10 Tips for Eating Healthfully on a Budget

Doesn't the title of this post read straight off the cover of a magazine?

The topic of food budgets has come up often as of late in conversations.  Hence, at the risk of repeating information you already know (and that I may have already written), I decided to do a top ten list of tips for eating well on a budget.  And...I have a post in the works on the cost of actual recipes, and what we spend on food for a week.

1. Shop sales-I keep an eye out for items that we buy on a regular basis and pick up a few extra to keep on hand for when we need them.

2. Buy in bulk- This only saves you money if it is cheaper to buy it in bulk, or it keeps you out of the grocery store and away from impulse purchases, which leads us to number three...

3. Track prices- Yes, I'm serious.  It's not as hard as you think.  It can be as easy as mentally noting that asparagus was $4.99 last week and now it's $1.99, or if you're a little AR like me, it can be a spreadsheet with columns for price, quantity, price per ounce, purchase date, estimated life, actual life, cost per month, and source.  Or you could fall sanely somewhere in between.

4. Buy produce in season- Don't have a clue what's in season?  Look for what produce is at a good price at your supermarket (It actually is most likely in season elsewhere, and not in your actual state.).  Buy from your farmer's market that only allows local farmers. (You can sometimes find farmers that use more natural methods, but aren't necessarily certified organic.)  Grow it yourself.  I just calculated the cost of our homegrown lettuce at between 2 and 4 cents a serving!  And it tastes better.

5. Steer clear of prepackaged food- You are paying an arm and a leg for someone else to cut up those veggies or make cookie dough for you.  I know sometimes you're shorter on time that cash, but this post is about saving the moolah.

6. Avoid junk food- Junk food comes by its name honestly.  There is little to no nutritional value in chips and the like, which means you're still hungry afterwards.  You might as well just eat the cash you'd spend on the Ruffles and call it a day.

7. Choose water- It's virtually free (from your tap) and oh-so-good-for-you.  Sodas belong in the junk food category.  Even juices are not as good for your body as eating the actual fruit, and they cost a pretty penny.

8. Substitute, substitute, substitute- So the recipe calls for cauliflower, but you've got broccoli.  Chance are, unless it's the essential ingredient of the recipe, you can safely make the substitution.  The next time you're short on an ingredient, hit up Google to see if you have a substitute on hand instead of jumping in the car and save yourself both the grocery and the gas money.

9. Choose recipes wisely In line with number four and number eight, choose recipes without crazy of-the-wall ingredients and keep in mind the season.  January and February are not the ideal time to make a fresh heirloom tomato basil pasta when tomatoes are so-so and basil is in a tiny little container for $4 a pop.  Not only will your pocket book thank you, your taste buds will, too.

10. Make cuts in other areas Maybe you don't want to hear this, but a lot of us could use a good refresher on needs versus wants.  Healthy food for your body is a need. Designer clothes, the coolest car, and even cable TV *gasp* are wants.  Am I saying you have to live like a pauper to eat healthy food?  No.  Do I realize that some of you, dear readers, have cut everywhere you know to cut and still are scrimping pennies?  Yes, that is part of my motivation in writing this post.  However, it seems that many of us, by looking at our spending habits, place a higher importance on things that look good on the outside, than what goes inside our body.  I believe that eventually we pay the price for these choices.

One final note, our family buys produce through a coop from a local farmer, and our meat and dairy through local farmers who use humane and healthy practices in raising their animals.  However, you don't have to be all on board with organics or the like to make healthier choices in your eating habits.  The above tips are easily applied to conventional items at the grocery store.

Fall Menu Plan

The bug may have finally hit me.  Decorate for Fall has been on my to do list for the past three weeks, but this week it may actually get crossed off.  We took the kids to the pumpkin patch this weekend, temperatures are about to get cool(er), and I've been pinning winter squash and apple recipes on Pinterest.  This menu plan was hard to write because there were so many recipes I wanted to include. (Since I started this post, I have found even more recipes. *sigh*)

Pumpkins on death row

Also, we joined a new coop this month that offers local food during our growing season!!!  So excited about this.  I'll update you on our progress on the Pantry Challenge at the end of this post as well.

Since seasons range quite a bit around the country, I wanted to give you a quick how-to for menu planning so that you can adapt to where and how you live.

1. Start with what's in season.  If you shop at the grocery store, start with what produce is on sale. (This will save you money and you will get better quality.)

2. Look at your family calendar and decide which nights you would benefit from a quick and easy meal or a crock pot dinner.  Do you want to eat out one night?  I like to put more time consuming recipes on the weekend.

3. Consider spreading out costly items such as meat and dairy.  We only cook meat 2-3 nights a week. If we eat it other nights, it's leftovers added to a new dish.  Some people have chicken on Monday, pork on Tuesday, etc.

4. Think about grouping meals together that share ingredients or can be used to make the next meal.  I'll give you an example in my menu plan in week two with the Cilantro Lime Chicken.

That's about it!  So, without further ado, my fall menu plan:

Week 1

Saturday- Sweet Potato Burgers/Quiche
Sunday- Chicken & Shrimp Gumbo (freeze leftovers in small portions for lunches)/ Chipotle-Glazed Roast Chicken 
Monday- Curried Quinoa/ Creamy Quinoa Primavera
Tuesday- Crock pot Meatloaf/ Pineapple Teriyaki Burgers
Wednesday- Grilled Sweet Potato Medallions/Sweet Potato Quesadillas 
Thursday- Spanish Tortilla/ Twice Baked Potatoes (crock pot)
Friday- Homemade Pizza

Week 2

Saturday- Steak & Baked Potatoes/ Chili & Cornbread
Sunday- Butternut Penne/ Pumpkin & Sage Ravioli 
Monday- Crock pot Tikka Masala/ Crock pot Cilantro Lime Chicken (Serve with lots of veggies & cook extra rice to go with it. If necessary set aside about two cups of chicken before serving for Friday's recipe.)
Tuesday- Crock Pot Lentil Soup/ Crock Pot Bean Soup (Serve with leftover rice from Monday.) *Both recipes came from mothering.com, but they've changed their site, so I will share these recipes later.
Wednesday- Homemade Pita stuffed with leftover lentils/ Roasted Veggie and Black Bean Burritos
Thursday- Kale Risotto/ Roasted Butternut Squash with Kale
Friday- Chicken Tortilla Soup/ Mexican Chowder (Use leftover chicken and cilantro from Monday's recipe.  If you're worried about food poisoning, you can freeze the chicken Monday night.)


Lunches

Last time I included lunches in my menu plan, and we didn't really use the recipes I posted.  This time I'm just going to assume we will either have leftovers, sandwiches, or will eat one of the meals we didn't end up eating during the week.  And of course, there's always Butternut Squash Soup. :)

Pantry Challenge Update

Ummm, yikes.  I am way behind posting.  I started this post last week, didn't have time to finish it and then life happened, including starting back to work part-time, and it's a week later.  Oh well.  I will try to remember as best I can and hope my menu on the calendar is accurate.

Day 12
Eggs; leftovers; Out


Day 13
Yogurt & Granola; Quinoa Salad; Vegetable Tian

Day 14
Out; Eggplant Marinara Flatbread; Simple Stuffed Peppers

Day 15
Zucchini Muffins; Leftovers; Salmon & Crock Roasted Root Veggies

Day 16
Apple Pie Breakfast; Out; Chicken Sausage, Red Cabbage & Apples

Day 17
Smoothie & Toast; leftovers; I don't remember. 

Day 18
Eggs & Zucchini; leftovers; Chicken Wrap

Day 19
Zucchini Muffins; Out; Homemade Pizza

Day 20
Baked Pumpkin Spice Donuts; Out; Paella

Day 21
Baked Oatmeal; Community Lunch at Church; Caprese Lasagna

Day 22
Zucchini Muffins (so glad I made a bunch and froze them); leftovers; Cilantro Lime Chicken, Rice, Sweet Potatoes

Day 23
Yogurt, Frozen Fruit, & Granola; leftovers; Black Beans & Rice

Day 24
Make-your-own-cereal; leftovers; Roasted Veggie & Black Bean Burritos (This recipe made 6, so I froze the extra ones for future lunches. :) )

As far as spending goes, at this point we are at 506.79 total for the month.  I also highly doubt I will spend absolutely nothing at the grocery store in the next 7 days, considering that we are almost out of salt, vanilla, and something else which escapes me at the moment.  I still think we've done pretty darn good, overall, though. 

Update: Target, Wal-mart, and the Pantry Challenge

We ran out of coffee.  This lead to me stopping in Target on my way back home from dropping off the kids at school and deciding to do a quick check of prices on the items from my last post.  Which also lead to stopping in at Wal-mart (oh the horror) to check prices their too as they are reputed to have the "lowest prices" and supposedly have started carrying more organics.

I added my findings to my spreadsheet.  Instead of copying and pasting from Excel which leaves the table looking a little wonky, I have uploaded it to Google Docs.



Wal-mart did beat Whole Foods on non-organic items, however their selection of organic items was awful.  I also have other reasons for not shopping there such as horrible customer service, way too many crazy customers, and the fact that they are rated extremely poorly by better world shopper. Target didn't do so hot on prices, although they have a fairly decent selection of economical fair trade organic coffee which I was in desperate need of Tuesday morning.  The least expensive price for each item is highlighted in yellow.  As you can see, no one store offers the best price across the board.

My advice to you if you are on a super strict budget is to keep a notebook or a spreadsheet of prices for items that you buy on a regular basis, much like the spreadsheet above.  If you can hit two or three stores without going too much out of your way and wasting gas, then go to more than one store to get the better overall price.  Keep in mind that grocery store prices fluctuate a lot.  If you combine a sale with a coupon at a grocery store that doubles coupons, you can actually beat Wal-mart's prices.  Websites like thegrocerygame.com charge a small fee to track sales and coupons for you if that's your thing.  I personally don't coupon because I've found that there are very little coupons out there for the products we buy.

Pantry Challenge Update

My little OCD self created yet another spreadsheet to inventory the items I had bought through Azure Standard the last two months, complete with cost per unit for future price comparison, estimated length of time the product will last us, and the cost per month.  When it was all said and done, I discovered according to my spreadsheet (which erred on the side of caution) calculated the monthly cost to be 92.24, which means I have an extra $2 per week.  Woohoo!  

The bad news is I already dipped in to tomorrow's grocery budget  for bacon, snacks, and fried chicken from Target. (The dentist appointment ran late, the chicken wasn't defrosted in time, etc, etc.)  I only have 16.09 to spend at the store tomorrow.  I have no idea how I'm going to make this work.  Maybe I'll dip into next week's budget...

Day 8
Breakfast: Milk, Leftover Apple Butter Cupcakes Muffins (They didn't even have frosting on them. Don't judge.) 
Lunch: Kids-leftover Sweet Summer Corn chowder, Quesadillas; Adults-BBQ Chicken Sliders (leftovers in freezer), Cucumbers
Dinner: Spaghetti, Salad
Dessert: Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies

Day 9
Breakfast: Make your own cereal (My kids LOVE this.)
Lunch: Leftover Spaghetti
Snack: Pretzels and goldfish from CVS after looong dental appointment
Dinner: Fried Chicken from Target, Potatoes, Cucumber & Bell Pepper Salad

Day 10
Breakfast: Peach Pecan Waffles (Thank you, dear.)
Lunch: Chicken Wrap
Snack: Yogurt and half a peach
Dinner: Tomato Basil Soup, Garlic Toast
Snack: Homemade popcorn

Day 11
Breakfast: Toast with Almond Butter, half a peach
Lunch: Chipotle (out)
Dinner: Chicken Teriyaki Thighs, Rice, Cucumer (Finally used those chicken thighs I've tried to defrost three times...)

Wish me luck shopping tomorrow.  I'm going to check the sales online.

Comparison Shopping: Whole Foods vs. Kroger

Much to the horror of my budget savvy friends, Whole Foods is my go-to grocery store.  I realize that it is not the most economical across the board, but I have my reasons for shopping there besides the fact that it smells oh so good I inhale a contented sigh whenever I walk in the door.  Keep in mind that I don't buy all of my groceries there.  As mentioned previously, I buy a lot of my pantry staples through Azure Standard. I get produce, milk, eggs, and meat through local farmers.  For me the grocery store just fills in any gaps I may have.

1. Tortillas Yes, this sounds like a silly reason to pick a grocery store, but it's important.  It is the only place that I have found yummy tortillas that do not contain hydrogenated oils, preservatives, or other scary ingredients.  I do realize that one can make homemade tortillas for less expensive, however that person would not be me.  For some reason, homemade tortillas are my unicorn.  I have tried multiple recipes, different pressing techniques; I was even given instruction in Mexico by a Mexican.  It never works.  My tortillas come out thicker than they should, they don't roll easily, and they rarely inflate during the cooking process. (The true test of whether or not you are ready to marry according to Mexican standards.  Lucky for me my husband is not Mexican.)

2. Convenience I like that Whole Foods has not just one option for healthy foods, but several.  Shopping at Whole Foods does not negate the need to read labels, none the less, chances are I'm going to find an option that is satisfactory.  At the regular grocery stores I have to hunt and search for a product that I'm okay with consuming, and sometimes I can't even find what I'm looking for.

3. Location I have friends who swear by Trader Joe's and who say Central Market is better than Whole Foods.  That may be, but I would have to drive to Fort Worth or Dallas to shop there.  Whole Foods is not the closest natural grocer.  There is a Sprouts that is a little closer in driving time.  However, it is out of the way of anywhere else I would go, whereas Whole Foods is close to my church and is often within my route of errands I run.  The other options just aren't worth the extra gas to me.

All that being said, I do occasionally run in to a conventional grocery store for odds and ends.  Sometimes Whole Foods either doesn't have what I want or more likely it costs more than I'm willing to shell out.  Hence, today I went to both Whole Foods and Kroger and decided to do a little comparison shopping.  My findings are below.

Food	Whole Foods	Kroger
Organic Frozen corn	2.39	3.79
Conventional Garlic	0.89	0.50
Organic Onion (3lbs)	3.99	Not available
Organic Tortillas	1.99	Not available
Sundried Organic Tomato Paste	0.89	0.79	sale price
Conventional Avocado	1.29	0.78
Conventional Lime	0.33	0.20
Negro Modelo (didn't buy)	8.99	8.69
Organic unsalted butter	3.99	6.29
Pumpkin	1.29	1.00	sale price
Organic Sugar (2 lbs)	3.69	3.33
5 oz. can evaporated milk	Not available	0.65
Organic Apple Butter	4.49	4.89
Total of Items Available
Both Places	28.24	30.26

Interestingly enough, Whole Foods was less expensive in total on items that were available both places.  The only thing not available at Whole Foods was the 5 oz size of evaporated milk which I don't buy on a regular basis.  I just needed it for a new recipe.  I didn't actually buy the Negro Modelo which I needed for a particular recipe.  Instead I bought a $3.69 large bottle of Corona Extra to avoid going over budget.  This item I only found at Kroger.  (Once again, not a normal purchase.)  Side note: Sundried tomato paste was $5.49 for a tube.  See the strike-through above?  So. not. worth. it.

Whole Foods buys: Not a lot, but enough to fill in the gaps

My grand total at both stores was $32.98, 52 cents under budget for the week.  Some items I considered not including in the budget as they were bought to make a dessert for a meeting.  However, I decided to include them because it's part of my real life.  I must confess that I sent my husband to the store the next day for bacon as I overlooked that ingredient in a recipe I planned.  And he didn't even buy the "healthy" bacon. As a result, I am actually over budget this week by whatever the cost of the bacon is minus 52 cents.  I will take it out of next week's budget.  Promise.

Week One in Review

Day 3
Breakfast: Apple Pie Breakfast (This recipe was a hit!  Even my non-oatmeal-eating child ate two helpings!  Hint: Add cinnamon to the recipe and keep the cooking time short. Don't tell them it's oatmeal.  Call it apple pie breakfast. It's not lying, that's the recipe's name.  If they ask you what's in it, say grain instead of oatmeal.)
Lunch: Leftover Chinese Chicken from Monday's dinner, Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup for sick child :(
Snack: Apple and peanut butter
Dinner: Zuni Stew (Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook)  I forgot to mention last post that I cooked a pot of pinto beans in the crock pot overnight for this recipe.

Day 4
Breakfast: Leftovers (zucchini muffins and apple pie breakfast)
Lunch: Out (surprise catch-up lunch with a good friend)
Snack: Quinoa Pizza Bites (from the freezer)
Dinner: Tomato Salad, Leftover Chicken

Day 5
Breakfast: Zucchini and cheese Omelet
Lunch: Out (Pizza during shopping trip at Whole Foods)
Snack: Apples
Dinner: Out

Day 6
Breakfast: Leftover Rice Hot Breakfast Cereal
Lunch: Sweet Summer Corn Chowder (the bacon culprit)
(Put leftover Zuni Stew, pinto beans, and chicken noodle soup in the freezer.  Baked Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies and Apple Butter Cupcakes.)
Dinner: Out (We got a bonus date night since the kids stayed the night at the grandparents!)

Day 7
Breakfast: Eggs, Toast, Bacon
Lunch: Shredded Beef Tacos with Avocado and Lime
Dinner: Chicken Caprese Sandwiches 
After dinner treat: Homemade popcorn

We ate out a more this past week than is typical for us.  Our normal habit is I eat something out on Friday when I'm running errands, and we eat out after church on Sunday.  My husband eats out almost every day for lunch and I try to let it go because I'm not in his shoes and I value my marriage. ;)  This week we traded Sunday lunch for Friday dinner because we just felt like going out.  I got to go out to lunch with a friend I haven't talked to in months if not years on Thursday, and my husbands parents offered to let the kids spend the night on Saturday.  When these opportunities come up in life you smile and take them.  And you put the extra leftovers in the freezer for another day.

What's in Your Pantry?

A couple of days ago I posted about our October Pantry Challenge to spend $500 or less on organic whole foods this month.  It only seems appropriate to give you an idea of what's in my pantry that I'm working with. (An approximate cost of these goods was subtracted from the total budget for the month.)  This also gives me an excuse to show off my newly organized pantry.  Feel free to skim through to the update below if this bores you. ;)

 Not the greatest pictures as my pantry has no light in it and a small door that gets in the way which keeps you from seeing the entire shelf, but... 

Top shelf: White flour (way in back and almost never used), Cocoa powder, chocolate chips, flax seeds, coffee grinder for the flax seeds, baking soda, powdered sugar, Sucanat, brown sugar, Cholula hot sauce (free from Rangers game), vinegar (raspberry, apple cider, rice, white wine, red wine, balsamic)  honey, brown rice syrup (which I obviously needed seeing as how I've never opened it since I bought it over three years ago), molasses, pectin (three boxes, nonetheless), Mirin, Marsala, and extracts (lemon, almond (once again 3?), vanilla, and cherry)

Bottom shelf: brown rice puffs (similar to Rice Crispies), steel cut oats, quinoa, white rice (soon to be used up and replaced), lentils, arborio rice, garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas), brown rice, elbow pasta, white beans of some sort, vegetable alphabet pasta, and the odds and ends of packages to restock the containers to the side.

To the right, top shelf: almonds, instant tapioca (for a particular recipe or two), pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, dried fruit (whatever I buy at the time), coconut, sesame seeds, pistachios, pecans, walnuts, raisins, cashews, poppy seeds, homemade lemon rind candy, peanut butter, pinto beans, more garbanzo beans, Great Northern beans, 11 packages whole wheat penne pasta, 11 packages whole wheat spaghetti pasta, 12 packages lasagna noodles.  Bottom shelf: 11 jars homemade chicken broth, two cans of tuna, Chipotle salsa, two cans sweetened condensed milk (once again, have owned these over three years), 7 jars roasted Hatch chili peppers, four jars homemade peach jam, 9 28 oz cans diced tomatoes, basket contains dried chilis, pine nuts, sundried tomatoes, and sunflower seeds, basket for onions and garlic, basket for potatoes.

Pantry floor: Unseen to the left are my reusable grocery bags and egg cartons; the large containers hold soft wheat berries (to make flour for quick breads, cookies, etc.), rolled oats, black beans, hard wheat berries (to make flour for yeast breads).  Also lurking down there is some bottled water and a fire extinguisher, in case of emergency, although not necessarily for the same emergency.  As you can see I haven't found a good place for my freezer paper, plastic freezer bags (still working on phasing those out) and two extra boxes of plastic wrap, which I almost never use.  Up top: I chose not to take a picture of my top shelf which is kind of a catch all for items too tall to fit elsewhere such as a couple of serving items, adult beverages, and my oils: olive, canola, and coconut.

Moving right along...

I realize in a perfect world, I would be starting day one with zero food items.  That's not going to happen as October 1st was a Monday and I run errands on Friday.  And I'm not going to through away all my food.  I've decided not to include that trip in my budget, either, because at the end of the month I will be buying food that will carry over into November, so I figure it all works out or at least close enough.  Just so you know, I did keep my spending last Friday within weekly average budget guidelines.

Day One

Monday is my "cooking" day, as in, baking/cooking larger batch items to carry over into the week or month.  This past Monday, I made cheese crackers, mayonnaise,  and 40 Zucchini Muffins.  The quantity of muffins was somewhat of a happy accident as I had extra zucchini and decided to double the recipe before I realized that it already made 24 muffins.  No matter, as my children LOVED them and now we have extra in the freezer.  (Tip: Call them surprise muffins that have cinnamon and sugar in them until after they have devoured two.  Then they will be shocked and in awe when you tell them the surprise is zucchini.)  I also made some yogurt in the crock pot overnight.

Breakfast: Leftover blueberry muffins

Lunch: Chicken salad sandwich, cucumbers

Snack: Cheese Crackers

Dinner: Crock pot Chinese Sweet and Sour Chicken with Sesame seeds, brown rice, Stir-fried summer squash, zucchini, sweet peppers, and onions; milk for the kids

Note: I wanted to make a new sweet and sour chicken recipe from Pinterest, but I had a whole chicken, not chicken breasts.  Such is life.

Day Two

Breakfast: Zucchini muffins, cantaloupe

Lunch: Chicken salad sandwich, cheese crackers

Snack: Zucchini muffins (I told you they were good.  And I almost forgot to grab something before picking up the kids.)

Dinner: Maple-Cardamom Glazed Salmon (minus the cardamom, ha!), chickpea and tomato basil salad (On my original menu plan, I had only listed the salad, and then realized that was completely ridiculous as two of my kids don't really eat chickpeas so I added salmon.  The salad turned out to be smaller than I expected anyway, so it all worked out.)

What's in your pantry?  Anyone care to share?

October Pantry Challenge

It's a new month!  Yay! I have been waiting for this.

Don't you just love a well-stocked pantry?

A little into last month I read a couple of blogs (here and here) about women who challenged themselves to feed their family for $100 a person for one month.  However, I intentionally place large orders to Azure in August and September to stock up my pantry for the next few months as I will be working part-time and don't know when I'll be able be able to pick up an order again in the near future.  No way could I stick to $100 a person last month.

One of my best cost-savings strategies on groceries is to buy staple ingredients in bulk at a discounted price.  (They don't typically make coupons for raw nuts and grains.)  This means that some months my grocery bill is higher than others, but it should balance out over time, provided we eat what we have on hand instead of buying other food to eat instead--not that we would ever do such a thing... (Avoids eye contact.)

Enter "The October Pantry Challenge."

We have four kids, but they are only with us half the time, so I will say $400 for groceries for our family for the month of October.  This number is for food only.  In August and September I spent bought $600 from Azure to stock our pantry.  I am guesstimating that these items will last around 6 months. Some may last much longer, while other items we may end up using up way before then.  I also ordered Salmon which I expect to last around 4-6 months.  We order beef and chicken through a coop, but that normally balances each other out as we order them every other month, respectively.

Here's a break down of the fuzzy math:

Food budget:                                     $400 500
Azure (averaged out over 6 months):      100
Salmon:                                               16
Milk and eggs:                                      40
Coop:                                                 150                                          

Balance:                                             $94 194


Hmmm.  I honestly think I could do it on $400, but it would mean a big spending month again the following month.  Plus, I wouldn't be able to order chicken this month which would create problems and higher spending later.  I'm thinking that $500 for the month is a little more reasonable and possibly sustainable over the next few months.  I also am thinking my Azure number may be on the high side as a lot of what I bought is probably going to last us closer to 9-12 months.  (Getting a better idea of how long my bulk items last is on the to-do list.)

During this month I am going to ATTEMPT to post updates more regularly--every day or at least every other day.  I'm thinking this may give more of an idea of how we eat real organic food at a reasonable price.  However, I am not going to be estimating the cost of each individual meal because I am not going to make myself that crazy.  (If you follow via Facebook updates, I am planning to post blog updates for this once or twice a week, not daily, as that seems that it may get a little annoying.  If you're interested in reading the in-between posts, you may want to subscribe via e-mail so you don't miss one.)

Over the course of this month, my goal is to be more watchful of my grocery spending and to get a better idea of what we're spending.  I also hope to prove that eating healthy food doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.  Then again, I may be coming to the realization at the end of the month that we do spend more on our food than I thought.  Wish me luck!

Quick Go-to Dinner

Have I told you how much I love Frittata, Tortilla Espanola and all versions thereof?  It is quick, easy, requires no actual measuring or precise recipe, and calls for eggs and whatever I have on hand.  It's the perfect meal when I'm home by myself (although I make it for the family sometimes, too), or when I wrote down Calabacitas on the calendar which I read at 5 o'clock after getting home from the Chiropractor.

Ahem.

As I said above, there isn't a real recipe to this.  Once you know the method, you can tweak it as you see fit.  

Step One

Chop up your veggies of choice. (I used a new potato and a little red onion tonight.) Heat some olive oil in a ovenproof skillet and saute the veggies until they're cooked and a little soft. (For potatoes, I cook them until they're soft, but not too brown.)

 Step Two

Beat eggs and a splash of milk together in a bowl.

Step Three

Add eggs to pan.  Add a little cheese of choice if you want.  Let the eggs cook until they're mostly set.  Put the pan in the oven under the broiler to finish cooking. (2-7 minutes depending on how long you let them cook in the pan.

That's it.  Enjoy your yummy, easy, inexpensive dinner.  This is one of those dinners I consider a "free" meal.  I know it's not really free, but you're using up odds and ends in the kitchen so it feels like it's free.

P.S. I am not posting a finished product picture because it broke on the way out of the pan, and I don't want you to laugh at me.

Freezer Meals: AKA Curbing the Craziness

Wow. I just realized my last post on this blog was March 29.  Yikes!  The last few months have been oh. so. busy.  We are in the process of buying a house which we are planning to move in to in June.  Add in to that gymnastics, small group, tee ball, Ben's travel, wrapping up the school year, and other family matters, and it's been pretty crazy around here!  I myself have been trying to find balance between getting food on the table, running here there and everywhere, and not losing my head in the process.  (You can read more about that on my other blog here.)


In the midst of all the madness, I had stumbled upon a website through Pinterest onceamonthmom.com.  This website offers several different freezer meal plans per month, including a "Whole Foods Menu" which offers recipes for the freezer using only "real" ingredients based mostly on what's in season.  SCORE!  Oh, and did I mention it's free?  (BTW, I am not being paid to write this post. I could only be so lucky.)


I had noticed this website in April and glanced at it, but didn't actually take the time to try it.  This month with all of the craziness in store, I decided to bite the bullet and carve out some time to try it out.  I have experimented with once a month cooking, or freezing cooking, or whatever-floats-your-boat-to-call-it cooking before.  I can't really carve out that kind of time to cook and don't really want to right now either.  That being the case, I did some tweaking to the plan and did not do a full-fledged cooking day.  


Out of the menus they posted I baked a double batch of the Pecan Maple Breakfast Cookies (yum) one weekend and we ate those for breakfast the next day and I froze the rest.  Later I looked at the rest of the recipes to see which ones I wanted to cook as it lined up with the food we were getting from our produce share, and made a list of what meat I needed from the meat market. (I stored the meat in the freezer for later use.)  The weekend we got our produce I picked up any remaining ingredients needed from the grocery store.


Out of the other recipes for May, I decided to cook all of the dinner recipes, except for Pan Roasted Chicken with Lemon Garlic Green Beans.  I didn't have time to cook all of the recipes, and those recipes fit my produce items better.  The website has a downloadable spreadsheet for recipe cards, instructions, and grocery list, which allows you to input the number of people you are cooking for in order calculate the amount of ingredients needed.  I found myself referring back to the original recipes (which are all linked on the website) frequently as there seemed to be some glitches on some of the recipe cards.  Also, since I wasn't using all of the recipes listed, I put the recipes I chose into Pepperplate and created my own grocery list.


All of the recipes we have tried have been delicious.  These recipes have also helped us get our of our dinner-time rut.  The kids devoured the Shredded Beef Tacos we had for dinner a couple of weeks ago along with Black Bean-Goat Cheese Dip.  It has been refreshing to find freezer meals that do not call for cans of cream of chicken soup or dried soup mixes and the like.  Whatever little kinks there are with the spreadsheet are well worth working through, especially considering the fact that it is free.  Tonight I just pulled out the other half of the Shredded Beef Tacos to thaw.  With Ben out of town and tee ball tomorrow night, it is going to be a life saver to come home to the smell of shredded beef warming in the crock pot. *sigh*

Recipe Rescue: Calabacitas

Tonight was supposed to be frittata night.  But I didn't feel like eating Veggie Frittata. (It is one of my go-to recipes for Thursday night).  We had two huge zucchini left in the fridge from our produce share so I flipped through my slow cooker cookbook, remembering it had some scrumptious zucchini recipes.  Calabacitas? Have the ingredients. Perfect.


But I forgot to put it in the crock pot last night before bed, and I woke up late. It was a tough call, but I decided getting to work on time was more important.


After work today I still didn't feel like eating a frittata.  


The Calabacitas recipe says that the zucchini will break down in the slow cooker during cooking.  I don't really like my zucchini mushy anyway.  And I thought about the leftover black beans in the fridge which would make a nice addition to the dish...


Chop up part of an onion and one of the monster zucchinis.  (The recipe calls for two whole onions, but I don't really like excessive amounts of onion in my food. I just don't.)


Saute in pan with olive oil.  Add a cup or so of frozen corn.  (We prefer fresh over frozen, but I keep a bag of frozen corn and frozen peas in the freezer for emergencies. And sometimes Thursday night dinner is an emergency.)


Add leftover black beans and home-canned hatch chili peppers.  Salt to taste.  


Crumble feta cheese over top.  (Original calls for Monterrey Jack, but I. love. feta.)


Snip fresh cilantro from back porch (contented sigh) and sprinkle on top. 


Yum. And those hatch chili peppers pack some heat.

I'm envisioning the leftovers wrapped up in a tortilla for lunch tomorrow. 

On Yogurt Making

It seems as though almost everyone I know is making yogurt in their crock pot nowadays.  Easy and oh-so-yummy-goodness, plus less expensive than store bought. At the risk of arriving a little late to the party, here is the basic plan.


1. Pour 8 cups of milk into the crock pot. (Not ultra-pasteurized. We buy ours from a local dairy farm. YUM.) 
2. Cook on low for 2 1/2 hours.
3. Let sit for 3 hours.
4. Stir in 1/2 C plain yogurt (starter), wrap in a heavy towel or blanket and let sit for 8 hours.


I start my yogurt at 4:30, set the crock pot timer for 2 1/2 hours AND the kitchen timer for 5 1/2 hours (explanation follows).  When the kitchen timer goes off at 10:00, I stir in the starter and go to bed.

Whey and yogurt

5. After 8 hours is up, leave as is or, for creamier yogurt, place a colander in a bowl and line with cheese cloth. Pour yogurt into colander and let it strain for the day or so.


I personally like to let it strain for about a half a day to a day until it's the consistency I want. (Read it depends on when I remember I have yogurt draining in my fridge.) Then I take a large spoon and scoop 1/2 C into a small container to use as a starter in the next batch and then transfer most of the rest of it into a container with a lid.  In the bowl under the colander, you are left with whey which is worth keeping. (Find uses here.)  The remaining thicker yogurt still in the cheese cloth I allow to continue to strain to make yogurt cheese.  It is like cream cheese, but more tart.  You can experiment with adding salt or herbs to it.  Yum.


Note: Some people say that you should always start with a fresh (store bought) yogurt        starter. I have been saving my own yogurt as a starter for months now with no problems.


This is so stinkin' easy it's ridiculous.  The hardest part is remembering to stir in the starter and strain it in the morning (hence the setting of the kitchen timer.)  Last time I made yogurt, I forgot to do both.  When I went to pour it out the next evening, it actually looked like yogurt, not really sure what it was.  Ben jokingly suggested using one of the kids as a guinea pig to test it. Tempting, but seeing as how that could possibly end with me caring for aforementioned sick guinea pig, I decided against it.

The best part of waking up...

is already having a plan for breakfast.  I had a conversation this past week about my breakfast meal plan.  And, yes, it may seem a little uptight to some. I have used some variation of a breakfast plan for years, tweaking it as my family's needs and our nutritional awareness has changed, and it has made life so much easier in the mornings.


What's wrong with Fruity Pebbles?

Our cultural norms for breakfast tend to be bread-based.  Navigating bread, crackers, cereals and the like is a path full of landmines of food substitutes, additives, trans fat, and high fructose corn syrup.  Studies performed on lab rats have shown breakfast cereals to be at best extremely limited in nutritional value compared to whole wheat and at worst (when eaten exclusively) to cause organ failures from insulin shock.  Even the "healthier" options for cereal are not that good for you.  Not to mention they cost a pretty penny.


"But I don't have time to fix breakfast!"


Mornings are not my thing, so let me tell you I am NOT up at the crack of dawn cooking up breakfast.  Plus, we have four children (and ourselves) to get ready and out the door on time for work/school.  I looked at our family's schedule and nutritional needs and created a weekly breakfast plan.  And it works for us.  I don't have to try to think at 6:30 in the morning, and the children like knowing what's coming which makes for smoother mornings. One night my son asked me what was for breakfast in the morning. When I told him I wasn't sure, he said, "Look at your calendar, Mom."


Below is our family's breakfast meal plan. I included links to some of the recipes mentioned.  Feel free to use it as a starting point to plan for your family.  Keep in mind that nutrition isn't one-size-fits-all, so you may need to adjust accordingly.


Mondays- Baked good and fruit-I make some kind of quick bread or muffin on Sunday for breakfast the next day.  I vary it by the season or what we have on hand, such as banana bread or muffins, pumpkin bread, blueberry muffins, or cinnamon rolls if I made bread over the weekend.  Another option is to make a large batch of muffins or bread once a month or so and freeze it for later use.


Tuesdays- Cereal and fruit-I know I just said boxed cereal isn't good for you.  It isn't.  And we don't eat it.  We eat homemade granola, oatmeal, or we make a muesli-type breakfast that we call "make-your-own-cereal."  Granola is one of those things I make on the weekend.  Although, it doesn't take a whole lot of effort so I do sometimes throw it together during the week.  If you're not a fan of oatmeal, try making your own from raw oats or steel cut oats in the crock pot overnight.  I never liked oatmeal as a kid, but love the stuff I make myself with pecans, apples, cinnamon, and honey stirred in.  I had to play with the amount of water and the cooking time for both kinds of oatmeal because I do not like my oatmeal mushy. Yuck!


Wednesdays- Yogurt and fruit- I start my own yogurt in the crock pot on Sunday nights (can you tell I love my crock pot?)  It is soooo easy and soooo yummy.  If you don't want to make your own, pick up a large container of the plain organic yogurt in the store.  We stir in fresh or frozen fruit and honey or make smoothies and serve it with a half slice of toast or leftover bread from Monday.


Thursdays- Toast and fruit- I make my own bread most of the time, which I'll cover in a later post. When buying bread from the store pick one that is 100% whole wheat without partially hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup.  


Friday- Eggs-This is kind of my Friday treat.  The kids aren't here so it's a little easier for me to take care of breakfast, although I could probably cook eggs on a kid-day occasionally.  Eggs actually are healthy and good for you, believe it or not.  Normally I make an omelet or a breakfast burrito to get some veggies in with it.  (Salsa counts, right?)  Breakfast burritos can be pre-made in a large batch and frozen to be reheated later. Supposedly you can mix omelets in Ziploc bags, freeze them, and then cook them in boiling water, but I'm not really comfortable with cooking my food that way. It takes me maybe five minutes to cook up breakfast, so not that big of a deal. It can take some searching to find tortillas without the yucky stuff. Whole Foods is the only place I have found healthy flour tortillas at a decent price.


Saturday & Sunday- Chef's Choice- Homemade biscuits, pancakes, waffles, coffee cake, or whatever we feel like cooking up.


Helpful Tips


-Look ahead at your week on Sunday to see what you might want to pre-make or to see if you need to tweak your plan for some reason.


-After dinner look at your plan to see if you need to get anything started that night for breakfast the next morning. Have a backup plan if you forget. In our house that's usually toast.


-Set a time for waking up, breakfast, and leaving the house. For example: the kids wake up at 6:30, breakfast is at 6:45, we clean up and leave at 7:00.  If they miss breakfast once or twice, I promise they won't starve, but they will start learning to manage their time.

The Detour Edition

Yes, I know I promised Part II of The First Step. And it's coming. Soon. 

However, this past week my family took a road trip to Colorado to visit family and so I decided to write about eating real food on the road.  I'm going to be up-front and let you know we relax our norms a little while we're traveling, but still try to eat a good portion of fruits and vegetables, overall make good choices, and drink plenty of water, etc, etc.

This one takes a little preplanning.  If you leave yourself to the mercy of Billy-Bob's Truck Stop and America's Favorite Drive Thru, your options are going to be very, very limited. And you will pay a fortune for those items.  Our solution for car trips has been to pack a cooler, along with reusable water bottles, and a bag of snacks. (If you're flying you can still pack a couple nonliquid snacks in your carry on.)

The way there is always easier, because you're at your own home to prep.  My husband and daughter made peanut butter balls.  (Oh. so. yummy. You can find the recipe here. We substituted the coconut and currants for chocolate chips and almonds.)  The kids made individual snack bags of trail mix from ingredients in our pantry.  We packed fruits and vegetables, homemade ranch, granola and yogurt, Bunny crackers, water jugs and walla!  With some fruits and vegetables, it is better to cut them up and pack them in a hard container first.  Can we say smushed kiwi?  The trip out was a success, the only hitch being that I forgot to pack the lettuce for salad on day 2, so we feasted on trail mix, cantaloupe, and baby carrots at the park.

If you plan to eat out, it is a good idea to do a search on the internet first of to turn up healthier options.  These may not be visible from the highway.  Confession: we planned to eat at Jason's Deli in Amarillo, but ended up at Texas Roadhouse instead.  In my book, not a big deal.  We had eaten sandwiches for lunch, and you know, if you're in Amarillo...  At least we didn't attempt to eat the 72 oz steak.

The day before heading back home, we stopped at a local grocery store to stock up for the way home, and bought the following:

Breakfast                                       

Granola Bars

Raspberries

Blueberries

Lunch

Lettuce (for salad)

Cucumber

Avocado

Grape Tomatoes

Organic Ranch

Kashi Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Izze Blackberry Sparkling Juice

Dinner

Pita bread

Mustard

Turkey

Monterrey Jack Cheese

Snacks

Organic Yogurt

Popcorn (didn't actually eat it, I'll explain later.)

Salt and Pepper Potato Chips

A couple of gallons of water to refill water bottles

Total cost: $65.  Add up the costs of eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and drinks or bottled water on the road, and we estimated our savings to be $35 at a minimum. Although a few of the items we bought were more prepackaged than we like to eat, all of the food was either "natural" or organic, and it fit our no high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils goal.  Plus, still better than truck stop food. 

Speaking of which....

Somewhere around Amarillo our 115,000 mile state-of-the-art Chrysler minivan decided to give up the good fight.  The AC broke. For the third time this year. In over 100 degree weather.  With five hours left to go. In the interest of family harmony and cooling off the troops, the kids were allowed to pick out a cold treat at a gas station.  And I didn't even read the label.  Because it's not about doing it "perfectly," it's about doing it better.

(This is just how we did it.  Your version of "better" may look totally different than ours based on where your family is at.)