The title of last week's post would have been called "THE GOOD, BAD AND THE UGLY".

The good being that I was waaaaay under budget. I mean seriously under budget as in I spent $70.98 which is $54.02 under budget! That's pretty freakin' awesome if you ask me. Of course I'm too busy all week to get on here and gloat. It just seems silly to do it now, but hey I'll brag anyways. Yay me!





It wasn`t all fun and games, there was bad too. Bad beans. When one is coming up with menus for the week, one must consider beans. Not in "Oooh, which type shall I have today?", but rather, "Let's limit the bean intake shall we?" Early on in the week I made a big pot of Moroccan Soup - the name doesn't necessarily scream I'm loaded with beans, but trust me it was loaded with beans. I like to make a big pot of soup on the weekend for lunches throughout the week. It's handy, healthy and cheap. But when you combine Moroccan (I'm loaded with beans) Soup with a bean dish for dinner it gets both tiring and shall we say explosive. I'm laughing as I'm typing this, but I think I came close to killing my husband. That's a serious amount of fiber! Clearly I needed to plan better or up my insurance on my husband. Which I did, not the insurance the planning. No more Moroccan Soup for lunch.

The Ugly part would have been that I was gaining weight. OK, not cool. Beans are dense when it comes to calories, and because the simplicity of meals (think chicken breast, sweet potato and broccoli) for dinner was gone my calorie intake rose. I gain weight at the mere mention of food, so this caused more rethinking as far as menus were concerned.

Last week was incredibly busy and stressful. I'm glad that I had planned all the meals before hand. I'm still loving the fact that because of this challenge I have been trying recipes that I would have never tried before. I made coconut pasta last night (as I wasn't able to make it to the grocery store yesterday to shop for the week). It was rather tasty. I was quite surprised by it as a matter of fact. I didn't have all of the ingredients, so I needed to substitute a few things, but I've been cooking long enough that I knew what would work and what wouldn't. I used up some stuff from the veggie drawer in the fridge and staples from the pantry and a delicious dinner was served. Gotta love it!

So that's last week. This week I'm over budget. But hear me out now before y'all jump all over me. My bill came to $134.79 that included $3.35 in coffee filters which technically is not food. So in reality I'm $6.44 over budget. I'm over budget for the first time in four weeks. For the entire month I have spent under $434 for groceries which averages out to $108.50 per week. Holy crow! My budget was $500 for the month which was a drastic decrease from what I was spending before and I`m under budget by $66! I'm really proud of myself. ***pats self on back*** Even though I'm over budget for this week I think I did really well. There were some items on sale that were not on my list but I got anyways. For instance Cheese was $8.99 and a big honkin' 2 kg jar of natural peanut butter was on for $6.99. I had to purchase coffee, as I am not a nice person without my morning coffee another $11.99, and I purchased more meat than usual - free range chicken, 2lbs organic, grain fed beef and turkey Italian sausages.

Which brings me to my latest discovery. A few posts ago I was bragging about how I could make three meals out of one chicken - well I have upped myself. When I first started this challenge I would buy the free range bird, use the breasts for one meal, the legs and thighs for another meal and then make broth for another meal out of the rest. How incredibly wasteful of me! Two things dawned on me this week. The first thing was the wings. Lets face it wings are wimpy. There's not a lot of meat and two wings aren't going to do anything for anybody unless you were a bird, so I used them for making broth. Until I remembered that frozen chicken lasts about six months in the freezer. Why not have a freezer bag for the chicken wings? With my weekly bird I'll cut off the wings and throw them in the bag. In a couple of months or so I'll have enough frozen wings to make some hot wings or something similar for a movie night. Cool. The next idea came tonight while I was making dinner. I cut the breast off the bird and was looking at them. Rather impressive. She was well endowed indeed - must be from LA. I weighed the breasts. 11.75 oz each. That's a lot of meat! So I butterflied the breast and then cut it in half. I was left with a 6 oz portion and then a 5 oz portion. I did the same with the other breast. 6 oz is enough for one person for dinner. The other portion could be used in another meal - say a stir fry or something like that. My heart was almost a flutter with excitement. The legs and thighs are in the freezer waiting for dinner on Sunday. The chicken breast portion will be used next week for a meal. And the wings will wait for some buddies join them and then will be used as a beer chaser. Five meals out of one chicken. Most meals I make (with some exceptions) usually serve 4-6 and we use the leftovers for lunches etc. So this is feasible for a family of four too with some tweaking I`m sure but the idea of it all is there. Sometimes I surprise even myself.

So there you have it. It is possible to eat healthy good tasting food on a budget. You can buy organic, grain fed and free range and still stay within budget. You can purchase mostly non-packaged food (I still buy bread and pasta) and feed your family food they will enjoy. It is possible. The trick is to plan, shop the sales, use what you have and don't waste anything. Save the peels of your veggies to make your own soup broth. Buy a whole great tasting chicken instead of individual pieces of cheap, tasteless, and inhumanely treated chicken. Weigh your food and use only what you need. Use whatever tools you have available like supercook.com or foodplanner.com. Get inventive with your cooking and don't be afraid to try something new. You never know you may discover something wonderful.

DINNERS-

Tuesday -         Spicy Coconut Noodles
Wednesday -    Breaded (6oz) Chicken Breast, sweet potato and steamed broccoli
Thursday -       Spinach with Chickpeas and Fried Eggs
Friday -            Chorizo and White Bean Stew
Saturday -        Hot-and-Sour Peanutty Noodles with Bok Choy
Sunday -          Braised Chicken with Artichokes and Olives, Apple crumble
Monday -         Beef Chili with Kidney Beans with Cornbread.

BREAKFAST -

Hot Oat & Quinoa Cereal
Homemade Blueberry oatmeal muffins.
Eggs, toast and fresh fruit

LUNCH -

Leftovers
Tuna Salad Sandwich, fruit and baby carrots
Cucumber, avocado, lettuce and tomato sandwich

SNACKS -

Oatmeal breakfast cookie
Fresh Fruit
Hummus and baby carrots

I came home tonight rather proud of myself. My husband looks at me like I've gone looney as I put all my groceries on the table to take a photograph. "What the hell are you doing?" he says. "I need to photograph it for my blog silly" I say as if I've been doing the same for years. "Yeah, but when are we eating? I'm hungry!" ... Men.

I told him I was under budget again. $10.49 to be exact, I although I did forget to buy some cooking onions, but still - pretty darn good if you ask me!  I spent a total of $114.51! "That's good honey!, But you have incentive." "I know! Mexico in September!" and it's true - saving my pennies on groceries is going to help pay the way for this girl to have a vacation somewhere hot and with cabana boys and drinks with umbrellas...oh the very thought makes my heart pitter patter. But back to today's achievement. I wanted my husband to jump up and down and say 'Awesome honey! I can't believe you did that!" Well, on second thought if he started jumping up and down like a kid I'd want to take him to the doctor.,A little more enthusiasm though would have been nice. Instead, "Where's dinner?"

I thought this week was going to be way more difficult than it was. I was out of rice, oatmeal, olive oil and maple syrup. Those are pretty big ticket items and I didn't know how I was going to get all of that plus meals for the week. I've learned a few things in the last while and I do think that they are helping.

There are few things that I like to measure. My waist is certainly not one of them. I decided some time during last week that if I was gong to take this using everything that I have wisely mantra for real then I was going to need to start measuring and weighing things. I've been cooking a long time. I can eyeball a cup, a tsp and a Tbsp pretty well. But where I fall short is in weight....both when it comes to my body and to the meat that I eat. If a recipe calls for a pound of meat and I have a little over a pound I'll use it. When it calls for 227g of pasta and I have a 340g box of pasta I use the whole box, and so on and so forth. I wondered last week what type of difference it would make if I began weighing the meat etc. of things I was using for recipes. I decided to give it a try.

I went to the dollar store and purchased batteries for my trusty weigh scale ($2.50.). My first try was with the Shepherd's Pie I made for Sunday's dinner. It called for 1.5lbs of ground beef. I purchase grain fed beef and its worth the extra price, but I don't want to waste it. So I measured out 1.5lbs exactly. I used exactly one cup of onions etc. etc., the recipe called for 8oz of butternut squash and I gave it just that along with exactly 2lbs of potatoes. Most of this was organic so there is extra cost attached to these items. Waste not want not. As it turned out I had 1/2lb left of ground beef. What was I going to use that for? I thought long and hard, and realized that I could make a spaghetti sauce for my man and me, it may be a little thin on the meat portion, but it will still taste good. Extra meal right there. I figure an extra few oz of chicken breast from a well endowed free range chicken is great for a lunch. Extra pasta over time will add up to another meal eventually. It just made sense. So that's my latest change - and I like it!

Super Cook is turning out to be a Godsend! You have to check it out. I do believe that it is the key ingredient to me being able to stay under budget. Case in point, I had a can of artichokes that I wanted to use this week. Had no idea what to use it for. I went to Super Cook and it found recipes for me based on ingredients I already had in my pantry. I chose one that looks pretty good. Meal done - no groceries purchased, we're eating it on Saturday. Another perk is I'm trying new recipes and some of them are great! Last week's Moroccan Stew was awesome! A definite keeper. So are the Veggie Burgers. And Julia Child? There's a reason why she became so famous. Her coleslaw is completely different than what I normally make and absolutely delicious and her beet salad, although simplistic, is lovely. I finished it yesterday, but I want some more! Beware though, when you visit the bathroom after eating beets you're not actually dieing, its just beet juice.

It's because of Super Cook and weighing my food that I was able to purchase those bigger ticket items without causing an issue. Again this week I stocked up on some sale items. Rogers Oats were on for 2 bags for $6 at Save-on Foods. I bought two. I love Rogers Foods, not Rogers Cable. Rogers Foods don't add things to their foods, unlike Rogers Cable who seems to add all sorts of things to their bill. What you see is what you get with Rogers Foods. It may not be organic, but it's real. I like that. Large canned tomatoes, which if I had my druthers I would buy them in a glass container, were on sale for $1. I just couldn't pass it up and they're single ingredient cans....as in tomatoes. We're having a bit of a Mexican themed week because avocados and tomatoes were cheap. I got avocado's 3 for $2.50 and local tomatoes on the vine for .79lb! So I'm trying to cook based on the sales when I can, and on what I have in my pantry already. Measure and weigh and only use what I need. Use the rest in another meal. The savings start to add up. After all ... my cabana boy is calling.

This week's menu for under $115 is as follows -

Dinners -

• Tuesday  - Spaghetti with meat sauce, salad and calabrese bread (it was on sale for $1 and I was under budget). I know white flour, but I don't give a rip. It's a once in a while treat! Everything in moderation - my motto.
  
• Wednesday - Healthy Mexican Tortilla Pizza, Crock Pot Refried Beans
• Thursday - Pork Tenderloin Sweet and Sour Stir Fry, Brown Rice
• Friday - Veggie Burgers, Homemade French Fries (check out the website - these are great burgers!), coleslaw.
  
• Saturday - Griddled Artichoke and Red Onion Paella
• Sunday - Panko Crusted Chicken with Mustard-Maple Pan Sauce, Butternut Squash and Potato mash, Green Beans, Lemon Pudding cake.
  
• Monday -  Chicken Thigh Osso Bucco, Rotini, Garden Salad

Lunches - Leftovers, Mexican Quinoa Salad (with avocados, cilantro, black beans, red onion etc), Moroccan Soup (Made on Sunday)

Breakfasts - Oatmeal with blueberries and maple syrup. Eggs, Toast and Orange, Cornmeal Buttermilk Pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup.

Snacks - Breakfast Oat Cookies, fresh fruit and baby carrots with hummus.


There you have it! Week Deux of Challenge Deux is off and running!

I did it. This is a weeks worth of groceries folks - mind you there's a bunch of stuff in my fridge and pantry. And soon there wont be and then I'll be getting inventive, believe me. I spent a total of $116.87 leaving me $8.13 to splurge with, or perhaps keep for next week's budget.

There were a few surprises, my little Persian store that I loved so much has raised their prices  higher than the big chain stores - I spent way too much on my free range chicken purchasing it there - so buh bye my little Persian store. It was fun while it lasted. It used to be a thriving little store and now its not. Gee! I wonder why?



Because I was able to take advantage of the food already in my fridge and pantry, it left room for me to buy for future meals with items on sale. Organic quinoa was 50% off  at $.99 100g (granular gold if you ask me) so I purchased a kilo. I bought some coconut milk too as it was on sale. I will be using it for sure in the next couple of weeks. Take note, the only processed food in the picture is the pasta and I bought an extra box as it was on sale. I used to make my own pasta, but come on people, there is a limit to my madness. I did cave in and purchase some canned garbanzo beans and some broth. I didn't have any broth prepared at home and no time to make some. I promise to make some on the weekend. The canned garbanzo beans was just because I was lazy - I fully admit it.

Which brings me to the mishap portion of my update. I would have sworn that I had two cans of organic black beans in my pantry. Sworn it. Enter 'mental pause'. Tonight's dinner is Black Bean soup. I was rather looking forward to it. Before going to work this morning, even before bed last night I thought to myself - maybe you should soak some black beans for tomorrow and save the canned beans for an emergency. Pshaw to that! What? Pour some beans in a pot and throw some water over it. That's like 15 seconds of my time! Why would I do that? So I didn't.

Tonight I come home, say hello to Beagle Stew, and then get right into making dinner because ... well, I'm kind of hungry. I want to eat, then I'll have time to blog, or write some other stuff I'm working on, and I have to paint my toenails - very important. So on dinner goes. It's a relatively quick recipe. A chop here and there. Let it simmer for a bit. Make some salad. Voila! Dinner. I go to get the cans of black beans. I find one. One, What? No! There's more than one. I remember. Enter 'mental pause'. Come on! It has to be here! Oh, there's another can of garbanzo beans. No black beans??? Really? What to do? As I'm furiously looking through my pantry a spice jar falls and lands right on my big toe! *%**%$#*# Things are not going well on day two of my little challenge - at least it didn't wreck my already wrecked pedicure. Thank goodness for small favours. A quick look on the internet and I see that there is a quick method (quick being 90 minutes). So the soup is ready to soup once the beans are ready to bean - which should be another 20 minutes or so - So here I am blogging, although I should paint my toenail - I think its going to go black.

Lesson? Don't be so lazy Cayla. Yup, like that's going to happen. Nope, just have to tell myself what I tell my daughter. Make the best of it, switch into a different gear and then go. So, I'm a little hungry, but I'm sure it will be lovely when it finally gets into my gullet, which better be soon or I'm going to get into the parsley. Update! Apparently I'm a very slow typist as well as terrible at counting, which isn't good as I make a living bookkeeping. What a great method of preparing dry beans! No soaking! Simply cover with water. Boil them for about 15 minutes while the oven is heating up to 250F. Put a tight lid on the pot, put in the oven for 75 minutes. That's it. They were tender, not mushy. Awesome! And the soup is yummy by the way.

I've decided to make my challenge even more challenging by inviting my sister and her husband over for dinner. Why not? I told her we're having Shepherd's Pie on Sunday. Come on over! It may be Shepherd's Pie with a sprig of parsley for a side dish, but she's my sister and she has to love me anyways. She said she would pack a snack in her bag just in case - apparently we share the same sense of humour. So the menu for Sunday has changed slightly, I'm going to make Shepherd's pie, with a fresh beet salad and fresh lemon pudding cake for dessert. Sounds yummy to me. Until next time ...

Well folks, I said it on here and therefore I am now committed. I am on a four week grocery budget challenge. $125 per week.

Yesterday I took inventory of my pantry. Hello lentils and dry black beans. Last time I did this challenge I found oodles of Chipotle peppers in my freezer. I still haven't gone through them all, but I haven't bought any new jars either. This time shows the change in my eating habits a bit more. I had a Tupperware type container full of red split lentils, green lentils and brown lentils. Then I found two 1/2 packages of red lentils, another full one of green. Lentil city! I found a huge bag of dry black beans and then another. I have bean soup mix dried beans, yellow split peas and about a cup of dry garbanzo beans. Ugh. I need to go through my pantry more often. With all these beans and legumes my husband is going to love me ... and I him. I think he'll be sleeping in the guest bedroom for a while. I doubt the cat will want to sleep with him either. I'm so glad he doesn't read this blather ... he'd kill me.

What to do with all of these beans???? Use them of course. This time I'm going to be more techno savvy. I have a new phone. The Samsung Galaxy III. Is it possible to fall in love with a phone? I am here to tell you it is. I love my phone. I am just started to get into Apps, and really I'm a newbie to all of this. But I have found some awesome tools to help me with this journey. I wanted to let you in on them - they may be useful to you too.

The first one is the Food Planner App. What a great App! I'm not sure where to even start. First off it has a grocery list section. You plunk in your grocery list, put it into a category - I made categories for produce, dry, bulk, dairy, etc. Add a price if you have one. It adds up your groceries for you and lets you know in advance how much it's going to cost. You can adjust the prices once you're at the store and keep your total running. Great for me on this particular challenge when every penny counts. The App remembers the product and price for next time. You can always edit the item again later if the prices change or go on sale.

But it gets better. There is a meal planner section. In this section you can plan your meals. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks etc. Click on the day and see what your plan is for the day. There is a recipe section in which you can add your own recipes which takes a bit more time, but it is doable. The App can be linked to your home computer, iPad etc. So you can go to your computer and type away if you want to. But it has an even better feature if you ask me. It can link to recipe sites online, loads of recipe sites - All Recipes, Food.com, Martha Stewart ... loads and loads. Find a recipe you like and upload it onto the App. Simple. Then, to make things easier, just add that recipe to your meal plan and then import the ingredients list into your grocery list. You can remove the items that you already have quickly and voila - you're shopping list is ready. Then if you want to go into your shopping list and modify things a bit you can, like update the pricing etc., which I did. Come meal time, click on the day, click on the recipe and it shows up on your phone, or ipad or computer. Cook away. So easy. The link is www.foodplannerapp.com. Check it out. It's a FREE app, but I'm thinking of buying the pro version just to throw the developer some cash. I may be cheap, but I like to give credit (or cash) where it's due. It's due.

So still what to do with all the legumes and lentils? Introducing Supercook.com. Talk about handy. I entered a few items that I had in my pantry and it shows me recipes I can make with the ingredients I have already. It searches through databases from all over the web so I don't have to. This is OMG kind of handy. I looked at the recipes, read some reviews on them, saw that I had all of the ingredients already and said "yes ma'am I'll take it." I uploaded it to my Food Planner App., imported it into my meal plan for the week and exported any ingredients that I required to my meal plan. I love technology sometimes.

I discovered it half way through my planning. Next week there will be way more online meals. Just think! I can look at what's on sale, add some of the ingredients I have on hand and find a matching recipe. It's endless and free!

Dinners - Week One

• Tuesday -     Thai Pasta with Chicken Breast (from Looneyspoons)

                           Garden Salad with homemade dressing (EVOO &Vinegar)

• Wednesday - Bean Me Up Scotty (from Looneyspoons) ~ Black Bean Soup

                            French Bread
                            Garden Salad with homemade dressing (EVOO &Vinegar)

• Thursday -     Rockin Moroccan Stew (from Looneyspoons) ~ Vegetarian Stew

                            Naan Bread

• Friday -         Fee Fie Faux Fried Chicken (from Looneyspoons)

                           Fresh Cole Slaw
                           Homemade oven fries

• Saturday -     True Moroccan Lentil Soup
  

                            Naan Bread

• Sunday -       Shepherds Pie (from Looneyspoons)

                            Garden Salad with homemade dressing (EVOO &Vinegar)
                            Apple Crumble

• Monday -       Veggie Burgers - Truly an awesome burger!

                            Homemade oven Fries
                            Cole Slaw

Lunches will consist of -

1. Left overs
2. Black Bean, Rice and Veggie Salad
3. Quinoa Salad
4. Tuna Salad Sandwich

Breakfast will consist of -

1. Porridge with blueberries, or mixed berries and Agave Syrup
2. Eggs, Toast, Cream Cheese, Orange
3. Breakfast Cookie (Great for a snack too!)

And of course there will be Organic Apples, Oranges, Bananas, and Organic baby carrots to munch on.

So there you have it - the week one meal plan of the challenge. A lot of vegetarian meals in there. And I know, Valentines Day isn't particularly romantic, seeing that it is Rockin' Moroccan Stew - but just so you know, hubby is working that evening and won't even be home. Oh the romance.

The meat I will be purchasing is one free range chicken which I will use for three meals. The breasts for the Thai Pasta and the legs and thighs for the oven fried chicken. (side note, my husband abhors chicken with the bone in it - toughen up buttercup). The remainder will be used to make some more chicken broth. I will also buy 1.5lbs of grain fed organic ground beef. The rest is basically vegetarian, except for adding chicken broth - which the way my weird brain works, I still think it's vegetarian.

Shopping day is tomorrow - fingers crossed.

Well, it's been a long time. A very long time. Almost a year since I last posted. I'm not going to put you all to sleep with a detailed account of all that has happened in the past year - there are only a couple of you who read this blather, so I may as well keep you awake.

Sufficed to say things are good. I turned 50 with nary a scratch or hangover. I'm busy and happy.

So why start blogging again? It's not like I ran out of things to say - Lord no. I'm always rambling on about something. Life just got hectic and I got out of the habit. Life is still hectic but I've fallen off the wagon so to speak and my blog seems to be a great motivator for me to get back on the wagon and stay strong. There is something about telling the world ... even if my world consists of two people ... that I'm going to do something. It doesn't always work, but for the most telling you all keeps me on the straight and narrow.

So here's my dilemma. Food prices are outrageous! Have you noticed? I remember on the news they said that food prices were to increase about 5% in the new year. 5%? I don't think so. My food budget is out of control! It got me to thinking about the summer of 2010 when I did a four week challenge of spending $150 per week on groceries. It was a tough go, but I enjoyed the challenge. Eating healthy, good meals within a certain financial budget. I had to get creative with my thinking, my shopping and my cooking. I did it and I learned a lot along the way. A lot of the habits that I started on that journey I have kept 'til now. I'm still a savvy shopper. I still keep all my veggie peels to make soup broth with. I still bathe in my compost bin ... (look it up to the right if you don't know what I mean). But I've gotten lazy, and a little less thrifty with my purchases. When I went to the store recently with $200 in an envelope thinking that it would cover us for the week and was through that envelope before half of the groceries had gone through the scanner, I knew I had to do something.

Things have changed since the last challenge. My daughter is in University and is no longer a hungry mouth waiting for mama to cook her a meal. The once in a while hungry boyfriend doesn't come over either - why doesn't he want to visit me? I'm a much better cook. So it's just me, my hubby and little Beagle Stew ... and too many cats. Even though prices have increased significantly in the last year and a half, I'm going to lower the budget to $125 per week. I'm not sure if it is possible to do and stay sane - I will let you know if I go particularly looney. Still I'm going to give it a try.

Once incentive for me is I haven't been away on a vacation in a very long time. A very long time. My daughter was in diapers to be exact and she turns 22 in a couple of months. I really want to get away this year with my girlfriend. I have visions of a beach, a cabana boy bringing drinks with little umbrellas and a very cheesy novel to read. Bliss, I tell you total bliss. Oh the blog I would write. The stories I could tell. So I need to trim the fat - in more ways than one, but that's yet another blog. I need to save me some cash and my food budget could definitely use some trimming.

Why repeat? I'm really not that original. But I figure if there's a Rocky V, Jaws III, Raiders IV, Speed 2 and Karate Kid 2, there is certainly room for Grocery Budget Challenge Part Deux.

So here are the rules. Weekly Budget $125

Criteria - Food only. Does not include Beagle Stew's food. Cleaning products or toiletries.
Meals - Must be preservative free and healthy. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Sunday dinners and dessert once a week.

I'll post my weekly menu, and how much I spent. I go shopping on Tuesday. I guess I'd better start planning.