Our no spend September was great! We kept our food budget to well under our usual $150/month, so the extra will go towards paying off our home equity line. Having a well stocked pantry and freezer, as well as our CSA, really helped with this. We did splurge on Saturday on a family meal out, but we used a coupon we had through Restaurant.com and only spent about $10-12 for the three of us. Since we haven't done this in well over six months, and it was a perfect day (all the toddler planets were aligned!), we are glad we splurged a bit. We also restocked the freezer with bananas from the discount produce rack, so these will go into smoothies and breads throughout the next few months.
For October, our menu focus will be on making the most of what we can glean and using seasonal ingredients. We've already picked some apples in a public space and plan to glean some more from a friend's tree. These will be made into applesauce primarily, but we'll also use them for apple crisp, and we love the combo of apples and cabbage. We'll also try to glean some winter squash from school after we do a lab (I generally end up bringing about 10 home), which we process into puree for the freezer. This will serve double duty as prepared baby food and great filler for soups, chili, tacos, and muffins.
This is also the time of year when we try to make good use of our slow cooker. We use it for cooking apples for applesauce, making apple butter, baking potatoes, casseroles, and of course soups and stews. Now that Benny's working a few more hours a week, that gives us one less evening to really do meal prep. So, trying to do two to three crock pot meals a week that he can prep during the day really makes things so much easier, both for dinner and for planning lunches of leftovers.
October Menu Plan:
Breakfasts: oatmeal with dried fruit, baked oatmeal with applesauce from Simply in Season, banana nut muffins, pumpkin/squash muffins with raisins and/or nuts, bagels (from Panera with gift card), big boy breakfast of eggs, hashbrowns, pancakes, and/or sausage
Lunches: leftovers, fill in with seasonal fruit/veggies/applesauce, homemade yogurt with frozen fruit, egg salad sandwiches
Dinners: lentil sloppy joes, tomato basil soup, meatball sandwiches with peppers and onions, enchiladas (I'm going to try a slow cooker recipe), pizza with homemade pesto and veggies, quesadillas with refried beans, cheese, and homemade yogurt and peach salsa, roasted winter squash with sausage and sage, winter squash salad with chickpeas, black bean chili, white chicken chili, roasted turkey with corn bread and roasted/steamed veggies, potato soup, loaded baked potatoes, homemade mac and cheese with veggies or stewed tomatoes, lentil and sweet potato soup, stir fry/fried rice
Also, we're kind of getting in a rut with our meals and are looking for new slow cooker recipes. If anyone has some to share, I'd love to hear from you! Here's to living green and saving green, and eating up all that yummy fall goodness!
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Thursday, August 27, 2015
September Menu Plan and Updates
I realize I've been kind of absent from the blog for a while. I was home with little man for the summer and that kept me super busy. In addition, we're expecting baby #2 (yay!), so I haven't felt up to doing much beyond the necessary. Now that school has started back and I'm almost at the end of the 1st trimester, I'm feeling more normal and have a little more quiet time to do some blogging.
Budget updates: We've been really enjoying our new tenants. We have one downstairs in the apartment and one in the upstairs bedroom. They're both great fits for our family, and we're hoping that our upstairs tenant will get into grad school in the spring so she'll be able to stay on longer with us. Having both of them has really allowed us to pay down some of the home equity line this summer, as well as having Benny back at work full time for the summer.
We're looking into replacing the Jetta, which would be a hit to the budget. While we love the Jetta, it's almost 15 years old and in need of some major repairs, which we're having trouble rationalizing when we feel like we'd like a slightly bigger vehicle now that we're going to have two kiddos. Thankfully, we have a friend who has a car for sale that looks like a perfect fit for us, so if it all works out, we'll be able to purchase that for about $5,000 out of pocket, after the sale of the Jetta. Doing all this certainly means more debt to pay, but we feel like it's worth it in the long run. And every little bit of extra cash we earn (from Mary Kay, tutoring, extra hours at the store, eBay sales, gifts) will go toward this, so hopefully we'll have it paid within a year.
Little man got into preschool! He starts next week, and we're hoping he'll love it, although it will certainly be an adjustment. We're only doing one morning a week, but it will give him some much needed time with other kids and will allow Benny some time to pick up more hours at work (which will allow us to pay down debt a little faster). He already has some friends from church who are in this class, so we're hoping it will be a relatively smooth transition.
We had a new water filter and water softener installed for the whole house this summer, which we used our tax return to pay for. This will definitely save wear and tear on our appliances and will mean that they will last longer, so it's a worthwhile expense. We're also going to have the guttering on the front of the house replaced, as it was only a patch job when we did the new roof a few summers ago. We're also paying to have leaf guard installed, which will save us some money on having gutters cleaned. (Since we live in a 2-3 story house (two on the back, three on the front), we're not comfortable having Benny doing that job.)
Our plan for September includes a no-spend month, so except for regular bills and absolutely essential groceries, we're going to try to not spend any extra cash. I stocked up this month, especially during Harris Teeter's super doubles event, so we shouldn't have to spend much on groceries. We're also moving into fall when soup is more appealing, and that definitely stretches the budget. We'll continue not eating out and will take advantage of leftovers, gifts of food, the abundance of garden tomatoes and herbs etc. to make the budget stretch. So, without further ado, here's the plan:
September Menu Plan
Breakfasts: egg and cheese sandwiches, oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts, homemade yogurt with frozen fruit, smoothies, "big boy breakfast" for the boys which includes bacon, eggs, and homemade hash browns/toast, muffins/sticky buns on the weekends
Lunches: leftovers, egg salad sandwiches, tuna salad w/ crackers, BLTs
Dinners: loaded baked potatoes, black bean tacos w/ rice, beans and rice with chopped tomatoes, cheese and homemade peach salsa, vegetarian chili with cheese, plain yogurt, and salsa, crockpot pesto chicken with noodles or rice, roasted root veggies with barley or brown rice, breakfast casserole with eggs, cheese, and veggies, winter squash pancakes with hash browns and smoothies, crockpot cabbage, tomato, beans and sausage soup, pesto pizza with veggies (x4 we do this almost every Friday), homemade mac and cheese with some veggies, tomato basil soup with garlic toast, meatball sandwiches with steamed veggies or fruit, lentil sloppy joes with steamed/roasted veggies and peach & blackberry crisp
Things to bake/make: loaf of bread x 4-5 (I think we have one loaf in the freezer), muffins x 4, sticky buns x 1, homemade yogurt x 2-3 batches, peach salsa to can x 1
How're your budget and menu plans shaping up? I'd love to hear from you!
Budget updates: We've been really enjoying our new tenants. We have one downstairs in the apartment and one in the upstairs bedroom. They're both great fits for our family, and we're hoping that our upstairs tenant will get into grad school in the spring so she'll be able to stay on longer with us. Having both of them has really allowed us to pay down some of the home equity line this summer, as well as having Benny back at work full time for the summer.
We're looking into replacing the Jetta, which would be a hit to the budget. While we love the Jetta, it's almost 15 years old and in need of some major repairs, which we're having trouble rationalizing when we feel like we'd like a slightly bigger vehicle now that we're going to have two kiddos. Thankfully, we have a friend who has a car for sale that looks like a perfect fit for us, so if it all works out, we'll be able to purchase that for about $5,000 out of pocket, after the sale of the Jetta. Doing all this certainly means more debt to pay, but we feel like it's worth it in the long run. And every little bit of extra cash we earn (from Mary Kay, tutoring, extra hours at the store, eBay sales, gifts) will go toward this, so hopefully we'll have it paid within a year.
Little man got into preschool! He starts next week, and we're hoping he'll love it, although it will certainly be an adjustment. We're only doing one morning a week, but it will give him some much needed time with other kids and will allow Benny some time to pick up more hours at work (which will allow us to pay down debt a little faster). He already has some friends from church who are in this class, so we're hoping it will be a relatively smooth transition.
We had a new water filter and water softener installed for the whole house this summer, which we used our tax return to pay for. This will definitely save wear and tear on our appliances and will mean that they will last longer, so it's a worthwhile expense. We're also going to have the guttering on the front of the house replaced, as it was only a patch job when we did the new roof a few summers ago. We're also paying to have leaf guard installed, which will save us some money on having gutters cleaned. (Since we live in a 2-3 story house (two on the back, three on the front), we're not comfortable having Benny doing that job.)
Our plan for September includes a no-spend month, so except for regular bills and absolutely essential groceries, we're going to try to not spend any extra cash. I stocked up this month, especially during Harris Teeter's super doubles event, so we shouldn't have to spend much on groceries. We're also moving into fall when soup is more appealing, and that definitely stretches the budget. We'll continue not eating out and will take advantage of leftovers, gifts of food, the abundance of garden tomatoes and herbs etc. to make the budget stretch. So, without further ado, here's the plan:
September Menu Plan
Breakfasts: egg and cheese sandwiches, oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts, homemade yogurt with frozen fruit, smoothies, "big boy breakfast" for the boys which includes bacon, eggs, and homemade hash browns/toast, muffins/sticky buns on the weekends
Lunches: leftovers, egg salad sandwiches, tuna salad w/ crackers, BLTs
Dinners: loaded baked potatoes, black bean tacos w/ rice, beans and rice with chopped tomatoes, cheese and homemade peach salsa, vegetarian chili with cheese, plain yogurt, and salsa, crockpot pesto chicken with noodles or rice, roasted root veggies with barley or brown rice, breakfast casserole with eggs, cheese, and veggies, winter squash pancakes with hash browns and smoothies, crockpot cabbage, tomato, beans and sausage soup, pesto pizza with veggies (x4 we do this almost every Friday), homemade mac and cheese with some veggies, tomato basil soup with garlic toast, meatball sandwiches with steamed veggies or fruit, lentil sloppy joes with steamed/roasted veggies and peach & blackberry crisp
Things to bake/make: loaf of bread x 4-5 (I think we have one loaf in the freezer), muffins x 4, sticky buns x 1, homemade yogurt x 2-3 batches, peach salsa to can x 1
How're your budget and menu plans shaping up? I'd love to hear from you!
Monday, May 25, 2015
Making a Healthy Diet Healthier
We're really trying to eat more healthfully these days, for a number of reasons. One is that I recently found out that I have slight hyperthyroidism, which means that my thyroid is slightly overactive, and could lead to bigger things down the road. We've also recently had a family member diagnosed with cancer, which is treatable, but has been a reminder to us that we could be doing more to support our bodies and prevent disease down the road. Because of this, we're trying to be more conscious of how we eat, mostly by adjusting two categories.
Eating Less Refined Sugar
This one has probably been the hardest for me. I didn't realize how much I craved sweets until I started cutting back on this. I'm working to find some natural substitutes, but in the mean time, we've done several things.
1. I am now eating oatmeal for breakfast about five days a week. I make this up the night before with 1/2 c rolled oats, 3/4 c milk/almond milk/unsweetened coconut milk, a handful of dried fruit and a few tablespoons of nuts and seeds. This has been really filling and cuts down on the sugar I was eating in muffins.
2. When we do bake for breakfast, I cut the sugar in half. I also try to choose recipes that are naturally sweet with bananas, winter squash, etc. When I bake cookies, I cut the sugar by about a third.
3. I splurge once a week and have something really decadent. And I don't feel guilty one bit. It's been great.
4. We've been making smoothies several nights a week for dessert or to take on our walks, and it's been great. I usually start with a banana, add some frozen fruit or berries, a scoop of unsweetened cocoa powder, cinnamon, and some flax or chia seeds, and it's really good. We've also had fun adding in some of our fresh herbs like lemon balm (which is good for thyroid health) and mint. This is also a great way to use up leftovers... winter squash, cooked rice, and avocados are all great in smoothies.
Eating More Whole Grains
We've been working to trim back on the all purpose flour in our routine and eat more whole grains. Overall, this one has been easier, but also a little more expensive. Here are a few ways we've tackled this:
1. Brown rice or barley instead of white rice. This has been a super simple switch and we really haven't minded the change. There are a few dishes we still like white or jasmine rice with, like stir fry or fried rice, but in general, this has been easy.
2. Whole wheat flour in place of part or all of the AP flour. This is easier in baked goods and pancakes than loaf bread. In cookies or muffins, I can easily substitute half of the flour as whole wheat. In bread or pizza dough, I tend to go with about 1/4 whole wheat to 3/4 all purpose. I have found some whole wheat pizza dough recipes I want to try, but haven't done it yet.
3. Whole wheat flour tortillas instead of white flour. These generally cost about $1 more a package, but the boys are still happily eating corn tortillas, so it's really not too bad.
4. I've also been trying to incorporate more flax, soy, and alternative flours into our baking recipes. These have to be done in much smaller amounts, but are easy and add a little more nutritional benefits.
These two things combined mean less blood sugar spikes, which means the whole body isn't working as hard. The added fiber from increased fruits and veggies (another reason for the smoothies) also helps the body to process increases in blood sugar, as well as being really helpful nutritionally. We're so looking forward to our CSA starting up again soon and having more local veggies to work with.
So, what about you? Have you been working to eat more healthfully? How are you making some easy switches? I'd love to hear from you!
Eating Less Refined Sugar
This one has probably been the hardest for me. I didn't realize how much I craved sweets until I started cutting back on this. I'm working to find some natural substitutes, but in the mean time, we've done several things.
1. I am now eating oatmeal for breakfast about five days a week. I make this up the night before with 1/2 c rolled oats, 3/4 c milk/almond milk/unsweetened coconut milk, a handful of dried fruit and a few tablespoons of nuts and seeds. This has been really filling and cuts down on the sugar I was eating in muffins.
2. When we do bake for breakfast, I cut the sugar in half. I also try to choose recipes that are naturally sweet with bananas, winter squash, etc. When I bake cookies, I cut the sugar by about a third.
3. I splurge once a week and have something really decadent. And I don't feel guilty one bit. It's been great.
4. We've been making smoothies several nights a week for dessert or to take on our walks, and it's been great. I usually start with a banana, add some frozen fruit or berries, a scoop of unsweetened cocoa powder, cinnamon, and some flax or chia seeds, and it's really good. We've also had fun adding in some of our fresh herbs like lemon balm (which is good for thyroid health) and mint. This is also a great way to use up leftovers... winter squash, cooked rice, and avocados are all great in smoothies.
Eating More Whole Grains
We've been working to trim back on the all purpose flour in our routine and eat more whole grains. Overall, this one has been easier, but also a little more expensive. Here are a few ways we've tackled this:
1. Brown rice or barley instead of white rice. This has been a super simple switch and we really haven't minded the change. There are a few dishes we still like white or jasmine rice with, like stir fry or fried rice, but in general, this has been easy.
2. Whole wheat flour in place of part or all of the AP flour. This is easier in baked goods and pancakes than loaf bread. In cookies or muffins, I can easily substitute half of the flour as whole wheat. In bread or pizza dough, I tend to go with about 1/4 whole wheat to 3/4 all purpose. I have found some whole wheat pizza dough recipes I want to try, but haven't done it yet.
3. Whole wheat flour tortillas instead of white flour. These generally cost about $1 more a package, but the boys are still happily eating corn tortillas, so it's really not too bad.
4. I've also been trying to incorporate more flax, soy, and alternative flours into our baking recipes. These have to be done in much smaller amounts, but are easy and add a little more nutritional benefits.
These two things combined mean less blood sugar spikes, which means the whole body isn't working as hard. The added fiber from increased fruits and veggies (another reason for the smoothies) also helps the body to process increases in blood sugar, as well as being really helpful nutritionally. We're so looking forward to our CSA starting up again soon and having more local veggies to work with.
So, what about you? Have you been working to eat more healthfully? How are you making some easy switches? I'd love to hear from you!
Friday, May 22, 2015
Making the Most of Your Garden
This spring and summer, I've been working hard to make the most of our garden space. We've added more garden space, but also improved the space we have to make better use of it. We're also working to do some smaller projects to boost how we use the space and beautify things.
We've added some more garden space out front simply by clearing out some weeds and filling in low spots with some dirt. This will be an ornamental space that we'll keep low maintenance by mulching it well with newspaper or cardboard, and then free mulch from the landfill. We'll transplant some forsythia bushes that have multiplied in the back, and fill in the space with some transplanted ground cover to crowd out weeds. This will really finish off the front and make it a little more maintenance free because it won't have to be mowed in the summer.
Another small garden space was added where we put in the stone patio under our deck. This space is along the foundation, but is fairly narrow, so I'm going to try to fill it in with perennial herbs and some ornamentals, like hostas, blazing star, sage, and bronze fennel. I'm trying to go for a variety of leaf texture in this bed, and I think this mix will all be really pretty together and will give flowers throughout the season. I still need to add some newspaper mulch, compost, and free mulch from the landfill to this bed, but I think it will look really good when it's done. We plan to get a little creative with this bed and edge it with recycled wine bottles, which will require a small trench being dug and then inverting the bottles in the trench.
In trying to make the most of our existing space, we've started a lot of herb seeds in places this year. I started cilantro from seed in the garden, and it's just started producing. We also planted garlic in the fall, which we're looking forward to harvesting next month. Some raspberries were transplanted to a raised bed, and we allowed some wild blackberries to flower in some unused spaces this year. I'm also working harder to harvest our perennial herbs, mostly sage, mint, chives, and lemon balm, throughout the season, so that we can dry and freeze them for use throughout the year. I also experimented with making dandelion tea this spring, and found I really liked it (and it's really high in vitamin K, which is good for eye health, and has many anticancer properties).
We worked last weekend to add a step barrier to the end of our gravel and stone path to help keep the gravel from invading the yard. This was made with some bits of leftover railroad ties we had from building the retaining wall a few years ago. We also used some found rocks to edge out the bottom of our central flower bed, which looks really nice now. Next week, we plan to visit a friend's garden, where she regularly splits perennials to share with us. And it's always such fun to see her gardens, and we're looking to little man's first trip out there. And we plan to finally get our rain barrel installed this year so that we can really use it, instead of watering things with potable water.
I'm also looking forward to painting our exterior doors this summer. It's a small project, but I think it will really make our house pop, and will bring together the flowers we have in the planters along the entryway. I'm also thinking about putting some bulbs in our larger containers in the fall so they'll be ready to bloom in the spring.
I'd love to hear what you're doing in your garden!
We've added some more garden space out front simply by clearing out some weeds and filling in low spots with some dirt. This will be an ornamental space that we'll keep low maintenance by mulching it well with newspaper or cardboard, and then free mulch from the landfill. We'll transplant some forsythia bushes that have multiplied in the back, and fill in the space with some transplanted ground cover to crowd out weeds. This will really finish off the front and make it a little more maintenance free because it won't have to be mowed in the summer.
Another small garden space was added where we put in the stone patio under our deck. This space is along the foundation, but is fairly narrow, so I'm going to try to fill it in with perennial herbs and some ornamentals, like hostas, blazing star, sage, and bronze fennel. I'm trying to go for a variety of leaf texture in this bed, and I think this mix will all be really pretty together and will give flowers throughout the season. I still need to add some newspaper mulch, compost, and free mulch from the landfill to this bed, but I think it will look really good when it's done. We plan to get a little creative with this bed and edge it with recycled wine bottles, which will require a small trench being dug and then inverting the bottles in the trench.
In trying to make the most of our existing space, we've started a lot of herb seeds in places this year. I started cilantro from seed in the garden, and it's just started producing. We also planted garlic in the fall, which we're looking forward to harvesting next month. Some raspberries were transplanted to a raised bed, and we allowed some wild blackberries to flower in some unused spaces this year. I'm also working harder to harvest our perennial herbs, mostly sage, mint, chives, and lemon balm, throughout the season, so that we can dry and freeze them for use throughout the year. I also experimented with making dandelion tea this spring, and found I really liked it (and it's really high in vitamin K, which is good for eye health, and has many anticancer properties).
We worked last weekend to add a step barrier to the end of our gravel and stone path to help keep the gravel from invading the yard. This was made with some bits of leftover railroad ties we had from building the retaining wall a few years ago. We also used some found rocks to edge out the bottom of our central flower bed, which looks really nice now. Next week, we plan to visit a friend's garden, where she regularly splits perennials to share with us. And it's always such fun to see her gardens, and we're looking to little man's first trip out there. And we plan to finally get our rain barrel installed this year so that we can really use it, instead of watering things with potable water.
I'm also looking forward to painting our exterior doors this summer. It's a small project, but I think it will really make our house pop, and will bring together the flowers we have in the planters along the entryway. I'm also thinking about putting some bulbs in our larger containers in the fall so they'll be ready to bloom in the spring.
I'd love to hear what you're doing in your garden!
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
May Menu Plan
This month is all about anticipation of our CSA starting in June. We're also taking advantage of strawberry season and stocking up the freezer with yummy fresh berries. We're looking forward to restocking the freezer with berries and fresh produce this summer from our garden, the CSA, and the farmer's market.
We also have a little fruit monster on our hands, so we're having to increase our grocery budget to accommodate that as well as our desire to eat a little more healthfully (we were already pretty good before). We're planning to make fresh fruit smoothies, popsicles, and pureed soups for the freezer with our new Ninja blender. (Thanks to the in-laws for the birthday/anniversary gift early!)
We're also looking forward to the Duke intern from church joining our family for the summer later this month. It'll be another mouth to feed, but we love doing it and it's so good for little man to have someone new to interact with around the house.
You'll notice a breakfast for dinner theme in our menu. We love breakfast foods, but they're often too much work (i.e. more dishes) for weekday meals. So we reserve them for dinners. This time of year, our friends' chickens are laying really well, so we're getting lots of wonderful fresh eggs to use in meals. Breakfast eggs are easier to fix than quiche, though we love that too, and usually breakfast for dinner comes together pretty quickly, which means we can spend more time outside together as a family in the evenings.
So, without further ado, here's this month's menu:
Breakfasts: breakfast burritos, oatmeal, eggs and grits, whole wheat banana muffins, winter squash muffins with pumpkin seeds and raisins, strawberry coffee cake, egg and cheese sandwiches on homemade bread
Lunches: egg salad sandwiches or wraps, leftovers, black bean salad with barley, homemade yogurt with granola and fruit
Dinners: winter squash pancakes with eggs and fruit, dinner salads with hard boiled eggs, dried fruit or fresh, and cheese, quesadillas with refried beans and avocado, roasted turkey with broccoli and herbed rice pilaf, turkey tacos with squash and greens, french toast with bacon and fruit, roasted root veggies with barley and herb butter, tomato basil soup, meatball sandwiches with fresh fruit, breakfast for dinner (roasted potato hash browns with yummy blue and red potatoes from the farmer's market, fried eggs with garden chives, grits, and fruit or sauteed peppers and onions), beef and cheddar pie with rice pilaf
I'd love to hear from you! And a happy belated Mother's Day to all the moms, "adopted" moms, and women longing to be moms out there!
We also have a little fruit monster on our hands, so we're having to increase our grocery budget to accommodate that as well as our desire to eat a little more healthfully (we were already pretty good before). We're planning to make fresh fruit smoothies, popsicles, and pureed soups for the freezer with our new Ninja blender. (Thanks to the in-laws for the birthday/anniversary gift early!)
We're also looking forward to the Duke intern from church joining our family for the summer later this month. It'll be another mouth to feed, but we love doing it and it's so good for little man to have someone new to interact with around the house.
You'll notice a breakfast for dinner theme in our menu. We love breakfast foods, but they're often too much work (i.e. more dishes) for weekday meals. So we reserve them for dinners. This time of year, our friends' chickens are laying really well, so we're getting lots of wonderful fresh eggs to use in meals. Breakfast eggs are easier to fix than quiche, though we love that too, and usually breakfast for dinner comes together pretty quickly, which means we can spend more time outside together as a family in the evenings.
So, without further ado, here's this month's menu:
Breakfasts: breakfast burritos, oatmeal, eggs and grits, whole wheat banana muffins, winter squash muffins with pumpkin seeds and raisins, strawberry coffee cake, egg and cheese sandwiches on homemade bread
Lunches: egg salad sandwiches or wraps, leftovers, black bean salad with barley, homemade yogurt with granola and fruit
Dinners: winter squash pancakes with eggs and fruit, dinner salads with hard boiled eggs, dried fruit or fresh, and cheese, quesadillas with refried beans and avocado, roasted turkey with broccoli and herbed rice pilaf, turkey tacos with squash and greens, french toast with bacon and fruit, roasted root veggies with barley and herb butter, tomato basil soup, meatball sandwiches with fresh fruit, breakfast for dinner (roasted potato hash browns with yummy blue and red potatoes from the farmer's market, fried eggs with garden chives, grits, and fruit or sauteed peppers and onions), beef and cheddar pie with rice pilaf
I'd love to hear from you! And a happy belated Mother's Day to all the moms, "adopted" moms, and women longing to be moms out there!
Saturday, April 4, 2015
April Menu, Baking, and Stocking Up
April is a month for making use of all sorts of spring time foods. With Easter this month, there are great deals at the grocery store on eggs, asparagus, ham, and strawberries are starting to show up here.
Around our house this month, we're working to eat up last year's produce that's still in the freezer to make room for more goodies. We know we'll be seeing the trucks bringing strawberries from "off the mountain" soon, and we want to have plenty of freezer room for those and other goodies once our CSA starts again.
I'm also working to do some baking for the freezer to make the summer months a little easier. Summer tends to be a little looser in some regards, busier in others. We have more time for playing outside, picking berries, etc., but tend to want to spend less time in the kitchen. So, I'll be baking up bread, pound cakes, muffins, etc. now to make summer months easier and cooler (not having to heat the oven in June and July as much).
I also scored an awesome deal on jalapenos at HT on the discount produce rack, so I'll be processing those to can. These will be wonderful to have next winter, and they make a great addition to other homemade goodies for Christmas gifts. (The time to think about canning for Christmas is spring and summer! But it makes Christmas so much less stressful.)
Here's our menu plan for the month to make use of our springtime goodies and freezer stores.
Breakfasts: banana nut muffins, french bread and rosemary olive oil bread from The Prudent Homemaker, lemon poppy seed muffins, winter squash pancakes, egg and cheese sandwiches, bagels from Panera (with gift card money), baked oatmeal, and marmalade muffins. I will post the winter squash pancake recipe soon.
Lunches: leftovers filled in with egg salad sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, three bean salad, or seasonal fruit
Dinners: ham and asparagus quiche, baked potatoes with cheese and broccoli, corn chowder, these yummy egg sandwiches, pasta with pesto and ricotta (cheater's lasagna), homemade pizza with veggies and ham, roasted asparagus with salmon and baked potatoes or oven fries, bean and cheese quesadillas, vegetarian chili over rice or baked potatoes, black bean tacos, dinner salads with hard boiled eggs and tuna, and maybe a turkey pot pie to use up the last of the turkey in the freezer.
What about you? I'd love to hear your plans for how to use those deals on Easter groceries! Blessings to all this Easter weekend!
I'll be linking up to The Prudent Homemaker and Strangers and Pilgrims this week.
Around our house this month, we're working to eat up last year's produce that's still in the freezer to make room for more goodies. We know we'll be seeing the trucks bringing strawberries from "off the mountain" soon, and we want to have plenty of freezer room for those and other goodies once our CSA starts again.
I'm also working to do some baking for the freezer to make the summer months a little easier. Summer tends to be a little looser in some regards, busier in others. We have more time for playing outside, picking berries, etc., but tend to want to spend less time in the kitchen. So, I'll be baking up bread, pound cakes, muffins, etc. now to make summer months easier and cooler (not having to heat the oven in June and July as much).
I also scored an awesome deal on jalapenos at HT on the discount produce rack, so I'll be processing those to can. These will be wonderful to have next winter, and they make a great addition to other homemade goodies for Christmas gifts. (The time to think about canning for Christmas is spring and summer! But it makes Christmas so much less stressful.)
Here's our menu plan for the month to make use of our springtime goodies and freezer stores.
Breakfasts: banana nut muffins, french bread and rosemary olive oil bread from The Prudent Homemaker, lemon poppy seed muffins, winter squash pancakes, egg and cheese sandwiches, bagels from Panera (with gift card money), baked oatmeal, and marmalade muffins. I will post the winter squash pancake recipe soon.
Lunches: leftovers filled in with egg salad sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, three bean salad, or seasonal fruit
Dinners: ham and asparagus quiche, baked potatoes with cheese and broccoli, corn chowder, these yummy egg sandwiches, pasta with pesto and ricotta (cheater's lasagna), homemade pizza with veggies and ham, roasted asparagus with salmon and baked potatoes or oven fries, bean and cheese quesadillas, vegetarian chili over rice or baked potatoes, black bean tacos, dinner salads with hard boiled eggs and tuna, and maybe a turkey pot pie to use up the last of the turkey in the freezer.
What about you? I'd love to hear your plans for how to use those deals on Easter groceries! Blessings to all this Easter weekend!
I'll be linking up to The Prudent Homemaker and Strangers and Pilgrims this week.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Frugal Accomplishments and Garden Preparations
Last week was a rather unusual week for us. I was presenting at a professional conference, but it was close enough to family to combine with a visit. So, Benny and little man also went. It was a wonderful conference and a great visit with family. Here are some of the things we did along the way to save money.
Since the trip was professional, I was able to get reimbursed for mileage and meals. I won't see this money for a few weeks, but it will be nice that the money will more than cover the cost of the trip.
While at the conference, I was able to gather several activities to use in my classroom. This will be wonderful for planning for next year, and a few of them I can use this year.
While visiting with Benny's family on Sunday after church, we went to Costco. We purchased several things in bulk that we normally use, including flax seed meal, all purpose flour, red bell peppers, and strawberries. You really have to know your unit price when shopping, because some things at the warehouse clubs are not great deals.
We took our cloth diapers traveling, so we saved the cost of disposables while there. This is a huge blessing! I can't imagine how much we've saved by doing cloth, probably at least $1000.
On the way back on Tuesday, we stopped at Panera and bought a dozen bagels. We purchased these with gift card money, and it made breakfasts easier since we were coming back in the middle of the week. We ate them as egg and cheese sandwiches, and plain with butter or peanut butter. Little man loved them.
I collected unopened milk from students during lunch and took it to the food pantry if I had enough. I only had two small cartons this week, so one was used for coffee and one for baking. I also had a coworker give me grapes at lunch on Friday, so these came home for little man's breakfast. He loves fruit, especially grapes, but we generally don't purchase a lot because they tend to be pricey.
There was no grocery run this week, but we did find a deal on Chutes and Ladders for little man at Walmart. With the coupon, it was $1.77 before tax, so we will save this for his Easter present this year. It's fun to begin thinking about board games with him!
We ate Sunday dinner with my mom, which included hotdogs, slaw (from The Smitten Kitchen cookbook), sauted tomatoes (they were on their last leg, but so good with garlic and olive oil), and baked beans. I also made a loaf of bread and we made our favorite chocolate stout cake dessert. Mom had all the other ingredients, so it was nice that all I had to provide was the bread.
All laundry was washed in cold water except diapers. We hung it all out to dry, some on the line outside now that it's warm enough to do so.
We made a huge pot of white bean rosemary soup for the week, which will be great for lunches. We thought it was a little thin, but loved the flavor, so we will add some chopped celery or barley next time after pureeing and let it cook those things.
We did our usual composting, recycling, etc. We also collected coffee grounds from the coffee bar at church. Our Christmas wreath was finally deconstructed, and we added these branches to the compost.
Our garlic is finally emerging from its straw mulch, so exciting! This is the first year we've grown garlic, and so far it has been super easy. We will definitely do it again next year, and maybe plant even more so we don't have to buy any.
We cleaned out the flower bed and trimmed things back (I left some seed heads up for the birds over the winter). We will hire a friend from church to pick up the free mulch from the landfill and spread it for us. This is a job we could do ourselves, but it is easier to hire him, and we feel like it's worthwhile because he uses the money from these jobs to pay for his college education. We may also pay him to trim back some of the larger trees along the back of our property that we can't easily reach, but he has the tools to do.
At school, my gardening class planted some herb and flower seeds for our plant sale. There are a few varieties that I want, so it is a win win.
I will plant the leftover seeds from the plant sale at home, and hopefully little man will help this year. We would love to have some more sage, parsley, lavender, marigolds, and zinnias for our garden this year. I love zinnias... so happy and full of color!
What did you do last week to live and save green? How are your gardens doing? I'd love to hear from you! I'm linking up to The Prudent Homemaker and Strangers and Pilgrims this week.
Since the trip was professional, I was able to get reimbursed for mileage and meals. I won't see this money for a few weeks, but it will be nice that the money will more than cover the cost of the trip.
While at the conference, I was able to gather several activities to use in my classroom. This will be wonderful for planning for next year, and a few of them I can use this year.
While visiting with Benny's family on Sunday after church, we went to Costco. We purchased several things in bulk that we normally use, including flax seed meal, all purpose flour, red bell peppers, and strawberries. You really have to know your unit price when shopping, because some things at the warehouse clubs are not great deals.
We took our cloth diapers traveling, so we saved the cost of disposables while there. This is a huge blessing! I can't imagine how much we've saved by doing cloth, probably at least $1000.
On the way back on Tuesday, we stopped at Panera and bought a dozen bagels. We purchased these with gift card money, and it made breakfasts easier since we were coming back in the middle of the week. We ate them as egg and cheese sandwiches, and plain with butter or peanut butter. Little man loved them.
I collected unopened milk from students during lunch and took it to the food pantry if I had enough. I only had two small cartons this week, so one was used for coffee and one for baking. I also had a coworker give me grapes at lunch on Friday, so these came home for little man's breakfast. He loves fruit, especially grapes, but we generally don't purchase a lot because they tend to be pricey.
There was no grocery run this week, but we did find a deal on Chutes and Ladders for little man at Walmart. With the coupon, it was $1.77 before tax, so we will save this for his Easter present this year. It's fun to begin thinking about board games with him!
We ate Sunday dinner with my mom, which included hotdogs, slaw (from The Smitten Kitchen cookbook), sauted tomatoes (they were on their last leg, but so good with garlic and olive oil), and baked beans. I also made a loaf of bread and we made our favorite chocolate stout cake dessert. Mom had all the other ingredients, so it was nice that all I had to provide was the bread.
All laundry was washed in cold water except diapers. We hung it all out to dry, some on the line outside now that it's warm enough to do so.
We made a huge pot of white bean rosemary soup for the week, which will be great for lunches. We thought it was a little thin, but loved the flavor, so we will add some chopped celery or barley next time after pureeing and let it cook those things.
We did our usual composting, recycling, etc. We also collected coffee grounds from the coffee bar at church. Our Christmas wreath was finally deconstructed, and we added these branches to the compost.
Our garlic is finally emerging from its straw mulch, so exciting! This is the first year we've grown garlic, and so far it has been super easy. We will definitely do it again next year, and maybe plant even more so we don't have to buy any.
We cleaned out the flower bed and trimmed things back (I left some seed heads up for the birds over the winter). We will hire a friend from church to pick up the free mulch from the landfill and spread it for us. This is a job we could do ourselves, but it is easier to hire him, and we feel like it's worthwhile because he uses the money from these jobs to pay for his college education. We may also pay him to trim back some of the larger trees along the back of our property that we can't easily reach, but he has the tools to do.
At school, my gardening class planted some herb and flower seeds for our plant sale. There are a few varieties that I want, so it is a win win.
I will plant the leftover seeds from the plant sale at home, and hopefully little man will help this year. We would love to have some more sage, parsley, lavender, marigolds, and zinnias for our garden this year. I love zinnias... so happy and full of color!
What did you do last week to live and save green? How are your gardens doing? I'd love to hear from you! I'm linking up to The Prudent Homemaker and Strangers and Pilgrims this week.
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