I went to the website kaboose.com before I went to the store yesterday. Don't ask me how I found it, I just stumbled on it while looking up meal planning ideas. I started scrolling through some of their predesigned menu plans, but then decided that I should work with some of the things I already have, after all, if I could use what I have successfully without spending much more money, in the long run wouldn't that help enforce my original Costco theory? So, I entered ingredients that I had in the deep freeze or cabinets and found recipes that needed minimal ingredients from the store to make them possible. This week we are having Fresh Rosemary Chicken, Rotisserie chicken soft tacos, Mango and Shrimp kabobs with wild rice, Rotisserie chicken salad sandwiches, Orange-hoison glazed chicken, Ground Turkey Sloppy Joes, and one night of leftovers.
I had a plan, and felt like the mission had begun. I headed to Sunflower Market to buy most of the items on my list, and tons of produce for us to use to fill in lunches, snacks, and side dishes for dinner. I bought tons of cherries, grapes, nectarines, peaches, yellow squash, green pepper, limes, strawberries, organic celery, organic carrots, organic frozen edamame, organic sweet potato fries, whole wheat pie crusts, fresh chicken sausages, some spices, and a few other things and only spent $40 and some change! I love that place :) There were a few things that they didn't carry or that was just too expensive there, so I went to King Soopers to round out my list and spent $50. I felt great! However, I'm a bit nervous that I already spent $90 worth of stuff to add to food that I already have...how in the world am I going to be able to do this with just $160 left in the budget? Time will tell, I guess.
First thing I did when I got home from the market was to get the things out of the deep freeze I would need for my first meal this week, then I washed and stored all of the newly purchased produce properly. I saw this on the Rachel Ray show once and have always thought it was a great idea, I just didn't like to take the time to do the prep work. I also got out the Green Bags my mom bought me a while back. Hey, if I'm going to have all this fresh produce washed up and ready to use, I need it to last as long as possible, right? Doesn't hurt to see if the Green Bag magic really works.
Then I decided that I would go ahead and make the breakfast quiche that I thought would be a good quick fix for us each morning this week. I know I don't like repetition in my menu, but this is new territory for all of us, so anything I can do to stretch the food and stretch a buck is worth a shot. I found a recipe for a summer squash and chicken sausage quiche and I made it using the whole wheat pie crusts...it was AMAZING! As soon as I figure out how to link recipes to this site, I am so adding it :) Once it was made I cut it into 8 pieces and stored in tupperwares for my hubby to take to work each morning and for the baby and me to share each morning.
Next, I packed the hubby's food for the next day. He has been following the P90X fitness plan, so he needs a lot of food to eat during the day to keep his energy-burning, machine of a body going. So, I packed him quiche, cottage cheese with blueberries, strawberries, pistachios, grapes, carrots (I bought bunches of carrots and cut them into stix...so much cheaper), hummus, and an Amy's natural meal for the day so that he can graze healthily all day long.
So, I had a piece of quiche for breakfast today (my 14 month old son and I split it), a pb&j on whole wheat for lunch with a bunch of cherries on the side, and a piece of cheese for a snack today. Things were going so well and we were well on our way to making this menu work this week, that is until they announced after my softball game that the team was going to Freddy's frozen custard after the game...so much for my planned rotisserie chicken tacos. Oh well, that just gives us one less day of leftovers, right?
More tomorrow from taco land!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Mission Impossible?
On or around June 1st of this year, two of my friends and I decided to trim the fat from our grocery budgets in more ways than one. We decided to challenge ourselves to feed our respective families for a grocery budget of $250 per month and try to do this is healthily as possible.
Now, let me start by saying, these two friends of mine are go-getters! One of them texted the next day about how she was able to spend about $60 for enough groceries to make her meals for a week or week and a half, and she's what I would consider a wonderful, gourmet foodie who even has her own food blog! :) She is so great at creating gourmet meals on her own from ingredients at hand. Wow. Friend number two did not disappoint either. She found that allrecipes.com was a great way to plan her meals. She has a newly vegetarian husband, and was still savvy enough to plan great meals for she and her hubby within budget. I, however, did not start this challenge with as much fervor.
The first week for me was a lot of what we called "pantry eating/living". We had frozen foods and pantry items that we could eat on for longer than I'd like to admit, so that's what we did. Once that got boring I, like any good budget-savvy shopper, headed to Costco. That is what budget-savvy shoppers do, right? :) Three-hundred and fifty dollars later I was outta there with stockpiles of food. I justified it at first by reminding myself that at least $100 of that wasn't part of my "normal" grocery budget, it was things like protein powder, dog food, diapers, and what not. You know, things that didn't "count", so in my mind I still stayed within budget and had enough meat and staples for way longer than a month, so this would actually save me even more in the long run.
However, here we are, Monday evening, July 12th. I think that yesterday was actually day one of the challenge for me. Sad, but true. But, it's better late than never, right? I was headed out the door to the store after church yesterday, realized I had no idea what I was shopping for besides some produce, and knew I needed to get with this program for both health reasons and budget reasons. So, I stopped in my tracks, got online and decided to plan a menu for the week.
Okay, if I'm being honest I love the idea of menu-planning, I just don't love the process nor feel that I have a knack for it because I absolutely, positively hate to coupon. Don't get me wrong, just like the next girl I love a great bargain, but I just don't like combing through ad after ad and playing the grocery game, then feeling like a failure if the store didn't pay me for buying their groceries like all those amazing coupon ladies you see on the 11 o'clock news.
I also find it hard to plan because I feel that true menu-planning should include all meals, not just dinners, and I don't think there are a lot of sites nor people talking out there about how to plan each and every meal plus snacks for a week, so it just seems daunting to fill in the blanks after the dinners for the week are planned. Another challenging part of the challenge is that we are trying SO HARD to eat more healthily, and organically when we can, and that can get expensive. I used to be (and still love to eat them) a casserole mom who made something yummy with "cream of whatever is in the cabinet soup"once or twice per week. One of those casseroles would last my family of 3 for days at a time, but I realized that while yummy and budget-savvy, that's really not the most healthy way for us to eat. I also put a lot of stress on myself to really mix things up and not have us eating the same things over and over again. So, this challenge is going to challenge me mathematically, creatively, and culinarily. So here I am today, taking part in this challenge, and trying my best from day to day to figure out how to make this grocery budget and healthy living work for my family. So, here goes nothing or here goes everything...
Now, let me start by saying, these two friends of mine are go-getters! One of them texted the next day about how she was able to spend about $60 for enough groceries to make her meals for a week or week and a half, and she's what I would consider a wonderful, gourmet foodie who even has her own food blog! :) She is so great at creating gourmet meals on her own from ingredients at hand. Wow. Friend number two did not disappoint either. She found that allrecipes.com was a great way to plan her meals. She has a newly vegetarian husband, and was still savvy enough to plan great meals for she and her hubby within budget. I, however, did not start this challenge with as much fervor.
The first week for me was a lot of what we called "pantry eating/living". We had frozen foods and pantry items that we could eat on for longer than I'd like to admit, so that's what we did. Once that got boring I, like any good budget-savvy shopper, headed to Costco. That is what budget-savvy shoppers do, right? :) Three-hundred and fifty dollars later I was outta there with stockpiles of food. I justified it at first by reminding myself that at least $100 of that wasn't part of my "normal" grocery budget, it was things like protein powder, dog food, diapers, and what not. You know, things that didn't "count", so in my mind I still stayed within budget and had enough meat and staples for way longer than a month, so this would actually save me even more in the long run.
However, here we are, Monday evening, July 12th. I think that yesterday was actually day one of the challenge for me. Sad, but true. But, it's better late than never, right? I was headed out the door to the store after church yesterday, realized I had no idea what I was shopping for besides some produce, and knew I needed to get with this program for both health reasons and budget reasons. So, I stopped in my tracks, got online and decided to plan a menu for the week.
Okay, if I'm being honest I love the idea of menu-planning, I just don't love the process nor feel that I have a knack for it because I absolutely, positively hate to coupon. Don't get me wrong, just like the next girl I love a great bargain, but I just don't like combing through ad after ad and playing the grocery game, then feeling like a failure if the store didn't pay me for buying their groceries like all those amazing coupon ladies you see on the 11 o'clock news.
I also find it hard to plan because I feel that true menu-planning should include all meals, not just dinners, and I don't think there are a lot of sites nor people talking out there about how to plan each and every meal plus snacks for a week, so it just seems daunting to fill in the blanks after the dinners for the week are planned. Another challenging part of the challenge is that we are trying SO HARD to eat more healthily, and organically when we can, and that can get expensive. I used to be (and still love to eat them) a casserole mom who made something yummy with "cream of whatever is in the cabinet soup"once or twice per week. One of those casseroles would last my family of 3 for days at a time, but I realized that while yummy and budget-savvy, that's really not the most healthy way for us to eat. I also put a lot of stress on myself to really mix things up and not have us eating the same things over and over again. So, this challenge is going to challenge me mathematically, creatively, and culinarily. So here I am today, taking part in this challenge, and trying my best from day to day to figure out how to make this grocery budget and healthy living work for my family. So, here goes nothing or here goes everything...
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