 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.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Roasted Vegetables
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.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Failure to Thrive
:(
And TODAY, my biggest butternut was missing! A critter took it! Hmmph.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Thanksgiving
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.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Is a $56 turkey 4 times better than a $14 turkey?
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Thanksgiving on a budget
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.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Tacos, Pasta, Soup.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Roast chicken, succotash, and pasta
We had some friends over for dinner on Saturday. I was going to make my standard "roast chicken parts" from organic, free-range chicken. But, the store was out. So I bought a whole organic free-range chicken, and roasted that. I say "my standard" because I really don't cook meat a lot. I've managed to figure out how to not ruin chicken (baking