Can you stand another post about groceries?
My grocery budget combined with the number of people I feed is constant source of curiosity for people. I'm going to go through my weekly meal planning and grocery shopping process and maybe that will help explain what I do.
It happens to be a week of pretty mundane meals, as when I was doing this week's planning I wasn't expecting to dissect it like this. But it does give a pretty good slice of eating life, so it will work.
When I sit down to make my grocery list, I first plan what meals we will have each week. Step one is to look at the calendar and see if anything is going on. This week I saw that tomorrow night there are a couple of events that have dinner included in them, so I'm off the hook for cooking. (Yay!). I also see that J. is late a night or two. This changes what I plan because I tend not to do any real cooking when it's just me and the masses. (I really only cook for J., I feed everyone else.) I think I'm also taking a meal to a couple of new moms this week, so a couple of nights I need to plan something that is easily tripled (quadrupled?) so I only have to cook once.
Once I have the week firmly in my mind, I start to put meals down for days of the week. L. requested macaroni and cheese this week, so I decided to put that on tonight's menu. It's easy, cheap, and quick. There is a movie night that many of the family are going to, so this works well. I add in sauteed spinach because macaroni and cheese really needs some color and a vegetable.
[After each dinner, I'll go through and tell you where the ingredients came from, because I think that will be illuminating as to how I make this grocery-thing work. For the macaroni and cheese, the ingredients mainly came from Aldi today. It has the cheapest pasta and cheese. I also add dehydrated onion, Worcestershire sauce, and ground mustard to my cheese sauce. The onion I buy in my semi-annual bulk order, the Worcestershire sauce came from when Sam's Club was going out of business here, and I bought a ton of staples at half price. Spices I either buy with my bulk order or in larger containers from places like Cermak. I also put wheat germ on the top and then bake it. Except for tonight when I discovered I was out of wheat germ, so used panko bread crumbs instead. I'll put the wheat germ on the next bulk order. The spinach came from Aldi, which has a spectacular price on bagged spinach. I need four bags, and even then we dole it out onto plates.]
To figure out the other meals, I will often flip through my giant 3-ring binder of recipes I have collected over the years to see what sounds good and fits what I know is on sale combined with what I already have. It's kind of like a giant puzzle.
Friday night is taken care of, so onto Saturday. We're having home made hamburger helper. It's pretty much a beef, noodle, and vegetable dish. Simple, easy, fairly cheap. Oh, and a salad to go alongside. The beef I found at Aldi for 1/2 off. I love that. I bought some extra to put in the freezer. I also tend to not double the meat in something like this, but instead double the less expensive ingredients, in this case noodles and vegetables.
[All of these ingredients came from Aldi. The lettuce came from Fresh Thyme because they have better lettuce at a relatively decent price. Tomatoes were on sale and I'll add the ones I've gotten from the garden. I already had cucumbers for the salad here.]
Sunday night is BLT Pasta with garlic bread. This is a new recipe; I get bored. But I knew I had a bunch of penne from an earlier 88 cent/box sale, plus I had frozen bacon in the freezer from another sale where I bought quite a few pounds. So, it looked like something we should try.
[I bought regular tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes like the recipe calls for. The tomatoes were on sale and cherry tomatoes are crazy expensive when you need three boxes. It will be a little different, but it will still work. I also couldn't find arugula, so will need to go to a different store and buy that. The garlic bread I buy at Aldi because I'm lazy. I've certainly made enough garlic bread in my life, but for right now, I'm enjoying the open, heat, and serve kind.]
Monday is one of J.'s late nights. We'll have meatball sandwiches, because a child was making noises about wanting meatballs, and apple sauce. This is probably the most expensive meal of the week.
[Meatballs and buns came from Aldi. If it's a "real" dinner, I would make the meatballs from scratch; they're a lot better. But I don't cook on J.'s late nights. I will make an easy marinara sauce, though, because jarred spaghetti sauce is pretty expensive for what you get. The apple sauce is some I canned last fall.]
Tuesday we'll have vegetarian black bean chili, corn bread, and salad. It is one of those meals I can easily make a lot of.
[I have black beans from the bulk order; I buy 25 pounds at a time. So I'll soak those the night before and cook them the next morning so they'll be ready. The other vegetables came from Aldi, as did the toppings... tortilla chips, sour cream, and cheese. I only buy blocks of cheese, and we'll shred some for the table. The corn bread we'll make from scratch, with the corn meal being some I grind from popcorn and store in the freezer. Other baking ingredients come from Aldi, as does the butter which will be on the table for the corn bread. The salad things will be left over from the last meal where we had a salad.]
Wednesday, and the last day of the menu, is spicy green beans with pork, jasmine rice, and cucumber salad, both regular and spicy. A while back there was an amazing weekend sale on pork tenderloin. I spent all weekend going back and buying more, so my freezer has a lot of pork tenderloin sitting in it. Plus, I knew green beans were a loss leader at Fresh Thyme this week. It seemed like a good meal to have.
[Onions for the pork dish were on sale at Fresh Time as well, so all that was not on sale was the hand of ginger I needed. Usually for jasmine rice, I buy 50 pounds at a time at H-Mart, but I ran out, so had to buy a smaller (and more expensive) bag at Aldi. Pickling cucumbers were on sale at Fresh Thyme. I was thrilled to see them as they can be difficult to find, and are my preferred cucumber for cucumber salad. The rice vinegar for the salad I had on hand, being one of the things I stock up on at H-Mart, and the thai bird chilies for the spicy version were some I dehydrated a while back when I bought a huge, cheap package of them at a Vietnamese market in the city.]
So that's the plan for dinners. For breakfast, I usually buy some packages of bagels and English muffins. Plus, because we have chickens and ducks, we always have an inordinate number of fresh eggs. People are now all old enough that they pretty much make their own breakfast. Sometimes J. will bake muffins or baked oatmeal before he goes to work, and sometimes there is regular oatmeal. I will also make a bunch of breakfast items ahead of time to have on hand (or convince D. to bake some). We don't do breakfast cereal as a rule because it is expensive and everyone is hungry an hour afterwards, so I have to feed them again.
Lunch is pretty much a fend-for-yourself meal. J. often takes left-overs for his lunch (if there are any), and the rest are eaten by the masses. (Remember I don't have to pack lunches for anyone.) Usually what I keep on hand is deli meat (I will only buy 1 pound, and when it's gone, it's gone), cheese, tortillas, bread, peanut butter, jam, ramen, tuna,canned soup, and potatoes (for making into any number of dishes).
Snacks are pretty much pretzels, graham crackers, peanut butter, and fruit. Drinks are orange juice for breakfast, water for lunch, and a glass of milk for dinner for those who like milk. (I try to start the week with five gallons, and usually I end with at least one gallon left.) The adults like to have a beer or glass of wine at dinner, so I will usually add a bottle to my grocery cart at Aldi.
For grocery shopping purposes, I know what I usually keep on hand for those meals, so as I make my list, I go through and see what needs to be restocked. This is true for some baking supplies as well, mainly oils, white flour, and brown sugar. (White sugar is part of the bulk order, as it baking powder, cocoa powder, and dried milk.)
As you can tell, we don't eat a lot of meat-heavy meals. When I do cook meat, it is usually as a part of something else. This will change when we load the freezer up with another side of beef and lamb, then we can enjoy a bit more meat. Sometimes I also order a side of pork as well. It is just more cost-effective to buy meat this way, plus you know it is good and raised well. But usually, meat is just a part of a meal.
I don't buy a lot of processed, already prepared foods. It's too expensive for the number of people I feed each day. Ingredients are always less expensive, so I do a lot of cooking from scratch. We also don't do a whole lot of snacks.
So there you go. Does that help take the mystery out of my grocery bill?
____________
Sorry to include an advertisment, but it fits. If you are interested in ordering a side or quarter of beef from humanely raised, grass feed animals, contact my brother at Riggins Family Farm. We'll be bringing orders to the Chicago area when they are ready, so you don't have to truck out to Iowa to pick it up.
It happens to be a week of pretty mundane meals, as when I was doing this week's planning I wasn't expecting to dissect it like this. But it does give a pretty good slice of eating life, so it will work.
When I sit down to make my grocery list, I first plan what meals we will have each week. Step one is to look at the calendar and see if anything is going on. This week I saw that tomorrow night there are a couple of events that have dinner included in them, so I'm off the hook for cooking. (Yay!). I also see that J. is late a night or two. This changes what I plan because I tend not to do any real cooking when it's just me and the masses. (I really only cook for J., I feed everyone else.) I think I'm also taking a meal to a couple of new moms this week, so a couple of nights I need to plan something that is easily tripled (quadrupled?) so I only have to cook once.
Once I have the week firmly in my mind, I start to put meals down for days of the week. L. requested macaroni and cheese this week, so I decided to put that on tonight's menu. It's easy, cheap, and quick. There is a movie night that many of the family are going to, so this works well. I add in sauteed spinach because macaroni and cheese really needs some color and a vegetable.
[After each dinner, I'll go through and tell you where the ingredients came from, because I think that will be illuminating as to how I make this grocery-thing work. For the macaroni and cheese, the ingredients mainly came from Aldi today. It has the cheapest pasta and cheese. I also add dehydrated onion, Worcestershire sauce, and ground mustard to my cheese sauce. The onion I buy in my semi-annual bulk order, the Worcestershire sauce came from when Sam's Club was going out of business here, and I bought a ton of staples at half price. Spices I either buy with my bulk order or in larger containers from places like Cermak. I also put wheat germ on the top and then bake it. Except for tonight when I discovered I was out of wheat germ, so used panko bread crumbs instead. I'll put the wheat germ on the next bulk order. The spinach came from Aldi, which has a spectacular price on bagged spinach. I need four bags, and even then we dole it out onto plates.]
To figure out the other meals, I will often flip through my giant 3-ring binder of recipes I have collected over the years to see what sounds good and fits what I know is on sale combined with what I already have. It's kind of like a giant puzzle.
Friday night is taken care of, so onto Saturday. We're having home made hamburger helper. It's pretty much a beef, noodle, and vegetable dish. Simple, easy, fairly cheap. Oh, and a salad to go alongside. The beef I found at Aldi for 1/2 off. I love that. I bought some extra to put in the freezer. I also tend to not double the meat in something like this, but instead double the less expensive ingredients, in this case noodles and vegetables.
[All of these ingredients came from Aldi. The lettuce came from Fresh Thyme because they have better lettuce at a relatively decent price. Tomatoes were on sale and I'll add the ones I've gotten from the garden. I already had cucumbers for the salad here.]
Sunday night is BLT Pasta with garlic bread. This is a new recipe; I get bored. But I knew I had a bunch of penne from an earlier 88 cent/box sale, plus I had frozen bacon in the freezer from another sale where I bought quite a few pounds. So, it looked like something we should try.
[I bought regular tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes like the recipe calls for. The tomatoes were on sale and cherry tomatoes are crazy expensive when you need three boxes. It will be a little different, but it will still work. I also couldn't find arugula, so will need to go to a different store and buy that. The garlic bread I buy at Aldi because I'm lazy. I've certainly made enough garlic bread in my life, but for right now, I'm enjoying the open, heat, and serve kind.]
Monday is one of J.'s late nights. We'll have meatball sandwiches, because a child was making noises about wanting meatballs, and apple sauce. This is probably the most expensive meal of the week.
[Meatballs and buns came from Aldi. If it's a "real" dinner, I would make the meatballs from scratch; they're a lot better. But I don't cook on J.'s late nights. I will make an easy marinara sauce, though, because jarred spaghetti sauce is pretty expensive for what you get. The apple sauce is some I canned last fall.]
Tuesday we'll have vegetarian black bean chili, corn bread, and salad. It is one of those meals I can easily make a lot of.
[I have black beans from the bulk order; I buy 25 pounds at a time. So I'll soak those the night before and cook them the next morning so they'll be ready. The other vegetables came from Aldi, as did the toppings... tortilla chips, sour cream, and cheese. I only buy blocks of cheese, and we'll shred some for the table. The corn bread we'll make from scratch, with the corn meal being some I grind from popcorn and store in the freezer. Other baking ingredients come from Aldi, as does the butter which will be on the table for the corn bread. The salad things will be left over from the last meal where we had a salad.]
Wednesday, and the last day of the menu, is spicy green beans with pork, jasmine rice, and cucumber salad, both regular and spicy. A while back there was an amazing weekend sale on pork tenderloin. I spent all weekend going back and buying more, so my freezer has a lot of pork tenderloin sitting in it. Plus, I knew green beans were a loss leader at Fresh Thyme this week. It seemed like a good meal to have.
[Onions for the pork dish were on sale at Fresh Time as well, so all that was not on sale was the hand of ginger I needed. Usually for jasmine rice, I buy 50 pounds at a time at H-Mart, but I ran out, so had to buy a smaller (and more expensive) bag at Aldi. Pickling cucumbers were on sale at Fresh Thyme. I was thrilled to see them as they can be difficult to find, and are my preferred cucumber for cucumber salad. The rice vinegar for the salad I had on hand, being one of the things I stock up on at H-Mart, and the thai bird chilies for the spicy version were some I dehydrated a while back when I bought a huge, cheap package of them at a Vietnamese market in the city.]
So that's the plan for dinners. For breakfast, I usually buy some packages of bagels and English muffins. Plus, because we have chickens and ducks, we always have an inordinate number of fresh eggs. People are now all old enough that they pretty much make their own breakfast. Sometimes J. will bake muffins or baked oatmeal before he goes to work, and sometimes there is regular oatmeal. I will also make a bunch of breakfast items ahead of time to have on hand (or convince D. to bake some). We don't do breakfast cereal as a rule because it is expensive and everyone is hungry an hour afterwards, so I have to feed them again.
Lunch is pretty much a fend-for-yourself meal. J. often takes left-overs for his lunch (if there are any), and the rest are eaten by the masses. (Remember I don't have to pack lunches for anyone.) Usually what I keep on hand is deli meat (I will only buy 1 pound, and when it's gone, it's gone), cheese, tortillas, bread, peanut butter, jam, ramen, tuna,canned soup, and potatoes (for making into any number of dishes).
Snacks are pretty much pretzels, graham crackers, peanut butter, and fruit. Drinks are orange juice for breakfast, water for lunch, and a glass of milk for dinner for those who like milk. (I try to start the week with five gallons, and usually I end with at least one gallon left.) The adults like to have a beer or glass of wine at dinner, so I will usually add a bottle to my grocery cart at Aldi.
For grocery shopping purposes, I know what I usually keep on hand for those meals, so as I make my list, I go through and see what needs to be restocked. This is true for some baking supplies as well, mainly oils, white flour, and brown sugar. (White sugar is part of the bulk order, as it baking powder, cocoa powder, and dried milk.)
As you can tell, we don't eat a lot of meat-heavy meals. When I do cook meat, it is usually as a part of something else. This will change when we load the freezer up with another side of beef and lamb, then we can enjoy a bit more meat. Sometimes I also order a side of pork as well. It is just more cost-effective to buy meat this way, plus you know it is good and raised well. But usually, meat is just a part of a meal.
I don't buy a lot of processed, already prepared foods. It's too expensive for the number of people I feed each day. Ingredients are always less expensive, so I do a lot of cooking from scratch. We also don't do a whole lot of snacks.
So there you go. Does that help take the mystery out of my grocery bill?
____________
Sorry to include an advertisment, but it fits. If you are interested in ordering a side or quarter of beef from humanely raised, grass feed animals, contact my brother at Riggins Family Farm. We'll be bringing orders to the Chicago area when they are ready, so you don't have to truck out to Iowa to pick it up.
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