DIY with the dirty dozen veggie wash

So this is the beginning of a ton of post.  That is your only warning.  I will be coming back later that I had to get on my frugal tightwad ship and set sail to be efficient with my single income, five children home. Hate to admit, I have been shopping with an attitude of entitlement.

First off, let's clean some stuff.  So we know with all the Monsanto and organic arguments, oh and also e-coli outbreaks that washing veggies is a necessity.  And our store has all kinds of things to buy and spend our precious resources on.

Image source:http://veggiewash.beaumontproducts.com/UltimateEditorInclude/ImageViewer.aspx?id=243

There are a ton of veggie/fruit wash recipes.  Here is the one I like at allrecipes.

http://www.food.com/recipe/homemade-vegetable-wash-preserver-that-works-spray-or-soak-300387

So I prefer the soak method. I can fill and walk away until later. So I fill my washtub with cold water and add an estimated quarter cup of white 

 Vinegar with about 2 tablespoons of salt.  And let soak for 15 minutes.

Now the thing to realize is there is a pretty list of dirty food and good ones.  I have spent years ignoring it, but I must arm myself with its knowledge.

12 Most Contaminated

• Peaches
• Apples
• Sweet Bell Peppers
• Celery
• Nectarines
• Strawberries
• Cherries
• Pears
• Grapes (Imported)
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Potatoes

12 Least Contaminated

• Onions
• Avocado
• Sweet Corn (Frozen)
• Pineapples
• Mango
• Asparagus
• Sweet Peas (Frozen)
• Kiwi Fruit
• Bananas
• Cabbage
• Broccoli
• Papaya

Source: www.organic.net

As, always wanting to feed my family well, without debt.

Thanksgiving -WW recipes

As I finish my first week on plan, I am in epic failure mode.  Hmm, a small trip has turned my efforts into drive thru madness. as thanksgiving is fastly approaching, I am building my arsenal to be prepared with low point options at the dinner table.  I have held onto these recipes for some time and they can be a true lifesaver for just knowing what I can eat and how much versus adventuring into the unknown.

My first is the Weight Watcher Bread Stuffing.  Please be aware that this will not look, smell or taste like diet food.  It is very probable that it may be consumed by all guest and not just the dieting ones.

Now I do enjoy the Weight watcher Cranberry Walnut Relish.  Besides just being pretty, it makes me feel as though I have a since of culinary gourmet affluence.  Hmm, which I do not, but it is fun to pretend.

My ultimate comfort food, has got to be the mashed potatoes.  No reason to skimp on taste with this dish.  Adding the garlic and thyme brings a well deserved pop of flavor to every bite. 

Weight watchers has always been wonderful at making the meal more than just a diet, but a lifestyle and an occasion.  Always adding to your menu fresh foods and staying to natural and less processed foods, makes every meal healthy and delicious.  Most of all, almost every weight watcher recipe I have found to add to my life is usually straight forward and easy.  But most of all, do able without a special cooking class.

Have a great thanksgiving.

~trish

Great getting started Couponing.

I love jenny at Southern Savers.  In fact, she is the only reason I currently coupon, because she makes it simple and easy for me.  I am always recommending her site to anyone and everyone.  This is a great video.  She breaks it down on how to coupon without being overwhelming.

 

In fact, I am buying the file system today at dollar tree today, and making a commitment to go full throttle couponing with Jenny. 

Here website is:

www.southernsavers.com

~trish

Digital Recipe Cards – Cheerful Halloween Digital additions Preview

I am so excited that I got to preview one of the new digital additions from my Creative Memories Consultant, Tracy Croy!  She has really managed to get me hooked on making recipe cards.  They are relatively easy and then you can print them out via a 4x6 printing service or at home.  So I was able to play with the new Cheerful Halloween Digital Addition.  This picture shows you everything you get in the kit.   I have to say this is amazing!  Since the digital file is only $5.95!

So I decided the best thing for some good recipes to add to my recipe collection would be to look in www.familyfun.go.com.

 

So I came up with these 3 recipe cards.

You can click and save these jpegs and then either print to your local printer or send it to a photo lab.

Enjoy!

~trish

The Once A Month MOM Cooking website and podcast

I stumbled across the podcast and then found her site.  AMAZING!  This is another source for doing your once a month cooking.  She has it all very professional with printable recipe cards! 

She puts out a monthly podcast about the meals.  You can get all the information you need at her site.

I am excited about the pop-tart recipe.  My kids love pop-tarts and so does my husband.  So I look forward to making these.  I am going to plan to use her plan for my next cooking session. find her here!

~trish

Keeping the grocery bill LOW?

Scratch, Scratch, Scratch.  No I do not have an itch!  The easiest way to keep the bills low is to only buy the staples and make things from scratch.  This is a picture of my chicken pot pie.  The biscuits are  another round I made from scratch.  I froze the rest, so that they will be convenient later, for biscuits and honey.

Now I love couponing, but after a couple of months I remember, all I am really buying is a bunch of processed food.  Remember those packages of short bread cookies I got for $1 a package, still have half of them.  I do not really even like eating them, but I am in major calorie intake mood with nursing.  So couponing is a luxury, since I spend more and on things I do not NEED.

So I have 2 major fundamentals when it comes to shopping for food: 1. Cook from Scratch and 2. Buy in bulk on the big items.

I am always encouraged when I check out other families who are keeping their grocery bill down.  I read 2 articles this evening that made me want to share this with you, the first at  life in a shoe and the second at frugalhacks.com

I realize there are a lot of other things I do that help.

1. Soda is a luxury item.  When I buy it, it is for the sole enjoyment of my husband and me. So it is generic root beer and a diet soda.  The children will have a treat of root beer, once in a while (like once a month).  Why? Soda is yummy!  You can drink and drink and never be satisfied.  I can gulp water and be satisfied, I can go through 4 cans of soda and still not have my thirst quenched.
2. Buy excessive amounts of meat when it is on sale at an unbelievable price.  Stock up!
3. Control on the snacks.  Now our one outlet on snacks is the little snack cakes and the powder donut bags.  Why? because I can get them on the super cheap at the day old bread store.  Just the other day, our store had buy 10 bags of donuts for $3.  That is unheard of as a price, so I bought 10 and froze them.  I will buy the boxed snack packs for less than a dollar. (I do buy generic oreos, this is my husbands weakness.  And he only eats 3-4 cookies each night with his glass of milk)
4. Milk is costly, never waste great fresh milk to cook with, use dry.
5. Use what you buy!

 

Now one thing that was listed that I have not given much thought about was buying in bulk produce in season.  I buy in bulk to can, but did not think to buy in bulk for fresh consumption.  Mostly because I am wishy washy on what I feel like eating fresh.  Now we are blessed in this part of Florida, because we have a lot of large volume farmers markets.  I mean where they have nothing but a box truck full of green peppers only.  I like the idea of eating what is in season and cheap.  My fear is, it is a 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive to get there and would my small children be able to keep up with the amount of food I would get from a box of each and only having 2 things.

One way I could work around this, would be to get a couple of families to get in as a co-op and make food boxes every 2-3 weeks. Or instead can/ freeze my left-overs. So I will think about this a bit more and figure out how to incorporate it into my life.

 

Good luck saving.  I keep thinking about this couple I met, while I was still fresh in college doing an internship.  Denny and Pat, senior volunteers, who lived by and constantly chatted the same slogan every day, “Waste not, Want not”. Ten plus years later, this slogan resonates in every part of my life. And grows to take over other parts.  Funny is that this seed was planted for ten years before it ever took root.

~trish

OAMC June Cooking Event

 

Monday

1. Prepped Tuna casserole, minus noodles and froze.
2. Bought ingredients at Walmart
3. Made myself crazy by showing up at Sams 3 minutes after they closed
4. Had pitty party in parking lot, went to Joanns to make list of patterns I want for the big sale on friday as a since of therapy.

 

Tuesday

1. Buy the remaining ingredients at Sam’s.
2. Found the source of the mysterious smell in the Van.
3. Pre-warned the Manager of JoAnns that I will be there when the doors open on friday with all 4 kids.  (He is the new manager, I figured the least I can do is prepare him.)
4. Cut onions
5. Cook ground beef.
6. Slice beef roast (I bought stew meat instead, Sams stew meat is all the cut offs from the steaks and is high quality) and brown.

Wednesday

1. Boil chicken, cool, debone, bag meat up.  Save broth.

Thursday

1. Make pasta sauce.
2. Chop celery and slice mushrooms.
3. Make and freeze beef stroganoff
4. Make Beef tips and Freeze.

Friday

1. Soak beans
2. Hit the Memorial Sale at JoAnns for $1/yd fabric, follow with library,
3. Undercook the beans.
4. Make and freeze Creamy Chicken
5. Make and Freeze Jambalaya
6. Make and freeze Red beans and Rice

By the end of the weekend everything was finished.  I had some distractions that kept me off task, I provided you with them to show you that it really isn’t a daunting task.  I may have some attention problems right now.

I ended up with 29 meals in the freezer.  I skipped the tuna patties, because I took too long to get to the rest of the tuna.  I feared for the safety of it.  Every night that I prepped the meals, I pulled a bit a side for dinner that night, so I really got 45 extra meals on top of the ones in the freezer.

I skipped all the pasta and rice.  I am going to make the rice and pasta the day of, to save time prepping them and to save room in the freezer.  Some things I did not mix well.  Like the bean recipes, I divided the beans out the day before and had them in the zip lock bags and then the next day I mixed the remaining ingredients and added them in after the fact.

Things to consider on the lazy lasagna and cheeseburger pasta.  Do not make your arms hurt, cut the the velveeda and cream cheese up and put them at the bottom of the ziplock.  Then mix remaining ingredients and pour on top.  My arms are killing me.  And add the shredded cheese last when mixing.  It is very difficult to mix shredded cheese when you multiplied the recipe by 4.

Another Note about my recipes.  The creamy Chicken can use a little something.  I figured it would be a meal requiring sides, I think it needs vegetables in it.  Over the next few times I make it, I will figure out what to add.

Now my future bulk cooking will not be this intense.  I just had to get caught up from not bulking for a while.  After next week (when I get paid again), I plan to bulk cook 1-2 meals each week.  My thought is if I am putting in 6-7 meals into the freezer each week than I should always have 30 meals in the freezer.  Than I will not have another hard wallet hit, like this week.  I think I am going to have to get a payday loan from my husband, I might be short by about $10, $45 if I have to get diapers.  (On that side note, I better get my laundry caught up, to clothe diaper).

Email me with any questions you have. If you bulk cook, link me to your blog.  This post took me all week to write.  I am excited to be done cooking and start sewing.  I got a new skirt pattern and wonderful $1 yard fabric to use.

~trish

June 2010 Bulk Cooking Menu

This took me a bit of time to get together.  Like I said before, planning is key!  First I came up with my meals and the recipes.  I have a list below that show what I am making, how many it serves and the total number of meals I am making of it.  To make things easier, I linked the recipes for you.  Some I had to type out and post, some I changed the recipe from how I would make it to one that was already on the web.  For some of you, you may have never thought about cooking in bulk like this before, so I want to make it as easy as possible to follow along.
Menu List

Chicken	Servings	# of Meals
Creamy Chicken Casserole	6	2
Chicken Pot Pie	6	2
Chicken and Sausage cassoulet		2
Jambalaya	8	2
Ground beef
Lazy Lasagna	6	4
Cheeseburger Pasta	6	4
Tuna
Tuna Casserole		3
Tuna Cakes		2
Sausage
Red beans and Rice	6	2
Stuffed Shells	6	2
Beef Tips	6	3
Beef Stroganoff	6	2

Alterations:
Jambalaya: I will be using canned tomatoes (diced) instead of fresh tomatoes.  I will be browning the cooked chicken and sausage as it says.  I will make the mixture and then freeze and will cook it later in the crock pot.
Tuna Patties: Calls for bisquick in the recipe.  I am not buying it.  I found a recipe for baking mix here.
Beef Tips: This recipe is for a huge amount, I am cutting the recipe in half and assuming it will suit 3 meals of 6 servings.

Now, sorry I did not type it all out, but it is so much easier to hand write my ingredients for each meal.  So I scanned the pages for you.  Here they are:

Just click and you should be able to print.
Now from here, I consolidate my list to create my grocery list to shop from.

I then check my pantry for what I have, so I can delete it from my list.  From this list, I am using my $0.68/lb whole chickens and the 4 pound can of tuna I already have. 
After, I cruise sam’s club (website) to see what I can buy in bulk and mark it on my list.  I also check out the weekly ads to see if it can beat the price.  I plan to buy first at walmart to price match anything and then go to walmart.  My initial approximation is that this will cost me $200 for 30 days.  Now if you read about my frugal finances, I get $300 every 2 weeks.  So for the next 2 weeks no doubt, we are eating from the freezer.  But the following 4 weeks, we will eat about every other night.  This way I can make our favorite, fried meat, rice and gravy with green beans.

As for cooking this bulkiness, that will be a later post.  The nice part is after all this work, I can always repeat this bulk planning with just the shopping and cooking effort.
If you bulk cook!  Please leave me a comment and send us a link to your blog where you post any of your recipes.  Coming up with the meals I want to eat is my hardest part.

~trish

Power Planning for Bulk Cooking!

welcome to my appliance counter.  I have set up shop to prepare for a bulk cooking session next week.  I have my pretty little binder with my tried and true recipes, my box of little cookbooks, and off to the right, my handy Southern Living Cookbook.  More like the manual for cooking with all of its little how-to and explanation glossary.
And of course, the thing that makes it all possible, my computer!  I am trying to collect recipes from my cookbooks for this round, but I am not making a lot of progress.
My Menu Goals, when planning a bulk cooking session:

• 15 different meals
• Total of 30 meals.
• Grocery bill under $200

Now I get this done by breaking up things into categories and collecting recipes for each group.  Here are my groups:

• Chicken
• Ground beef
• spaghetti Sauce
• Tuna
• Pork

Now This round I am using the chicken, ground beef, tuna, and added sausage.  I do this so I am cooking several meals in each category, so I get a great bulk buy discount for the meals, and I have less work by cooking everything at once.
Now I usually never have Tuna or sausage as a category.  BUT!  I bought the huge can of Tuna from Sam’s Club (66 oz Can) and want to get it used.  My family is only going to eat so much tuna noodle casserole, so I went looking for other recipes to freeze.  I decided on making Tuna cakes, like a crab cake, as a meal.  The sausage is because some New Orleans red beans and rice sounds yummy and I can then also make Jambalaya with the chicken.  This is feasible when I can buy the sausage in a 3lb bulk buy.
The method of Planning

1. So as I make my list of meals, under each category.  I make another list that has the ingredients and quantities for each meal. (I try to get close to 15 total recipes)
2. I sit with all my recipes and decide how many times I want to eat that meal in the next month.  If I make 4x, then I am eating it each week, 2x, then every other week. (I want a total of 30 meals)
3. Once I have the total amounts I am going to make, then I go back to my ingredients list and multiply the ingredients by the number of times we will have this meal.
4. New LIST! Grocery list.  Now once the ingredients have been determined for each meal, I start adding up all the ingredients.  Now I do this by groups.  Like meat, produce, canned, frozen, etc.
5. Now I go to my bulk store, Sam’s Club, online to figure out what they sell in bulk that will fit my need on the grocery list.

For example, my chicken group of meals I will be using whole chickens.  I got them for about $0.68/lb and have plenty in the freezer.  I will boil the chickens and cube all the meat up and use it for the recipes, even when it when it calls for chicken breast.  I also will have a wonderful stock to use for anything that calls for it and I will use the remaining for a soup base.
Another example is making spaghetti sauce from Tomato Sauce. A #10 Can of sauce is less than $3 a can and you can easily make sauce for plenty meals.  So you have your sauce and then can do meatballs, stuffed shells, spaghetti, raviolis, lasagna, etc.
By the end of this week, I will have my planning completed and my list made.  I will post them for you.  I am going to cook all my meals over several days, because otherwise it takes an entire day.  Having a newborn and 3 others running loose, this would be a “put me in the county nuthouse” event. Although, we have one, one county over, I am going to try and use that first free stay for when I really need a break.
back with you soon,
~trish

My week of Mexican in review.

I know I gave you just a single posting that I was going to do a week of mexican food.  Well, we did finish it up, but I never did post all the pictures.

   

Here all all my photos I had left for the week.  We had chicken, zucchini, rice and beans; green enchiladas, Chorizo as a taco salad and then in burritos.  We loved the Chorizo, but man did it take our stomach to get used to it.

~trish

Back to bulk cooking - Ground Beef

So I have lavished in the bulk cooking but have not been very excited about spending the day in the kitchen with the children creating craziness. So I mucked up the courage to start again. My aim is/was a total of 12 meals. I spent right at $150 for the 12, not near the savings I got last time. But I was ready for something different. I say is/was because there is a good possibility I will be getting more than 3 meals from each dinner.

My meals:

3 - Lazy Lasagna

3 - Cabbage rolls

2 - Wings and coleslaw and french fries

2 - Enchilada casseroles

1 - Tacos

1 - Nachos

So this time I am cooking in shifts. First order of action cook the 10 pounds of ground beef. Yes even a 4 year old can do it, well until the DVD starts playing. I used my electric skillet for this because it is the biggest pan in the house and my sad little stove, sniffle, sniffle is having some aging problems. That will be for another time.

So I cooked all 10 pounds.

Then I strained all of it in a strainer in a pot and moved it to a measuring cup. For gross approximation, 2 1/5 cups cooked is 1 pound.

From here, I measured 3 pounds into 2 bags, one for cabbage rolls and one for lasagna I also cooked 4 pounds total with taco seasoning for the nachos, tacos, and enchiladas.

Taco Seasoning, go in bulk or make your own. I buy in bulk.

So tonight, I took the remaining taco meat and layered it on chips, cheese, onions, tomatoes, and green chili. MMMMMmmmmm!

So tomorrow, I should be making the cabbage rolls and then the lasagna, the wings, enchiladas.

Planning your shopping trips!

Usually before I take my adventure in grocery shopping, I plan my list and an approximate price for each item. By paying attention to what things cost and writing the cost down on my list every week has given me the ability to do a very good job approximating my total bill.

Well, my goal is to buy the most economical. Economical is the lowest cost for unit with a quantity that is reasonable to store and use within the expiration date. So, I do not want to buy 400 dozen eggs, just because I can get them for $0.50. Or I do not want to buy 25# bag of flour, if I have no reason to use it in 2 months or a reasonable place to store it.

Okay, focus! It is easy to know the price on the advertised adds, but what about the rest? I have stayed clear of Sam's Club for close to a year, because I would either buy everything there and spend $200 or buy nothing from there. I am an all or nothing kind of girl. So I found an alternative. I make my list as usual and then I go to Sam's website to get grocery prices. Believe it or not, Sam's list the true price of each grocery item, even produce. So I go to Wal-mart first and if they can beat the Sam's price then I get it there, otherwise I pick it up at Sam's.

www.samsclub.com

So check out your local warehouse club to see if they list their bulk prices. It may cost you a little more the first 2 weeks, but consider it investing in your pantry. Beware, only bulk up on you staples, not luxury groceries.

Have a great day!
~t

This Weeks menu and Groceries! - just for you Tracy!

Alright, I started by taking inventory of the kitchen and the loot I got this month from Angel Foods. Then I looked at the weekly adds. Not a lot jumped out. So this was the menu I came up with:
Breakfast: assortment of cereals (got the other week for about a $1 a box), 1/2 doz donuts ($2), and 1 box of pop-tarts (wal-mart brand)
Lunch: Sandwiches, soup, left-overs, chips

Dinner Menu:
Monday: Chicken & Dumplins with Collards - Collards in pantry, Margaret Holmes heat-n-serve $1 can, chicken from Angel Food box

Tuesday: Chili dogs and Mac-n-Cheese - hot dogs & Mac (angel food), chili sauce ($0.42/can), Cheese had from last week, hot dog buns (day old bread store)

Wednesday - Christmas Eve: Order in Cearaba's large party order - Chicken Marsela, Mash potatoes for 12 servings, plus the bread and oil for $100 w/o tax - right now you can get a free $20 gift card for purchasing a $100 gift card. I have 3 Caesar salad mixes & green beans.

Thursday - christmas Day - Family's house - I bring a cake and we get to take home left-overs.

Friday - Spaghetti with Texas Garlic Toast

Saturday- Left overs

Sunday - Roast with vegetables and rice ( all from angel food box)


Walmart: $ 81.46
Gas: $19.96
Target: $39.59
Flowers Bread Store: $3.47
Sams; $10.43

This week total: $144.95
Bunk bed Fund: +$5.05 increase
I allot $25 for gas each week, although I am not spending it, I am letting it accumulate(I think cheap gas is not forever)