Take a Shopping Trip with Me

My shopping habits change with the year and the season. During the CSA season (now 46 weeks long), I always pick up our fresh veggies on Thursday after work. (except next year, I think I signed up for Tuesday. After 10 years on Thursday, how much do you want to bet I'll forget the day?)

When my son was in daycare, I would often shop once per week at Tri County Produce because it was close to his child care provider, and had very good prices. When I was working Sundays, I would hit the farmer's market at lunch time near work. The Saturday farmer's market is one of the largest and is my favorite, but during the year or so that I was training for half marathons or triathlons, I always almost missed it.

When I worked part time, I shopped several days per week as I needed things, because I simply had more time. When I went back to work full time and got tired of that, I decided to only shop once per week (not counting the CSA pick up and farmer's market). When that got to be too stressful, I took a page out of some others' books (those who shop once every month or two or three), and attempted to shop only every 2 weeks. My thought was that I still had the CSA to pick up every week for vegetables, and there was now a farmer's market at my son's school on Wednesday, so I could shop without an extra trip.

I found the challenges to every 2 weeks were milk and fruit. It's not that if I ran out of something else, I couldn't work around it. I have a lot of practice with that. No bread for sandwiches or toast? Eat oatmeal or rice or pasta or soup. Milk does not stay fresh for 2 weeks. I know that you can freeze it, but I wasn't able to find 1/2 gallons or organic milk in the plastic jugs, and I didn't want to attempt to freeze paper cartons. And we eat a LOT of fruit. I eat 2-4 pieces a day and the spouse and child eat 1-3 pieces each. Our CSA supplies little fruit (some weeks, none at all), and the farmer's market choices are heavily dependent on the season (as expected). The market at my son's school is very small (1/8th the size of the Saturday one), with few vendors. I found myself having to shop at least once a week for milk and fruit, so I gave up the "every 2 weeks" shopping pretty quickly. I think I lasted 6 weeks.

The frugalness of my shopping trips has varied over the years and months too. A lot of frugal shopping and cooking habits can be learned and practiced bit by bit. Using a price book. Shopping loss leaders. Buying (and cooking) in bulk. Putting up "excess" (yours and friends'). Avoiding convenience foods. However, like healthy eating habits, it's pretty easy to find yourself drifting away from the good habits over time. One holiday party here and a pizza lunch at work there, and you find yourself hitting the bread or chocolate or wine a bit too much. Likewise, a week or two of craziness at work, a sick kid, or a traveling husband can mean you find yourself ordering pizza more often, or not using your price book, or buying convenience foods, or shopping at only one store because it's easier than shopping at three.

My shopping habits have also changed because of my reading habits. What to Eat, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Eat for Health, The China Study etc... now I purchase organic dairy whenever possible. We eat less meat (a LOT less) and buy organic and free range (local when possible). We eat about 5-10 lbs of meat in a typical month (for a family of 3). We try to eat organic for the "dirty dozen" fruits and vegetables also.

"Back in the day" before I embraced the more-organic path, and when I was working part time, I would use cash to shop and could feed us for $70/week plus $20 for the CSA. We ate more meat, I shopped more often at Tri County, and my son was mostly fed on breastmilk and baby food. I sometimes think longingly of those days of shopping aggressively and cooking from scratch 5 days a week (with leftovers on the other two days). But my shopping and eating habits have had to change for my own sanity's sake.

So, frugal or not by your standards, here's a day (sort of) in the life of my family's shopping habits. I was able to shop myself (no kid), which was relaxing.

At the Wednesday farmer's market this week, I discovered something dangerous. The hummus guy. Oh my goodness. I was shopping for my son's school snack for the next day. I like making my own hummus, but there's that time factor again.

Weds Farmer's market: $15
3 tubs of hummus: $13
1 lb broccoli: $2

Weds Grocery store: $9
crackers and baby carrots

Saturday Farmer's Market: $34.50
raw almond butter: $8 (this stuff is GOOOOOD)
10 lb bag oranges: $6 (great deal! and they keep pretty well in the fridge)
3+ lb avocado: $5 (from the best avocado ranch around)
1 ripe avocado: $1.50 (from a different vendor)
2 heads lettuce: $2
24 oz honey: $9
2 lb carrots: $3 (vs. 33cents a pound at Tri County. Not the frugal choice, but they are tasty)

Contrast these prices (some good, some not great) with Tri County Produce (location of origin listed).
Total Tri County: $14.82
yellow onions (USA) at 0.33/lb
kabocha squash (USA) at 0.79/lb (oops, they charged me for acorn)
organic pink lady apples (USA) at 1.39/lb (best price I've seen all year for organic)
cabbage (USA): 0.49/lb
poppy and sesame seeds: 0.69/ea
celery (USA): 0.79
red bell pepper (Mex): 0.49/lb
eggplant (Mex, though the label on the shelf said USA!): 0.99/lb
soda (bad Marcia): $1.59


I read recently that our poor farmers feed our rich people and our rich farmers feed our poor people. I wish I could remember where. Probably from a link from another site, like Casual Kitchen. When you compare our farmer's market prices vs. our store prices, you can see that is true.

Trader Joe's: $56.94
drinks: prosecco, limade, grapfruit soda (for a party)
sparkling water, apple juice (for home). Yeah, I pay for bubbles.
milk (1 gal, leaking), 2 kinds of yogurt (32 oz each) - I haven't made my own in awhile
fruit applesauce pouches (a jar would be better, but it's a treat for my son)
olives, capers, pickles
whole wheat penne and fettucini, bowtie pasta
bananas, gorgonzola, sour cream, bread

So, there you have it. $115.44 for the week. And we ordered pizza one night.

Roasted Vegetables

Ah, there is something about the cold weather that just makes me want to roast stuff. I love roasted vegetables. The problem with them is that when the weather is warm, you just don't want to turn on your oven.

The weather is often warm in So Cal.

Still, I've got great recipes for roasted cauliflower, roasted root vegetables, roasted potatoes. I use "recipes" lightly because with the exception of the cauliflower, the recipes are "salt, pepper, oil".

I experimented a bit this week because I still have a lot of that 10-lb bag of potatoes for a $1. I also still had some green beans. I wonder if you can roast green beans?

Turns out you can. And later this week, I repeated the experiment with the potatoes, green beans and onions, and I tossed some broccoli in there too.

I do have a little trick to make it go faster: Pampered Chef has this great little black micro steamer that I LOVE. I love it so much I have purchased the larger size as gifts for friends. It microwaves vegetables quickly and perfectly. Then the oven is just the browning part. These days I am making two trays. We eat a LOT of vegetables in this house. Still with two trays, there were only enough leftovers for one lunch (mine).

Roast vegetables: (amounts are just what I had)
1.5 lbs potatoes, peeled and diced into 3/4 inch cubes: 0.15
1/2 lb green beans trimmed: 0.35
1.3 lb broccoli, cut into florets and the stems peeled and diced: 2.00
1/2 an onion, sliced: 0.12
1 Tbsp canola oil (yes I measure this out because I'm trying to lose weight): 0.03
seasoned salt (homemade) to taste

Total: $2.65. The broccoli was from the farmer's market.

Use the microsteamer to steam the veggies. I did it as I went:
green beans: 1.5 min
broccoli: 2.5 min
potatoes: 4 min

Put in a bowl with the spices/seasoned salt and canola oil and toss.


Line two cookie sheets with parchment (a nod to the spouse who does the dishes). Spread evenly.

Bake at 425 for 20 min. Stir. Bake another 10-15 min.

Enjoy.

Failure to Thrive

My pretty little delicata and butternut squash plants started off so lovely. And now, they are shriveling. Why??

:(

And TODAY, my biggest butternut was missing! A critter took it! Hmmph.

Thanksgiving

For the first time ever, we had a small Thanksgiving. Just the three of us. And it was nice. We pulled out the fine china and crystal. Cooked a small meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, salad, and homemade rolls. Hung around the house, went to the park, and cleaned out the master bedroom closet. Here comes freecycle!

First, a gorgeous salad with beets, blue cheese, toasted walnuts, avocado, pomegranate seeds, and a delicious raspberry balsamic vinegar I got from the winery.

Next, the turkey and homemade rolls.


The table:

We also made coconut lime snowballs, from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. I won't post the recipe here (you'll have to buy the book, or if you are an online member, the recipe is here). The recipe is also here (without a reference to the original, but who knows how she got it, maybe it was written on a 3x5 passed down by a relative):

I could have saved some money by buying butter in bulk and flour on sale, but I try to stick to unbleached flour, and couldn't find that on sale.


Coconut lime snowballs:
2.5 c. flour: $0.51
3/4 c. sugar: 0.20
2 sticks butter: 1.75 (yeah, I know, not exactly "healthy", but better than storebought anyway)
salt
2 tsp vanilla: 0.30
1 c. shredded coconut
juice of 2 limes: 0.38
3 Tbsp cream cheese: 0.23
1 c. powdered sugar: 0.50
Total: $4.37

This makes about 38 cookies. Or $0.12 per cookie.

Is a $56 turkey 4 times better than a $14 turkey?

Oh my god yes.

Thanksgiving on a budget

If you are here to find out how to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people for 20 bucks, look no further.

No really, look no further. I can't help ya. You might want to check out The Complete Tightwad Gazette. Or the Economides family's newsletter. Or a number of frugal blogs out there, that show you how to hunt down the $2, $5, $8, or $0.29/lb turkeys at Thanksgiving and Christmas and describe how to store them in your deep freezer to eat them all year.

You see, this year, I took the leap. Last year, we didn't even make a turkey (we had a few not-so-successful turkeys in a row). This year the leap was made to local, organic, free range turkey, based on the recommendations of TWO friends. (Michelle and Kelly, you know who you are.)

The local farm was Healthy Family Farms, and their turkey is a pretty reasonable $4 a pound. Reasonable for local and free-range, that is. It also means that even a small 13+ lb turkey is $56.

Does it matter that the 10-lb bag of potatoes was only $1? Green beans for $0.69/lb? No, not organic this year, but you have to pick your poison, as it were. With a $56 turkey, there wasn't a whole lot of room for the sides.

There have been quite the sales this week on canned vegetables and fruit also. Now, while I tend to be a bit of a vegetable "snob" (living in So Cal with daily access to farmer's markets and farm stands can do that), I am also a working mom. So the occasional can of green beans in the pantry is very useful for those days when you are out of the fresh stuff and can't stomach a trip to the store.

On the menu:
Turkey (brined and cooked in a bag)
red leaf salad with beets, pomegranates, radish, walnuts, blue cheese
garlic and buttermilk mashed potatoes
homemade rolls, if we get around to making them.

Tacos, Pasta, Soup

This was the camping weekend. We were going to drive about 30 minutes north and camp out over the weekend. Unfortunately, I looked at the weather. Possible rain. So we canceled. Ate the $15 cancellation feed. Good thing. We got dumped on, and we had thunder and lightening. And my son came down with a fever. I can't imagine sleeping in a wet 3-person tent in the rain, with a sick kid. Well, at least we would have been close to home.

So Saturday night was taco night. Now, tacos are pretty easy, but still a lot of work:
homemade corn tortillas
cooked fresh tongue-of-fire beans (shelling beans)
shredded radish (they're pink!)
shredded cheese
salsa and sour cream
diced avocado

and I sauteed up some fresh green beans (for only $0.69 a pound!!)
and roasted potatoes ($1.00 for 10 lbs!)

Lots of little things to cook. With only a little bit of leftovers.

Sunday was the day that I was going to make soup for dinner. But my child was feeling sick, so I made the soup for lunch instead. The stock was homemade chicken stock (that I made in the crockpot on Saturday). I added a bunch of vegetables - onions, celery, summer squash, frozen mixed vegetables, barley. Herbs and pesto. There was a ton of leftovers and my son ate a whole bowl.

Dinner then was egg noodles with mushrooms, onions, canned salmon, in a homemade nonfat cream soup mix-type thing. And salad. This dinner - I winged it. And we have a ton of leftovers for lunch this week. It was pretty good. Needs more salt though.