Some Great Giveaways and a Guest Post

Some of my buddies out there are hosting some amazing giveaways/gift givings that I wanted to share with you.

Michelle at Earthy Crafty Mommy is having a giveaway to celebrate her 37th birthday. She is offering some lovely fabric pieces and a "Sewing For Dummies" book. Her giveaway ends at 8pm on Saturday the 8th, so get your comments in!!

Barbara at Second Surf is hosting a wonderful giveaway, ending at 11pm EST on 8/11. Check out her site to win a beautiful hand made necklace.

Stacy at Golden Bird Knits is hosting a 100th blog post giveaway, with either a pack of fat quarters of fabric or a menagerie of yarns. Leave her a comment before Monday, 8/10.

Holistic Mama is holding a gifting for 100 followers. She is giving away a lovely baby carrier. Check her out before mid-August.

And Now...

It's Thursday. Time for Grocery Bill Reducing Tips!

Today, we have my first guest blogger, Lisa. You may recall I blogged about Lisa last week. Rather than share tips, she is describing an amazing week of food she is having:

Hi Everyone! Excited to be here! I had an amazing experience at the grocery store this week, and Jill asked me to write it up and share it. Here goes...

Husband called to let me know that Safeway was having a promotion for next 2 weeks on "Perfect Choice" (or Mann Packing) brand packaged produce, you know, broccoli slaw mix, baby carrots, etc. $1.00 per 4 serving bag. So I threw a few of those in the cart. By the time I was finished with my shopping, I went to pay. I had brought 2 $15.00 gift cards to Safeway that I had received as gifts. With all my savings and gift cards added up, I ended up walking out paying only 86 cents! I couldn't believe it. Neither could my family!

Beyond that, we decided to eat what we had in the freezer as it was jam packed with who knows what. Turns out there was a ton of great food in there, waiting to be made into fantastic food! I made stuffed zucchini (overgrown garden zucchini!), using the recipe from: www.recipezaar.com/recipe/print?id=32080 - Drop Dead Delicious Stuffed Zucchini.
I also made zucchini muffins and zucchini cake, using ingredients we already had. I made a chicken pot pie with crusts I had in the freezer, plus pot pie mix already made previously from double portion, just adding more vegies from the garden plus a salad from the garden. Today for lunch we had vegetable soup (veggies from the garden) with organic chicken broth and gluten free pasta (from the pantry). Tonight we are having fish tacos. A friend of ours is a fisherman and so I have yellow fin tuna in the freezer. I will saute this up along with some shrimp (from the freezer) and add lettuce and tomatoes (from the garden), cheese and sour cream all wrapped up in tortillas...from the freezer! Add to this black beans from the pantry.

Usually I spend on average $300 a week for a family of 4 (including 2 teenagers), buying mostly organic food. This week I am up to a whopping $80! And the freezer is getting cleaned out, how cool is that! Now I have to come up with recipes for frozen fruit...have lots of that! Mmm, muffins and smoothies!

Food Bill Reducing Tips Thursday and Giveaway!

Ok, so it's crazy to do both the food bill reducing tips and a giveaway in one post, but here it is...

My sister has the BEST ideas - no matter what SHE says. We were talking tonight on the phone, because, sadly, she lives across the continent from me. Anyhow, I was lamenting that I had been to the grocery store today, walking up and down the aisles thinking about what I would write in this post this evening, and had come up with nothing too inspiring. Then she had this great Brain Blast! She said - and I quote - "I wish someone would come up with a 2-week listing of meals, somewhat within my budget, that I could rotate on an on-going basis. The listing would have an accompanying grocery list, and would have to be filled with good stuff- using good quality or organic ingredients". She talked about wanting to be able to take the time in the morning, when she is most available, and get things ready for that evening's dinner. She is wanting to avoid coming home and having that fateful 'afternoon bust' where you look around, overwhelmed by your day so far, and decide - 'let's eat out'.

So here's my challenge:

Why hasn't my sister already done this? Because it takes time and alot of organization - something that is quite the commodity around my house, and I bet, yours as well.

However -we can do this - together.

We'll start with just dinner. I can come up with several dinner recipes - many already on this blog - that are simple, include good food and are quick to prepare. But I bet you all can submit some recipes for dishes that follow the same guidelines. Who knows?? Perhaps we can create a web-book for other stressed out evening cooks! For 2 weeks, we'll need at least 10 more (I'll come up with 4 on my own). I can compile the listing for 2 weeks (complete with grocery lists) that could then be rotated to cover the next 2 weeks. As a group, we can decide if this should be more than a link here on the blog, or go the next step and create a web-book. Leave a comment, let me know you want to submit a recipe (or more) and we'll go from there.

Here are the qualifications:

1. The cooks need to be able to find the ingredients at their local grocery store - no pickled tofu or anything exotic like that!
2. The ingredients need to be on the healthy side - no cans of cheddar cheese or cream of mushroom soup, please!
3. The recipes needs to be big enough for at least 4 people.
4. The recipes can be vegetarian or meat-based - but again, no exotics like buffalo or quail!
5. Each recipe needs to be accompanied by a grocery list.
6. The recipes need to be simple, and be able to be assembled quickly - let's say 30 min or less from counter to oven.
7. Think pasta, entree salads, casseroles, chicken/beef/fish dishes, etc.
8. Tell your friends to submit as well - even if they don't read blogs!

Now for the giveaway!!

Today, I'm giving away another hand-made necklace:

This one is almost all purple, with brass spacers. It is approximately 30 inches long, and has these really beautiful hand-blown glass beads. To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment (yes, leaving a comment about the meal listing above qualifies as well).

The deadline will be 9 pm EST on Thursday, 7/30/09.

Food Bill Reducing Tips Thursday

One thing that helps me reduce my food bill as actually using up my food. There are about a zillion blogs out there participating in Food Waste Fridays, or No Food Waste, or something of the same idea, but what it basically boils down to is how to use up what you have in the pantry and fridge. What if all you have is cauliflower and cottage cheese? Or how about 1/2 loaf of bread and pickles? How do you plan your weekly (or biweekly) meals to come down to nothing wasted?

In line with what I wrote a couple weeks ago, if you take the time to organize your planning to 'piggyback' your meals, you should end up with less waste, as long as you are making just enough for your needs. Cooking enough for an army when there are only 2 of you won't help your budget at all - unless you have a very big freezer. But there will be those times when you have less desirable things to cook with. What to do?

I have been loving the recipes in Vegetarian Times that include only 5 ingredients. Though I have yet to see a recipe with bread and pickles, the ones I have seen are amazing.

Simplifying our diet seems to have helped our budget tremendously. Being summertime seems to help quite a bit - a quick dinner of loaded nachos and fresh-from-the-garden-salad sounds so much better than a full-course Indian meal.

So back to the undesirable ingredients. You have options.

• Learn to like bread and pickles
• Find awesome books at the library that incorporate strange food combining
• Toast the bread, eat it alongside the pickles
• Go to the store, hopefully along with other errands to make the trip worth taking, and purchase some small foodstuffs to go with the bread and pickles - to make them last a little longer, and a little more palatable
• Don't ever buy bread and pickles again to avoid the whole problem/process

I'm sure you get the idea. Letting things rot in the fridge or become moth eaten need not happen if you decide to expand your creativity and flexibility about food. Those withered greens can still be ground into nut burgers or pasta sauce. They may not look appealing in their raw, limp state, but no one need know what state they were in prior to the heat. You can make an incredible meal, and be a hero to your friends and family, and only you are the wiser!

Food Bill Reducing Tips Thursday

This week's tip is 2-fold:

1) Stop buying things wrapped individually, and

2) Get more creative with snacks.

My kids love snacks. Whether they are the 'good for you' kind or the kind I wouldn't want my mother seeing them eat, buying snacks can eat up your food budget. Quickly. Show me a family with teens and we'll see a family being eaten alive by their kids! Seriously! These kids come home and find every morsel worth eating in the house within 5 minutes. That cheese you hoped would be used for the enchiladas tonight? GONE. The tortilla chips you hoped would go in the lunches tomorrow? GONE. The bell peppers and carrots for tonight's salad? History. Finding snacks that satisfy the most discriminating tastes yet don't break the bank is my current mission. Here are a few that I have found so far:

Popcorn. Popcorn is my wonder food with the kids. I can serve it plain; with butter and salt; with curry powder and pumpkin seeds; with raisins, cashews and salt; salt and brown sugar or agave. I have also been know to get pretty fancy and make popcorn balls if asked nicely.

Nachos. You can find all sorts of toppings for nachos - the basic one is cheese (though plenty of great-tasting nachos can be had without the cheese. On top, you can add: beans, meat, salsa, peppers, corn, olives, sour cream, tomatoes, grated carrots, grated zucchini, basically any vegetable could work.

Fruit salad. Yum. My youngest just made a spectacular fruit salad with his aunt long distance over the phone. MMMM. The best things are those made with love. You know the drill here - any fruit will do it. You can leave it 'naked' or dress it up with yogurt and honey, sour cream and maple syrup, or a bit of your favorite jam thinned with a little bit of water or orange juice.

Chip mix. I came up with my own version of Chex mix - which I love, but it is expensive and has ingredients I choose not to eat. I get the equivalent cereals in the organic food section of the market, add gluten-free pretzels, nuts and sometimes dried cranberries for a shot of sweetness, then add whatever spicy-ness I am looking for, a few of the other typical ingredients (butter, salt, soy sauce or worcestershire sauce, etc) to finish with the recipe. I don't make it very often due to the work and cost involved (because of the organic part), but when I do, it's a great snack.

And just a little word about individual-sized packaging. Oh for crying out loud... do things really taste better when they come in those little tiny packages? Aren't the chips just the same when you take them out of an extra-large (and cheaper) bag and put them into smaller bags/containers? My kids insist I was born yesterday. "Oh no, mom. The ones with the little boxes inside the other boxes inside the bags are much fresher. They also happen to be the ones everyone brings to school. No one brings their own containers to school. That's weird." Too bad.

What snack do you cling to? What snacks do you keep around for your family??

Food Bill Reducing Tips Thursday

Cook for two. Not for two people (though that's just fine), but for two meals. This post is about stretching your food dollar farther by planning meals in order to make more out of simple ingredients. Take my food shopping this week, for example. I bought 2 chicken breasts, and a pound of salmon (my husband only eats fish, not chicken. I also bought brown rice, bell peppers, a package of beans (on sale - yay!) onions and potatoes.

On Monday, I cooked both the chicken breasts. I took one and shredded it for enchiladas, making one pan chicken and one pan cheese for the hubby. With the other chicken breast, I cubed it and put it in the fridge to be used on Wednesday. Tuesday, I cooked the salmon steaks - 1/2 to be used broiled for dinner, with roasted potatoes and salad, and the other half to be used in a lunch salad for my husband (2 lunches worth). On Wednesday, I put the cubed cooked chicken in a stir-fry with rice, bell peppers and a few other veggies hanging around - carrots, broccoli and celery. I kept some of the stir-fry aside without chicken for the hubby. I again had enough left over for a couple of lunches. For tonight (Thursday), I am using the rest of the potatoes, bell peppers and beans for a mexican dish called Chilaquiles (looove this dish), which also uses tortillas (I cheat and use tortilla chips), cheese, milk and sour cream. I will post the recipe soon. I don't know if I will have any leftovers as my kids devour this every time I make it.

If we plan for several meals at once, we can stretch the grocery dollar considerably. When I was in Vietnam recently, I learned that dishes with meat/fish do not have to focus entirely on the meat. You can have just as wonderful a meal with the bulk of the dish as vegetables and carbs, with meat (if you eat it) as just a small part. This definitely makes the meat budget stretch, and forces you to come up with new ways to try other dishes.

What have you been doing to reduce your grocery bill lately? Share your tips in the comments section.

Food Bill Reducing Tips Thursday

This week's tip: Do It Yourself!

We pay a very high price for convenience in this day and age. Every where we turn, we get the message that making our own food it old hat. So many foods are made to save us time, get out of the kitchen faster, move on to the next item on the agenda, much like a militaristic journey through life. We do have a choice, however, and can choose when we want or need to have the convenience of fast foods, and when we can slow down to make a more mindful meal. The price of convenience foods is nothing to laugh at, though. We certainly pay for the ease of popping something ready-made in the microwave or oven. Buying those deboned and skinned chicken breasts really do pack a punch at the checkout counter versus the whole chicken.

Here are some ideas for foods you can make on your own to save a bundle at the store:

1) Make your own pizza dough. At $1.62 per 2 12 inch crusts, it's alot better than around $5 per ready-made crust or $20 for 2 cheese pizzas at the pizza parlor.

2) Cut up your own chicken. At $5.50 per pound of boneless, skinned breasts or tenderloins, not to mention if those breasts were organic, you make out much better to buy the whole chicken at around $1.28 per pound.

3) Mince your own garlic. Here is where I fall short. I love using tons of garlic in my cooking. Yet I hate peeling it, always have. I typically buy the larger sized jar of minced garlic, and have no problem using it up quickly. However, at 14 cents per ounce, I am much better off buying the whole garlic and learning how to peel it quickly and efficiently, instead of the jared variety at 35 cents per ounce.

4) Freeze your own veggies. I don't buy frozen vegetables too often, not even the organic ones, preferring to eat fresh ones as much as possible. I also don't care for the slightly mushy texture that frozen veggies impart to cooked dishes. But, some of my culinary friends do use them with great success, and spend a whopping $3.50 per pound (for broccoli, for example) for them versus $1.50 a pound for fresh.

5) For those McDonald's fans, make your own egg muffin sandwich. Do you know how many $2.50's you could save by toasting an english muffin, adding a cooked egg and some nice cheese and perhaps some sausage or bacon? Not to mention how much better it would taste!

6) For your next birthday party, make your own cake. Forget the cake mix - making a cake from scratch is really not that scary if you have the right recipe. And at a mere $1.25 versus $3.65 per cake, it's a sweet savings to pocket.

7) And consider making your own coffee rather than purchasing it at a coffee shop. That $3 latte can be made at home for a few cents on the dollar - around 25 cents to be exact. Wow. How's that for putting things in perspective??

Making fresh food can be time consuming. Not many of us have the time we desire to dedicate to planning and making meals, and many of us can't stand to be in the kitchen longer than absolutely necessary to get the meal on the table. Making things from scratch takes time, organization and planning. The payoff is definitely worth it, if you consider how much money you can shave from your food bill. And learning some new skills can be fun (and entertaining to others). I shut down my microwave and put it in the basement about 5 years ago. I thought I could never live without it. I went to go find it for a craft project recently, and saw it was filled with rust from a wet basement issue. Tossed it out, and never looked back. You can learn new things, and you do get used to finding extra time for certain priorities.

Note: Some of the information listed in this post came from Ann Taylor Pittman's article in July 2009 Cooking Light.

Food Bill Reducing Tips Thursday

It's Thursday, and time for another food-bill reducing tip.  

Today's Tip?  SHOP ALONE!  Do you grocery shop with someone else?  Your kids?  Your partner?  Your friend or parent?  Oh my.  I can actually chart on my bank statement when I shopped alone, and when I had someone with me.  Taking my kids along for the ride typically raises the tab a good $12 for all the snacks and magazines I really should say 'no' to.  And some days, I do.  Other days, it's just easier to say 'yes' in order to get the shopping done in a reasonable amount of time.  I know... pushover mom.  But those of you with kids may understand where I'm coming from.

The real challenge, surprisingly, is when my husband comes along.  During those trips, I can expect a much larger increase in our grocery bill, as he busies himself with adding his favorite cheeses, snacks and drinks (the killer for the budget) to the cart.  Here I am putting in all the bulk and generic brands, and he throws in sushi.  Tahini.  Brie cheese.  Oh, I love this man.  At least he's not buying pop tarts and jello pudding pops!  But I do steal myself when he suggests that he'd like to come along while I shop.  I don't usually go so far as to check my bank balance, but I do try to find some financial wiggle room to cover his 'extras', thinking it over in my head as we drive to the store.

To find that wiggle room, I buy local, in-season produce when I can.  I buy mostly organic foods, and being that this is much more expensive, I have to buy less, consume less, and find more creative ways to stretch the food.  Buying our produce locally (either in the grocery store or at our local farmer's market) helps the environment (keeping the emissions down from trucking only locally versus across the country), helps the farmers (keeps them in business) and keeps us healthy with tasty, well-raised food.  

Another way to keep the costs down is to shop AFTER you have eaten.  When I shop before a meal, everything, and I mean everything looks good - looks even better in my cart, being bagged to go home.  I find my judgement is quite skewed when I shop hungry.  If I eat first, I am less bound to gobble up the store, make better decisions, and can stick to my list and weekly meal plan.

What tips can you think of that help you keep your grocery bill down? 

Food Bill Reducing Tip Day!

I was reading about Stacey on her blog, My Friend Oprah, and learning how she uses whole, organic foods for her family, yet still keeps her food bill under $100 or so bucks a week. Ok. I just don't know how to do that. My weekly food bill can easily triple that, and there are times I have to run out toward the end of the week for more milk, bread, etc. Now... to be fair to us, we have teenagers, who eat constantly ($). And then they bring their friends over who eat constantly ($$). And we choose organic foods. ($$$) Another issue is our gluten allergy: 3 of us have it, and can't use wheat to make bread, pasta or pizza from scratch. So although we can keep the various substituting flours in the house to make these staples, the time involved is challenging for a busy mom ($$$$). So perhaps keeping the food bill under $100 is not very plausible. But I sure could learn to love even $200 a week for food. Just keep me away from the dreaded $300 mark!

So how do you keep your food bill down? What great tips do you have to share? In fact, I think we need to dub Thursday the official 'Mindfully Simple Food Bill Reducing Tip Day'. I will start with the following tip, that does help me (when I DO it):

Tip # 1: Make a menu plan for the week (or even 2 weeks). Create a list with the necessary foods for the plan and stick to it - don't waiver for those yummy looking chocolate covered somethings at Trader Joe's - you know what I'm talking about (don't do it!!).

Ok - Your turn. List your tips through the comments and we can keep a running tab of ideas.