Staying on Track

I know it has only been a few days, okay so it is Thursday of the first week of my new organized life, but this is actually the longest I have stayed on goal before.  Sad, I know, but true.

Tuesday meal was the chicken meatballs.  We bought these at Costco.  I fully admit that they do not fall under the rules of the "Real Food" challenge, nor did the teriyaki rice mix.  I pulled out the carrots left over from last week and served them as well.  It is extremely hard to get everything hot and served at the same time when it is all cooked in the microwave.  I will be so happy to get my oven back.  This is also not a cheap meal by any means (approx. $14 per box, two meals worth), but hubby bought them after getting a taste sample so I have to use them.

Last night we had pork tenderloin that I cooked in the crock pot.  It was supposed to cook for another hour, but I put a meat thermometer in it and it was done.  Ended up a little overcooked as it was really dry and falling apart.  My crock pot has been going south for a while, the digital timer was messed up so you couldn't tell by looking how much time you put on it.  Had to count it out when I entered the time.  It also cooked really hot on high, and not so hot on low.  I had learned to compensate for the problems for the most part, but last night I had enough.  We went and bought me a new one at Costco (the club membership was my gift from son and his wife) which was a little cheaper than the original one I purchased (several years ago) and came with a little mini crock pot as well.  I got it home, cleaned it and put it on the counter, then realized that it is about a quart and half larger than the old one (and here my family is shrinking) but I guess I can double up on some things for planned left overs.  At any rate, back to the meal, I made mashed potatoes and fried okra with it. Not the sides planned, but since it was unexpectedly just the two of us it was easy and I could control the amount better.  I froze the left over meat to make in to pulled pork sandwiches next month.  The whole meal was $3.30 for everything.

Tonight's recipe is a type of stir fry, so thankfully will be a quick cook and on the stove top.  It has potatoes in in that are cooked in the microwave first.  Tonight's meal will be 100% completely with in the rules of the "real food" challenge.  The unexpected advantage of cooking more from real foods, less processed items, and cooking from scratch is that the amount of trash we have is at least half of what it was last week.

Just another little bit of information.  Since we had fallen in to a rut lately, same old meals over and over, when I planned out my menu plans for the next few weeks I purposely planned all new dishes.  I am wanting something new, something fresh, and a bit more rounded meals for the family.  Not ground beef or chicken every night or around here, tacos and baked chicken at least once every week.  I know that these are family favorites (at least the tacos, burgers, hot dogs) but we really need a little change around here, not to mention that I am including more pork and fish (okay, seafood)

Now, I have to mention something here about a cookbook I bought recently. Well, last year sometime.

I thought this would  be a great resource book, which for the most part I guess it was.  I do however, have to challenge her price analysis of the meals.  There is absolutely NO WAY that I can purchase the ingredients of a dish for as cheap a price as she does.  I realize that she lives in the midwest, but that is just no excuse.  I even emailed her and called her out on it, she wrote back that she did calculate each recipe according to her best sale price.    Which are way lower than my best sale prices.  Here are some examples.

I just bought store brand unsalted butter on sale for 2.98 a package, there are 4 sticks, 8 tablespoons per stick, for 32 tablespoons for a package. That calculates out to .09 per tablespoon.  She calculates .05 per tablespoon.  If I use margarine it would be closer, but still not that low. The main ingredient I debate the price with though is ground beef.  She averages a pound of ground beef for $1.50. The price however is very inconsistent through out the book. One recipe has 1/2 pound ground beef for .75, one recipe has 3/4 pound for .76 and such.  You get the point.  Most of the beef dishes are just not priced accurately.  Now, I totally understand that she was shopping sales, one recipe may have been made with a better sale price than another.  I totally accept that beef prices in the mid west are most likely cheaper than here in California.  I even agree that since the recipes for the book were made and created in 2008 and 2009 that things may have been a bit cheaper.  However, my point is that it is just a bit misleading.  I mean, this is 2012 and groceries just last year pretty much nation wide took a 24% to 28% increase across the board.  But, I can get eggs, cheese, canned goods, milk, pretty close to her prices, even chicken, but I just don't believe that the beef prices are true. There fore I think that she should not keep claiming that the cost of her meals are $5 or less. She has a web/blog site and continually claims the low cost of her recipes.  The site has some great recipes though along with some really creative ideas from readers, as well as links to great coupon and highlights good sales.

That being said, she has some wonderful recipes in the book.  I will be purchasing her second book "$5 Dinner Mom Breakfast and Lunch Cookbook" but will not be anticipating actually making the meals for $5 or under. She does share some great shopping strategies that I can use to get cost as low as possible.

Have you seen "Pioneer Woman" on the Food Network?  Ree Drummond is the host.  She is wonderfully down to earth with her dishes and her stories.  She lives on a working ranch in Oklahoma.  Ree stormed the blog scene with her stories of meeting her husband (she calls him the Marlboro Man - enough said), going from being a big city girl to a country gal, her children, her children's books and her photography.  Read her blog by the same name to learn more about her.  I am so jealous of her kitchen, believe it or not, her husband converted a small house on the ranch into a large kitchen and dining space.  She has three work stations so every one can cook together, 3 stoves, 3 sinks, huge counter top work space.  She is awesome and for the most part uses normal ingredients and simple techniques to cook her meals.  Oh, and did I mention that she beat Bobby Flay in a throw down?

Well, little man is awake...again, so need to jump off of here and tend to him and then grab a bite to eat.  Thanks for stopping by, feel free to leave a comment, and come back soon.

Grocery Shopping - Victory & Defeat

I did my big grocery shop yesterday.  Victory is that it is done and all put up.  Defeat is that I spent about twice what I had planned on.  On the up side of that, I am pretty sure that looking over my list I shopped for four weeks instead of two.  I will see how long I can go before going back to the store.  Well, will have to go back for milk and bread, but not much else.  Actually, this is the first time in a really long time, that I have been sitting this well prepared on the meal front.  It feels pretty darn good.  I was also pleasantly surprised to find that when I copied my purchases in to my new spread sheet grocery money tracker that very little of the groceries were processes (or what I considered processed or pre-packaged) items.  Straight forward products for cooking meals (canned goods, baking supplies, meat, produce) and a smaller portion than I thought was for household items (paper goods, cleaning supplies) so that was good thing.

The second defeat was in trying to use coupons and store loyalty cards.  I have seen it done several times, so thought I would give it a try.  You know, on that totally unhonest, bordering illegal, show "Extreme Couponing".  Those women swipe their loyalty card which has preloaded coupons, then hand the clerk a big bale of coupons to bring the total down even further.  This was the first time I have gone online to download coupons to my loyalty card.  I did this at the Von's store.  They had the items on sale, so I thought I would get the added savings of a manufactures coupon.  NO...NOT HAPPENING.  First of all, it seems that the sale price in the circular is with the coupon (had to read the little fine print for that info) so am wondering why bother to pick the offers I want to go on the card.  I really think that this is just a bit misleading to the public.  At any rate, to boil the whole episode down in a nutshell (which included a conversation with the manager) if you have loaded coupons on to your card (which you don't have to do because just using the card gives you the discounted price) you cannot use paper coupons.  So in other words, I can't use any other coupons on items that are on sale that week.  He explained that I couldn't get double savings, the manufacturer only reimbursed the store one time, so I could use either the store card, or the printed coupons.  Also he explained that the companies were opting to go with the online loading to the card to reduce their cost of printing thousands of coupons that aren't used. (Guess he hasn't seen "Extreme Couponers" where they dumpster dive for those unused coupons) At any rate, he further explained that it works well for all, the customer gets a little savings, the store isn't out any money, and it forces, I mean urges, the customer to use their store.  I politely explained that I understand the policy, but that the cashier kept my paper coupons, so had now lost them for a future purchase.  He came back with that I still had the card savings.  To which I replied that I could use the printed coupons at other stores.

So, lesson learned.  Once again, couponing just doesn't work in real life the way it is set up for the show. No big surprise their.  And, will not be using the online card system any more.  If I can get the same savings by just running the card, why bother.  Besides, Von's is so much more expensive than the other grocery stores that I will just go back to shopping only the loss leaders there.

Now, here is the other little defeat.  I was making dinner last night, which was really good.  I cooked a whole chicken in the crockpot, then heated up left over fried okra and potatoes augratin.  Meal cost next to nothing and have just enough chicken left to repurpose in another dish, plus about 2 quarts of wonderful tasting broth. I pulled out a can of crescent rolls and started preheating my oven while I got the rolls ready on a pan.  Went to put them in the oven, it was still heating.  Thought I must be moving faster than normal so gave it a little more time.  I then opened the oven to see how warm it was, ice cold.  My oven has quit.  So...here I have all these menu plans, groceries bought just for those dishes, and no oven.  I know, I can cook with the crock pot, the microwave, a toaster oven, and of course all the burners are working.  But I use that oven a lot.  Hubby is pretty sure he can fix it today to work until we can get the part (about $70) so am keeping my fingers crossed.

Well, got to go get the crew up for church.  Thanks for stopping by and come again soon.