Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Weekly shopping 3/18/2012

Despite carefully setting it aside when I rushed off for my busy day I have somehow lost my receipt for grocery shopping on Sunday.  I went over my budget again this week, I am finding that I do fine buying the meat, the vegetables, and the dairy, but what kills me is the non-weekly but still required staples.  The olive oil, salt, and gluten free Tamari are what push me over.  Is it cheating to count them separately?  Yes, I need them to cook.  Maybe I just have to budget for 100 dollars more a month to stock up on monthly staples.  This week it was salt and honey that did me in.  I like local minimally processed honey, but its 14 bucks for a pint jar.  I have been using a very old box of run of the mill kosher salt for weeks, but I finally broke down and bought the mined Richmond Red Salt that I prefer.  Two bags, one fine and one course. 

I remember that I had %56 P6, so that was pretty good.  

I bought a 3 pound pork butt roast, 1.5 pounds of wild cod, a 2 pound Eye of Round, a package of organic all beef hotdogs, a bison summer sausage, and .5 pounds each of chorizo and breakfast sausage.  We still have a bunch of chicken in the freezer from the sale two weeks ago.  And we are still slowly using up the ground beef we bought months ago.  

I arranged my produce much more attractively this week, so I will let it speak for itself.  I did cheat and put the produce front and center, so here are some close ups of the packaged stuff. 

And the bags of beans and vegetables.  I buy my mushrooms in paper bags, and they stay good all week.  A plastic bag retains too much water and they get slimy.  By the end of the week they may be a bit shriveled, but they are still full of mushroomy flavor.

Just look at all that lovely produce.  Really, we live in amazing times.  All of the produce was organic this week by the way, and the parsnips, tomatoes, lettuce, and rutabagas were local.  The bananas were equal exchange, so fair trade.

3 comments:

  1. Love the photos and shopping details for your clan of five. I have the similar menu planning issues (GF and not, semi veg, picky toddlers and fifth graders). Living rural has some advantages...raise our own chickens and eggs, but then the nearest coop is 20 miles away.

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  2. I would love to have my own chickens! So, how do you balance it all?

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  3. I don't have a neat schedule but rather a loose pseudo-plan. I base meals on a theme with everyone getting same veg/starch but sometimes different protein (i.e. steak/tofu) or I kidfy the protein (homemade GF chicken strips). My husband is GF and eats poultry/fish/tofu but not red meat/pork, also likes things spicy which explains my extensive hot sauce collection. Kids eat most everything except tofu/shrimp (actually some do). Rarely is everyone happy except on taco night. :) But then it is a mess. Like you, I buy what is on sale and meal plan around that.

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