Dinner Score, Week 23

Jumping right in–

  • Mon: navy beans and escarole with sausage
  • Tues:  grilled chicken thighs on sticks, rice, carrots & bell peppers, garden salad, oranges, corn on the cob
  • many food groups represented!

    many food groups represented!

    Wed:  mac and cheese, cucumbers, blackberries

  • Thurs:  Chinese Take-out!
  • Fri: Date Night and Leftover Buffet!
photo 4

light is odd, it was NOT that orangey!

I’m not even putting the scores up there. It’s nearly six months into the Internet Accountability Project. You know what the score here is–two good days, one half-assed day and two days completely off the rails.  That’s an 8 point week, and we all know it.

Here’s the original plan:

  • Mon: sandwiches, and white beans with escarole & sausage
  • Tues: chicken pot pie, fruit and garden salad
  • Wed: bbq chicken mac and cheese, fruit & veg
  • Thurs: baked deviled eggs, garden salad, grits
  • Fri: Taco Tuesday on Freedom Friday. 

I did start amazingly well.  That’s what happens when your neighbor shows up with a huge sack of escarole.  You have to eat things your neighbors give you. It’s a rule.  DH has a rule that if a toddler offers him food he has to eat it, in order to reinforce the idea that sharing and being thoughtful of others is a good thing (also that food is good. the man is a fan of food).  I have a rule that if a neighbor shows up with something they grew, it’s getting eaten.

Unless it’s that weird death fruit. I’m not eating that. Even Andrew Zimmern spit out durian, and he is the grown-up globetrotting Mikey of the Food Channel.  He’ll eat anything.

Truth be told, I was the only one that ate the beans/escarole/sausage for dinner on Monday. Everyone else opted for a sandwich. But they gave it a try first, and that’s fine with me.

this was really good

this was really good

I think the end of the week derailed due to a combination of me making a plan that I knew might not be received well (the baked deviled eggs thing is something only I like, for some mysterious reason) and us hitting another stretch of weeks that have a lot of socializing/sports/activities.  Opening my fridge right now would show a lot of takeout containers and leftover Chinese food.  But we all got to see friends and get our activities done, so that’s the upside.

Also a fun point? WordPress doesn’t think ‘escarole’ is a thing, so it keeps trying to suggest other things.  Mostly ‘estragole’ which looks like this:

Screen shot 2015-04-20 at 1.13.17 AM

and not really like the leafy stuff in the bowl over there. Though it is in some leafy things. Looking at you bay and tarragon!

See you tomorrow for the meal plan! Cheep Cheep!

Trader Joe’s Silly Thing This Week

This looks innocuous, right?  Cheepie, why are you picking on oatmeal, right?  Oatmeal is nutritious, cheap, and while not meant for Texas summers, is an excellent all-round foodstuff. Why, Cheepie?Screen shot 2015-04-16 at 11.56.00 PM

Because this oatmeal is frozen.

I’m not sure I need to explain further, but I will. Because this is a blog, and I’m supposed to write the amusing words to make my bar graphs happy when I check them.  Not that I’m doing that. Hourly. Much.

Frozen oatmeal. Oatmeal, which is already available processed in a variety of ways to accommodate your cooking needs, is now pre-cooked and frozen. So you can pay for the water and time they boiled into it.

Here’s where it gets brilliant: the “perfect porridge” is flash-frozen into individual, bowl-sized servings. Just three minutes in the microwave, and you can be sitting pretty with a “just right” bowl of our Steelcut Oatmeal. The price is right at $1.69 for each 16 ounce (2 serving) box.

For all I know frozen oatmeal has always been there next to the frozen biscuits and frozen waffles. But I don’t think so. I think this is new, and we all know new is weird.  Well, I know that, and as Queen of This Blog I’m calling it weird.

Steel cut oats are a thing that you’ve got to plan ahead for, but we’re Cheepsters, and thinking ahead to put oats in a crockpot if steel cut oats is what we must do, then we’ve got the skills needed.  Especially since Bob’s Red Mill, a place that has a great product but is not usually the cheapest, will sell you 24oz of oats for $2.99.  That’s 15 servings, making the frozen TJ’s option of 85c/serving seem deserving of this week’s post.

Even if you don’t plan ahead, in 20 min you can have your 20c serving ready–and at this point you might be thinking, come on, it’s difference of 65c! That’s nothing.  But, if you’re serving three people this meal just once a week? That’s over $100 in a year, and you know that $100 can get you 50lbs of meat if you shop the sales.  

Frozen foods can be convenient, and they can be cheap. Frozen vegetables have actually gotten my kids eating more vegetables than they used to.  This item is the former, but isn’t the latter, especially given the many varieties of oatmeal out there. 

Time is money.  But just 20 minutes on oatmeal days to save enough money for months of meat is the kind of grocery math I do.  

Cheep Cheep!

Happy Ad Wednesday!

It's April in Texas!

It’s April in Texas!

Again already with the ads! I nearly didn’t write this post because it just wasn’t on my radar. It didn’t seem like it could have been a week.  Spring is like that.  Every year I swear I’m going to get everyone in jeans and t-shirts and get ourselves a real family blue bonnet photo, and every year somehow they come and go before I’ve done it.  Thunderstorms roll in, the AC is on and off again, windows open and shut, one night is crockpot and the next is grill–April is just a little bit nutty!  You never know though, all our photos might have ended up like this:  

http://poopingonbluebonnets.tumblr.com/

No, Cheepie doesn’t tumblr (I can barely tweet, but I do it with old lady style!), but this is a pretty funny one.

So here we are–is Sprouts continuing with the crazy cheese sales? Is corn super-cheap yet? Come and see!

Fiesta

crawfish                                                                 $1.79/lb ($1.59/lb in 50lb sack)

Southern chicken hen wings, 5lb sack           $5.29/ea

pork blade steaks                                                   $1.49/lb  (Fiesta Limit)

Braeburn apples                                                  69c/lb (DD)

Parade frozen vegetables, 28-32oz                   $1.99/ea

HEB

raspberries, 6oz                                         $1.47/ea

large Hass avocados                            $1.50/ea (C15)

red seedless grapes                             $1.97/lb  (DD)

pineapple or cantaloupe                       $1.50/ea  (C15)

Pink Lady apples                                    88c/lb  (DD)

HCF drumsticks or thighs                       $1/lb

assorted bone-in pork chops                  $1.97/lb

Randalls 

pork loin half                                                              $1.99/lb

Chicken of the Sea chunk light tuna, 5oz           79c/ea

Bertolli and Classico pasta sauce jars                $2/ea

32oz cheese bricks or shredded bags               $6.99/ea     (note: the Sprouts deal is better, at $1.99/lb, but the normal price for these is now about $8-9 here and at HEB, so if this is your usual product this is a stock-up price)

Sprouts

colby jack cheese, bulk cut                  $1.99/lb (yay!!)

avocados                                                 48c/ea  (C15)

cucumbers                                               48c/ea  (DD) 

green bell peppers                                   48c/ea (DD)

Fuji, Gala,Jonagold apples                      98c/lb (DD)

bulk peanuts                                              $1.99/lb

organic baby carrots,1lb                          98c/ea

organic Red Delicious apples                   98c/lb  (DD)

Wheatsville didn’t have anything that looked especially great, and Whole Foods won’t have their ad up until tomorrow. I’ll check it then and let you Cheepsters know if there’s a deal you shouldn’t miss.

My can’t-miss items this week are the pork loin at $1.99/lb, the peanuts at $1.99/lb, Fiesta’s frozen vegetables at $1.99, and the sack of wings.  Of course, I’ll also be buying the colby jack at Sprouts!  If you’re stocking up, let me know in the comments–if I know what people look for I can let you know personally!

Sprouts is having a sale on many organic items, from maple syrup to canned vegetables to Annie’s Mac and Cheese. If you’d like to give a product a try, now might be a good time to stop by and try a new brand.

And if you’re going to hit Fiesta for the 50 lb sacks of crawfish, Cheepie wants an invite!

Get out there and get the good deals! Cheep Cheep!

Monday Night Goal Post (yes, it’s Tuesday morning, but how nitpicky do we really need to be here?)

This week I am really trying to work out of the pantry and freezer because I’ve got a quarter of a cow showing up here soon and need the freezer space and my pantry is a shambles.  Boy was recently pondering our storage possibilities and told me he thought we could toss the entire pantry because ‘it’s full of stuff we never eat, so let’s put other stuff there’.

Sure. Let’s do that.  Lego with marinara will surely work out.

This week’s plan, barring remodeling:

  • Mon: sandwiches,leftovers, and white beans with escarole and Italian sausage
  • Tues: chicken pot pie, fruit and garden salad
  • Wed: bbq chicken mac and cheese, fruit & veg
  • Thurs: baked deviled eggs, garden salad, grits
  • Fri: Taco Tuesday on Freedom Friday. My kids swear this is funny. I don’t get it.

Things I’m using that are on sale are the Italian sausage, chicken thighs for the pot pie, lettuce and tomatoes for the salad, and the eggs are Easter eggs that the kids can finally start to part with.  Yes, we’re weirdos that eat the dyed eggs because we can. 

That’s how Cheepie rolls. Let me know how you’re rolling this week!

Dinner Score, Week 22

 I hear you. I know. Where’s Week 21? How can I just leave it back there, unscored and unloved?  What kind of cruel mayhem is being wrought?

In the interest of looking forward I’m just abandoning it. The Internet Accountability Project has survived larger hits than this, and I know we’ll muddle through somehow.  We’ll just put it down to Spring Fever and get on with our bad selves.  The Complaint Department looks forward to your letters.

Here’s the goal, as a reminder:

  • Mon:  baked chicken leg quarters, grapes, broccoli, spinach salad with strawberries, potato salad
  • Tues: fried rice, egg drop soup, apples, frozen veg.photo 1
  • Wed: fresh pasta with sausage, onions and peppers, Caesar salad, fruit, 
  • Thurs: BBQ chicken wings, rice, peas, fruit
  • Fri:  pizza, fruit, salad

The actual:

  • Mon: see above (benefits of writing after eating. 3 points.

    photo 2

    Look how pretty!

  • Tues: pork fried rice, carrots, apples, cooked spinach. 3 points.
  • Wed: ziti with peppers and sausage, Caesar salad, grapes. 3 points.
  • Thurs:  P Terry’s. 0 points.
  • Fri: Leftover Buffet! 1 point.

The end of the week was a bit of a mistake, but I rocked the beginning of the week.  

Everyone ate the pasta dish on Wednesday, even though there were vegetables touching meat touching noodles!  Tiny wasn’t thrilled about it, and separated everything, but I was a happy camper.  One pot dishes are my favorites. Along with crockpot dishes. And things grilled in foil packets. And casseroles.  I may have a problem in this area, so we’ll just agree I like a lot of things and move on to the scoring.

10 points is a good week. A solid B- or so. I was happy with the meals, and even Friday was a plus to me because we’d stacked up a lot of leftovers and it’s nice to not cook for a night.  It was also a frugal week because nearly everything was either in my house already or was a sale item. Cheepie is a fan of weeks where that happens!

I’ve slipped a good bit on the goal of having Boy and Tiny each take a night to cook dinner.  The effort required to walk them through it at the end of the day was a drain at the end of the day that had me losing my patience, which wasn’t helping them learn how to put a meal together but more learning how to get out of my way.  While that is an important skill, it’s not the one I was hoping they’d learn. So we’ll keep trying, and I’ll note when they are involved and how it worked out.

Cheep Cheep!

Trader Joe’s Silly Thing This Week

Chorizo is a many-defined thing. It can be splendorous, and it can be a weird plastic tube of salivary glands and seasoning that you’re supposed to smush out into a hot pan and hope for the best.

Traditionally, a sausage is a way to use up the random bits left over after you’ve secured the good cuts–the little trims, possibly organs (hello boudin!), cheek meat (before it became popular) and whatever else seemed like a good plan at the time.  Chorizo seasoning is a peppery paprika blend of things that is, to me, the downright best part of a breakfast taco. It’s bullish enough to cover a multitude of sins, including organ meat that might otherwise be thought a slippery greasy mess, but only if that mess is balanced with actual meat that has texture.

I am here to tell you that it’s not always the case that the chorizo makers that make the products available in the store have followed my simple rule. Ever thrown out a pan of food? Go ahead and buy the cheapest chorizo at the market.  Squish it into the pan, and tell me if you decided to crack eggs over that, or toss it and hit Taco Cabana.  I’ve got an iron stomach, and even typing that brings back images that do not make Cheepie happy.

Which is why, for a change, I’m liking my Silly Thing this week. Cheap chorizo should Screen shot 2015-04-10 at 9.40.35 PMobviously be soy–it’s hugely assertively seasoned, the cheap bits that used to make it are now much pricier, and all we’re doing is mixing it into tacos. This isn’t Spanish chorizo, for slicing on a pretty cheese plate–this is Mexican chorizo that is not even a sausage except for that people keep putting it in plastic tubes! Why do we do that? A grocery mystery.

I’m not giving up on meat chorizo, but at $1.99 for 12oz, you’re going to have enough to make extra tacos for the freezer, which will save you one morning from the Krispy Kreme. Pork chorizo costs twice that or more, and it’s good, too. It’s just not my funny thing this week.

Soy Chorizo, for when you’re all done with salivary glands and paprika!

 Thank you TJ’s!

Happy Ad Wednesday!

Are you still in an Easter Candy Coma? Snap out of it–it’s a new ad week and there’s shopping to be done!

moonstruck-snap-out-of-it-o

I’ve got cheese and Blue Bell in my freezer, and this week I’m hoping to make a start on getting fruit frozen for the smoothies and fruit pops my kids will eat all summer long. There are strawberries and blackberries for a good price at HEB this week, so those’ll be first in the freezer. Given Austin is eight months of summer, keeping the freezer full of fruit is key to avoiding daily trips to the sno-cone stand!

Also great this week is another cheese sale at Sprouts. Fiesta has potatoes for just under 20c/lb, and chicken legs on their deep discount.

Sprouts (last week’s good through today)

Halo mandarins, 2lb sack                    $1.98/ea

red or green leaf lettuce                       48c/lb

D’Anjou pears                                         48c/lb

organic Red Delicious apples             $1.50/lb (DD)

organic kale bunches                           88c/ea (DD)

bulk cut Monterey Jack cheese          $1.99/lb

bscb                                                         $1.79/lb

Sprouts thick-sliced bacon                 $2.99/lb

Beyond Meat Chicken-free Strips       B1G1

Fri-Sun ONLY:

corn                                                                                       25c/ea (C15)

boneless skinless chicken thighs                                    $1.49/lb

reduced-sodium turkey breast cold cuts, pre-pack    $3.99/lb

Fiesta

drumsticks, jumbo bag                             69c/lb (Fiesta Limit)

russet potatoes, 10lb sack                     $1.97/ea (DD)

Red Delicious apples                                49c/lb (DD)

Fiesta brand vegetable oil, gallon          $4.99/ea

Anatina brand pasta, 32oz                       99c/ea

HEB

mangoes                                                                          33c/ea (C15)

strawberries, 1lb                                                           87c/ea (DD)

Golden Delicious or Granny Smith apples               77c/lb (DD)

blackberries, 6oz                                                            87c/ea

County Post drums or thighs                                     $1/lb

Screen shot 2015-04-07 at 11.23.57 PM

Randalls

Skinner pasta, 12oz.                        79c/ea

Kellogs cereals, various                 $1.99/ea (when you buy 4)

Wheatsville

Field Day organic broth, 32oz. box      $1.99/ea

Nutiva organic coconut manna            $7.99/ea

MORE CHEESE! It used to be that Sprouts had a different cheese each week at $1.99/lb. They stopped that ages ago (3 years by the flyer blurb). This is the second week in a row they’ve gone back to it, and I hope it is a resurrection of a regular pattern.  I’ve got about 10 lbs of cheddar in the freezer, and I’ll likely add at least 5 of jack to that. Quesadillas for YOU! and YOU! and YOU!

If you’re in the mood for a party, Fiesta’s got live crawfish for $1.59/lb by the sack. Sacks are usually big, about 50 lbs, so make sure you have a lot of hungry friends, or go smaller for $1.79/lb. This is much cheaper than HEB’s $2.79/lb. 

There we go, Cheepsters. Another week, more grocery sales. I hope you find things you want to stock up on–and if you do let me know what you decided was the deal you had to have!

Cheep cheep!

Monday Night Goal Post

I’m doing the plan post before the score post–just this side of criminal behavior. But I really didn’t want to let the plan post get to Tuesday again. It’s so cheating when we’ve already eaten the plan.

So, quick and dirty, here it is:

photo

lemon pepper thighs cooked up nicely!

Mon:  baked chicken leg quarters, grapes, broccoli, spinach salad with strawberries, potato salad

Tues: fried rice, egg drop soup, apples, frozen veg.

Wed: fresh pasta with sausage, onions and peppers, Caesar salad, fruit, 

Thurs: BBQ chicken wings, rice, peas, fruit

Fri:  pizza, fruit, salad

Sale items I’m using this week are the chicken leg quarters, grapes, strawberries, potatoes, and sausage.  Shopping the sales this week had me pondering whether I should get my act together and write up a grocery budget.  It’s one of those things I always mean to do, but never get around to. Like printing out a weekly schedule so we all know what’s happening every day–it’s smart, not too tricky, and should happen, but I just don’t do it.

Do any of you work with a weekly grocery budget? Monthly? Do you plan out meals, or do you plan on shopping sales and then making plans? I’d love to hear how you deal with this. I know my ‘shop sales when I have time and also then buy bread and milk’ plan is not the most effective!