It drives me insane that my husband would be perfectly happy living on Wegman's prepared foods. First of all, they are not cheap, and they are loaded with extra salt and fat, and basically it's insulting. As I'm trying to get into the habit of cooking dinners, I would love it if he would stop bringing home packages of macaroni and cheese or garlic mashed potatoes. Mostly the expense bothers me, but they are all packaged in a lot of plastic and while it is recyclable it is still a resource drain on our planet. So I'm trying to ween him off that and make good foods that satisfy his cravings and can be reheated as leftovers.
My mother was down from New Hampshire for a few days this week and was able to entertain and take care of V while I cooked. After my grocery shopping extravaganza earlier in the week I had the makings for some of my favorite meals and a new experiment.
On Wednesday I made smashed pumpkin, brown basmati rice and Quorn Chik'n nuggets for dinner. At about 8:00 p.m. I decided I wanted chocolate cake, so I made Chocolate Wonder Cake which is vegan and takes a total of about 45 minutes to make and bake. Yesterday I made soup with potatoes, carrots, celery, spinach, onion and garlic, a potato and onion frittata and sweet noodle kugel. Today I rested and ate leftovers. Tomorrow my friend Serena will be bringing us dinner, gluten free pasta primavera and pumpkin muffins. These are very good things.
Other than my current soda obsession, I'm being very good about eating healthy foods that I prepared myself. I'm hoping to not only increase my own health, but decrease my grocery budget by continuing to do more home cooking.
Showing posts with label grocery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grocery. Show all posts
Friday, November 13, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Food shopping since deciding to be eco-frugal
We had almost eaten everything in the house, and I was starting to eye the canned fruit salad that has now been in at least three cupboards, so I had to go food shopping. In a perfect world I would be surrounded by local farmers' markets and be able to buy absolutely everything within five miles, organically and fresh. In a perfect world. In this world, I shop at Wegman's. Wegman's is a regional grocery store that actually has some good reputation as a place to work and as a philanthropic organization. A few years ago there was a major protest at how Wegman's egg suppliers treated their chickens. I don't buy their house brand and never will, but I can't find any recent protests about cruelty issues. I am eventually going to look into discount warehouse shopping and a store a friend has told me about that sells organic and natural surplus foods and recently outdated foods at a deep discount. But today, I needed to go to Wegman's.
Most people who are not Wegman's shoppers claim they can't shop there because it is too expensive. And yes, their pre-prepared foods are pricy, but I wasn't going to be hitting their gourmet bakery or take home dinners sections. I had a list that I needed to stick too primarily, and a willingness to bargain shop.
First of all, as I have mentioned, I primarily purchase organic foods. I find that I just feel better about not having pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics or growth hormones as part of my food. Granted I do eat out sometimes and that is rarely organic, and not even everything we purchase is always organic. In fact the colas we buy never are. And yes, I know cola is bad, that's a topic for another day. So while I prefer organic options, I have to save money. So it was time to make choices.
All the fresh vegetables I bought, except for the jicama I want to try, were organic. My soy milk was house brand, but organic. All pasta except the egg noodles for noodle kugel were organic. All the beans for spicy bean soup, organic. Basically anything we consume very regularly was organic. I did purchase Kashi cereal, which is not organic, but my rice cereal and oatmeal are and I have quite a lot of them. Treat items, like cola, ice cream and french fries were all house brand. I did go to a non-organic house brand loaf of bread. I couldn't spend the extra three dollars for a smaller loaf of organic right now. I am hoping to relearn how to make bread at home which will make that a non-issue as I have quite a lot of organic whole wheat flour looking to be used.
In the end I filled a medium sized shopping cart and spent about $120.00. Had I not compromised, it could have easily been much closer to $200.00. Of course the hubby complained that I didn't get much "snacky snacks" for him, but he's going to have to adjust as well. I got a lot of food to make meals that will last and feed us several times. If only I had been able to get coupons to use as well...Maybe next time.
Most people who are not Wegman's shoppers claim they can't shop there because it is too expensive. And yes, their pre-prepared foods are pricy, but I wasn't going to be hitting their gourmet bakery or take home dinners sections. I had a list that I needed to stick too primarily, and a willingness to bargain shop.
First of all, as I have mentioned, I primarily purchase organic foods. I find that I just feel better about not having pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics or growth hormones as part of my food. Granted I do eat out sometimes and that is rarely organic, and not even everything we purchase is always organic. In fact the colas we buy never are. And yes, I know cola is bad, that's a topic for another day. So while I prefer organic options, I have to save money. So it was time to make choices.
All the fresh vegetables I bought, except for the jicama I want to try, were organic. My soy milk was house brand, but organic. All pasta except the egg noodles for noodle kugel were organic. All the beans for spicy bean soup, organic. Basically anything we consume very regularly was organic. I did purchase Kashi cereal, which is not organic, but my rice cereal and oatmeal are and I have quite a lot of them. Treat items, like cola, ice cream and french fries were all house brand. I did go to a non-organic house brand loaf of bread. I couldn't spend the extra three dollars for a smaller loaf of organic right now. I am hoping to relearn how to make bread at home which will make that a non-issue as I have quite a lot of organic whole wheat flour looking to be used.
In the end I filled a medium sized shopping cart and spent about $120.00. Had I not compromised, it could have easily been much closer to $200.00. Of course the hubby complained that I didn't get much "snacky snacks" for him, but he's going to have to adjust as well. I got a lot of food to make meals that will last and feed us several times. If only I had been able to get coupons to use as well...Maybe next time.
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