Month: May 2012

Project Food Budget / My Healthy Budget: End of May Month 7

Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $79.82

My healthy budget goal is to eat seasonal (local if possible,) home-cooked meals while sticking to a $400… $350… $400 monthly budget for all food including groceries, dining out, entertaining, vitamins/supplements, and gardening.

There’s two of us eating (mostly) 3 meals per day. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.

May – Month Seven, Week Five – END OF MONTH

This week, I’ve spent $79.82, ending the month of May with a grand total of $402.58.

Okay, I tried for $350 again this month, and failed…but at the same time, I feel accomplished because we had approx $75 in entertaining & gardening expenses, so, I really shouldn’t complain that I was a little over my (original) budget because our actual (consumed) food spending was terrific!

Dining Out: $46.66
Entertaining: $0
Gardening: $0
Groceries: $33.16

Yes, our dining-out budget was on the crazy-train-track this week, but I suppose I have an excuse; we received some extra $$ so we splurged a little. I don’t like making excuses, and I really don’t like sliding back into old habits of dining out when I feel too lazy to cook. It’s especially difficult when the weather is so beautiful, and we get caught up in doing other fun things. Planning is key!

Monthly Totals: $402.58

Dining Out: $108.06
Entertaining: $20.33
Gardening: $55.62
Groceries: $218.57

Spending Details

Market Basket $17.42: bananas, bag o’ 8 navel oranges, organic half & half (for DH), (5) Chobani yogurts and (2) Applegate Farms chicken deli meat (on sale, plus I used 2 coupons for $1 off, only $5 for BOTH)

Ocean State Job Lots $9.99: Good sale on (@3.99 ea) Bob’s WW Pastry Flour and (4 @1.50 ea) Rapunzel organic chocolate bars.

Market Basket $5.75: bananas and bag o’ 8 navel oranges – Yeah, the California Navels are definitely out of season. Dry dry dry! bummer!

Amazon.com $0 – free! Subscribe & Save for Wild Planet tuna 6pk $13.21 was applied to my credit card rewards “credit” so my order was free.

Week of Meals

  • Thursday: (Leftover frozen) fresh ham steak w/ salsa, kidney beans in corn tortillas w/ side of roasted beets
  • Friday: Chinese Food – greasy pu-pu platter!
  • Saturday: Dinner over Parents’ house
  • Sunday: Fried eggs topped over bulgar and stir fry veggies
  • Monday: Homemade pizza with fresh mozzarella
  • Tuesday: Leftover frozen meat sauce with pasta & kidney beans
  • Wednesday: Leftover meat sauce transformed into soup with added veg stock, frozen corn, frozen peas, roasted carrots & celery, topped over barley

Want to Join the Project Food Budget?

project food budget

It’s never too late to join the Project Food Budget!

If you’d like to participate, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!

Here’s who else is budgeting this week:

OMG, I just LOVE My Garden!

This morning, I was out in my little garden, taking photos. I just love love LOVE my garden. It’s extraordinary watching the plants change over just a few days!

I’m thrilled that my carrots are FINALLY coming up. The two little seed leaves have burst into a cute little carrot’y leaf in the middle. Some of my tomato plants are starting to flower, and it’s fascinating to watch my Carmen peppers drop their white flowers, giving way to a tiny little pepper fruit.

Gardening is miraculous! Life is good! (photos coming soon!)

Gardening Diary: Pests

So, I think I’m just about done with planting. Yay! I still have a few plants leftover, but for the most part, the majority are planted, either in containers or in the ground. I feel very accomplished!

Onto the next issue! Pests!

Worms/caterpillars have been eating my rhubarb, blackberry and strawberry leaves like crazy! I don’t recall there being this big of a problem in past seasons, but maybe I’m just more observant this year.

I heard BT (Bacillus Thuringiensis) is a good pesticide that is approved for organic gardens. It is a naturally-occurring bacteria that targets specific worms/caterpillars and doesn’t harm other beneficial bugs or critters.

Right now, I’m picking off wormies by hand, which is so gross, but so far, I can handle it. I read that if you let the plant develop its own defenses, it’s a much stronger plant, so I’ve not applied any pesticides yet. I noticed that the strawberries are indeed growing more leaves to make up for the leaf loss. It makes sense, because in the wild, berries must fend for themselves, and they do alright.

Unfortunately though, there is one section of strawberries that are looking a bit small and anemic, but the others are healthy. The blackberries seem to be normal, although they are just at the flowering stage right now, but the leaves do not have that much damage. The rhubarb is having issues, but I think it’s due to having too little sun.

Now, a bigger problem will be my veggie garden. I already noticed a big ugly green worm crawling on the dirt yesterday, (probably trying to find its next meal,) and one more on a cabbage leaf this morning. DH’s poor watermelon plant looks like it’s been eaten pretty badly too. So, yes, I’m thinking BT might be the answer for my vegetables.

So far, the plants in containers are doing well, no sign of any leaf eaters!

I’ll be posting photos soon of the garden. It was a glorious weekend for weather. I can’t believe how hot it’s been and it isn’t even June yet. I’m hoping the heat keeps up so cucumbers, peppers, eggplant and tomatoes will flourish!

Very soon, my peas will be popping! I’m looking forward to pinching a few tendrils for my salad or soup! YUM!

Life is good here at my little farm! ha!

French Pot? Try Again!

I was walking around BJ’s the other night and saw an enameled cast iron “french” pot and I joked to my husband that it was probably a french pot, made in China.

french pot from cuisine de france - made in china

I half-heartedly turned over the box, and I admit I was a tad bit surprised to see “made in China”, well not THAT surprised, but it did shock me a little.

french pot from cuisine de france - made in china

It still amazes me that companies are allowed to push the limits of fair & truthful marketing with their sneaky packaging and labels!

I suppose it’s too much to ask that something named “Cuisine de France” (which according to the manufacturers’ web site means “French Kitchen”) would actually have something to do with France except for the name on the box!

I know, I know, everything nowadays is “made in China”, but if you know about good cookware, you’d know there are still cast iron pots being manufactured in France (Le Creuset and Staub); in fact, one of the kitchen tools so many home cooks aspire to own, is a good-quality french enameled cast iron pot!

I really think Lifetime Brands took advantage of that fact by making it look like this could have been a french-made pot, when in fact it’s no better than any other cheap no-name import. At first glance, I admit I fell for it, and I bet a lot of other consumers did too.

Food Network Magazine 1000 Easy Recipes Cookbook Review

food network 1000 easy recipes

I saw The Food Network Magazine 1000 Easy Recipes cookbook showcased on QVC and I immediately requested it from my local library.

When I picked up the book, the library staff mentioned how impressed they were when they browsed the recipes, so I was looking forward to diving in.

When you initially flip through the book, you immediately notice the stunning photos; pages and pages of detailed, full-color photographs illustrate how the finished dish looks.

The first part of the book highlights a few chosen recipes to consider for specific menus. Menus like Pizza Party, Thai Dinner Party, Tex-Mex Night, Autumn Dinner Party, Farmers Market Lunch, Vegetarian Night, Cozy Winter Supper and Family Picnic to name just a few.

I was really looking forward to checking out some of these recipes: Ginger crackles, maple walnut trunks, bell pepper pasta salad, veggie burgers, popcorn, oat walnut thins, and peanut butter mousse. Yum.

The book is separated into main chapters with sub-chapters:

  • Appetizers & Snacks: Crostini, Dips, Tea Sandwiches, Nachos & Potato Skins, Chips & Party Mixes
  • Breakfast & Brunch: Smoothies, Pancakes Waffles & French Toast, Eggs & Bacon
  • Main Dishes: Soup, Kebabs, Burgers & Dogs, Panini, Pizza & Pasta
  • Salads & Sides: Tossed Salads & Slaws, Potato & Pasta Salads, Beans & Grains, Veggie Sides
  • Drinks & Desserts: Cold Drinks, Hot Drinks, Cocktails, Brownies & Cookies, No-Bake Desserts

As the book sub-title “super fun food for every day” suggests, it’s all about putting together uncomplicated, quick family meals: Grill a burger, throw together some salad veggies and you’ve got dinner.

Make no mistake, this is not your average instructional cookbook, I suppose you could say the “recipes” in the book aren’t even recipes – for each type of dish, there are dozens of variations, each with only a simple paragraph “description.” The concept is very similar to Mark Bittman’s “Kitchen Express” cookbook.

While there are a thousand recipes in the book and a few tips scattered here and there, there are no instructions for basics like roasting a whole chicken or peeling a fresh artichoke. No one is holding your hand as you braise a beef chuck roast or make your first creme brulee.

For that reason, this book might not be the best choice for a beginner; although, I suppose it could be a helpful companion cookbook if the newbie also owned a copy of something more detailed (I highly recommend Cook with Jamie or the Essential NY Times Cookbook as cookbooks for beginner cooks.)

The Food Network Magazine 1000 Easy Recipes cookbook motivates a lot of experimentation in the kitchen, but does it go overboard with so many variations for one type of food? Sure, you will probably never need 7 pages of crostinis or 40+ kebab variations, but at the same time, it is inspiring and interesting to read their flavor combinations.

Bottom line, I don’t recommend buying The Food Network Magazine 1000 Easy Recipes cookbook, unless of course you are a big collector and must have every cookbook ever published.

If you are wise, you’d just grab a copy from the library to browse through first. Then find your favorite recipes online at the Food Network web site or just jot down a few notes from a few favorites as the recipes are so short and sweet.

This cookbook seems more like of a novelty, which isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just that personally, I can’t envision myself referring back to it again and again as I would with a more “mainstream” cookbook.

A Couple of my favorite recipes (found online) at Food Network:

Disclaimer:
I love reading cookbooks, like some people love reading novels! I am inspired by recipes, and enjoy learning ideas from cookbooks, which means I’d rather put my own spin on a recipe than follow it exactly. Please keep in mind that my opinions might be completely different from the other home cooks.

Garden Diary: My First Harvest

Harvested a few leaves of lettuce from my wonderful garden this morning, along with a stem of parsly and basil. Exciting!

I wasn’t sure if I was cutting it properly, using scissors, but I checked out this video from the Garden Fork and he suggests to cut the whole thing down to about an inch. I was just cutting a few outside leaves off. I’ll wait until they get a bit taller again and try his method. It reminds me of cutting grass!

http://youtu.be/qJ8XpQjBf3g

Still waiting for the lettuce I planted from seed to grow up. All this gardening stuff is still new to me, so this season will be an ongoing experiment!

I know I’ll be pinching some pea tendrils/shoots from the garden soon, maybe even this weekend!

Anyway, I made a lovely lettuce sandwich with Mindful Mayo and slices of my homemade whole grain chia bread. It was fantastic! :) Life is good!

my first lettuce harvest, sandwich

Project Food Budget / My Healthy Budget: May Month 7 / Week 4

Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $122.34

My healthy budget goal is to eat seasonal (local if possible,) home-cooked meals while sticking to a $400 $350 monthly budget for all food including groceries, dining out, entertaining, vitamins/supplements, and gardening.

There’s two of us eating (mostly) 3 meals per day. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.

May – Month Seven, Week Four

This week, I’ve spent $122.34, with a monthly total of $322.76. That leaves $27.24 for 8 more days in May.

Yeah, okay, I don’t think May is my month for budgeting! I’ve been a little impulsive, especially for dining out. A little bit here and a little bit there adds up. I think I’ll be under my original budget of $400, but I am not sure how I’ll do with the $350 adjusted budget.

The good news is we did spend a lot on our vegetable garden, so I am not too worried if I am over.

Dining Out: $27.40
Entertaining: $0
Gardening: $53.93
Groceries: $41.01

Spending Details

Whole Foods $26.97: Peanut butter, vidalia onions, cherries, organic beets, cabbage, red delicious apples, local fresh mozzarella, & organic corn tortillas.

Local Farm $6.50: farm fresh eggs

Meat CSA $7.54: Boneless pork chops (Luckily, products from the Meat CSA are technically paid in full, so no real money is actually spent, but I apply the cost to my budget as we consume it.)

McCue’s Gardening Center $32.97: A few months ago, I bought a Groupon for $30 worth of plants for only $15. I bought three flats of veggies for a total of $32.97, that’s almost like getting one flat for free. Yeah, I went crazy overboard with too many plants (hmm, I think almost 150 plants), but in the end, after they’re all eventually planted, it’s gonna be glorious!

Mahoney’s Garden Center $5.96: Even though I bought an exorbitant amount of plants, DH wanted to try growing watermelon, so we bought 2 Sugar Baby watermelon plants.

Miscellaneous $15: One yard/truckload of compost/dirt. Yes, we have an unlimited supply of compost in our backyard, but it was getting time-consuming digging and sifting enough for the new beds and containers needed for all the plants we bought! DH knew a place in town that offered excellent-quality soil for cheap $ so we decided it was worth it.

Week of Meals

  • Thursday: Steamed broccoli with bulgar topped with fried egg
  • Friday: Burger King :(
  • Saturday: Marinated pork chop with broccoli and quinoa
  • Sunday: PBJ sandwiches w/ sliced apples
  • Monday: Red lentils with (leftover frozen) chicken vegetable soup
  • Tuesday: Quiche with asparagus, roasted onions, and feta
  • Wednesday: Homemade sausage braised w/ wine, carrots & cabbage, over brown rice

I mentioned in a previous post that I don’t use anything fancy for meal planning; I keep a very simple “Note” on my iPad, which also syncs to my iPhone using my Gmail account. Notes can also be synced using iCloud.

Below is a screen shot of my Meal Planning note for anyone that’s interested. I keep list of current dates, and a tentative meal idea for each day. You can’t see on the screen shot, but under the dates, there is a long list of ingredients as well as future meal ideas and classic go-to meals. It’s very basic, but it works for me! :)

meal planning note on iPad

Want to Join the Project Food Budget?

project food budget

It’s never too late to join the Project Food Budget!

If you’d like to participate, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!

Here’s who else is budgeting this week:

My Gardening Diary: Overboard, Overwhelmed & Overloaded

I’m starting a gardening diary, mostly to keep a record for myself, so I can learn from my mistakes and achievements.

It’s exciting that this year our home garden has expanded, and I hope all our hard work will pay off into a wonderful harvest that will last into the cooler months.

One of the first lessons learned was when I went crazy-overboard buying veggie plants.

I bought a Groupon for $30 worth of plants for a cost of only $15.

Last Friday, I drove to McCue’s Gardening Center with a rough-draft of a shopping list for veggie plants. I knew I wanted tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, with maybe a few herbs thrown in.

I walked out with 3 flats of plants (eight 6-packs in each flat) which, after my $15 Groupon was applied, only cost about $33. Yes, a bargain, but problem was, I was so overwhelmed and excited to see so many different veggies, there was no forethought regarding how many plants were needed, in relation to the actual space for gardening!

In reality, 2 flats would have been plenty, especially since they allowed a mix-match of plants, as long as they were the same price! Next year, I will know better!

So, here are my veggies

  • Tomatoes: a full flat = 48 plants – thankfully, my dad took 4 for his home garden, but it still leaves me with 44.
  • Peppers, Sweet & Chili: 5 pks = 30 plants
  • Little Fingers Eggplant: 1 pk = 6
  • Pickling Cucumbers: 3 pks = 9 (only 3 to a pk)
  • Butternut Squash: 1 pk = 3 (only 3 to a pk)
  • Red Cabbage: 1 pk = 6
  • Brussels Sprouts: 1 pk = 6
  • Lettuce, Red: 2 pks = 12
  • Basil: 2 pks = 12
  • And a separate purchase for DH because he wanted to grow it — Sugar Baby Watermelon: 2 plants

Seriously, where am I going to put all of those plants!?

We planted some of the veggies this weekend. We had to dig up new beds, sifting soil by hand, digging & sifting compost out back. It was very time-consuming and a lot of work. I also planted some in containers: both lettuce plants, 2 brussels sprouts and 1 cabbage.

DH decided it would be better to pick up a yard/truckload of high quality compost/dirt; total cost only $15. A small price to pay to save time and effort for planting the rest.

I’ll keep planting more veggies in what’s left of the containers and the rest will have to wait until this weekend when we’ll have more time to dig out at least one more bed.

In the past, I was neglectful, but this season, I’ll be caring for my babies properly, with “food” and lots of water. It will certainly be a learning experiment, and I really hope that all the hard work will pay off. And just think, next year, most of heavy work will be done. We can re-use the beds and possibly even add wooden boards or cement blocks to make them officially “raised”

Life is good!

Project Food Budget / My Healthy Budget: May Month 7 / Week 3

Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $103.97

My healthy budget goal is to eat seasonal, home-cooked meals while sticking to a $400 $350 monthly budget for all food including groceries, dining out, entertaining, vitamins/supplements, and gardening.

There’s two of us eating 3 (mostly) meals per day. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.

May – Month Seven, Week Three

This week, I’ve spent $103.97, with a monthly total of $200.42. That leaves $149.58 for the rest of May.

Hmm, I went a little overboard this week. I fully expected to stick closer to my estimated $60, but with Mother’s Day entertaining and a husband craving Chinese take-out, I spent over $100.

I think I’ll be okay for the rest of the month though.

Dining Out: $17.00
Entertaining: $20.33
Gardening: $0
Groceries: $66.64

Spending Details

Market Basket (5/10) $23.10: mushrooms, cara cara oranges, (2) limes, crown broccoli, red grapefruit, bananas, flour, molasses, baking powder, (4) Hunt’s whole tomatoes, brown mustard

Whole Foods (5/11) $21.66: 5lb bag o’ organic carrots, organic strawberries, 4 lb bag o’ oranges, vidalia onions, organic celery, asparagus

Other $13.00: (3) bottles of cheap wine and back to the store for a few bananas.

Meat CSA $11.88: Fresh pork ham steak (Luckily, products from the Meat CSA are technically paid in full, so no real money is actually spent, but I apply the cost to my budget as we consume it.)

Lessons Learned This Week

  • I couldn’t resist purchasing a package of organic strawberries (from Calif) this week. Yes, it was an impulsive buy, and it was not local, but I don’t think it was a poor choice, it was a special treat.
  • Also, I had a further breakthrough on keeping true to what I really need. The Niman Ranch bacon was on sale, and I added it to my initial grocery list, but I later removed it. I have a freezer full of meat, so it’s silly to buy any more at the store, until most of the stuff I have is used. *** I resisted a sale item…yay!

Week of Meals

  • Thursday: Egg brown rice bake w/ cheese, beet greens & broccoli
  • Friday: Braised fresh pork ham steak with lentils and cream of carrot soup
  • Saturday: Take-out Chinese
  • Sunday: Mother’s Day celebration
  • Monday: Whole wheat oatmeal caraway pancakes with maple syrup
  • Tuesday: Pasta with tomato pepper sauce (I still have whole chilies in the freezer from last summer!)
  • Wednesday: Bread Pizzas w/ feta

Want to Join the Project Food Budget?

project food budget

It’s never too late to join the Project Food Budget!

If you’d like to participate, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!

Here’s who else is budgeting this week:

Project Food Budget / My Healthy Budget: May Month 7 / Week 2

Project: Food Budget Weekly total: $75.28

My healthy budget goal is to eat seasonal, home-cooked meals while sticking to a $400 $350 monthly budget for all food including groceries, dining out, entertaining, vitamins/supplements, and gardening.

There’s two of us eating 3 (mostly) meals per day. My husband occasionally eats take-out lunch at work, & that $ comes out of his personal cash stash.

May – Month Seven, Week Two

This week, I’ve spent $75.28, with a monthly total of $96.45. That leaves $253.55 for the rest of May.

I’m shooting for 3 more shopping trips, with about $60 for each, leaving a little buffer for other food costs this month.

Dining Out: $17.00
Entertaining: $
Gardening: $
Groceries: $58.28

Spending Details

Thursday was a busy shopping day!

Citrus is definitely coming to the end of season, the bagged grapefruit and oranges were unsatisfactory. sigh. This is a tough time of year, in between the end of citrus season and beginning of the local season for berries and stone fruit! We might have to rely on frozen fruit, hmm, good chance to experiment with some green smoothies perhaps!

Stop & Shop $3.00: Had a coupon for $2 off $5 produce, so I bought 1 mango and 3 avocados. Good deal at $.75 each.

Trader Joe’s $31.72: 5 lb bag o’ grapefruit, feta cheese, walnuts, (2) raisins, peanuts, reduced sugar blueberry preserves, and balsamic vinegar. Not happy with the grapefruit quality. I’m glad TJ’s has an excellent refund policy.

Wilson Farm $16.58: their own asparagus ($6/lb), their-own eggs, cilantro (NJ), red lettuce (NJ), beets (NJ), and bag o’ cara cara oranges.

Meat CSA $6.98:This week, I used a pound of grassfed beef. (Luckily, products from the Meat CSA are technically paid in full, so no real money is actually spent, but I apply the cost to my budget as we consume it.)

Week of Meals

  • Thursday: Calzone take-out
  • Friday: Pasta with ground beef tomato sauce, simmered for hours in oven. Froze leftover sauce for later
  • Saturday: Broccoli & asparagus with quinoa topped with fried egg
  • Sunday: Dinner at the new neighbors’
  • Monday: Spinach carrot asparagus soup with grilled cheddar cheese sandwiches
  • Tuesday: Pan seared scallops with bulgar, spinach salad, and steamed beets & broccoli
  • Wednesday: Pasta with bean tomato onion sauce

Want to Join the Project Food Budget?

project food budget

It’s never too late to join the Project Food Budget!

If you’d like to participate, get the details and let Emily know you’re on board!

Here’s who else is budgeting this week: