like carrots) as I couldn't find the same bargains this week.  Carrot sticks still remain an economical and healthy snack choice.  

Until I get my freezer restocked, I will be eating a lot of repetitive meals.

I hope you enjoy this weeks menus.

Saturday March 29, 2014

The blog will be "all new" starting tomorrow.

A full weeks menu's will go up on Sunday.  I will provide two of the weeks recipes... one on Monday, one on Tuesday.  I am not a gourmet cook. If something is on the menu before I post the recipe, if you do a google search, you will probably find tons of recipes.

You will find I frequently use homemade yogurt.  Yogurt is very cheap and easy to make, and only take a little hands on time... though it seems intimidating at first.  I do use a commercial yogurt maker to incubate my yogurt, but I use store bought plain yogurt as a starter.

Homemade yogurt is really awesome... you can control the level of sweetness, and the kind of sweetener you use. In addition, I usually add frozen fruit to mine and let the fruit thaw. I typically use 1/2 of the serving the package states is a full serving per one serving of yogurt.  My favorite is frozen black cherries.  Mmm. So good.

I won't go into the instructions to do this... just google how to make homemade yogurt, and you will find plenty of options... and many that don't require any special equipment.

Ok... starting next week, I am going to print a full weeks menu... and I won't plan meals the times I am planning on not eating at home. For me, that comes out of an entirely separate part of my budget!

I also apologize for the boring repeats... but that is what my menu looks like for the week. I will try to mix it up a bit next week!

I did find that 3 oz of chicken was actually way to much for a half sandwich... so the cost of my sandwich dropped by 20¢

Since I am reformatting this blog, the next post will come sometime on Sunday... and after that, you can expect 1-2 recipes per week, and some discussion on strategies for saving money at the grocery store!

March 26, 2014

I started this blog on a impulse this past weekend, even though doing a blog has been one of my goals for the past two years.  This wasn't the original topic I was planning on, but I feel this is a good starter blog for me to cut my teeth on.

I've already decided there will be a change in the way this rolls out starting with this coming weekend.  On Saturday or Sunday, I am going to attempt to post my entire weekly menu, along with the best deals I've found in the area.  Throughout the week, I'll post applicable recipes, and we can chat about the process of budgeting wisely on groceries.

Today's Menu:

Breakfast:
Yogurt 53¢

Mid-morning:
carrots (85 mg) 12¢

Lunch:
Chicken Noodle Soup, side portion 39¢
1/2 chicken salad sandwich (1 slice whole wheat bread, 3 oz chicken, 1 T mayo, 1T relish) 74¢
banana 8¢

Mid-afternoon
none (calorie rich lunch)

Dinner:
Sheppard's Pie (Dinner serving) $1.10
gala apple 25¢

Snack
2 T popcorn kernels popped in 1 T olive oil 25¢

Total Cost: $3.46  
Total Calories:  1595

Recipe of the day:

Classic Chicken Noodle Soup

12 oz. leftover chicken meat, dark and white mixed ($2.40)
8 cups of chicken broth/water (from roasting chicken/simmering chicken bones)
3/4 c celery, sliced (65¢)
1 lb carrots, sliced (65¢)
1 large onion chopped(18¢)
12 oz. egg noodles (79¢)

In the chicken broth, simmer celery, carrots, and onion until tender.
Add  noodles and cook until tender.
Stir in cooked chicken meat, heat through.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 12 at 39¢ per serving (side servings)
Serves 6 at 78¢ per serving for main course servings
Calories per serving: 192 per side serving, 384 per main course serving

Money Saving Strategies

I've struggled over the last few days as to how to accurately count my chicken servings from the 2 chickens I roasted over the weekend.  At first, I was going to break it down into the cost per meal, because there is certainly value in the broth derived from the carcass, but I decided to determine my cost per ounce of meat, since I picked both chickens.  On sale at 99¢ per lb, my chicken yielded cooked meat at 20¢ per ounce. I determined this will make meal calculations easier.

My cost for the celery is high.  Why?  Well, I knew I wouldn't be eating celery this week other than in the soup, so I bought just what I needed from the salad bar at the store for 65¢.  An entire bag of celery was about $3, and there was no organic celery available. It is one of the foods that consistently show up on the dirty dozen list, and I try to avoid it when I can't get organic celery at a reasonable price (OK... when I get Hodecker's Celery Farms celery, I eat it until it comes out of my ears, pesticides or no pesticides... however, my trips to the neighboring county to get this celery are far and few in between).

One of the other challenges I have... there is only one person in my household, so I either repeat things endlessly (which gets very boring very fast) or I freeze it.  For my soup, before I added the noodles, I divided my batch in half.  I will freeze half (and add the noodles later on when I cook it), and use half now.

March 25, 2014

Today's Menu

Breakfast:
Oatmeal, 1 c. cooked  5¢
2 T brown sugar (unsure... it's been in my cupboard)

Mid-Morning:
Banana 8¢

Lunch
Easy Sheppard's Pie (1/6 of recipe) 84¢
apple 25¢

Mid Afternoon
Carrots (85 mg) 12¢

Dinner
Baked Chicken Leg/Thigh, no skin 50¢
2 c. cabbage sauteed in 2 tsp olive oil 25¢
baked potato (200 gm when raw) 10¢
1 t. butter 3¢

Snack
popcorn kernels (36 gm)-unsure of cost, have had for a long time
popped in 1 T olive oil  10¢

Total Cost: $2.67 counting "guesstimate" of 10¢ for brown sugar,  popcorn 25¢
Total Calories: 1521

Recipe of the day:

Easy Sheppard's Pie.

This recipe was actually inspired by one of my favorite restaurants... Cheddar's.  I love their restaurant because I can go there and get dinner, a margarita, and a dessert for mini for  $13! One of my favorite menu items is Sheppard's Pie, which when served there is essentially ground beef and mixed veggies in brown sauce, topped with a big dollop of mashed potatoes. It seems like it should be easy for me to replicate very inexpensively and make it very calorie conscious.

For Filling

1 lb of ground beef, preferably 97% lean (or ground turkey) $2.05, bought on a Sell by today special
1 onion diced (about 1 cup of onion) 18¢ at Aldis
1 package frozen mixed vegetables 76¢ at Target on sale using Cartwheel discount
4 cups diced cabbage, sauteed in 1 T olive oil (alternately, use another package of frozen mixed vegetables, or 3-4 cups of any leftover vegetable. I've used cabbage because I can typically find it very inexpensively and it is less calorie dense than mixed vegetables) 25 ¢ I stocked up on heads of cabbage during St Patty's day sales at 29¢ a lb.
3 packages brown gravy mix (warning, this is a sodium & MSG nightmare) 39¢ a packet at Amelia's, or 1.17

Brown the ground beef and onions together, seasoning meat to your preference. Drain any excess fat.  While browning beef, cook frozen veggies per package directions, and saute cabbage until tender-crisp. Mix all of these items together in a 9x13 pan.  Pour the 3 packages of gravy mix over everything after mixing and cooking according to package directions.

Meanwhile, make smashed potatoes

For Mashed Potatoes
1 1/4 potatoes, skins on--scrubbed, diced (1.39 for 5 lb at Amelia's, or 36¢ )
1/4 cup half and half (or milk... I usually have half and half in my fridge, and rarely milk) 16¢
1 T butter 9¢ (butter for $2.49/lb at Aldis)

Simmer potatoes in water until tender.  Drain, reserving some of the potato liquid for making smashed potatoes.  Return the potatoes to the cooking pot, add half & half and butter.  Season with salt if desired.  Using a masher, mash potatoes, adding cooking water if necessary to achieve desired texture.

Top casserole with dollops of mashed potatoes.  If you make everything at once, this will be hot, otherwise, heat in a 350 degree oven until hot.  

This recipe is $1.10 if you make 4 servings, or 84¢ for 6 servings. 

4 servings= 505 calories per serving
6 servings=340 calories per serving. 

March 24, 2014

Today's Menu:

Breakfast:
Greek Yogurt Cup  ($0.53)
coffee with 1 T cream  ($0.04 for cream) (I've not included a cost for coffee as I have had it for so long, I am not sure what I paid for it)

Mid Morning Snack:
Banana  ($0.08)

Lunch:
Wisconsin Mac n Cheese ($0.75)
1/2 cup stewed tomatoes ($0.20)
apple

Mid afternoon Snack
baby carrots (85 gm) ($0.12)

Dinner
Baked chicken leg/thigh, no skin  ($0.50)
small baked potato (200 g) ($0.08)
2 cups cabbage sauteed in 2 tsp olive oil ($0.25)
1 tsp butter

Snack
baby carrots (85 b gm)($0.12)

Total $2.67 for the day
1550 Calories

Recipe of the Day:
Wisconsin Mac N Cheese, Noodles & Company Style

I searched the web for this recipe, and had to make a few tweaks myself:

8 oz elbow macaroni
1 T butter
1 T flour
1 c 1% milk
1/4 t paprika
1/8 t pepper
1/4 t salt
1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese
1/2 cup reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese

Cook pasta according to directions.

While pasta is cooking:

Melt butter in a pan.  Shake together in a shaker jar all other ingredients except the cheese.  Add to melted butter and stir.  Heat to simmering, and then stir in the monterey jack cheese.  Stir until melted.  Divide the cheese sauce into the bottom of 4 serving bowls.

Top each serving of cheese sauce with 1/4 of the drained, cooked, hot macaroni.

Sprinkle the remaining cheddar cheese evenly over the 4 pasta servings.

Serve;  to eat, stir to mix, enjoy!

Calories per serving: 410

To make this dish as inexpensively as possible:  I used a Target mobile coupon combined with in store sales and Target Cartwheel offers for both the pasta and cheese.  My bag of cheese cost $1.18, and I did not use the entire bag.  The pasta cost was $0.25.

In PA Dutch Country, Mac n Cheese is always served with a side of stewed tomatoes!

Can it be done? $25 a week for groceries for an adult?

March 23, 2014

I am a Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman fan.  I've been working on getting out of debt for quite some time. I was just about there... and my 18 year old car gave up the ghost, and suddenly, I found myself $22,000 in vehicle loan debt... a place I didn't want to be.  I realize for most of America, a vehicle loan payment is part of life.  However, I am bound and determined to be debt free... and that includes car payments, and eventually my house.

Like everyone else, I don't have an unlimited bank account.  The minimum monthly payment on my used RAV4 (my dream vehicle, actually) stretches my budget far enough, and over the past year, I have not enjoyed sending off that monthly payment.  But after crunching the numbers, if I work REALLY diligently, I can pay this puppy off early.  Very early.

Prior to number crunching, I budgeted $75 a week for one adult for groceries, and was able to manage well on that, eating a lot of organics, etc.  However, the lure of saving an extra $200 every 4 weeks to pay ahead on my car by cutting my food budget to $25 a week is almost an irresistible challenge.

From a dietary standpoint, a few things have to happen.  I need to stick to the $25 a week on average.  My diet needs to be varied and healthy.  It needs to include a minimum of 5 fruit/veggie servings a day, and it can't depend on $1 a pack nitrate laden hot dogs.  I am going to have to temporarily forego the mainly organic stance, but I do have a few qualifications here as well.  The majority of my dairy sources need to be rBST free, and I will try to avoid things on the dirty dozen list, and use those on the clean 15 when I can't get organic.  Locally grown is better, and free range eggs are a must.