I’m actually not trying any new recipes this week, because I’m making so many of my own! I have tons of milk that needs to be made into yogurt. The garden is starting to pump things out, and I want to take advantage of that. Also, it’s back to school time, so I thought I’d post some of the tried and true recipes we use around here. These are often not on paper- they’re embedded in the corners of my brain somewhere and I have to excavate them!
I have a bad habit of looking at a recipe and changing half the ingredients and instructions when I make it. Everyone likes it and wants to know what the recipe is. Well, most of it’s now in my head! I sometimes I have to dig up the original recipe to look at it and remember what I changed and what I did. It’s just the way I am. I seem to be in another world when I cook. 🙂 So I’ll be excavating a few more over next week that are perfect for this time of year.
I’m also instituting a weekly “Clean Out the Fridge” night at our place that goes beyond just leftovers. Seems like there’s just more waste than there needs to be, which includes leftovers that never gotten eaten or frozen. We’re noticing that some of the produce I get at Aldi and on clearance is going bad faster than we can get around to using it. So I’m going to try getting things processed as they come into the house- chopping, blanching and freezing, etc. I’ll also check the fridge more regularly, especially on trash night, so everything that needs to be frozen or used up is done before it ends up having to to go the chickens, the compost pile or the trash. That could be a hidden way to lower our grocery bill, by lowering the amount of waste in the first place.
What are you making this week?
New Recipes:
Homemade Pesto
Kung Pao Popcorn
Gazpacho
Ground Turkey Gyros
Tzatziki Sauce
Easy Italian Beef
Brownie Batter Smoothie Pops
Dirty Rice
Boogie Chicken
Italian Parmesan Popcorn
Everything Else:
Homemade Yogurt (from The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyzyn)
Apple Noodle Parfaits
Cucumber-Avocado Tuna Handrolls
Brownie Batter Smoothies
Kim’s Easy Homemade Pizza
Deals: $130.39
I wasn’t really that excited about the deals this week. Kroger has milk on sale for $1.88 a gallon, which is pretty good. They’ve also got school supplies on sale. Their split chicken breasts were .99/lb, so I picked up a few. Not much stuff on clearance at all. I can usually find great deals on marked down bread, meat, produce and dairy. I guess the word is out!
I did pick up some beef. $3.99/lb was the best price I could find, which is kind of depressing. I remember when it was so much less. We rarely eat it any more. I’m making Italian Beef this week, and I picked up some chuck steak for Bulgogi some time later. I’m planning a “no spend” week next week, so I also tried to make sure my regular stuff was decently stocked. I may have to go back for ketchup and peanut butter. The big guys ate anything and everything this summer. Now that Teen Foodie is back in school and Mr. Foodie just might be back to work, maybe I can finally replenish things.
I found a lot of small-sized diapers on clearance at Walmart this week, mostly size 1 and 2 diapers of many different manufacturers. Baby Foodie is too small for these, but if you know someone who is expecting or has a small baby, have them check their Walmart to see if they’re being cleared out there as well. (Each Walmart is different and does their inventory differently, apparently).
I also hit Walmart for school supplies this week and did pretty well. They usually do have the lowest prices on these, though it really is amazing how much the price changes when you slap a movie character on something:
Kroger: 50.69
1 pkg clearance hoagie rolls .79
1 bunch cilantro .79
1 pkg pita bread 1.79
1 bunch collard greens .77
5 lb bag masa corn flour (gluten free) 2.79
1 lb turkey smoked sausage 2.50
10 lbs split chicken breasts @ .99/lb
4 lbs chuck roast @ 4.49/lb
2 lbs chuck steak @ 3.99/lb
3 Lara bars @ .99 ea
Aldi: 79.70
12 6oz yogurts @ .39 ea (teenager)
1 12-pk fruit flavored water 6.99 (teenager)
1 lb roma tomatoes .99
1 bag tortilla chips 2.39
1 pkg tortillas 1.19
1 pkg extra large tortillas 1.49
1 box graham crackers 1.35
1 box generic Cheerios 1.69
1 box generic Rice Krispies 1.79
1 box trash bags 4.99
1 box qtips 1.39
3 cans tuna fish @ .65 ea
1 jug organic apple juice 2.49
3 lbs ground turkey @ 1.89 ea
1 jar grape jelly 1.45
1 jar raspberry preserves 2.09
1 jar strawberry preserves 1.49
2 cans diced tomatoes @ .55 ea
1 loaf split wheat top bread .99
1 loaf oat bran bread 1.39
1 loaf white whole grain bread .99
6 lbs bananas @ .38/lb
2 bags navel oranges @ 1.99 ea
1 lb smoked turkey 3.29
1 pkg bologna .95
1 pkg American cheese slices 1.79
1- 33.9 oz can of ground coffee 5.49
2 cans black beans @ .59 ea
2 cucumbers @ .49 ea
1 lb shredded mozzerella 2.99
1-5lb bag flour 1.49
1 lb bacon 2.99
1 jar hazelnut spread 1.99
Perhaps teen foodie would be interested in making his own flavored water? A quick google search had a number of hits. Just a thought.
Beef is not as cheap as it once was but still not *too* bad in my neck-o-IL (excluding the top sirloin sirloin roast which I reserve for a holiday meal. While pricy, there is no waste). We are fortunate to have a throwback neighborhood butcher shop near us. They stock a few grocery items which I’d say aren’t competitive but aren’t over priced. Plus you can get fresh baked Italian bread. Their meat sales kick butt – 6 oz bacon wrapped pork tenderloins for $1.99 each this week as well as 5 oz marinated pork chop for $1.15 each. I suspect a few more sale items but some Sunday’s they print 2 sale coupons in the paper and the others come out on Wednesday. Usually a limit as to how many you can buy OR in the case of $2.99/lb butcher cut bacon, a minimum you must buy (5 lbs) to get the sale price. Frozen steaks are usually first-come-first-serve. Besides their prices, I know the owners and employees also eat what they sell. Not an issue if you want a 4.5 lb roast. Now if you buy say six of their sale steaks from the butcher case, they will charge a small fee to wrap in packages of two, in good quality butcher paper.
There a three other butcher shops in my area – all have good meat. One is not so bad priced (in the FM days, I was about to buy 10 oz NY strips for $2 each! Owner got a good deal and, shock, gave his employees first crack at buying them). The other two are in more “upscale” areas so their overall prices are high IMHO and their sales not as good as the other two shops.
I understand buying beef can consume grocery budget dollars at a fast clip. But the recommended serving size plus side dishes can still make it budget friendly. And some dishes are enhanced by a bit of beef (or other meat far as that goes).
Selena,
I may have to check out those places! Right now, I try to make a special trip to Peoria to Alwan’s Meat Market, because their prices and quality are usually very good. We usually stock the freeze twice a year and get good deals in bulk. We haven’t been able to do that for the past year though. My husband has been laid off twice and our deep freeze went out on us. We are back in business with the deep freeze (hubby brought home a freebie that works great), and I’ve been slowly stocking it with sales. I miss having my freezer full of meat though!
A freezer is one of those items that is worth “stretching” one’s budget to buy. It sure beats playing the “do I have room to buy an extra loaf of bread this week” game. When I had a chest freezer, I used milk crates to help keep it organized.
Next on your list is to obtain a generator with enough power to keep the freezer and frig running during an outage. Also the well but that requires a bigger generator. We just did this and if this means the power never goes out again (ha ha, ComEd), it is still worth the expense.
Selena, we now have two chest freezers, but the old one still needs to be fixed. My husband could fix it, but needs a tool that costs a lot. He managed to find a freebie about the same size that works perfectly. We also have two refrigerators (previous owner left hers) with freezers on top, so we’re in good shape.
I picked up a small generator at a yard sale that was brand new! Works great and we’ve used it a few times since moving to the country (plenty of power outages!)
Kudos on the garage sale find! And yes, the downside of living “out in the sticks” so to speak is power outages, especially if there are a lot of trees in the area. I’ve even called ComEd to tell them it’d be a good time to trim trees in our neighborhood (rural neighborhood) as it was easy to get onto our property. Got the old “we have a trimming schedule”, aka subcontractors. Absolutely no reason most of the power lines can’t be buried in my area. As farm equipment gets larger and larger, the risk of them hitting a line increases (it happened here a couple of years ago).
My dream is a whole house back-up generator (natural gas which we do have despite being rural). But it is not cheap and in reality, probably be easy to stockpile gasoline if need be. But we do have a new generator and have the selected breakers in a separate box. So we can easily hook up the generator, flip the switch and power part of the house. The day may come when I need an electric start generator but odds are good some nice neighbor will start it up in exchange for water, use of the facilities so to speak, or a freezer to store his/her expensive steaks/meats lol..
Boneless chuck roast slow cooking as I speak – $4.98 per pound – a little over 3 lbs, no trimming needed. We usually get 6-8 meals out of it (depends how hungry the spouse is). This was *not* on sale. Extra lean ground chuck is on sale for $3.59/lb (regular price $4.98/lb) minimum 5 lb purchase.
I wish spouse had purchased some but he who cooks does the meal planning. While he doesn’t mind dividing other bulk purchases, he doesn’t seem to like doing ground beef.
Selena, We’ve found we really like ground turkey as opposed to ground beef. The frozen 1 lb rolls at Aldi used to be just .69! They’re now 1.89, but it’s still half the price of ground beef. It’s crazy- I remember ground beef going on sale for .88/lb a few years ago!
Kim 🙂
You make Shepard’s pie with the ground turkey? We’ve used ground beef or leftover turkey but not ground turkey. Great way to use up leftover frozen veggies too!
I think I’m genetically wired to need red meat a couple times a week – I come from a long line of farmers and grew up eating meat and potatoes every night.
I bet you could. I’ve make chili, taco meat and everything else with ground turkey and it’s great. In fact, I made homemade ground turkey sausage the other day (the recipe was on a meal plan I did about a month ago). I used fresh herbs and it was amazing!
Kim 🙂
We’ve used ground turkey a few times. I think the *key* is seasoning as it is can be pretty bland.
We have a local Mennonite run store near us. A great place to buy bulk spices as well as oatmeal and other real food staples. One time I needed a couple cups of cake flour and I was able to buy just what I needed. Not all items are the best “deal” but as we know, no one place has the best price on everything. Plus I can get a small loaf of homemade fruit cake come Xmas time. Always nice when you are the only one in the house that loves fruitcake (good fruitcake that is). They also sell homemade bread, rolls, pies (big and small). They also have a farm stand near the store stocked with locally grown, reasonably priced produce. Store is not open on Sundays.
BUT.. they take orders for fresh fruit. We buy blueberries – store drives to MI for them as well as peaches. A 10 lb. box was $23.50 this year. Usually the spouse consumes most of them but this year we froze a decent amount. It did help that when they made the trip for peaches, they had enough orders to bring back blueberries so we got a 2nd box. Not sure what other bulk fresh fruit they offer. We have apple orchards near by too (though we only frequent one of them) so not sure if they sell apples or not.
I guess what I’m trying to say is research what stores/sellers are in your area. And also check out what is available in the areas where you are visiting.
My younger kid found a local dairy near her college. While not technically “close” to us, we make a couple trips a year (occasionally a third). We can buy fresh cheeses (a huge variety) as well as butter (in “chunks” of varying weights or sticks). Pack a couple of coolers and ice. Cheese is wrapped well and for those I freeze, I place in zip-loc freezer bags . However they don’t sell milk, cream, cream cheese, or yogurt.
It all sounds delicious, Selena!
I moved to this area almost 3 years ago (and commuted a long distance for a year and a half), so I’m still getting to know the bargains and hidden treasures around here.
Kim 🙂
There is a lot to be said about living in an area most (if not all) of your life. Not only do you have the luxury of knowing “retail” but family is close by. I had both sides within a 25 minute drive.
You weren’t working IT during the Y2K era. There were numerous Y2K jobs available and management jobs were paying big bucks. Spouse and I discussed this but in the long run, being away from the kids was the deal breaker. The money I would make would never make up for time missed. So while you may think your current situation is not ideal, at least you are with your kids daily.
While some folks may think internet access is a non-essential budget item, I disagree. Yes, there is a lot of time wasting content on the internet. But the amount of “good” information far exceeds the “fluff”.