Pantry Challenge

I've been spending WAY WAY WAY too much money on food so I'm doing a pantry challenge. Remember my pantry is any "stored food" that I have. Could be in the freezer, fridge or cupboards. We have plenty of fresh and frozen veggies to eat. Some dried fruit and frozen fruit as well.

Monday I made steaks...well technically my husband grilled them
Tuesday we had leftover steaks
Wednesday we had shredded beef taco salads and healthy ice cream
Tonight we are having beer butt chicken on the BBQ and sauteed green beans

The rest of the week will be interesting....we have 4 dozen eggs, canned tomatoes, garlic, onions, frozen cauliflower, broccoli, peas, green beans,  blueberries, strawberries, bananas as well as an assortment of meat.

Grocery Shopping 6/16/10

If my google spreadsheet doesn't work please let me know...I copied it over here, but lost the format.

What in the world are we eating? Well, it's easy when you have a 1/2 of a pig and a 1/4 of a cow in the freezer as well as many other goodies in the "pantry" (including fridge, freezer and cupboards)!

1. Monday I can't remember, but I did make homemade sausage with ground pork. Oh MY was it good! I know we nibbled on that and something else - Oh yeah, leftovers! We had leftover soup and hamburgers.
2. Tues - I put a frozen pork roast in the crock pot on high about noon, turned it down to low then we ate it after the baseball game. I also put frozen peas in a pan so all we had to do was heat them up when we got home.
3. Wed - I put the chicken legs in the crock pot and made a salad. We had pineapple as well.
4. Thursday - I'm going to brown hamburger, add taco seasonings, sauteed leeks, kale and garlic and then throw some scrambled eggs in it for a Mexican omelet thingie. Wonder how that is going to go over? Maybe I'll actually attempt an omelet. Hmmm....I'm making homemade salsa as well.
5. I bought a whole chicken from the Butcher Shop earlier and I will ATTEMPT to cut it up and make buffalo chicken. Say a prayer for me...that I keep all of my fingers. We will have celery and carrots to go with it.
6. We're going camping on Saturday and we'll be having traveling tacos. I swear health goes out the window when we camp. I love that we don't have dishes to do though because we put the taco stuff in the Doritos bag.
7. Steaks for Father's Day. Probably with green beans sauteed in bacon grease. YUMMY! Kids are making scotcharoos at their Dad's request.

We have stuff for smoothies (frozen bananas, homemade yogurt and blueberries), cereal, eggs, bacon, homemade granola, cheese, milk, and apples on hand for breakfast and lunch.

For more inspiration check out Grocery Cart Challenge and Money Saving Mom




Here's my spreadsheet copied over:
Priorities in order:


1 - Stay within $400 budget

2 - Buy Meat/Protein Locally

3 - Buy a LOT of veggies (if budget allows, Locally)

4 - Fats - buy good fats that will help with hypoglycemic issues

5 - Read Labels - buy items without a bunch of junk (sour cream, whipping cream)



Meat/Protein Vegetables Dairy/Fats Fruits Cereal Bread



6/16/2010 Walmart

4 lbs Chicken Drumsticks ($1.32/lb) $5.28

Spur of the moment - said it didn't have hormones

** want to buy local chickens $1.65 at Butcher Shop



1 lb Frozen Cauliflower $1.38

14 oz Broccoli Florets $0.98

1 pkg Celery $1.32

** not much nutrition, but we like it with Buffalo Chicken

Leeks $2.24

*** too much waste - buy onions/garlic next time

1 lb Baby Carrots $1.48

1 tomato on the vine $0.96

** DUMB! Almost $1.00 for a yucky tomato

1 pkg Green leaf Lettuce $1.88

Fresh Broccoli (small bit of it) $0.36

Zucchini (1 small) $0.89

** Not a great idea. Soon I'll be getting these free or very cheap!



Bananas $1.52

** these will be used for smoothies as well

1 Pineapple $2.88

** Another dumb purchase. Spur of the moment/not on the list

** I was planning on buying cherries with that money!



Raisins $1.58

** To mix with peanuts for trail mix



Whipping Cream $2.13

** Only place I can find cream that is not Ultra Pasteurized with a bunch of extra junk in it

Hot Dog buns

Cereal $4.32

** we don't eat cereal often, but my husband loves it

Other things on receipt:

face cream bought with "house money"

J bought nail file

Grocery Shopping

Spent $10.84 at Walmart and $2.00 for farm fresh eggs (not pictured). Fairly unexciting, but you can see my partial menu plan from yesterday to see what's cooking!

• Cereal (that my kids don't like) $2.00
• 2 bananas $.33
• Kipper Snacks $2.52 (don't judge a book by it's cover - these are delicious and I don't usually like canned meat!)
• Sardines in olive oil $2.44 (same thing!)
• 1 avocado $.78
• 1/2 and 1/2 $1.18
• 1 bag of broccoli for Broccoli Beeef recipe

Riding our bikes to the store together - scary and priceless. I swear it's uphill both ways!!!

This post is linked to Grocery Cart Challenge.

OAMC - June details

Chopping all of the veggies helps with clean up time!   

Yogurt is cooking!

 BBQ Sauce and bacon are cooking!

Here is what I said I wanted to do (click on the link for more details and recipes):

2 quiche (with 6 eggs) with bacon, spinach, onions, tomatoes and cheese. Bake 1 today and freeze one raw.

•2 breakfasts of sausage - 1 pound of burger gives us 10 sausage patties. Fry all of them and re-heat.

•2 dinners of meatballs (30 meatballs that have ground beef, egg, salt, pepper, garlic and onions with a bit of LA hot sauce) Bake all of the meatballs, make BBQ sauce (recipe coming soon) for one meal and freeze the remaining meatballs for another night

•Yogurt


•Salsa (recipe coming soon)


•Simple Caribbean Jerk Chicken (this was a bit too sweet for us so I'll decrease the amount of brown sugar - probably 1T instead of 2T) Note: 1T brown sugar was perfect!

Now that I'm finished, I'm so grateful that I spent a couple of hours in the kitchen. Yesterday, I was able to feed my family even though I didn't cook at all. I spent the morning planting my garden and the afternoon pricing my garage sale items.

Find other OAMC success stories at Life as Mom.

OAMC - June Plan

That is pretty much how my menu looks right now!

I have a bunch of excuses about why I don't want to do a OAMC session for June. Why is that when March,  April and May were so successful?

Excuses:

1. I stopped eating most grains so that totally changes the focus of our eating. I'm focusing more on meat and veggies. I haven't been following recipes as much as just winging it. Throwing a frozen roast in a crock pot or throwing frozen chicken breasts on the grill. This kind of cooking is okay, but I think it will get old after a while!
2. I don't want to do it. I want to be outside where it's beautiful. YES, DEAR! That's the whole point of OAMC or batch cooking. So you don't have to be indoors every single night cooking and cleaning up!
3. I don't have time. YES, DEAR! That's the whole point...(see #2)
4. I really don't have time today to do a full blown Once a Month Cooking session or even a huge batch cooking session. Tonight is a baseball game, I have an appointment tomorrow morning, my house is a disaster from our weekend of camping, I have a garden to plant - but wait, I have to put some stucco stuff on the side of my house before I can plant my garden, Mt. Washmore to get through (FLYLADY speaking...) as well as a garage sale on Friday that I'm not prepared for yet. Yet, my family comes first and these people like to eat! My kids and I will be doing a mini session today and tomorrow. They don't know this yet, but they do love to help out in the kitchen.

Here's the OAMC plan/ Batch Cooking plan:

• 2 quiche (with 6 eggs) with bacon, spinach, onions, tomatoes and cheese. Bake 1 today and freeze one raw.
• 2 breakfasts of sausage - 1 pound of burger gives us 10 sausage patties. Fry all of them and re-heat.
• 2 dinners of meatballs (30 meatballs that have ground beef, egg, salt, pepper, garlic and onions with a bit of LA hot sauce) Bake all of the meatballs, make BBQ sauce (recipe coming soon) for one meal and freeze the remaining meatballs for another night
• Yogurt
• Salsa (recipe coming soon)
• Simple Caribbean Jerk Chicken (this was a bit too sweet for us so I'll decrease the amount of brown sugar - probably 1T instead of 2T)

The kids are still in bed so I need to get them up pretty soon so we can get going on this. They're going to love me because they get bacon! Yummy!

1. Start Yogurt
2. Fry Bacon
3. Chop 3 onions and a bunch of garlic in the food processor
4. Crack 12 eggs for Quiche
5. Crack 4 eggs for Burger
6. Cut tomatoes and spinach for quiche
7. Grate cheese for quiche
8. Make BBQ sauce
9. Make Salsa
10. Make Simple Caribbean Jerk Chicken seasoning and pour over bag of frozen chicken breasts (BBQ them tomorrow)

The result will be 3 dinners, several lunches, 4 breakfasts plus snacks. I think this will probably take about an hour now that I have everything written down. In two weeks I could easily repeat this so we have more for our freezer. I'll keep you posted!

Feed your Freezer!!! It's the best way to save time in the kitchen and money so you don't go out to eat!

This post is linked to Life as Mom. Find more wonderful ideas over there.

Menu Plan 4/12 - 4/18

Eeny Meeny Minie Moe

What food should I pick from the freezer? This is going to be a great week to be able to pull out items from my OAMC session. We have a school roller skating party for my daughter, a track meet to go to, I have a meeting, my son has church play practice and worship team practice every night until 6:00. The mom taxi hat will be on a LOT!!!

1. Turkey soup with homemade noodles - need to figure out what day this fits in - we don't want soup when it's 70!
2. Black beans and rice with guacamole and homemade salsa
3. Spaghetti pie
4. Turkey egg rolls and fried rice (I can't wait to try these! See my OAMC day for the recipe)
5. Pretzel Chicken
6. Beef - not sure what yet, but since my husband likes beef I need to figure something out! Maybe burgers with homemade buns. I tried April's recipe with some success. I changed it and probably shouldn't have so now I need to figure out what to do differently. They were okay. Ummmm maybe I should just follow her recipe instead of changing it. DOH! ** see note below
7. Husband cooks! Yeah!

We have strawberries, apples, bananas, fresh pineapple, carrots, avocado, sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, spinach, hmmmm I think that might be it. I think I'm doing okay with this whole  "focus on the veggies, not on breads" challenge!

Find out what others are having at orgjunkie.com.

**April has another recipe on her website - check it out!

OAMC - the cooking!

I must admit I really enjoyed this. I didn't plan to do anything other than cook and it was great to be able to focus on just one thing. I can't imagine doing this with little kids around though. I had to concentrate way too much! I admire those that can do this with little ones!

I am so grateful that I took the time to plan this out. I don't know that I'll do this plan every month, but I learned so much this month I hope I can incorporate some of this knowledge into my cooking strategies which will save time and money!

My new favorite part of my house - the island!

 Thursday:

What on Earth is in the bowl? It looks like oatmeal. Actually it's 8 cups of rice, but it looks nasty! In the crock pot I have my spaghetti sauce cooking (the sauteed vegies and seasonings are on top).

I can't imagine doing this without a food processor! You can find them at a thrift store for a few bucks.

It's very important to take breaks. I had to force myself to stop and sit for a few minutes:

On Wednesday I put two whole chickens in a pan so I would be ready to cook them early Thursday morning. Good thing I started early, they were huge and took forever. I'll have to post my sticky chicken recipe - it's YUMMY (I added the recipe link 3/12/10)

On Thursday at 6:30AM I put the chicken in the oven and made taco meat. The burger was already cooked so I had to add a little water and the taco seasoning. Some went with my son in his lunch box, some went into the freezer for a meal and some went into individual servings for more lunches.

I made 8 cups of rice (well, the rice cooker actually made it)

From this can of crushed tomatoes I made chili, saved some to mix in with my enchilada sauce, and kept some out so I could try making BBQ sauce.

I cut up all of my vegies (celery, carrots, onion, garlic) for chicken stock, spaghetti sauce, chili, chicken ala king, chicken salad and my marinade. That was a spectacular sight (and smell as well). 

Made marinade for pork chops, soaked beans, par boiled Italian sausage, froze some, chopped some, cut chicken off the bones, threw the bones and veggies in a pot to make soup. PHEW!

Friday (see pic above) I divided up my ginormous bag of cheese from Sam's club into 2 cup portions, made lasagna (recipe on the box), cooked enchilada sauce, made two batches of chicken ala king. I made 4 different meals of beans and rice. Two black beans and rice w/ taco seasoning and two red beans and rice with burger and cajun seasoning.

Then for some reason I decided I needed to make peanut butter cookies.

I had a breakfast coffee cake that I finished as well. Then I decided since I had all of my baking stuff on my island that I would make two pancake mixes and one waffle mix (dry ingredients only).

I'm really happy with what I got accomplished. I found out that I can go go go until about 12:00 and then I'm just done!!! I forced myself to keep going so I'll have to see this month if it was worth the effort. Definitely a learning experience.

Following is the result of my cooking days:

•  2 meals red beans and rice
• 1 pan lasagna
• 1 pan burritos
• taco meat
• 2 meals black beans and rice
• 2 meals chicken ala king
• 2 pizza sauces
• 1 meal spaghetti (plus some lunches)
• 2 meals pork chops (marinated)
• 1 meal chili (plus some lunches)
• 4 cups chicken broth & 4 cups chicken
• par boiled Italian sausage
• BBQ sauce
• 2 pancake mixes
• 1 waffle mix

Ironically, I took my son to get a free kids meal at Culver's last night and tonight we're having friends over for Nick and Willy's take out pizza. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are already made for Saturday. Then, my husband cooks on Sunday so I get a few days off from the kitchen. Yee Haa!!!! I think I might like this.

Maybe next month I'll do more Once a Month Cooking. Or not.

Check out Money Saving Mom for more OAMC ideas.

P.S. I'm not re-reading this extremely long post so forgive me if there are ton of errors!

OAMC - planning

I'm always trying to make things easier on myself by complicating every thing I do. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it?

However, this time I do believe I'm onto something! All around bloggy land people are having Once A Month Cooking (OAMC) sessions. Back in November I decided to try this. I took all of "THEIR" recipes and tried to figure out if we'd like them, everything I'd need to buy, where I'd need to buy the stuff, etc. I ended up wasting a ton of time because it just seemed so complicated and expensive (the items weren't in my pantry). I was completely overwhelmed and I knew I'd never be able to do it. So all of the time I spent was wasted.

Kind of.

I was inspired again after reading more OAMC success stories. About 6 months ago I wrote up this list:

These are all of the meals I want to make in a month. Either because they are easy, cheap or a family favorite. One of the drawbacks I see to OAMC is that I wouldn't be able to try new recipes. Although I have changed some of the meals on this list, I figured out if I did OAMC for these things, then my life would be a LOT easier! Especially with baseball & softball coming up where we aren't home in the evening. Ever.

So, I've been planning and planning...oh how I love to plan! I don't always like to carry out my plan, but I'm okay with that.

I wrote down the meals I plan to make, everything needed to buy to make the meals and what stores I'd need to shop at to get these things. Wednesday is the big shopping at Sam's day, Thursday I'll cook 1/2 and Friday I'll cook the other half.

Stay tuned for the results!

Menu Plan Monday 1/17-1/23

To see what's cooking head on over to Hummingbird Homemaking. Apparently my brain is fried because I meant to put that on this blog. Oh well!